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COMMUNITARIAN DIALOGUE

• Dialogue, a Requirement of the Gospel

Community

• The Chapter in the Rule of St. Clare

• Communitarian Confession

• Communitarian Deliberation

• The Counsellors or “Discreets

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Chapter IV, 15-24
15
The abbess is bound to call her sisters together at
least once a week in the Chapter, where both she and her
sisters should humbly confess their common and public
offences and negligences. 16Let her consult with all her
sisters there concerning whatever pertains to the welfare
and good of the monastery, 17for the Lord frequently
reveals what is best to the least [among us].
18
Let no heavy debt be incurred except with the
common consent of the sisters and by reason of manifest
necessity, and let this be done by the procurator. 19Let the
abbess and her sisters, however, be careful that nothing is
deposited in the monastery for safekeeping; 20for such
practices often give rise to troubles and scandals.
21
Let all who hold office in the monastery be
chosen by the common consent of all the sisters to
preserve the unity of mutual love and peace. 22Let at least
eight sisters be elected from the more discerning ones in
the same way, whose counsel the abbess should be always
bound to use in those matters which our form of life
requires. 23Moreover, the sisters can and should, if it
seems useful and expedient, remove the officials and
discreets and elect others in their place.

Dialogue, a Requirement of the

Gospel Community

Any authentic Christian group tends to form a

community of service where each brother tries to be useful
to the rest without looking after his own interest and
considering others as superior to oneself. (Gal 5,13f; Phil2,
3f). From this open and active charity spring the need of
dialogue. Consciousness of self-limitations and faith in the

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action of the Holy Spirit upon others bring each one to find
in the word of the brother that piece of truth that he
possesses, the enlightenment that comes from above, and
cooperation. The will of service causes us to be open to the
brothers to share with them our experience or to contribute
our points of view. When taking a decision, this holds a
greater guarantee of efficacy if we feel prompted by a
common commitment rather than, if we look at it, as an
imposition of just one personal will.
The exercise of authority, seen at its evangelical
setting, cannot set aside appealing to the brothers’
responsibility. According to the doctrine of Paul VI, “far
from being in opposition to one another, authority and
individual liberty go together in the fulfillment of God’s
will, which is sought fraternally through a trustful dialogue
between the superior and his brother, in the case of a
personal situation, or through a general agreement
regarding what concerns the whole community.”1
A well led dialogue causes all the religious to take part
with interest in the common life and longings not less than
in the situations and activities of each one. It makes each
one feel an active part and in charge of the general progress
[of the community]. It sets everyone in the state of ongoing
search, unceasingly deepening the Gospel contents of their
calling and opening to the spirit the requirements of
adapting to the reality of times and environment.
To dialogue is the art of knowing how to listen to God
who communicates with man at the intimacy of prayer but
also through signs and through each other. For the same
reason, opening up to the brother means opening up to God.
St. Francis knew how to dialogue because his soul was
ever open to “the spirit of the Lord and his holy operation”,
and because he simply believed in the action of the Holy
Spirit on every brother, and trusted the single-mindedness
of each one. For that reason he established dialogue at the
group of brothers the Lord gave him. Upon returning from
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their apostolic journeys, Celano reports that they gathered
around the Saint, each one recounted how did it do with
them along, sincerely revealing their shortcomings; and
Francis added the correction and opportune admonitions for
future journeys. (1Cel, 30)
The “chapter” of the fraternity has had from the
beginning of the First Order the greatest importance. At
the beginning they gathered twice a year, then once every
other year with the attendance of all the brothers; finally,
every three years and at the Major Superiors level when the
Order had already spread through several nations. At each
region, its respective ministers continued gathering all the
brothers. The Chapter’s fundamental objective was, as St.
Francis had it written in his first Rule: “to treat about God’s
interests”. Not just because at a gathering of brothers only
spiritual matters are supposed to be dealt with, but because
our problems are worth discussing only if we look at them
as “God’s interests”, for just then they will be duly stated.

