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A Method of Prayer Combining Spirit and Mind

 by Silvestro da Rossano

Translated by Patrick Colbourne OFM Cap

Silvestro Franco da Rossano (+ 1596) belongs to the ranks of the devout and popular Capuchin preachers of the later part of the sixteenth century who were anxious to launch or revitalize devotional or charitable initiatives. He stepped aside from the position of being “a learned man who was a good and accomplished preacher” who “displayed a great zeal for the Christian doctrine contained in the feasts, he established confraternities, and helped them after they had been set up and praised and recommended them in his preaching”. (cf. I Frati Cappuccini, vol II, section I, doc. 56)  In fact it was this aspect of his apostolic commitment that made the greatest impression on those who knew him. Above all else he preached about devotion to the most precious blood that had been shed by the Incarnate Word. He never missed an opportunity to emphasise this. He promoted this devotion in the Confraternities that he tried to establish in various cities where he preached. He did this in Piacenza in 1570, in Florence in 1572 and in Fermo in 1573. To this end he composed appropriate rules and norms and wrote booklets and spiritual leaflets containing an explanation of “the method” for carrying out this pious practice.

The librarians within the Order mention a particular work, which was printed in Florence in 1573 and which bore the title: Twelve Devout Considerations Concerning the Twelve Times That The Most Precious Blood of Our Saviour Jesus Christ was Shed. However, up to the present time no copy of this edition has been found. However, one of his booklets bearing the title A Method for Contemplating and Performing the Devotion to the Most Precious Blood, by F. Silvestro, a Capuchin, is listed in the Index in Parma in 1580. This work is probably more genuine, original and close to the style of the Capuchins who lived in Calabria. We do not know the reason for this prohibition. There is a booklet which was printed in Venice in 1613 which contains in a very simple and clear manner at least an abbreviated version, if not the whole, of this text, in the form of prayer intentions for each of the twelve times that the Blood of Christ was shed.  This text bears the title: A Brief Method for Praying Prompted by the Shedding of the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was precisely his activity as the advocate among the people of the spirituality of the devotion towards the Passion and the Blood of Chris that made him develop a more extensive teaching on the practice of mental prayer. In an explanatory letter to the General Inquisitor in Venice, Father Ludovico da Rimini, a Dominican, dated 31 July 1574, he personally explained this connection: “Because I had taught the devotion to the precious blood of Jesus the Saviour, as Your Reverence knew and approved, I was asked to write down some points regarding that devotion and concerning the frequency of prayer to exercise, perform and sustain this devotion”.

The mercy of the Father - His absolute fidelity to His own love - love that is stronger than death

Dear Friends,

The Paschal Mystery is Christ at the summit of the revelation of the inscrutable mystery of God. It is precisely then that the words pronounced in the Upper Room are completely fulfilled: "He who has seen me has seen the Father." In fact, Christ, whom the Father "did not spare" for the sake of man and who in His passion and in the torment of the cross did not obtain human mercy, has revealed in His resurrection the fullness of the love that the Father has for Him and, in Him, for all people. "He is not God of the dead, but of the living." In His resurrection Christ has revealed the God of merciful love, precisely because He accepted the cross as the way to the resurrection. And it is for this reason that-when we recall the cross of Christ, His passion and death-our faith and hope are centered on the Risen One: on that Christ who "on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, . . .stood among them" in the upper Room, "where the disciples were, ...breathed on them, and said to them: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'"

Here is the Son of God, who in His resurrection experienced in a radical way mercy shown to Himself, that is to say the love of the Father which is more powerful than death. And it is also the same Christ, the Son of God, who at the end of His messianic mission - and, in a certain sense, even beyond the end - reveals Himself as the inexhaustible source of mercy, of the same love that, in a subsequent perspective of the history of salvation in the Church, is to be everlastingly confirmed as more powerful than sin. The paschal Christ is the definitive incarnation of mercy, its living sign in salvation history and in eschatology. In the same spirit, the liturgy of Eastertide places on our lips the words of the Psalm: Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo.

These words of the Church at Easter re-echo in the fullness of their prophetic content the words that Mary uttered during her visit to Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah: "His mercy is...from generation to generation." At the very moment of the Incarnation, these words open up a new perspective of salvation history. After the resurrection of Christ, this perspective is new on both the historical and the eschatological level. From that time onwards there is a succession of new generations of individuals in the immense human family, in ever-increasing dimensions; there is also a succession of new generations of the People of God, marked with the Sign of the Cross and of the resurrection and "sealed" with the sign of the Paschal Mystery of Christ, the absolute revelation of the mercy that Mary proclaimed on the threshold of her kinswoman's house: "His mercy is...from generation to generation."

