Letter and Spirit, Chapter 2

8/9/2019 Letter and Spirit, Chapter 2

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THE SISTERS THAT THE LORD

GIVES US

Gods Initiative in the Calling

God Gave Me Sisters

Vocation and Proselytism

Requirements of Suitability

a) Orthodox Faith and Christian Life

b) Freedom from Marriage Commitment

c) Contraindications

Following Christ in Poverty

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Chapter II, 1-11

1 If, by divine inspiration, someone comes to us

desiring to accept this life, the Abbess is bound to seek the

consent of all the sisters; 2 and if the majority has agreed,

she may receive her, after having obtained the permission

of the Lord Cardinal Protector. 3 If she sees that the

candidate is acceptable, let the Abbess diligently examine

her or have her examined concerning the Catholic faith

and the Sacraments of the Church. 4And if she believes

all these things and is willing to profess them faithfully,

and to observe them steadfastly to the end; 5and if she has

no husband, or if she has a husband who has already

entered religious life with the authority of the Bishop of

the diocese and has already made a vow of continence; 6

and if there is no impediment to her observance of this

life, such as advanced age or ill-health or mental

weakness, 7 let the tenor of our life be thoroughly

explained to her.8If she is suitable, let the words of the Holy Gospel

(cf Mt. 19, 21) be addressed to her that she should go and

sell all that she has and take care to distribute theproceeds to the poor. 9If she cannot do this, her good will

shall suffice. 10Let the Abbess and sisters take care not to

be concerned about her temporal affairs, so that she may

freely dispose of her possessions as the Lord may inspire

her. 11However, if some council is required, let them send

her to some discerning and God-fearing men, according

to whose advice her goods may be distributed to the poor

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Gods Initiative in the Calling

In its theological sense, vocation is a choice and a callon Gods side and a free response on man. Christ, through

the Church constantly calls to His following those the

Father has associated as co-workers of His task of

salvation. God always takes the initiative by loving and

choosing. Each vocation to the Kingdom is, then, of

divine inspiration.

This idea of vocation that Clare has in mind in her Ruleis what St. Francis had already formulated in his first Rule

as an answer to the experience he had at the origin of his

Gospel life, when he started to do penance (Testament).

Clare, at the beginning of her Testament, admits likewise to

have received her vocation as a great benefit, bestowed on

her through St. Francis, and exhorts the sisters to esteem it

as it is due:

Among the other gifts that we have received and

do daily receive from our benefactor, the Father

of Mercies, (2Cor 1:3) and for which we must

express the deepest thanks to the glorious Father

of Christ, there is our vocation. .We must

consider the immense gifts that God has bestowed

on us, specially those that he has seen fit to work

in us through his beloved servant, our blessedFather Francis.

Every call to an evangelical life of poverty and

humility needs an attitude of conversion. Both Francis and

Clare speak of their own calling as a process of coming

back to God and as the beginning of a life of penance.

After the Most High heavenly Father saw fit inhis mercy and grace to enlighten my heart that I

should do penance according to the example and

teaching of our most Blessed Father Francis, a

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short while after his conversion, I, together with a

few sisters whom the Lord had given me after my

conversion, willingly promised him obedience, asthe Lord gave us the light of his grace through his

wonderful life and teaching(Testament 24- 26).

According to this true theology of vocation, the

initiative comes totally from God, The Father of mercies

and giver of all goodness. When communicating to his

beloved his design of loving preference, God illumines the

heart, a very biblical concept: Love the lord and your

heart will be illumined.(Sir 2:10); May he enlighten the

eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call

holds for you.(Eph 1:18) That is how St. Francis was

praying before the St. Damian crucifix at the start of his

conversion Oh most high and glorious God, illumine the

darkness of my heart. What matters most at the time of

conversion is not actually that the mind be illumined, butthat we allow God to illumine our heart. Human mediation

is normal in divine calling. In the case of Clare,

Francis was the instrument God made use of - the

example of his life and the effectiveness of

his teachings.

Conversion to the Lord does not mean in the

Franciscan vocabulary, to come out of sin, but to give a fullturning about of our life, placing God and his interest at the

centre, and courageously disregarding all the difficulties

and obstacles. Thus did Clare respond when her moment

came to take the decisive step on that night between March

18 and 19, 1212. She secretly abandoned her home,

pushing aside the reserved door strongly barred with stones

and wood, a symbol of the many hardships she wouldcontinue to overcome in following the Poor and Crucified

Christ, as when she was furiously harassed by her relatives

who tried to force to take her back home with them. She

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stood her ground and stayed unconquerably firm.1 Agnes,

her younger sister, would imitate her fortitude a little later.

