Celestines
The Celestines were a
Founding
The fame of the holy life and the austerities practised by Pietro Morone in his solitude on the Mountain of Majella, near Sulmona, attracted many visitors, several of whom were moved to remain and share his mode of life. They built a small convent on the spot inhabited by the holy hermit, which became too small for the accommodation of those who came to share their life of privations.[2] Peter of Morone (later Pope Celestine V), their founder, built a number of other small oratories in that neighborhood.
Around the year 1254, Peter of Morone gave the order a rule formulated in accordance with his own practices. In 1264 the new institution was approved as a branch of the
As soon as he had seen his new order thus consolidated he gave up the government of it to a certain Robert, and retired once again to an even more remote site to devote himself to solitary penance and prayer. Shortly afterwards, in a chapter of the order held in 1293, the original monastery of Majella being judged to be too desolate and exposed to too rigorous a climate, it was decided that the
After the death of the founder the order was favoured and privileged by Benedict XI, and rapidly spread through Italy, Germany, Flanders, and France, where they were received by Philip the Fair in 1300.[5]
The administration of the order was carried on somewhat after the pattern of Cluny, that is all monasteries were subject to the Abbey of the Holy Ghost at Sulmona, and these dependent houses were divided into provinces. The Celestines had ninety-six houses in Italy, twenty-one in France, and a few in Germany.[6]
Subsequently, the French Celestines, with the consent of the Italian superiors of the order, and of Pope Martin V in 1427, obtained the privilege of making new constitutions for themselves, which they did in the 17th century in a series of regulations accepted by the provincial chapter in 1667. At that time the French congregation of the order was composed of twenty-one monasteries, the head of which was that of Paris, and was governed by a Provincial with the authority of General. Paul V was a notable benefactor of the order. The order became extinct in the eighteenth century.[6]
Description of order
According to their special constitutions the Celestines were bound to say matins in the choir at two o'clock in the morning, and always to abstain from eating meat, save in illness. The distinct rules of their order with regard to fasting are numerous, but not more severe than those of similar congregations, though much more so than is required by the old Benedictine rule. In reading their minute directions for divers degrees of abstinence on various days, it is impossible to avoid being struck by the conviction that the great object of the framers of these rules was the general purpose of ensuring an ascetic mode of life.
The Celestines wore a white
References
- ISBN 0-226-31032-9.
- ^ a b c Loughlin, James. "Pope St. Celestine V." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 20 November 2015
- ^ "Benedictine Congregation of the Celestines (O.S.B. Cel.)" GCatholic.org. Gabriel Chow. Retrieved June 20, 2016
- ISBN 9780198614425
- ^ Müller, Annalena. "The Celestine Monks of France, C.1350–1450: Observant Reform in an Age of Schism, Council and War. By Robert L. J. Shaw. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018. 294 Pp. €105.00 Cloth." Church History 89.1 (2020): 178-79
- ^ a b Brookfield, Paul. "Celestine Order." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 16 (Index). New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1914. 20 November 2015
External links
- Media related to Celestine order at Wikimedia Commons
- Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). 1911. .