May 17
Saint Pascal Baylon
(1540-1592)
Daily Penance Reflection on the above Saint or Feast on
This Link
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Homily by Father Jay
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Francis of Assisi, by Father Johannes
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1998, according to Pope John Paul II.
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How
to Do Penance Daily Reflection
Saint
Pascal Baylon was a Franciscan lay brother and
mystic who had a great devotion to the Blessed
Eucharist. A peasant and shepherd, he received a
vision which told him to apply to a nearby
Franciscan monastery which accepted him as a lay
brother where he served as doorkeeper much of
his life. Very austere in his penances, Pascal
defended the doctrine of the Real Presence
against sects who disbelieved it. He is the
patron of all eucharistic conferences. Saint
Pascal Baylon, pray that we may experience a
renewed love for our Lord in the Blessed
Sacrament. May we, like you, defend the Real
Presence against those who disbelieve it. Amen.
More
information on Our Lady of Fatima and the Call
to Penance is on this
link.
One
apostolate of the Confraternity of Penitents is
providing patron saint stories for baptismal
names. Information is on this
link.
That divine power of
His has freely bestowed on us everything necessary
for a life of genuine piety, through knowledge of
Him Who called us by His Own glory and power. By virtue of them He has bestowed on us the great
and precious things He promised, so that through
these you who have fled a world corrupted by lust
might become sharers of the divine nature. This is reason enough for you to make every effort
to undergird your virtue with faith, your
discernment with virtue, and your self-control with
discernment; this self-control, in turn, should lead
to perseverance, and perseverance to piety, and
piety to care for your sisters and brothers, and
care for them, to love. Qualities like these,
made increasingly your own, are by no means
ineffectual; they bear fruit in true knowledge of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Those who lack these
qualities are shortsighted to the point of
blindness. They forgets the cleansing of their
long-past sins."
(2 Peter 1:3-9)
Fear and honor,
praise and bless, thank and adore the Lord God
Almighty, in Trinity and Unity, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, Creator of all things. Do not put
off any longer confessing all your sins, for death
will soon come. Give and it will be given you;
forgive and you will be forgiven. . . Blessed are
they who die repentant, for they shall go to the
Kingdom of Heaven! But woe to those who are
not converted, for these children of the Devil will
go with their father into everlasting fire. Be
watchful, therefore. Shun evil, and persevere in
well-doing until the end.
--St. Francis's
"exhortation to repentance" which he exhorted his
friars to preach, c. 1208,quoted by Omer Engelbert
in St. Francis: A Biography, Chapter
4.
"The grace of God
has appeared, offering salvation to all people. It trains us to reject godless ways and worldly
desires, and live temperately, justly, and devoutly
in this age as we await our blessed hope, the
appearing of the glory of the Great God and of our
Savior Jesus Christ. It was He Who sacrificed
Himself for us, to redeem us from all
unrighteousness, and to cleanse for Himself a people
of His Own, eager to do what is right."
(Titus 2:11-14)
"Repent and believe the Good News!"
Penance means conversion. The Confraternity of
Penitents is a world wide private Catholic
association of the faithful, completely loyal to our
Pope and the Magisterium.
Our Rule of Life has been reviewed by our bishop and
recognized in these words: "this Rule does not
contain anything contrary to our faith; therefore it
may be safely practiced privately by you or by
anyone inclined to do so. . . . His Excellency
is appreciative of your efforts to live and promote
Franciscan spirituality and especially promote the
neglected practice of penance and he wishes you
success" (January 30, 1998).
Members of the Confraternity of Penitents live this
Rule in their own homes, devoted to prayer, penance,
fasting, conversion, and works of mercy modeled on
Jesus Christ and inspired by the lives and teachings
of
St. Francis,
St. Dominic,
St. Therese,
St. Benedict,
St. Augustine,
St. Ignatius,
and all the saints, most especially Mary, the Mother
of God, who lived a life of true penance
(conversion) in perfect union with our Lord.
May Our Lady and all the saints intercede for all
who wish to embrace a life of penance, anywhere in
the world, so that the grace of God will assist them
to obtain every virtue necessary for a life of
holiness and surrender to the Will of God! Amen.
