| Chapter III: Moderation and Self Denial |
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1. Subdue the flesh, so far as your health permits, by fasting and abstinence from food and drink on Fridays and fast days of the Church. However, when someone is unable to fast, he should still take no food outside mealtimes unless he is ill. Upon admission to the Community, a brother will often be physically wasted; therefore he shall eat his fill to build up his constitution. 2. When you come to table, listen until you leave to what is the custom to read, without disturbance or strife. Let not your mouths alone take nourishment but let your hearts too hunger for the words of God. No food is eaten until grace is said and thanks to God is given. Leave no plate with food on it, food is a gift from God and we rely on providence to provide it; so let none be wasted but all consumed. Share it with another, rather than risk wastage, if you must. 3. If those in more delicate health or a medical condition from their former way of life of addiction, are treated differently in the matter of food. This should not be a source of annoyance to the others or appear unjust in the eyes of those who owe their stronger health to different habits of life. Nor should the healthier brothers deem them more fortunate for having food which they do not have, but rather consider themselves fortunate for having the good health which the others do not enjoy. 3a. No medication shall be taken by any brother unless prescribed by the Community's Doctor and administered only by the Guardian-Angel who shall keep any medications under lock and key, and have all accounted for to the Community's Governing Council. Certain medications will never be approved due to addictive or vicarious reasons. 4. And if something in the way of food, clothing, and bedding is given to those coming to the Community from a more genteel way of life, which is not given to those who are stronger, and therefore happier. Then these latter ought to consider how far these others have come in passing from their life in the world down to this life of ours, though they have been unable to reach the level of frugality common to the stronger brothers. Nor should all want to receive what they see given in larger measure to the few, not as a token of honor, but as a help to support them in their weakness. This would give rise to a deplorable disorder - that in the Community, where the rich are coming to bear as much hardship as they can, the poor are turning to a more genteel way of life. 5. And just as the sick can take less or more food to avoid discomfort, so too, after their illness, they are to receive the kind of treatment that will quickly restore their strength, even though they come from a life of extreme poverty. Their more recent illness has, as it were, afforded them what accrued to the rich as part of their former way of life. But when they have recovered their former strength, they should go back to their happier way of life which, because their needs are fewer, is all the more in keeping with God's servants. Once in good health, they must not become slaves to the enjoyment of food, which was necessary to sustain them in their illness. For it is better to suffer a little want than to have too much. |