Becoming a Community of Disciples

Chapter 1: Legislative Teachings – Organization of the Monastery

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10 Moreover the Abbot is to maintain the greatest care that that the sick are not neglected by the cellarers 7 or attendants. For he is responsible for whatever is lacking in his disciples. Daily Manual Labor (RBen §48) 1 Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brothers should be occupied at certain times in manual labor, and at certain other hours in sacred reading. 2 We therefore believe that the times for each may be ordered thus: 3 from Easter [i.e., in the spring] to the first of October, on coming out after Prime they are to labor at whatever is necessary from the first until about the fourth hour; 4 from the fourth hour until about the time they say Sext they are to devote themselves to reading; 5 after Sext upon arising from table they are to rest on their beds in complete silence, or if anyone wishes to read to himself he may read, but without disturbing the others; 6 and None is to be performed rather early at the middle of the eighth hour; then they are again to work at whatever needs to be done until Vespers. 7 If, however, local necessity or poverty require that they themselves are occupied with gathering the harvest, they should not be saddened; 8 for they are then truly monks when they live by the labor of their hands, as did our fathers and the apostles. 9 But everything is to be done with proper measure on account of the fainthearted.

7 Cellarer – the monk who watches over the monastery’s belongings.