PRAYER OF PENITENTS
"Most High, Glorious God, enlighten the darkness
of my mind, give me right faith, a firm hope and
perfect charity, so that I may always and in all
things act according to Your Holy Will. Amen."
(Saint Francis's prayer before the San Damiano
Crucifix)
MISSION OF PENITENTS
"Go and repair My House
which, as you can see, is falling into ruin." (The
message given to St. Francis in a voice from the San
Damiano Crucifix.)
ACTION OF PENITENTS
To pray for God's
specific direction in one's life so that, through
humbly living our Rule of Life, each penitent may
help to rebuild the house of God by bringing love of
God and neighbor to his or her own corner of the
world.
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THE
CONFRATERNITY OF PENITENTS
JOYFUL
PENANCE (CONVERSION) AS A LAY PERSON
Do you hunger for a closer union with God?
Do you long to give your life to the Lord?
Do you want to become all who God created you to
be?
Thank God for such desires, because they are
graces given to you by the Holy Spirit. You may
wish to make greater spiritual progress but may
find yourself holding back due to human
weakness. Do you long for prayerful support and
guidance on your spiritual journey?
With God, there are no coincidences. You have
not found this site by accident. Possibly doing
penance as part of the Confraternity of
Penitents is God's plan to support you on your
spiritual journey.
COULD PENANCE BE PART OF YOUR CONVERSION?
The Confraternity of Penitents is an
international, private, Catholic lay association
of the faithful which not only calls people to
repent (turn to the Lord) but which also, by the
grace of the Holy Spirit, provides practical
guidelines to do it. With the permission of its
Bishop,
Confraternity members live in their own homes a
Rule of Life
given by
Saint Francis
of Assisi to the penitents of medieval times.
The Confraternity's Constitutions update the
Rule of 1221 so that it can be lived today in
the same spirit of penance practiced by medieval
penitents. After a brief introduction, this
primitive Rule begins, The memorial of what
is proposed for the Brothers and Sisters of
Penance, living in their own homes, begun in the
year of our Lord 1221, is as follows.” The
Confraternity of Penitents is dedicated to
living this Rule of Life as closely as possible
to its original intent, but in modern times.
Saint Francis wished the penitents who lived
this Rule to practice
penance
with peace, joy, and love for God and man, in
total surrender to God's Will. This is the
Church's call to penance today and the
invitation which the Confraternity of Penitents
extends to all who want to give their lives as
lay people to the Lord. The charism of the
Confraternity, which is prayer, penance,
simplicity, and service, is considered by many
to be a Franciscan charism. By this definition,
anyone who lives a prayerful, penitential,
simple, God-centered life, striving to do God's
Will, is Franciscan in spirit even if not
Franciscan in name.
POPE BENEDICT XVI HAS CALLED FOR A RETURN TO
COMMUNAL PENANCE
"It is also important, by the way, that
public forms of communal penance are being
developed again. When Jonah came to Nineveh and
demanded penance, everyone knew what penance
was: one put on penitential clothes, fasted, and
prayed. When Muslims celebrate Ramadan they know
the procedure, and they also know that penance
can become a concrete reality for a people only
if it has a common form and a regular time in
the course of a year. In our case penance has
lost its communal form completely. When
Christians are called upon to do penance, they
do not know what this is; they may perhaps set
up a committee or else depend totally on private
views. The classical triad--fasting, praying,
and giving alms--must be put back into its
rightful place; Christians must also rediscover
the ability for communal expression with which
they publicly display their distance from all
that is taken for granted in the world."
(Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, A New
Song for the Lord: Faith in Christ and Liturgy
Today. New York: Crossroad Publishing
Company, 1996, p. 197)
Francis himself, as if to sum up his inner experience in a single word, found no concept more
pregnant with meaning than that of "penance". "Thus
did the Lord grant to me, Friar Francis, to begin to
do penance" (Testament, 1).
So it was that he saw himself essentially as a
"penitent", as it were, in a permanent state of
conversion. Abandoning himself to the Holy Spirit's
action, Francis was converted ever more closely to
Christ, transformed into a living image of him on
the paths of poverty, love and mission.
(Pope Benedict XVI, Assisi, 17 July 2007)
The Confraternity of Penitents is a joyful,
communal form of public penance, called for by
our Holy Father.
