PENITENTIAL SPIRITUALITY
IN THE FRANCISCAN SOURCES

Acceptance of the term "penance."

  | Back |

In St. Francis and in the Franciscan sources the term "penance" indicates sometimes external corporal works of mercy. This is, however, the second and derived sense.

The primary and proper meaning is of biblical derivation" shub in Hebrew, metanoia in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, poenitentia in the Vulgate. The biblical meaning indicates an interior attitude, psychological-spiritual, which turns the interest and the stress of the whole man toward God, subordinating all the rest to this basic orientation.

Naturally, from this reality one gathers "worthy fruits" that are externally visible also.
___________________________

(112) Liber de laudibus beati Francisci (c. 1280-1285), edited in Analecta F. 3 (1897)pp. 666-692.

Page 295

We must take into account another aspect. Penance as followed by Francis and proposed by him to his penitents is along the line of the voluntary penitents who had appeared in the history of the Church during the 5th century. They had an efficient organization at the time of Gregory the great and had gradually followed the pattern that was increasingly ascetical. (113)

What is intended therefore is not penance as a simple preoccupation towards eternal salvation, but as a means to freedom and mystical practice; it is penance as a radical choosing of God's love and a continuous journeying toward Him through Christ, our Brother. It is penance as a fascination for God, as a constant tending toward Him, as a thirsting for the fullness of mystical experience.

   | Back |