The Chapter in the Rule of St. Clare

“The abbess is bound to call her sisters together in

Chapter at least once a week.” This prescription of St.
Clare is more valuable because the previous one of
Innocent IV did not mention the communities chapter but
for the election of the abbess. Neither had she found it at
St. Francis’ Rule, since when this was written, the local
fraternity did not exist as yet in the First Order. It was her
personal intuition not less than her long experience of
government that caused the Saint to conceive a group of
poor sisters, vitalized by fraternal openness and
continuously strengthening the ties of the common
commitment through dialogue. This is the highest merit of

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St. Clare’s Rule, one of the elements making it today more
actual as it best shows its Gospel perpetuity.
This gathering will be held at least once a week. We
ask ourselves: What business can there be in the quiet and
simple life of a community of poor contemplatives so as to
require the weekly summons of all the sisters? The
fundamental importance of the Chapter is to Clare not so
much on what they are to decide but on the unceasing
check-up of what they do, in order to do it better, and on
the enrichment that the interchange of ideas and feelings is
meant to the sisters by coming out of themselves to connect
at a common task. The rhythm of life at the cloister, made
up of so many minute observances and of the execution of
orders received, runs the risk of each sister closing up
within her personal world, reducing the horizon of her
mentality and affective field. A fraternity that comes
together to reflect at community level on a passage of the
Gospel and to cast it on everyday life in open fraternal
sharing, has already gotten a great benefit.
The weekly Chapter prescribed by the Rule has “two
times”: one of sincere review on the fidelity of the life
embraced, and the other on the interchange of opinions
about the matters of the monastery and the progress of the
community.

The Communitarian Confession

“In the Chapter, the abbess and the sisters should

humbly confess their common and public offenses and
negligences.”
When Christian fraternity is lived out in depth, there
spontaneously springs up the need of a frankness that
moves the brothers to mutually manifest their own

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weaknesses specially those hindering charitable
understanding. The Sacrament of Penance was at its birth a
rite essentially communitarian and, according to Vatican II,
does not only attain for us pardon for the offenses
committed against God but “reconciles us with the Church
that we have wounded by our sins”. (LG, 11)
That is the thought that Clare expresses when she
exhorts her sisters to forward on the path undertaken, since
each deed of unfaithfulness is an offense done not just to
the Lord, but to the whole Church. (T, 75).
One may easily understand that the willing confession
of shortcomings would have been considered of old a
normal element of life in fraternity. St. Clare looks at this
act at its own value of community commitment. Each
sister – Mother Superior most of all – seek in the humble
and noble admission of her “common and public
negligences”, the external atonement and the support of her
sisters to go on progressing, to feel herself protected against
her own instability. Nothing encourages us so much to
overcome our own limitations and cowardice as to verify
how our brothers are trying, with humility and generosity,
to overcome theirs. Such was the method of renewal
introduced at the San Damiano community which Clare
wished to get a definitive form in the Rule. Unfortunately,
her daughters were not able to maintain for long that form
of cordial openness at round table. As in so many other
instances, the easy and comfortable formalism that exacts
less effort and spiritual height than sustained dialogue soon
got the upper hand. Ten years later, Urban IV’s Rule
changed the text into this: “The abbess is bound to call
together the sisters in Chapter at least once a week, for
warning, correcting and reforming. At said, Chapter, the
punishment will be mercifully imposed in proportion to the
negligences and public common faults they had
manifested.” (C, 22).

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 This is how the so called “Chapter of Faults” finally
came to prevail, wherein the fraternal openness is
substituted by a gesture of humiliation and an ascetic
personal attitude of self-accusation. The Mother Superior,
instead of setting herself at the same level by
acknowledging herself a sinner in need of support, adopts
only the role of one who hears the confession and
administers correcting and penance. That is not what Clare
practiced and desired to practice.

