DISCIPLINA. — An instrument of penance, ordinarily consisting of an arrangement of ropes or chains, small or large, simple or ending in bars and balls made of hard substances (wood, metals), used to chastise the flesh by flagellation.
The use of these and similar instruments of penance is common in the history of Christian asceticism and is frequently recalled in the lives of the saints, constituting an exercise in spiritual perfection. The principle on which it is mortification (v.) as a means for God’s complete triumph in the soul.
The use of the d., when undertaken for supernatural motives—for penance, satisfaction, or petition—is highly meritorious. It helps to subdue the body (cf. I Cor. 9, 27), to overcome carnal concupiscence, and to conquer various temptations. It creates a habit of humility, which prepares the soul for special graces from the Lord, since it is a practical acknowledgment by the penitent that he is a sinner and needs the mercy of God, offended by sins. It nourishes the spirit of compunction and austerity, and makes one like Christ, who suffered flagellation.
Spiritual masters chiefly recommend it for three purposes: 1) to make satisfaction for past sins; 2) to conquer oneself, that is, so that sensuality may obey reason and all the lower parts of man may be more submissive to the higher; 3) to seek and obtain some grace or spiritual gift, such as sorrow and weeping for sins, an interior awareness of the sufferings that Christ endured in his Passion, or the resolution of some doubt (cf. s. Ignazio di Loyola, Exerc. spir., addit. 10). Physical mortification does not in fact eradicate vices directly, as though physically or physiologically, but by introducing into the soul supernatural motives that make it flee those vices, and by drawing from God special graces to avoid them.
Such chastisement of the flesh must, however, be regulated by discretion; care must be taken that the pain be felt in the flesh, but that it cause neither illness nor the impairment of greater goods. Ordinarily it is recommended that flagellation
not be prolonged for a long time. The immoderate use of such instruments of penance, if accompanied by a certain obstinacy, without or against the advice of the spiritual director, can become harmful.
Conversely, one is mistaken who considers every use of the d. and of other external mortifications useless and wishes to suppress it (cf. the doctrine of Molinos condemned by Innocent XI, Propos., 38, 39; Denz-U, 1258-59; and the condemnation of Americanism: Denz-U, 1972).