Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/58

 not a little from the primitive model. I have seen the ‘one full meal’ which is allowed at midday protracted until four o’clock, and a partial meal has been introduced in the evening. Drink, of course, does not break the fast, except strong soup, chocolate, and a few other questionable fluids, a list of which is duly drawn up by casuists; any amount of beer or wine may be taken. And since it is, or may be, injurious to drink much without eating, a certain quantity of bread is allowed with the morning coffee; at night (or in the morning if preferred), eight or ten ounces of solid food are permitted. The Franciscans are much reproved by rival schools of theologians for their laxity in this regard, and the strained interpretation they put upon admitted principles. At one time a caricature was brought out in Rome depicting a Franciscan friar complacently attacking a huge flagon of ale and a generous allowance of bread and cheese in the middle of his fast. To the ale was attached the sound theological aphorism ‘Potus non frangit jejunium—drink does not break the fast’; the huge chunk of bread was justified by the received principle ‘Ne potus noceat—in order that the drink may do no harm,’ and the cheese was added in virtue of the well-known saying, ‘Parum pro nihilo reputatur—a little counts as nothing.’

Since there was no parish attached to the monastery at Killarney (which is the correct canonical status of a monastery), a few words must be said of