Poland\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div> May 18, 2016<\/p>\n<\/div> Father Przemys\u0142aw Sliwi\u0144ski talks to Fr. Pawe\u0142 Naumowicz, Provincial of the Congregation of Marian Fathers, about the fascinating life of Stanislaus Papczynski, the dramatic history of the Marians, the need to be open to changes and to God, and what is the best way of life for us.<\/i><\/p>\n Father Przemys\u0142aw Sliwi\u0144ski: On March 15, 2016, the newspaper \u201cGo\u015b\u0107 niedzielny\u201d wrote on Twitter: \u201cThe official announcement has been made of the date of the canonization of Mother Teresa, and the Cristiada\u2019s hero \u2026 and of a certain Pole.\u201d Bravo. I\u2019m not applauding the information about the canonization of Mother Teresa.<\/b> So, who is this \u201ccertain Pole\u201d to be canonized in June?<\/b> Well, let’s talk about him as of a man of flesh and blood. Can we find in him an inspiration for today?<\/b> As in Jesus\u2019 parable of the poor Lazarus.<\/b> So, the first thing he taught us, don\u2019t give up.<\/b> This was quite common at that time. On the one hand, the parents decided who was to go to the Order, who was to get married; but on the other hand, there were saints who rebelled against their parents\u2019 plans.<\/b> Here is another example that illustrates that: In the beginning, Fr. Papczy\u0144ski had difficulty with learning. Also, his father was rather firm with him. When the boy failed at school, he was sent to herd the sheep, because, as the father claimed, if the school doesn\u2019t work, then you go to work. One time Stanislaus experienced a special intercession of the Blessed Mother and he learned the alphabet in one afternoon.<\/p>\n Is it not some kind of the Baroque biographers\u2019 weakness to dig up such little wonders?<\/b> So, here we have perseverance.<\/b> What is holiness then? Specifically, in Fr. Papczy\u0144ski\u2019s case? A holiness that matters today, that can become a vocation, or a call to enter the path of vocation?<\/b> And what does \u201cseeking the will of God\u201d mean?<\/b> And he did not do this only once in his lifetime.<\/b> It’s a bit like Moses, who did not enter the Promised Land. Although he was walking toward it for so long, he only saw it from afar.<\/b> I would like to ask you now about the moment when Fr. Papczy\u0144ski realized that the Piarists were not his ultimate vocation, that there was a need to found a new community, the Marians. We are talking about the Congregation that is actively working today Lichen, Lublin, and Warsaw \u2013 the Congregation that produced many famous priests who gained merit not only in the Church but also in Poland. Many readers are surprised to find out that it was Fr. Papczy\u0144ski who gave it a start. What idea guided Fr. Papczy\u0144ski in creating this community?<\/b> The year was\u00a01670 and the first idea was the Immaculate Conception \u2013 hence, the Marian charism, which is to spread the devotion to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Later however, as the Congregation began to take shape, Papczy\u0144ski added another goal, namely praying for the dead. This has been well reflected in various written works of Fr. Papczy\u0144ski, who signed them as the \u201cFounder of the Order of Immaculate Conception, Priests Assisting the Dead\u201d or \u201cPriests Assisting Souls in Purgatory,” to which he added many years later \u201cand parish priests.\u201d It is thus the third element of the Marian Order \u2014 supporting pastors in their work, that is, the evangelization of simple folks and in what we would call today works of charity for the needy \u2014 the sick, the dying, the uneducated.<\/p>\n This shows once again that this vision revealed by God to man is dynamic.<\/b> In many aspects Fr. Papczy\u0144ski was a forerunner \u2014 he founded the first Polish male Order and was the author of the first Polish textbook of rhetoric.<\/b> How did it happen then that this precursor, the founder of the first Polish religious Congregation known as the Marian Fathers, the adviser to King Sobieski \u2013 something we haven\u2019t mention yet \u2013 a determined individualist who found in God and community a recipe for successful life, as well as the author of first Polish textbook of rhetoric, is almost unknown?<\/b> If we think that the Marians served predominantly on Polish soil, then, indeed, the Order was condemned to extinction.