Mary is also the one who obtained mercy in a particular and exceptional way, as no other person has. At the same time, still in an exceptional way, she made possible with the sacrifice of her heart her own sharing in revealing God's mercy. This sacrifice is intimately linked with the cross of her Son, at the foot of which she was to stand on Calvary. Her sacrifice is a unique sharing in the revelation of mercy, that is, a sharing in the absolute fidelity of God to His own love, to the covenant that He willed from eternity and that He entered into in time with man, with the people, with humanity; it is a sharing in that revelation that was definitively fulfilled through the cross. No one has experienced, to the same degree as the Mother of the crucified One, the mystery of the cross, the overwhelming encounter of divine transcendent justice with love: that "kiss" given by mercy to justice. No one has received into his heart, as much as Mary did, that mystery, that truly divine dimension of the redemption effected on Calvary by means of the death of the Son, together with the sacrifice of her maternal heart, together with her definitive "fiat." (John Paul II, Dives in misericordia, 8...9)

Br. Paul

Towards PCO VIII

With the first meeting of the Preparation Committee, the Capuchin Friars prepare for their Eighth Plenary Council of the Order...La grazia di lavorare (On the grace of working ... or in other words On our work as gift of the Lord). 
For the previous PCO's.....

The Committee (or Commission) is headed by Br. Stefan Kozuh, the Vicar General of the Capuchin Fraternity worldwide. In his video message he extends this invitation to the Capuchin Brothers: 

Dear brothers, I send you warm greetings and best wishes for the New Year, this time not only in my name, but also in the name of the members of the Preparatory Commission for the VIII Plenary Council of the Order.

Right at the beginning of this year we have begun to work, responding to the request of the General Minister, to prepare this important event of reflection and inspiration for the Order, which will take place next year, in 2015. Our meeting focused in a particular way on preparing a working tool for the whole Order and also for you, the friar listening to me, such that the reflection on what we are and how we work should help us to live better and work with more fervor, enthusiasm, and also effectiveness.

We touched on certain points and aspects of work such as work as it strengthens our belonging to the Order, work as the fullness of personal identity, work as a means of support—for we must earn for ourselves our daily bread, work as an identification with the simple people around us, work and not excessive activity, work as means for formation—in the first stages but not only, and work as personal initiative and expression of fraternity.

In these days all of this is being developed as well as materials prepared which will be sent to the provinces and custodies to then arrive in all the fraternities. I ask you now, brother, to participate with much openness, with creativity, coming at these reflections with a prophetic gaze that will help, as the result of your work, the members of the Plenary Council that will gather in October-November of next year, but first of all will help you, brothers, you and the fraternity to reflect—not only—but perhaps also to find other ways, effective and prophetic, to work in this time. Keep up the good work!

Cari fratelli, un carissimo saluto e un cordiale augurio di un Buon Anno, questa volta non solo nel mio nome personale, ma anche nel nome dei membri della Commissione preparatoria dell’VIII° Consiglio Plenario dell’Ordine.

 Proprio all’inizio di questo anno abbiamo cominciato a lavorare, rispondendo alla richiesta del Ministro generale, per preparare questo importante evento di riflessione, e anche ispirazione per l’Ordine che avverrà nell’anno prossimo, 2015. La nostra riunione era centrata in modo speciale per preparare uno strumento di lavoro per tutto l’Ordine, anche per te fratello che mi ascolti, perché la riflessione su quello che siamo e come lavoriamo ci aiuti a vivere meglio e lavorare con più fervore, più entusiasmo, anche più efficacia.

 Abbiamo toccato alcuni punti, alcuni aspetti di lavoro come lavoro che ci da forza alla nostra appartenenza all’Ordine; lavoro come pienezza di mia identità personale; lavoro come un mezzo di sostentamento – perché dobbiamo guadagnarci il nostro pane quotidiano; lavoro come identificazione con la gente semplice che ci circonda; lavoro e non attivismo; lavoro come mezzo di formazione – nelle prime tappe e non solo; lavoro come iniziativa personale e espressione di fraternità. In questi giorni si sta sviluppando tutto questo, si sta preparando un materiale che sarà mandato alle province, custodie, e poi arriverà anche nella tua fraternità. Ti chiedo già ora, fratello, di partecipare con molta apertura, con creatività, con uno sguardo profetico a queste riflessioni che aiuteranno, come risultato del vostro lavoro ai membri del Consiglio plenario che si radunerà in ottobre-novembre dell’anno prossimo, ma prima di tutto aiuteranno a Voi, fratelli, a Te e alla tua fraternità per riflettere – ma non solo – chissà, anche per trovare altri modi, efficaci e profetici, di lavorare in questo tempo. Buon lavoro!