Looking at the Rule
This
year Franciscans are celebrating the 800th anniversary of the Later
Rule. Our own Rule was revised in 1978. This is the second of a series of
articles looking at that Rule.
Prologue
Exhortation of Saint
Francis to the Brothers and Sisters in Penance
In the name of the
Lord!
Part
Two:
Concerning
Those Who Do Not Do Penance
But
all those men and women who are not doing penance and do not receive the Body
and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and live in vices and sin and yield to evil
concupiscence and to the wicked desires of the flesh, and do not observe what
they have promised to the Lord, and are slaves to the world, in their bodies,
by carnal desires and the anxieties and cares of this life (cf. Jn 8:41).
These
are blind, because they do not see the true light, our Lord Jesus Christ; they
do not have the Son of God who is the true wisdom of the Father. Concerning
them, it is said "Their skill was swallowed up" (Ps 107:27) and
"cursed are those who turn away from your commands" (Ps 119:21).
"They see and acknowledge, they know and do bad things and knowingly
destroy their own souls.
See,
you who are blind, deceived by your enemies, the world, the flesh and the
devil, for it is pleasant to the body to commit sin and it is bitter to make it
serve God because all vices and sins come out and "proceed from the heart
of man" as the Lord says in the gospel (cf. Mt 7:21). And you have nothing
in this world you would possess the vanities of this world for a long time.
But
you have been deceived, for the day and the hour will come to which you give no
thought and which you do not know and of which you are ignorant. The body grows
infirm, death approaches, and so it dies a bitter death, and no matter where or
when or how man dies, in the guilt of sin, without penance or satisfaction but
does not do it.
The
devil snatches the soul from his body with such anguish and tribulation that no
one can know it except he who endures it, and all the talents and power and
"knowledge and wisdom" (2 Chr 1:17) which they thought they
had will be taken away from them (cf. Lk 8:18; Mk 4:25), and they leave their
goods to relatives and friends who take and divide them and say afterwards,
"Curse be his soul because he could have given us more, he could have
acquired more than he did." They worms eat up the body and so they have
lost body and soul during this short earthly life and will go into the inferno
where they will suffer torture without end.
All
those into whose hands this letter shall have come we ask in the charity that
is God (cf.1 Jn 4:17) to accept kindly and with divine love the fragrant
words of our Lord Jesus Christ quoted above. And let those who do not know how
to read have them read to them.
And
may they keep them in their mind and carry them out, in a holy manner of the
end, because they are "spirit and life" (Jn 6:64). And those who will
not do this will have to render "an account on the day of judgement"
(cf. Mt 12:36) before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf.
Rom 14:10).
Comments
The second part of the
prologue deals with those who do not do penance – in effect, those who turn from
God, and who do not receive His Body and Blood..
As a result, they are
prone to “live
in vices and sin and yield to evil concupiscence and to the wicked desires of
the flesh.” They have been blinded, unable to hear the “voice of the Spirit,”
and are enslaved by sin. They are warned that they will not know true happiness
in this world or the next.
The
call is to do penance!
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