<\/b> And then came a priest who received his baptism and First Communion from the Marians in Marijampole (now a town in Lithuania). He said that he wants to join the Order and put on a white habit. But of course, the tsarist authorities did not give him permission to do so. We are talking here about a known figure, a professor from St. Petersburg, Fr. George Matulaitis-Matulewicz. He convinced the then Superior General to start on a new road and to obtain permission from the Holy See to do the formation work in secret and to serve in secret. And that\u2019s how it happened. Father Matulewicz made vows before Fr. S\u0119kowski, who died a few months later. That was an event on the edge between life and death \u2013 the Order was nearly dead.<\/p>\n Have the modern era Marians greatly changed as compared to their \u201celder white brothers?\u201d<\/b> Is it because of the revival that the Founder was forgotten in the Congregation?<\/b> Remembering the Founder was not easy. There was nowhere to draw the knowledge from. Father Papczy\u0144ski\u2019s written works were in Latin, of course. Some of them disappeared, many were in manuscripts, some in single copies. It was not until the\u00a01950s, when the Congregation caught the wind in the sails for good, and we began to discover these texts. First, by collecting and translating, and then by living them out. Actually, all Fr. Papczy\u0144ski\u2019s surviving works were released in Polish just before his beatification.<\/p>\n One may say that we have discovered a pearl that was buried somewhere in the garden. For example, when I joined the community, I read the spiritual diary of Bl.\u00a0George Matulaitis. We were formed in his spirituality. Although we knew that Fr. Papczy\u0144ski was the Founder, yet all the time he remained unknown and distant to us. I think that it is changing now.<\/p>\n Can you see today in the Congregation a fascination about Fr. Papczy\u0144ski?<\/b> What places on the map of Poland could we mark with a little flag to trace the road of Fr. Papczy\u0144ski?<\/b> In modern days people do not relocate to be closer to a Saint.<\/b> Then, there are places where Fr. Stanislaus went to school \u2013 Nowy S\u0105cz, Jaros\u0142aw, Rawa Mazowiecka, and Warsaw. Warsaw has also become the site of his intensive activity. He was a renowned preacher at the church at D\u0142uga Street, which is today the field cathedral.<\/p>\n Later, after leaving the Piarists, it was Lubocza and other small towns, where he tried to discern the situation. Finally the Marian Forest, where the first monastery was erected. Properly speaking, Fr. Stanislaus joined the hermits there and with them created the first house. Another place is G\u00f3ra Kalwaria \u2026<\/p>\n … New Jerusalem according to the plan of the Bishop of Poznan …<\/b> Pay close attention to things of little significance!<\/b> This may be a new entry in the coaching manual but let\u2019s talk a little about New Jerusalem, because today\u2019s G\u00f3ra Kalwaria, which is the place of Fr. Papczy\u0144ski\u2019s eternal rest, was created in an unusual way. It is not like the cities that usually rise.<\/p>\n Yes. It was the bishop\u2019s idea to design a city on based on Jerusalem\u2019s layout. And he called it New Jerusalem, which had to have different buildings \u2013 the palace of Pilate, the Cenacle, the crucifixion site, and others. He invited several male and female religious Orders to serve there. He invited the pilgrims to come to this place, especially those who could not go to Jerusalem in the Holy Land, so that they could live out in this new town the way of the cross of Jesus Christ, His resurrection, etc., and to renew their faith.<\/p>\n The Marians were finally settled at the Church of Our Lord\u2019s Cenacle, in such a spot that allowed them to introduce the pilgrims to New Jerusalem. And what\u2019s interesting is that when the bishop Wierzbowski was dying, he was distributing goods to various religious orders present in the New Jerusalem. When Fr. Papczy\u0144ski came to see the dying bishop, he told him, \u201cTo you I leave the Divine Providence since I no longer have anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n Didn\u2019t he think to himself: \u201cWell, the bishop put one over me?