Communitarian Deliberation

“Let her consult with all her sisters concerning

whatever pertains to the welfare and good of the
monastery.”
The Latin expression used in the Rule “conferat” does
not denote a simple consultation, as if the abbess were just
to limit herself to expounding her ideas and plans and
asking for the sisters’ opinions. On the contrary, it means
that she initiates a genuine discussion with them, informing
them with sincerity and requiring the responsible
contribution of each one so as to better succeed on the
community’s well being. The responsibility lies really not
only on the Superior, but is distributed among all the
members of the religious family, though she will of course,
if the case arises, the one to assume the risk of the final
decision.2
The ideal is that no one withdraws from the dialogue at
the discussion of horizontal dynamics. Group psychology
teaches so today. St. Clare deems it indispensable and
offers a faith motivation: “For the Lord frequently reveals
what is best to the least [among us]. 3

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 It is in reference to the action of the Holy Spirit on
each sister, no matter how ignorant she may be. St. Francis
used to say and would have wished to write it down in his
Rule: “God does not make exemptions of persons, and the
Holy Spirit, as General Minister of the fraternity rests
equally upon the poor and simple.” (2Cel, 193).
There are two aspects in the life of the monastery that
by its own importance require in a special way the
responsible cooperation of all the sisters according to the
Rule: the important economic discussions and the
distribution by appointment of the different offices and
chores.

“On Contracting Debts”: “Let no heavy debt be

incurred except with the common consent of all the sisters
and by reason of manifest necessity, and let this be done by
the procurator.”
In the mind of Clare, this supposes that the sisters are
to be sufficiently informed on the economic situation of the
house. It is quite difficult to hold an atmosphere of
fraternal mutual understanding where a system of secrecy
reigns about the economic funds of the monastery and on
its management.
There exist a document at San Damiano, dated June 8,
1238 that eloquently shows the way St. Clare conducted
herself along this matter: Clare, in her capacity as abbess,
“at the presence and by the will and agreement of the
sisters”, empowers messer Oportulus de Bernard, in his
capacity as procurator of the monastery, to sell to the
Chapter of the cathedral of Assisi a piece of land inherited
by the monastery. At the foot of the document is the
signature of all the sisters making up the Conventual
Chapter – fifty all in all – and among them, as one among
the many, the name of Clare may be read.4
We can furthermore verify by this document how the
norm was kept at San Damiano as expressed by the Rule:
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“and this will be done by the procurator”. The peace and
solitude of contemplative life, not less than the example of
detachment from economic anxieties that the poor sisters
are to set, demand that those negotiations be not carried out
by them, but through outsiders worth trusting.
For the same reason, and because experience says that
it is often a source of “disturbance and scandal”, the Rule
forbids the “abbess and her sisters” – again a call to co-
responsibility – “to accept anything to be deposited at the
monastery for safekeeping”. Such a deposit may be one of
money, jewels or works of art. At the time of St. Clare,
these responsibilities are to be avoided by the community.

“Appointment of Chores and Offices”: “Let all who

hold offices in the monastery be chosen by the common
consent of all the sisters to preserve the unity of mutual
love and peace.”
It is difficult to imagine more fraternal and equalitarian
methods of community life. St. Clare knew well that unity
and peace suffer when domestic preferences and little
ambitions show up, so she entrusts the distribution of
offices to the good sense and rectitude of the sisters who
are to give their vote. The Rule does not seem to speak of
a strict election, which is not usually the best method to
maintain the treasure of unity in love. It is perhaps a sort of
consultative vote that may guide the abbess and her council
towards the provision of offices. It was thus stated at the
Rule of Urban IV: “Let the abbess appoint the officials of
the monastery with the advise and consent of the
community or of its highest position.”

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 The Counsellors or Discreets

The communitarian dialogue with the sharing of all the

sisters holds no juridical function but looks after fostering
mutual communication and sensitize co-responsibility
rather than coming up with decisions. They are the official
counselors, chosen by all the sisters from the most discreet,
“who aid the abbess with their advice at the moment of
making decisions. This council or “discretorium” seems to
be St. Clare’s personal creation, since it has neither a
monastic nor a Franciscan precedent. The Rule wants the
counselors to be at least eight, a very commendable number
at large communities, but may be a little too much for
lesser ones. The general practice has lowered that number
to just six.
It is fitting to note the main objective St. Clare assigns
to the “discreet”: the abbess will have to count on their
advice “on matters that the form of our life requires”. The
“form of life” is the Rule. The particular mission of the
council is therefore to help the superior in her fundamental
duty of promoting in the community faithfulness to the
Gospel life, causing it to be renewed therein unceasingly.
St. Francis had written in his first Rule: “Let no
Minister appropriate on himself serving his brothers.” One
of the things most directly opposed to inner poverty is the
attachment to the office when it becomes selfish egotism
that can only be justified as a function of service to the
brothers. So as to avoid that the sisters become guilty of
that kind of “appropriation” to the detriment of fraternal
oneness, St. Clare decrees that the officials and discreet be
easily changed and substituted by other sisters “when it
would seem useful and convenient”. The judgment on this
opportunity of changes is again left up to all the sisters.

