St. Stanislaus Papczynski Founder of the Marians 1631-1701 On July 22, 1656, several months after the historical solemn vows of John Casimir (King of Poland), Stanislaus made his religious profession as the first Polish member of the Piarist Congregation. He received his ordination to priesthood on March 12, 1661. As a priest, he gained high esteem for hearing confessions and giving sermons, especially with the intellectually elite of Warsaw. As a fervent devotee of the Most Blessed Mother, during the years 16631667, St. Stanislaus directed the Confraternity of Our Lady of Grace, Patroness of Warsaw, whose image was found at that time in the Piarist’s Church on Dluga Street. Despite the great successes of his academic, educational, and pastoral work, St. Papczyński’s relations with his superiors kept getting more strained and eventually led to his leaving the order. On December 11, 1670, he left the Order. At one and the same time in the presence of his Piarist Superiors he made the following solemn declaration: “I offer and consecrate to God, the Almighty Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as well as to the Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, my heart, my soul É my body, leaving absolutely nothing for myself, so that henceforth I may be the slave of God Almighty and of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Consequently, I vow to serve Them zealously, in chastity, to the end of my life, in the society of Marian Clerics of the Immaculate Conception, which by the grace of God I wish to found.” Seeking candidates for his planned order, in September of 1673, St. Papczyński went to Puszcza Korabiewska near Skierniewice, where a former soldier, Stanislaus Krajewski and companions lived as hermits. There, on the land donated by Krajewski, he built and organized his Institute’s first house, which he called a “Retreat House.” Bishop Stanislaus Swiecicki, who came on a canonical visitation on October 24, 1673, approved this community living in accord with the “Norma vitae” under St. Papczyński’s guidance. He left them his own “Statutes” on the characteristics of hermits and penitentials. The Marians consider this date as the beginning of their Order. Pope Innocent XII approved the document issued by the General of Franciscans on October 24, 1699. Although the Rule was received without previous consultation with St. Papczyński, nonetheless it did not infringe in any way on the specific features of the Marian Institute and was thus gladly accepted by the Marian Legislator. The Marians became an Order with solemn vows and were freed from the authority of a local bishop, although they were dependent on the Franciscans for some time. Finally, the Marians received approbation as an order of apostolic right ridding themselves of the restrictions imposed by the hermetic life that were hindering them. In their apostolic work they placed special emphasis on teaching truths of the faith to the faithful of lower classes, which was the Church’s most urgent task at he time. He was born on May 18, 1631, in Podegrodzie near Stary Sacz. At baptism he received the name John. On July 2, 1654, in Podoliniec, he joined the Piarist Order just newly established in Poland and took the religious name of Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary. He made his second year of novitiate in Warsaw, while studying theology with the reformed Franciscan Brothers. Those were the times of the Swedish invasion known as ‘the deluge’ that made a deep impression on the young seminarian’s life. From the perspective of his whole life’s experience, he thus described in his testimony one incident from those days: “I confess,” he writes, “that I leave this world professing the Roman Catholic faith for which I was ready to pour out my blood during the war with Sweden. One day my companion and I were exiting the Old Town, when a heretic soldier, his unsheathed sword in hand, attacked us near the Dominican Fathers. My companion (even though he was German) fled, and I, falling to my knees, stuck out my neck for the blow. However, by the decree of Divine Providence, I did not sustain any wounds although I was struck three times with great force. Afterwards, I felt great pains for an hour and a half because of that.”
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