\u201d<\/b> We won\u2019t probably find this in any textbook, and yet, who knows, if it\u2019s not the most important key to success. The last question, which I deliberately left for the end, because it is something that amazes me most. How did it happen that Fr. Papczy\u0144ski, a person that lived over 300\u00a0years ago, has been hailed (which is particularly clearly seen on Twitter) the patron saint of the unborn and defender of life?<\/b> When we extrapolate this, we need to say that each of us existed first in the mind of God, His wish, and therefore, we were conceived, because God so willed. Even if some people hear today from their mother or father that they weren\u2019t wanted or their parents wished for them to never been born, or even if someone was conceived through rape, they must know that each person is really wanted and planned by God centuries ago, before the foundation of the world.<\/p>\n This may seem irrational, when we hear this, when we think about it, \u201cHow can it be so?\u201d I am one of the seven billion people, and how many have already been before me. And yet, it turns out that God directs the story in a way that I could be born, that I could be the one and only, the unique one, and grow accordingly. God directs my story in such a manner that I can eventually fulfill my vocation. As Fr.\u00a0Stanislaus used to say, we are more beautiful and more important than the angels.<\/p>\n And since each one of us is so unique, so beloved by God, and so important, Fr. Papczy\u0144ski offers us his support from the moment of conception in the womb, through birth and until death, until the time of celebrating with God and the saints in heaven. Many married couples who struggled to conceive became happy parents after they prayed through the intercession of Fr.\u00a0Stanislaus. Other people were granted healing for children in the womb. The miracle that led to his beatification was called \u201creturn to live\u201d or \u201crevitalization\u201d of a still pregnancy. We receive more testimonies of new, extraordinary events through the intercession of Fr.\u00a0Papczy\u0144ski.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t the Marians, but those who have experienced the grace of God through the intercession of Fr.\u00a0Stanislaus, hailed him the patron saint of the unborn and defender of life.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure if we fully succeeded in showing Fr. Papczy\u0144ski as a model of efficacy, since we started the conversation by saying that no one knows him …<\/b>The Divine Coaching – An Interview About Stanislaus Papczynski<\/h1><\/div>
\nFather Pawe\u0142 Naumowicz: I read \u201cGo\u015b\u0107 niedzielny\u201d from back to back, so I do not begrudge them too much. Besides, I\u2019m not particularly surprised, because a lot of people say about our Founder, “I\u2019ve never heard of him.\u201d When public television recently aired a movie about him, some people said: \u201cIt\u2019s the first I\u2019ve heard of him. What a great character.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIt is Stanislaus Papczy\u0144ski. A mountaineer by descent. A hard, stubborn, and resolute man who strove to fulfill the vocation which God placed in his heart, and accomplished it step by step.<\/p>\n
\nThe life of Fr. Papczy\u0144ski closely illustrates that you have to approach your life\u2019s plans with flexibility. He was open to changes and to what \u201ctoday\u201d brings. For example, before becoming a Piarist, he attended various schools \u2013 in Nowy S\u0105cz close to home, then in Jaros\u0142aw, and then another in Lviv. At one point he fell ill, became homeless and was near death. Nobody would take him in because he contracted scabies. Or, as his biographers describe, \u201cDogs licked his skin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nYes. Yet he survived. His father brought him back home. Later Fr. Papczy\u0144ski wrote about this event as “Lviv\u2019s cross.”<\/p>\n
\nThen he went back to school and returned home an educated man. His mother had a bride in view for him and a plan that he would marry and thus follow his parents\u2019 wishes.<\/p>\n
\nPapczy\u0144ski repeatedly clashed with his parents about his plans. He did not give up though and kept pursuing his vision, or rather, the one that God instilled in him. And the third point is that it was not his personal vision. He sought it in God.<\/p>\n