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 We think that no founder has ever chosen such a strong
determination of developing in the members of the
religious community a mature sense of responsibility on
whatever concerns common good and of blocking every
form of self-centeredness on those exercising authority.
The Rule of St. Clare, well understood and set loyally into
practice, cannot but make out of a community a school
human maturity and Christian excellence.
Nowadays, under the Church magisterium, the
Franciscan family has rediscovered the dynamics of
fraternal life, such as it was practiced and taught by Francis
and Clare. That is how the spirit of open and responsible
dialogue has fully imbued the new Constitutions of all the
daughters of St. Clare. Everything in it as a whole,
beginning with the use of the pronoun “we”, sets us in front
of a context of “common commitment assumed with the
awareness of a gladly shared co-responsibility that every
community and sister pledged to carry out under the
leadership of the “mother and guide”, who stands as the
personal mediator of the fraternal discernment of God’s
will, before whom she will have to render an account on the
faithfulness of each one of them and on the entire
community to the common Gospel calling.
The Constitutions, following Vatican II (PC, 14)
expound the concept of “active and responsible” obedience
on the part of the sisters, and on their attitude to listen
gladly in a calm dialogue, aiming at a quick and generous
cooperation, though never losing sight of the renunciation
done to self-will. They foresee several types of exercising
this co-responsibility: 1) The “discretorium” or council
that shares in the responsibility of the abbess, with a
deliberative or consultative vote, towards the spiritual and
temporal wellness of the community; 2) the “conventual
chapter”, supreme authority of the monastery when its
deliberative vote is required at the elections and discussions
of major importance, or conditions for the personal
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discernment of the abbess when their vote is just
consultative; 3) the “chapter of fraternal revision” which
the Rule prescribes as weekly and will substitute the
traditional “chapter of faults”; 4) the “fraternal gathering”
to deal about matters of cloistered life under various
aspects.
The conventual chapter is constituted by all the sisters
of perpetual vows; on some cases, the same chapter may
admit also the rest of the sisters of the community but just
for consultative vote. According to the General
Constitutions, the abbess must summon it at least three or
four times a year and whenever matters of greater
importance concerning community life, in addition to those
cases foreseen by the Constitutions.
The Chapter of Fraternal Revision which the General
Constitutions decree to be held “at least once a month” and
that of the Capuchins “every week” – keeps the penitential
character or of commitment to the renewal St. Clare
wished. It aims at the community becoming aware of its
own level of observance, spiritual life and oneness in love;
a concrete form of communitarian life will serve as center
of attention. Apart from this revision is the humble
admission by each sister of her external and public faults,
and the admonitions and exhortations that the abbess may
deem fitting.
The Fraternal Gathering, whose vote is always
consultative, or rather an open and frank interchange of
opinions at fraternal listening will be held “at least once a
month” according to the General Constitutions, and “as
often as the chapter may decide” according to that of the
Capuchins. All the sisters of the community are to attend,
and after the abbess criterion, even the novices and
postulants (Gen. CC, art. 80, 221-223, 249-251; Cap CC
168-171, 194-196).

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Footnotes to Chapter 7:

1. “Evangelica Testificatio”, n. 25.

2. PC, 14; “Evangelica Testificatio”, n. 28.
3. The expression is borrowed from St. Benedict’s Rule: “We
said that all should be called for counsel because the Lord
often reveals to the younger what is best.” Clare substitutes
the word “younger” for “lesser”. In a Franciscan community
there is no difference between “majores” and “minores”.
4. I. Omaecheverria, “Escritos”, pp. 53-55.

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