RuleStBenedict

The Rule of ST. Benedict

( A Guide For Daily Living)

This Rule of Saint Benedict should be followed by all to guide us in our daily lives. Morals are the foundation upon which a country rises to great heights. Take away morals and countries, leaders, and individuals fall. All should wear or carry this most hioghly indulgenced and exorcised nedal: The jubilee Medal of Saint Benedict.

It is written : Do all things with counsel, and the deeds shall not bring thee repentance.

In the first place, to love the Lord God with all one's heart, all one's soul and all one's strength.

Then one's neighbor as oneself.

Then not to kill.

Not to commit adultery.

Not to steal.

Not to covet.

Not to bear false witness.

To honour all men.

Not to do to another what one would not have done to oneself.

To deny oneself, in order to follow Christ.

To chastise the body.

Not to seek soft living.

To love fasting.

To relieve the poor.

To cloth the naked.

To visit the sick.

To bury the dead.

To help the afflicted.

To console the sorrowing.

To prefer nothing to the love of Christ.

Not to yield to anger.

Not to nurse a grudge.

Not to hold guile in one's heart.

Not to make a feigned peace.

Not to forsake charity.

Not to swaer, lest perchance one forswear oneself.

To utter truth from heart and mouth.

Not to render evil for evil.

To do no wrong to anyone, and to bear patiently wrongs done to oneself.

To love one's enemies.

Not to render cursing for cursing, but rather blessing.

To bear persecution for justice sake.

Not to be proud.

Not a wine bibber.

Not to be a glutton.

Not somnolent.

Not slothful.

Not a grumbler.

Not a detractor.

To put one's hope in God.

To attribute to God, and not to self, whatever good one sees in oneself.

But to recognize always that the evil is one's own doing, and to impute it to oneself.

To fear the day of judgement. To dread hell.

To keep constant guard over the actions of one's life.

To desire eternal life with all spiritual longing.

To keep death daily before one's eyes.

To know for certain that God sees one everywhere.

When evil thoughts come into one's heart, to dash them at once on the rock of Christ and to manifest then to one's spiritual advisor.

To keep one's mouth from evil and depraved talk.

Not to love much speaking.

Not to speak vain words or such as move to laughter.

To losten gladly to holy reading.

To apply oneself frequently to prayer.

Daily in one's prayer, with tears and sighs, to confess one's past sins to God. To amend those sins for the future.

Not to fulfill the desires of the flesh.

To hate one's own will.

To obey in all things the commands of the abbot, even though he himself, ( which God forbid), should act otherwise, remembering the Lord's precept: What they say, do ye, but what they do, do ye not.

Not to wish to be called holy before one is holy, but first to be holy, that one may more truly be called so.

To fulfil God's commandments daily in one's deeds.

To love chasity.

To hate no man.

Not to be jealous.

Not to give way to envy.

Not to love contention.

To shun vainglory.

To reverence the old.

To love the young.

To pray for one's enemies in the love of Christ.

To make peace with one's adversary before sundown.

And never to despair of God's mercy.

Behold these are the tools of the spiritual craft. If we employ them unceasingly day and night, and on the day of judgement render account of them, the we shall see from the Lord in return that reward which He Himself has promised: Eye has not seen nor ear heard, what God hath prepared fro those that love him. Now the workshop, wherein we shall diligently execute all these tasks, is the enclosure of the monastery and our spiritual roots in the community.