\nCertainly the Baroque weakness is to frame the story in such a way to make it more interesting. But one thing is certain, the boy had learning difficulties and his father kept on sending him to tend sheep. In his father\u2019s plan, learning science would not come in handy for Stanislaus.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s something more than just perseverance. To get an education, Stanislaus overcomes his weakness and inability. Let\u2019s emphasize\u00a0to get an education<\/i>, because he saw its merit. He saw the merit not only in toiling, but also in the goal. Recalling his time of tending sheep, he said, \u201cThank you, God, for that time, because it allowed me to pray more and avoid many sins.\u201d He sees that God commands events. It may not be to his liking but Fr. Papczy\u0144ski said, \u201cWait and you’ll see that it all makes sense.\u201d Another thing he said was, \u201cdeal with it and move forward.\u201d And in Papczy\u0144ski\u2019s endeavors this is constantly noticeable.<\/p>\n
\nHis holiness consists in continuously seeking the will of God and endeavoring to carry it out.<\/p>\n
\nCoaching manuals usually speak of the realization of one\u2019s personal vision, but Papczy\u0144ski was mainly striving to get this vision from God. He was discerning the signs of the times and listened to the movements in his heart. When he founded the Congregation, he wrote, \u201cGod raised this vision in me.\u201d He also said that the founders of this tiny Congregation are Jesus Christ and Mary Immaculate. He was intently listening when hearing the Word of God and participating in the Eucharist, while hearing confessions and watching events around him. Through it all he tried to find out where to go today, where to go tomorrow. This is discerning the signs of the times.<\/p>\n
\nHe did not seek answers to questions like, \u201cWhat will be the end of his life?\u201d He did not know, right away, toward what end was his life going. For example, he wanted to found a new congregation, but he did not know the entire road, but only a fragment of it, for today and tomorrow. It is worth remembering that in his case there wasn\u2019t at once a complete vision or all the solutions. Papczy\u0144ski worked step by step. He chose measures, direction, and the road as the need arose. Finally, the Holy See has approved the Marian Order in\u00a01699, and Fr. Papczy\u0144ski made his perpetual profession in June of\u00a01701, three months before his death. So it was only now that he could understand, looking back upon his life, why these small, discerned choices for \u201ctoday\u201d and \u201ctomorrow\u201d had been made in the past.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s also like Isaiah who wrote songs about the Servant of Yahweh. A few hundred years later they turned out to be about Christ. It is similar for Fr. Papczy\u0144ski. He discovered things for \u201ctoday\u201d and for \u201ctomorrow,\u201d step by step. We may not always see the end of the road, but only fragments.<\/p>\n
\nThe idea was centered around the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When regulatory changes made it possible to leave the Piarist Order \u2014 which, incidentally, Papczy\u0144ski loved very much until his death \u2014 he petitioned for and received permission of the Holy See. On the same day, after hearing the decree of the Holy See which stated that he was free to leave the Piarist Order without trouble or remorse, he made his\u00a0oblatio<\/i>, or the offering of himself, stating, \u201cI wish to establish the Order in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, because of the Immaculate Conception, put on a white habit.\u201d He put on this white habit a little later, with the consent of the nuncio, the bishop, and all the relevant authorities.<\/p>\n
\nYes, the vision takes shape, it is not a rigid and ready plan. In human terms, Papczy\u0144ski would have felt fulfilled at the Piarists: he was a priest, a preacher, a homilist, and confessor to important people. He was sought after. God kept revealing to him a new stage of his road \u2013 the stage of getting education, of choosing a religious Order, of founding a new Order and defining more precisely its charism.<\/p>\n
\nYes, his was the first textbook, which was used for over 100\u00a0years. It is said that even Konarski studied rhetoric using this book. The textbook sustained several reprints in consequent years.[Stanis\u0142aw Konarski (actual name: Hieronim Konarski; Sept. 30, 1700 \u2013 Aug. 3, 1773) was a Polish pedagogue, educational reformer, political writer, poet, dramatist, Piarist priest, and precursor of the Enlightenment in the Polish\u2013Lithuanian Commonwealth.]<\/p>\n
