The tenth Addition is penance.
This is divided into interior and exterior. The interior is to grieve for one’s
sins, with a firm purpose of not committing them nor any others. The exterior, or
fruit of the first, is chastisement for the sins committed, and is chiefly taken in
three ways.
Third Way. The third, to chastise the flesh, that is, giving it sensible pain,
which is given by wearing haircloth or cords or iron chains next to the flesh, by
scourging or wounding oneself, and by other kinds of austerity.
Note. What appears most suitable and most secure with regard to penance is
that the pain should be sensible in the flesh and not enter within the bones, so that
it give pain and not illness. For this it appears to be more suitable to scourge oneself
with thin cords, which give pain exteriorly, rather than in another way which would
cause notable illness within.
First Note. The first Note is that the exterior penances are done chiefly for
three ends: First, as satisfaction for the sins committed;
Second, to conquer oneself – that is, to make sensuality obey reason and all
inferior parts be more subject to the superior;
Third, to seek and find some grace or gift which the person wants and
desires; as, for instance, if he desires to have interior contrition for his sins, or to
weep much over them, or over the pains and sufferings which Christ our Lord
suffered in His Passion, or to settle some doubt in which the person finds himself
Anyone who say that flagellation is "evil" or "bad for you" is a faggot.