Becoming a Community of Disciples

Chapter 6: Spiritual Teachings – Virtues and Discipline

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every hour his sins, he should estimate himself as present at the terrible judgment, 65 saying always in his heart what the publican in the Gospel said with eyes fixed on the earth: Lord, I am not worthy, sinner that I am, to lift my eyes up to heaven (Luke 18:13); 66 and again, with the prophet: I am bent down and humbled in every way (Pss 38:7–9; 119:107). 67 Having therefore ascended all these steps of humility, the monk will soon arrive at that love of God which, being perfect, casts out fear (1 John 4:18): 68 whereby all that he formerly observed not without dread, he will begin to keep without effort, as if naturally, out of habit; 69 no longer from fear of hell but for the love of Christ, from good habit and delight in virtue. 70 This God through the Holy Spirit will now grant his laborer to manifest, cleansed from vices and sins. 1 Above all this vice is to be cut out by the roots from the monastery, 2 no one may presume to give or receive anything without the Abbot’s order 3 nor to have anything as their own—not anything—neither book, writing-tablet, pen, nor anything at all 4 since it is not allowed that even their body or their will should remain subject to their own will: 5 rather, for all necessary things let them trust to the father of the monastery, since none of them is allowed to have anything which the Abbot has not given or permitted. 6 All things are to be held in common by all, as it is written, so that no one may say or presume that anything is his own (Acts 4:32). Whether Monks Should Have Anything of Their Own (RBen §33)