OTHERS IN THE CHURCH HAVE CALLED FOR A RETURN TO
PENANCE
The call for penance is widely recognized. Pope
Paul VI wrote, "The Church reaffirms the
religious and supernatural values of penitence.
She invites everyone to accompany the inner
conversion of the spirit with the voluntary
exercise of external acts of penitence."
(Pope Paul VI,
Paenitemini -
Apostolic Constitution on Penance)
The text below is from an interview with
Cardinal J. Francis, Stafford, president of the
Pontifical Council on the Laity, August 8, 2003
(the Pilot, diocesan paper for the Archdiocese
of Boston)
"The parish is to be a community that calls
others to a deeper conversion of life from sin
to the light of Jesus. That, in my judgment,
should lead us to a further exploration of a
restoration of the "Ordo Poenitentium" -- the
Order of Penitents -- that was present in the
patristic Church. . . .
"A restructuring, a renewal, a rediscovery of
the "Ordo Poenitentium," for example as in the
early Church, would be an opportunity in which
priests and people would recognize their
sinfulness, would be willing to surrender in
their vulnerability to the tough love of the
community in making known their weakness, their
sinfulness, and asking for a public penance."
The
Diocese of
Providence, RI, USA, has permitted
the Confraternity of Penitents to exist within
the diocese and to reach out to other Catholics
with a call to penance (conversion). We in the
Confraternity are most grateful for their
encouragement.
Who are the Confraternity of Penitents?
The Holy Spirit calls all people to penance
(conversion). However, the Holy Spirit calls
some individuals to penance that goes beyond the
reception of the sacrament of penance and into a
life of ongoing, daily conversion within the
Catholic Church. The Confraternity of Penitents
provides a
Rule of Life,
as do Third Orders, for those so called.
The Confraternity of Penitents
began in 1994
with a private, interior call to "live the Rule
of 1221." Today the Confraternity of Penitents
is a
steadily growing
group of lay men and women, both
single and married, who are quietly and
privately living, in their own homes and
families, the CFP Rule of Life.
Penitents live throughout the USA as well as in
several foreign nations. As they worship our
Holy Lord, they are totally in agreement with
all the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church,
in all its rites, and with the Magisterium. They
embrace the Rule of Life as a means of
self-discipline in the five areas of prayer and
sacrament, fasting and abstinence, simplicity of
life style, community, and apostolate.
The Rule and Constitutions of the Confraternity
of Penitents are not ends in themselves. They
provide a means to the penitent's self-emptying
which leads to surrender to the Will of Almighty
God. This surrender will be manifest in the
penitent's love for and service to others and
truly helps the penitent to live as a child of
God.
One of the main goals of the Rule of 1221 was to
bring peace to warring factions in medieval
Europe. Franciscan penitents were to be
reconciled to all and to declare allegiance to
Almighty God alone. Modern penitents follow the
Catholic Church's teachings on war and peace.
They strive to be peaceful, humble people,
forgiving all, praying for all, and
desiring
reconciliation with all. Seeking
never to draw attention to themselves, penitents
rejoice in the truth, console the suffering,
educate with love the sinner and the ignorant,
offer their sacrifices for the good of the
world, and work for justice. The penitent prays
to be fully a child of God whose goal is the
advancement, not of self, but of others and of
the glory of Almighty God.
Members of the Confraternity of Penitents aim
toward one day making, should it be God's Will,
a permanent commitment to living a life of
ongoing conversion (penance) within the Catholic
Church by following their Rule of Life in their
own homes and families. The CFP provides four
years of formation in a life of penance
(conversion) before any sort of commitment can
be made. This time of discernment and
instruction is one of very gradually learning
about and living the CFP Rule and Constitutions
as they relate to the richness of our Catholic
faith. The four years of formation help the
penitent to not only experience the sacrament of
penance but also to live penance moment by
moment daily, in a spirit of prayer, sacrifice,
and joy. The aspiring penitent thus has ample
time to discover whether or not he or she is
called to embrace this particular Rule of Life.
What spiritual benefits are you seeking?
Will the Confraternity be able to provide you
with these?
