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Handout #62 |
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The addresses and aims of the Rule of St. Benedict |
| Prologue
Son, listen to the precepts of your master; take them to your heart willingly. If you follow the advice of a tender father and travel the hard road of obedience, you will return to God, from whom by disobedience you have gone astray I will address my discourse to all of you who will renounce your own will, enter the lists under the banner of obedience, and fight under the lead,, of your lawful sovereign, Christ the Lord. I am to erect school for beginners in the service of the Lord: which I hope to establish on laws not too difficult or grievous. But if for reasonable cause, the retrenchment of vice or preservation of charity, I require some things which may seem too austere, you are not thereupon to be frightened from the ways of salvation. Those ways are always strait and narrow at the beginning. But as we advance in the practices of religion and in faith, the heart insensibly opens and enlarges through the wonderful sweetness of his love, and we run in the way of God's commandments. If then we keep close to our school and the doctrine we learn in it, and persevere in the monastery till death, we shall here share by patience in the passion of Christ and hereafter deserve to be united with him in his kingdom. Amen. Conclusion I have written this Rule with the object of showing that monks who keep it have at least something of virtuous character and must have begun to live a truly good life. But men aspire to the perfect life; and for them there are the teachings of the holy fathers, which will lead those who follow them to true perfection. What page--even sentence- of the inspired Old and New Testaments is there that is not an excellent rule of life? What book of the holy Catholic fathers is there that does not point out the nearest way to come to our Creator? The Conferences of the fathers, their Institutes and their lives; the Rule of our father, St. Basil--there are instruments to help the monk who follows them, to lead a good life; to us, idle and neglectful sinners, they are a reproach and a shame. Whoever you are, who desire to advance apace to the heavenly country, practice first, through Christ's help, this little Rule for beginners. And in the end, under God's protection, you will climb those greater heights of knowledge and virtue to which the holy fathers beckon you. Rule of St. Benedict |