God Gave Me Sisters

This coincidence of Clare with some deep nuances of

Francis is noteworthy as it happens so often: with the

sisters God has given me. Francis said so exactly: afterthe Lord gave me brothers. (Test.) This seems o have

been a usual expression of the Seraphic Foundress, as it

shows at the depositions of sisters during the canonization

process: At St. Damian, the Lord gave her more sisters

to guide.2

The charism of the foundress flows down into their

followers not only as a spiritual inheritance, but as an

impulse that the Holy Spirit infuses into everyone called to

the same ideal. When a young one, moved by a true

vocation knocks at the door of a monastery, the sisters are

to welcome her as a gift from God. Each new vocation is

a proof that St. Clares daughters continue being actual in

the Church, and ought to be received as an invitation of the

spirit to the sisters own renewal. The community should

not only think of what they may offer to the new sister, butof what she will offer to the group. She is like a new life

hot in the arm that guarantees the harmony with the people

of every time, the link between the life and the Gospel that

may never be missing in the Franciscan family,

Every new postulant should awaken in the receiving

community a renewing restlessness, a certain uneasiness

causing them to revive the authenticity of its form of lifeand the image it holds out to the fresh arrival. To

disappoint her would tantamount to hurting her, but it

would be most of all, to jeopardize and waste Gods design,

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who counted on her. The Rule wants to sensitize that

responsibility weighing on the whole community by

requiring that all the sisters be counted on whenadmitting the postulant to the year of trial.

Vocation and Proselytism

It is God who chooses and calls, but He uses human

signs and instruments to convey to each chosen one His

own design. Vocational propaganda after the teaching ofVatican II (PC,24) is perfectly valid. Nothing can be

better than trying to share with others the wellness we

ourselves have found in the consecrated life.

The Council adds: Religious should remember that

the example of their own lives is the best recommendation

of their institutes and is an invitation for others to take on

the religious life. What will cause young moderncandidates to discover the divine call will be the radiation

itself of the wealth of spiritual experience at prayer, self-

renunciation and fraternal union which shines forth from

the silence of the monastic life.

Both Francis and Clare resorted to a noble and efficient

proselytism. Were the Seraphic Fathers to meet anyone

who they thought apt to the evangelical life, they soon

devised a plan to work on to win him over, thus

cooperating with the divine plan. Clare herself was the

conquest of this active zeal. Along with clandestine

meetings with her, together with Brother Philip, he was

progressively hemming her in by exhorting her to give up

herself totally to Jesus Christ.3 until he finally succeeded

in hurling her bravely towards the following of Christ by

the way of poverty and contempt of the world.The cloistered San Damiano community soon got to

exercise a great power of attraction. Clare was an expert at

the art of discovering and winning over new vocations. A

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great majority of the sisters composing her community had

forsaken the world persuaded by her through fervent parlor

conversations. Sr. Fellipa disclosed to have enteredbecause the Saint made her meditate on how our Lord

Jesus Christ had suffered His Passion and death on the

cross for the salvation of mankind. Sr. Amatta, a full

niece of Clare, stated to have done so by the advice and

exhortation of the Saint. Clare used to tell her how she

had asked Gods grace for her so that she would not allow

her to be deceived by the world .and so did Sr. Cecilia

and the others. (Proc. IV,1).

The Poor Ladies benefited too from the kindly

propaganda the Brothers of the First Order made for them.,

Francis at the head of them. The Saint sent to Clare five

candidates at one time and, out of them, she soon found one

not apt for that kind of life. (Proc. VI, 15).

In Europe, a great part of the contemplative

communities find themselves affected by a generalvocation crisis. And they regret it much! What might be

the cause? We are not to deem that divine inspiration

has ceased inviting to follow Christ in total self-giving. To

say that todays youth does not offer to take hold of Gods

call is just a comfortable excuse. The same was being said

at the time of St. Francis about the youth in Italian

municipalities. The bare truth is that our youth nowadays possess nowadays a high degree of authenticity, and

demand verifying whatever they are offered. They wish to

see the ideal embodied in a clear and sincere experience

and know how to discern where spiritual depth exists,

where fraternal love is lived, where the Gospel is the form

of life, as they capture too, on the contrary, where a

senseless, empty conventionalism is prevalent.

