No One May Pray with a Brother Suspended from Prayer

Further, if one of them has been suspended from prayer for some fault he has committed, no one has any freedom to pray with him until he has done his penance lying on the ground, and reconciliation and pardon for his offense have been publicly granted him by the abbot before all the brothers. They separate themselves in this way and cut themselves off from fellowship with him in prayer for this reason: they believe that one who is suspended from prayer is, as the apostle says, “handed over to Satan.” If anyone, moved by thoughtless affection, dares to join him in prayer before he has been received back by the elder, he makes himself a sharer in his condemnation, and of his own free will hands himself over to Satan, to whom the other had been handed for the correction of his guilt. [a]

And in this he falls into a more serious offense, because by joining him in fellowship, whether in talk or in prayer, he gives him grounds for still greater arrogance, and only encourages and worsens the offender’s stubbornness. For by giving him a comfort that does only harm, he will make his heart still harder and will not let him humble himself for the fault for which he was excommunicated. Through this he will make him count the elder’s rebuke as nothing, and harbor deceitful thoughts about amends and absolution.