If you explore these pages and pray for
discernment, the Lord may give you an answer.
WHO MAY LIVE A LIFE OF PENANCE?
In the Confraternity of Penitents, the call of
the Holy Spirit is to live a life of penance in
the privacy of one's own home but as part of an
international organization. Every member of the
Confraternity of Penitents admits, by his or her
very living of the Rule of Life, that he or she
is a sinner in need of conversion and
repentance. This is a joyful admission, for
Christ came "to save sinners, not the
righteous." And so we all qualify for His saving
grace!
A life of penance is open to all Catholics ages
fourteen and above. Those who lived the original
Rule of 1221 included followers of St. Francis,
St. Dominic, St. Benedict, the Order of Mount
Carmel, and others as well as many who were not
affiliated with any specific Church charism. All
penitents had a desire to "do penance" (be
converted) and used every available sacrament of
the Church as well as the practices in the Rule
of 1221 as a means to that end.
In the same manner today, those who are members
of other Catholic Associations, institutions,
and Third Orders, as well as clergy, deacons,
and religious, and all Catholics who are
unaffiliated with any other group in the Church,
may join the Confraternity by completing the
Inquirer
Application. Married members must
obtain the permission of their spouse to enter
formation.
The Confraternity also accepts Associates whose
circumstances or religion bar them from
membership. They may enter formation if certain
conditions are met. These conditions are
detailed on the
Inquirer Application.
Affiliates
are religious or members of the clergy who do
not enter formation but who support the
Confraternity in several specific ways.
Penitents who wish to transfer from any other
Lay Association or Third Order to the
Confraternity of Penitents are welcome to apply.
Their entry level of formation will depend on
the similarity of their current Rule and
Constitutions to those of the CFP. More
information on this is found on the FAQ page.
WHAT SUPPORT CAN THE CONFRATERNITY OF PENITENTS
OFFER?
Penitents receive support from one another in
local gatherings and via postal mail, email,
internet communities, and phone calls. Living
the Rule of Life is done gradually, over four
years, following one lesson per month, until the
entire Rule of Life is being lived. The time of
formation
is one of discernment and joy. Those who pledge
to live the
Rule and Constitutions
continue in their ongoing
spiritual formation, through prayer, penance,
sacrifice, and sacrament, for, on this earth, we
are never done growing in the spiritual life.
Perhaps you feel that the Holy Lord calling you
to look more deeply into this Rule of Life for
the laity. Please explore the wealth of
information linked to from the links on this
page.
Please pray about inquiring with the
Confraternity of Penitents, and please pray for
the CFP as well as its members, leaders,
Visitor, spiritual
advisors, diocesan contacts, and
intentions.
If you would like us to pray for you, please
contact us and we will add your name to our
daily prayer list.
Are you ready to inquire with us and receive
more information as well as a chance to chat in
person or have direct email contact with your
CFP Regional Minister? Complete the Inquirer
Application on this
link
, return it to us,
and we will respond quickly.
May Almighty God bless you always!
Click on
the Crucifix to Read about the Symbolism of this
Holy Icon, the Symbol of the Confraternity of
Penitents
In a hurry to learn all about the
Confraternity of Penitents? Read "A Quick
Overview" on this
link.
Sign up for our email list or contact us via
this link.
If
you are discerning a vocation to a religious
community whose Rule of Life is similar to the
CFP Rule and Constitutions, please contact us
for referral.
Confraternity of Penitents
520 Oliphant Lane
Middletown RI USA 02842-4600
401/849-5421
If you email us and wish a reply,
please write "Inquiry about Confraternity of
Penitents" in your subject line. We receive
at least 50-75 spam messages daily, and we
do not open them. If your subject line reads
something like "Question" or
"Confidential" or "Thanks" or
"Request Desired" or "Hi" in the subject
line, we may delete the email as spam
because we receive many spam messages with
that subject line. Therefore, please write
"Inquiry about Confraternity of Penitents"
in your subject line and we will open your
email and respond to you. If you do not hear
from us within five days, please write again
as occasionally emails go astray.
Also please email us in English as we
are unable to translate correspondence sent
in other languages. Thank you for
understanding.
bspenance@hotmail.com
copenitents@yahoo.com
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