Dearest friend, ... I’m very glad that you want to become a member of the great family of St. Dominic, where, as Dante says, “You grow fat if you don’t rant and rave.” The obligations are very small otherwise you must know that I wouldn’t be able to belong to an order that required a lot. When the Saint started the third order he instituted it as an army to do battle against heretics and thus it had very strict rules, closely following the ancient rule of the first order, but now that it has been modernized there are no traces left of the strict obligations. We need to recite the Dominican Office of Our Lady or the Rosary every day, but if you deliberately omit this for one day or for a few days you don’t commit a mortal sin. I hope that you can have your investiture in the magnificent temple in Turin and then I’ll be close to you to give you the fraternal embrace; since you are already tied to me by the bond of brotherhood through the Blood of O.L.J.C., you will be doubly a brother to me through our common Father St. Dominic. I would be very pleased if you take the name of Fra Girolamo, not because it is the name that I have as a son of St. Dominic, but because it recalls a figure who is dear to me and certainly to you as well, since you share my feelings against corrupt morals, Girolamo Savonarola, whose name I most unworthily bear. I am a fervent admirer of this friar, who died on the scaffold as a saint, I wanted to take him as a model when I became a tertiary, but I am far from imitating him. Think about it and then write to me with your ideas regarding this. ... Regards to your family and a thousand best wishes to you in J.C., Fra Girolamo -- Excerpt from a letter by PGF to his friend Antonio Villani, August 1923
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 20:51:49 +0000
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