A discipline is a small scourge (whip) used by members of some Christian denominations (including Anglicans, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics, among others) in the spiritual discipline known as mortification of the flesh. Many disciplines contain seven cords, symbolizing the seven deadly sins and seven virtues. They also often contain three knots on each cord, representing the number of days Jesus Christ remained in the tomb after bearing the sins of humanity. Those who use the discipline often do so during the penitential season of Lent, but others use it on other occasions, and some have used it every day.
Video Discipline (instrument of penance)
History and practice
In the Christian Bible, Saint Paul writes: "I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:27 NRSV). Christians who use the discipline do so as a means of partaking in the mortification of the flesh to aid in the process of sanctification; they also "inflict agony on themselves in order to suffer as Christ and the martyrs suffered." In antiquity and during the Middle Ages, when Christian monastics would mortify the flesh as a spiritual discipline, the name of the object that they used to practice this also became known as the discipline. By the 11th century, the use of the discipline for Christians who sought to practice the mortification of the flesh became ubiquituous throughout Christendom.
With the Roman Catholic Church, the discipline is used by some austere Catholic religious orders. The Cistercians, for example, use the discipline to mortify their flesh after praying the Compline. The Capuchins have a ritual observed thrice a week, in which the psalms Miserere Mei Deus and De Profundis are recited while friars flagellate themselves with a discipline. Saints within the Roman Catholic Church, such as Dominic Loricatus, Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, among others, used the discipline on themselves to aid in their sanctification.
Votarists of some Anglican religious orders practice self-flagellation with a discipline. Within Anglicanism, the use of the discipline became "quite common" among many members of the Tractarian movement. Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Churches, practiced mortification of the flesh through fasting and self-flagellation, even sleeping in a stone cell without a blanket. Congregationalist writer and leader within the evangelical Christian movement, Sarah Osborn, practiced self-flagellation in order "to remind her of her continued sin, depravity, and vileness in the eyes of God".
Maps Discipline (instrument of penance)
See also
- Conditional preservation of the saints
- Repentance (Christianity)
- Sackcloth
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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