Hungry Souls by Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg

Author:Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg [Aardweg, Gerard J. M. Van den]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780895559647
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

BLESSED STANISLAUS PAPCZYNSKI:

AN EXTRAORDINARY FRIEND

TO THE SUFFERING SOULS

F ather Stanislaus Papczynski (1630–1701), the founder of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception, the so-called Marian Fathers, is hardly known outside Poland and even less as a promoter of the charity for the souls in Purgatory. Yet he ranks among the foremost “apostle[s] of intercessory prayer for the dead,” as Pope Benedict XVI honored him on occasion of his beatification in 2006.

In beatifying him, the church has implicitly recognized his specific way of helping the suffering souls, namely, commending them to the Blessed Virgin in her quality as the Immaculate Conception. That might have seemed rather audacious and original in his time, 200 years before the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, but Father Papczynski did not invent the idea himself. This combination of devotion to the Immaculate Conception and devotion to the poor souls originated, at least in this systematic form, simultaneously with the combined devotion to the Sacred Heart and the poor souls, in the second half of the 17th century by St. Mary-Margaret Alacoque.

It is clear that both manners of “suffrage” go together, as the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady is one with the Sacred Heart of her Son, and as it were directly animated by It. If her intercessory role with Him is so important for the living, why not also for the dead? Calling upon Our Lady as the Immaculate Conception—and by extension, as the Immaculate Heart, the one who has never been touched by sin—to help the souls in Purgatory must be according to the will of God. She who never had to expiate a sin herself became the most powerful Helper of those who have to. This is why Father Stanislaus called her “the most gracious Mother and the most merciful Protectress of the souls in purgatory.”1

Significantly, a big canvas put up during the beatification ceremony depicted supplicating hands stretched out from the flames to a rosary above them. The souls crave this prayer. Calling upon the Blessed Virgin by praying the Rosary must be considered a most efficacious means to acquire her intercession on their behalf with the Holy Trinity. (The Rosary is ultimately a Trinitarian prayer, as Sister Lucia of Fatima has repeatedly pointed out.)

According to his own words, the divine inspiration that had urged Father Papczynski to found the Marian Congregation2 implied the special task of this congregation to assist the suffering souls. “I promise,” he wrote in his testament of 1692, “a double reward at God’s hands to all those who choose and support this small Congregation of the Immaculate Conception, brought into being by God to assist the dead.”3

And Father Stanislaus gave the good example. He offered all of his good works, heroic prayers, and acts of penitence and all of his manifold physical, mental, and moral sufferings for the benefit of his brothers and sisters in Purgatory. “When (at the end of his life) his suffering intensified, he would say, as was his custom: ‘Increase, O Lord, my suffering, that You may diminish the punishment of the souls in purgatory.

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