God restored peace to his Church. The reasons which led to the institution of the Militia of Jesus Christ no longer existed, the association therefore lost its military characteristic. When the men who were members of it died, their widows accustomed to the religious life which they had observed, renounced marriage, and persevered in their holy practices until death. Other widows who had not contracted the same engagements, but who would not marry again imitated the Sisters of Penance and adopted their rule in order to purify themselves from past faults. By degrees their number increased in the different cities of Italy, and the Friar Preachers directed them according to the Spirit of St. Dominic. But as there was nothing settled in this direction, a Spanish Friar, called Brother Munie, a Religious of saintly memory, who had governed the whole Order, committed the Rule to writing, and it still exists. This Rule is not absolutely a religious Rule, because it does not require the three Vows, which are the foundation of every Religious Order.
The Sisters of Penance continually increasing in numbers and sanctity, the sovereign Pontiff Honorius IV., in consideration of their merit, granted them by a bull, the permission to hear the Offices in the Churches of the Friar Preachers, even during the period of the interdict; John XXII, after having promulgated the bull Clementina against the Beguiues and the Begards, declared formally that his prohibitions did not extend to "St. Dominic's Sister of Penance, which existed in Italy and in whose Rule there was nothing that needed change.