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Requirements of Suitability

An essential condition to discern whether one is calledby God is the aptitude for the life intended to embrace. The

first sign required by the Rule is orthodoxy of faith and

willingness to live up in conformity with that faith. The

second is freedom from marriage commitments, i.e.

availability to give oneself to God and his interests with an

undivided heart, as St. Paul defines voluntary virginity (Cor

7:32-35). The third is the absence of contraindications tothe observance of the Rule and fraternal communion, i.e.

advanced age, illness or mental abnormality.

a) Orthodox Faith and Christian Life

By the time of Francis and Clare, there were a lot of

religious movements and tainted by heresy. A great deal of

vigilance was needed to avoid some of these elements

becoming part of the Order, who might later perturb the

uprightness of faith in the community or make it suspicious

to outsiders.

This requirement of the purity of the Catholic faith on

the part of those asking to embrace consecrated life is still

valid at present. Faith free from error is not enough

though. The Rule exacts that the candidate be willing to

faithfully confess the contents of her faith by word anddeed, i.e. she must give proof that the professed faith really

guides and informs her life. She alone who has taken

seriously her Christian commitment and the promises at

baptism is on a good shape to step along the same life of

fidelity to the Gospel by fully consecrating her life to

Christ. Religious vocation presupposes the full awareness

of the Christian calling.Francis liked to remind his brothers about their

condition as Christians.4 A very significant detail indeed

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- when he talked about Clare, he did not refer to her by her

name, but simply called her the Christian.5

b) Freedom from Marriage Commitment

This condition was also a requisite of Canon Law at

that time. Vocation to the state of virginity for the

kingdom of heaven consists normally on renunciation to

marry, but Christian tradition recognizes too the profession

of chastity on the common widows (1Cor7:8). The Rule

does not set the condition of being single but of having

no husband. St. Clare applied this norm to her own

mother Ortolana, who, on entering St. Damian, became the

spiritual daughter of her own natural daughter.

The case is also foreseen of a married woman whose

husband has professed continence. Were she to feel the

call, she would be free to consecrate herself in religious

life.6 Todays Canon Law declares invalid the admission of

a consort while marriage is still lasting. (Can. 643)

c) Contraindications on the Rule and Fraternal

Communion

The first of them is advanced age. The Rule does

not set an age limit but simply gives the criterion. It is well

know that there comes a time when the capability of

adaptation gets lost in front of a new human environment,no matter how good the will may be. The best age for an

active adaptation in a woman is from age eighteen up to

twenty five. Up to forties, there is a greater or lesser

disposition to get involved in a new setting. After that age,

the only exemption to be made ought to be on well

educated candidates or on those used to lavish themselves

out of love for the sake of others.Besides that, lack of flexibility by reason of age and

chronic illness may also bring some difficulties to fraternal

communion and the commitment to religious life, much

more so with mental deficiency. Clare calls it fatuidad

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(foolishness) including under this concept, affective and

psychological immaturity. These contraindications are not

found in St. Francis Rule. St. Clare has added them uphaving no doubt in mind that, at a cloistered life, a special

degree of mental equilibrium is required, and also to avoid

that the convent get to become a refuge of beings in a state

of human frustration.7

Following Christ in PovertyIf she is suitable, let the words of the Holy Gospel be

addressed to her, that she should go and sell all that she has

and take care to distribute the money to the poor. Francis

and Clare took as a pattern the very disposition required by

Jesus in the Gospel to whoever wished to follow him in

total commitment among his immediate co-workers group:

absolute detachment from everything worldly, and without

a secure means of life for the kingdoms sake. Jesus did

not like the group close to him to benefit from the personal

renunciation of others. Even as a group, they were to live

the risk of voluntary poverty under the provident love of

the heavenly Father, entrusting themselves fully to mens

good will.

Both Francis and Clare followed this pattern with theirfirst followers. The depositions at the process of

canonization are in agreement, stating that Clare, on

embracing her new life, caused her property to be sold and

its proceeds distributed among the poor. One of the sisters

who witnessed at the process added that Clares parents

tried avoiding the dispersal of the patrimony by offering a

bigger price than any other bidder, but she refused to sell itto them so that the poor would not be defrauded.8

The Rule foresees that not all the candidates will be

able to fulfill the latter part for multiple reasons. That is

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why it only says let her take care to distribute it among the

poor, in any case, were she not able to integrally follow

the Gospel advice, let her good will suffice.In order to run courageously the adventure of a life in

poverty, without possessions or fixed income, St. Clare

begins by not allowing the community to receive anything

at all as a consequence of the new sisters detachment..