\nA great part played in this is the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Father Papczy\u0144ski founded the Polish male Order, which rapidly grew so that in the\u00a018th its membership already numbered in the hundreds. The Marians landed in Portugal, were present in Rome, and they served in what is now Belarus and Ukraine. The problems started in the 19th\u00a0century. The Order was expelled from Portugal during the Spring of Nations, and then Napoleon threw us out of Rome. After the January Uprising we were forbidden to accept new candidates, while the existing ones were resettled to specific monasteries, thus being condemned really to extinction. Some of them worked in the dioceses, some worked alone, but the Order as such was dying out.<\/p>\n
\nThis was to change in 1909. There was only one surviving Order member, who was also the Superior General. Father S\u0119kowski wrote, \u201cI am getting ready two coffins \u2013 one for myself and the other the Congregation.\u201d A\u00a0disaster.<\/p>\n
\nFather Matulewicz, still a diocesan priest, went to Rome and returned with permission to transform the Marian Fathers Order into a habit-less religious congregation. The Marians had to wear the same religious garb as the diocesan priests, not white habits, but black cassocks. In order to continue the transformation, Fr. Matulewicz moved the novitiate out of the Russian partition to Fribourg, Switzerland. The Congregation came back to life, but no longer in the white habits of Fr. Papczy\u0144ski, but in the black cassocks of Fr. Matulaitis-Matulewicz. Looking at this story, we see that the Lord wanted the Congregation to survive against the odds. Its last member was ready to die and he accepted that the congregation would disappear with his death. And yet it revived. It revived in the new shape.[The January Uprising was an uprising in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, parts of Ukraine, and western Russia) against the Russian Empire. It began on Jan.\u00a022,\u00a01863, and lasted until the last insurgents were captured in\u00a01864.]<\/p>\n
\nNaturally, Fr. Matulewicz, who became the General Superior of the Congregation, remembered Fr. Papczy\u0144ski as the Founder but he was also engaged in intense pastoral work, since he received formation as a diocesan priest.<\/p>\n
\nI think is started on the occasion of the beatification and continues to grow.<\/p>\n
\nHis birthplace, Podegrodzie, an unusual place. The local parish recently celebrated its 1000\u00a0anniversary! Father Papczy\u0144ski\u2019s parents relocated there to be near St. Kinga.[Saint Kinga of Poland (also known as Cunegunda) (March\u00a05,\u00a01224 \u2013July\u00a024,\u00a01292) is a saint in the Catholic Church and patroness of Poland and Lithuania.]<\/p>\n
\nToday we relocate if we find a better job, peace, education or better conditions. They relocated to be closer to a Saint.<\/p>\n
\nYes, Bishop Wierzbowski. Who recalls today that 300\u00a0years ago Warsaw was subordinate to Pozna\u0144 and was part of the Pozna\u0144 archdiocese? Three hundred years ago, Warsaw was a city of little significance, while today it is the most important city in Poland.<\/p>\n
\nYes, because everything can change very, very quickly.<\/p>\n
\nOn the contrary. As his biographers report, he warmly thanked the bishop and ordered the Marians to recite the appropriate prayers in honor of Divine Providence. I must say, that we benefited from this, for today there is no other male religious Order left in G\u00f3ra Kalwaria other than the Marians. If you must cling to something, let it be Divine Providence.<\/p>\n
\nWhen we think of the Immaculate Conception today, we say that Mary was conceived immaculately, i.e., without original sin, full of grace, because God wanted her to be the mother of His Son. So God planned for her life to be the mother of Jesus Christ. Mary first was created in God\u2019s concept, in His wish, and love.<\/p>\n
\nNo, we started from the fact that he is to be canonized. His holiness testifies to the fact that he was very efficient and achieved what he wanted. He was efficient and, as many have testified, continues to be extremely effective in interceding before God for our causes.<\/p>\n<\/div>Other news<\/h2><\/div>