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on a Friday. 37And, as I have already said, we who are well and strong always eat Lenten fare.a
38But our flesh is not bronze, nor is our strength that of stone, 39rather, we are frail and inclined to every bodily weakness! 40I beg you, therefore, dearly beloved, to refrain wisely and prudently from an indiscreet and impossible austerity in the fasting that you have undertaken. 41And I beg you in the Lord to praise the Lord by your very life, to offer the Lord your reasonable service and your sacrifice always seasoned with salt.
42May you do well in the Lord, as I hope I do myself, and, in your holy prayers, remember me along with my sisters.
- It is interesting to note that Pope Gregory IX rescinded his prescription in his directive, Pia meditatione pensantes, May 5, 1238 (cf. BF I, 240-241). Clare made the practice of fast and abstinence described here part of her Rule, cf. Rule III 8-11. For further information on fasting in general, cf. Placide Deseille, “Jeûne,” Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascetique et Mystique 8 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974), 1164-1175; Carolyn Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California, 1987); Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
Epistola Ad Sanctam Agnetem De Praga III, Fontes Franciscani, p. 2278
37et sicut praedictum est, semper quae sanae sumus et validae, cibaria quadragesimalia manducamus.
38Verum quia nec caro nostra caro aenea est, necfortitudo lapidis fortitudo nostra, 39immo fragiles et omni corporali sumus debilitati proclivae, 40a quadam (in)discreta et impossibili abstinentiae austeritate quam te aggressam esse cognovi, sapienter, carissima, et discrete te retrahi rogo et in Domino peto, 41ut vivens vivens confiteris Domino, rationabile tuum Domino reddas obsequium u, et tuum sacrificium semper sale conditum.
42Vale semper in Domino, sicut me valere peropto et tam me quam meas sorores tuis sacris orationibus recommenda.