Abbess and sisters must give example of disappropriation

by not interfering in the fate she will decide, giving to

whatever she leaves behind, so that she may freely dispose

of her possessions as the Lord may inspire her. At most,

she might be referred to persons who could advice her on

the distribution to the poor.

This external renunciation however, is nothing else but

a way to reach the inner one, which alone renders us free to

love. St. Francis instructed those coming to the Order that

they should first of all outwardly renounce the world by

offering to God, in the poor, their possessions, andafterwards interiorly, their own persons. He would not

admit into the Order those who did not give up everything,

without keeping anything for themselves, thus fulfilling the

Holy Gospel, and so that the attachment to wealth would

not prove later on an obstacle to them.9

It is indeed such a disposition of spirit that should be

above all stressed to the postulant, when explaining to herthoroughly the tenor of our way of life, as the Rule

wishes. The previous Rules of Hugolinus and Innocent

IV had stated, after the old monastic pedagogy: The hard

and austere realities through which one is led to God and

which must necessarily be observed, must be explained to

all who wish to enter this religion before they actually

enter. Through her humane and Franciscan style, St. Clareasks that the tenor of our life be simply presented to the

postulant.

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The Rule of St. Clare does not make mention of the

dowry. It would have been in frontal opposition to her

ideal of evangelical insecurity.As a matter of fact, the candidates economic

contribution, corresponding to the marriage dowry, was not

introduced among the Poor Clares up to the well advanced

fourteenth century, contemporarily with the distinction

between choir and extern sisters. It became a universal

prescription of Canon Law only at the Sixteenth century,

after the Council of Trent. In virtue of the Constitution of

Clement XIII (1759), the Apostolic See alone, or the

diocesan bishop in particular cases, could dispense the

choir sisters from the dowry. St. Colette allowed, at the

most, a little entirely free contribution by way of alms as

to the rest of the poor, but never and in no way as a

condition for admission. The Capuchinesses reform did

away too with the dowry, though by demand of the

ecclesiastic authorities, most of the monasteries had to getlater used to the general canonical norm.

Nowadays, due to the radical changes in the familys

economy, the tradition of the dowry has lost its meaning,

specially so as it has become a source of discrimination

among the sisters. What really matters is the cultural

preparation of the young candidate, which no longer

depends on the economic condition of the family; andabove all, the purity of her motivation. The dowry has

disappeared in the new canon law. The daughters of St.

Clare then, have been able to back to this point in their own

Rule by establishing it: It is not permitted to demand or

accept any dowry at all from the postulants. (Gen CC, art.

187,2) In accordance with the spirit of our Rule, no form

of dowry will be accepted from the candidate. But if shewould bring any money along with the idea of helping with

expenses, it should be carefully noted. So that it may be

returned, together with her clothing and other personal

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property, if she ever decides for any reason to leave

religious life. (Cap CC,16)

In fact, Christ demanded from his immediate followersthe surrendering of their persons and giving up all their

previous possessions. Nothing could be more anti-

evangelical than creating a hierarchy of classes inside the

monastery on account of economic or social family status.

Footnotes to Chapter 2:

1. Proc. XIII.1; XVIII.3. Interesting deposition of Lord Rainieridi Bernardo, one of the witnesses, who might have been a

former suitor of Clare as a young girl: to his wooing, she

preached to him of despising the world (Proc XVIII.2)

2. Deposition of Sr. Beatrice, sister of St. Clare, Proc. XII.5.3. Proc. XII.2; XVII.3.

4. Rnb, XVI,6; Lt.Min, 7.

5. According to the testimony of Brother Stephen, as quoted byTomas of Pavia,Hist. Arch. 5, 1912, 419.

6. This canonical norm came from a decree of Innocent III promulgated on 1198.

7. This requirement came from the Form of Life by Hugolinus:

One should not be received who proves to be less thansufficiently fit for the observance of this life because of

advanced age, sickness, or mental deficiency. I.Omaechevarria, Escritos, p. 220ff.

8. Proc. I,13; II,22 III,31; XII,3; XII,11 XIX,2.

9. 2Cel, n.80.

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Letter and Spirit, Chapter 2