Be attentive to prayer at fixed times and appointed hours.
To occupy oneself in prayer outside the allotted time is an act of spiritual providence ; to pray at the appointed hour carries with it the merit of obedience ; to allow the time of prayer to go by unheeded is an act of negligence. Our prayer should be the more frequent as we possess a clearer knowledge of its value. Constantly and fervently must we pray, because through this means God promises us immense blessings. Indeed ” eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.” He will not have these favours become small in our estimation through too great facility in seeking and finding. Precisely because a most precious and desirable reward awaits the eager worker, our Lord encourages us with these words in the Gospel : ” Ask and it shall be given you,
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seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you” (Matt. vii. 7).
The kingdom of God is not promised to the slothful, the tepid, or the careless, but, as Holy Scripture says, it “suffereth violence, and only the violent bear it away” (Matt. xi. 12). God takes delight in the constancy and importunity of our petitions because if His benefits are great, our desires of them must not be small. There must be a proportion between the immensity of the rewards and our yearning after them. Then if God is not pleased to hear us at our first pleading, not on that account must we cease seeking and knocking, but with all the more eagerness must we persevere, and with the more persistent cry must we beseech Him who alone is our Saviour, until at last He accede to the suppliant’s wish. And if any of us feel her conscience, her thoughts, or her deeds to have been sullied with the uncleanness of any vice, then she must beg the mercy of her Redeemer in constant weeping, and ask at the same time the intercession and aid of the Saints of God. If thus we persevere and keep our minds long intent upon the object of our prayer after the example of the Canaanite woman, then will the grace of our Redeemer soon come upon us, to correct all our failures, to cleanse all impurities, to calm all our troubles. For He is faithful and just in His promise to condone all our sins and purge us from all iniquity if only our souls cry out with the voice of earnest pleading.
In order that the religious may be able to pray in secret and in quiet, it is further written : —
In the oratory let nothing be done but what relates to prayer (from which the place takes its name). So that if perchance any in their free time should wish to pray there, outside the fixed hours, they may not be hindered by those who should think of engaging there in other occupation.
Our Lord cast out the buyers and sellers from the temple, saying : ” My house shall be called the house of prayer” (Matt. xxi. 13), in order to teach that there should be no occupation but prayer in the house of the Lord. Every church is established only for this purpose, for it is the house of God and the gate of heaven. It is here that sinners find reconciliation, and the just, sanctification : here the divine mysteries are unfolded and heavenly sacraments handled. Wherefore Solomon said : ” Lord, if thy people, being converted, shall pray to thee in this place, then hear them from heaven and forgive the sin of thy people, Israel” (2 Paralip. vi. 24).
So then we must use the utmost care that in the sanctuary nothing be done either to offend the eyes of the Divine Majesty or to distract them that would pray there. It is next pointed out what should be the manner of our prayer : —
When you pray to God in psalms and hymns let the heart ponder what the mouth utters.
Those that sing in the church must fix their
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mind upon the words expressed, thus fulfilling the sentiment of the Apostle : ” I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the understanding” (i Cor. xiv. 15). Only thus will the constancy of our prayers prove fruitful — if we turn over in the mind what we utter with the lips. On the other hand, God does not give ear to the prayer to which even he who prays gives no attention. This lack of attention but too often occurs with us through the temptation of the evil one. He knows well the utility of prayer ; he envies us the privilege of being able to address ourselves to God, and therefore stirs up a tumult of thoughts in those “that are at prayer so as to lead the mind off that holy exercise and rob it of its fruit. Against his malice we must practise constancy of will, so that the more he attacks us with troubling thoughts, so much the more stoutly must the soul stand fast in the faithful observance of its whole state of life. For it conduces much to the sanctity of our prayer to restrain ourselves from unlawful deeds in every place and at every season; to chasten the hearing, as well as the tongue, from all idle talk ; to train ourselves to walk ever in God’s law and search deeply into His commands with all our heart. The things we are accustomed most frequently to do, to speak of, to hear about, by force of habit must needs recur again to the mind as to their natural abode.
And do not sing anything but what is ordained
to be sung; and what is not so noted is not to be sung.
It is not right that the church singing should be varied according to the ideas of different persons. It should be steadily maintained according to the written and traditional use of those that have gone before us. In the same way all other customs of the convent ought to be regulated by authority and discretion. And if aught is to be changed or newly established, this should not be hastily or lightly decided upon, nor yet merely on the opinion of two or three. But the matter should be arranged as the chief part of the chapter shall judge best, when all have been gathered together to consider it. We must know that ecclesiastical authority is always to be followed before private reasoning. For authority is ever the safeguard of humility and obedience, whereas reason not unfrequently leads to presumption. This principle is always to be regarded in a religious order if it is to shine by maturity and gravity. St Paul says of himself: “Did I use lightness … that there should be with me, It is and it is not}” (2 Cor. i. 17). For it is becoming, and especially in keeping with the religious state, to refrain from easily or lightly introducing change.
Subdue your flesh by fasting and abstinence from meat and drink, as much as your health may allow.
“The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the
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3*
spirit against the flesh” (Gal. v. 17). But for fear that the flesh might gain the mastery, all spiritual persons must repress this lusting of the flesh by exerting the energy of the spirit. For as the flesh is controlled, the spirit is strengthened. And when the rule adds, “as much as your health may allow,” it commands the use of the virtue of discretion. Indeed, all good works suffer if they be not done with discretion. So that each one must make use of abstinence to subdue the flesh only in as far as the constitution will allow. One that afflicts the body beyond measure may be said to slay a fellow - citizen ; whilst another who pampers it with overmuch delicacy, supports an enemy. The flesh must therefore be so nourished that it may be able to serve : it must be so repressed that it may not rebel. In all our penance we must seek to destroy, not our body, but our vices.
And if any one of you cannot fast, still let him not take food out of meal time, unless when sick.
Gluttony is the first of the seven capital sins, a vice that may be excited sometimes by objects small and trifling. The first man was tempted not by flesh, but by an apple ; Esau was tempted, not with a dish of fowl, but with a simple mess of pottage ; our Saviour was tempted, not with meat, but with bread. Now there are three kinds of gluttony. One consists in partaking immoderately
of food or drink. The second is to desire too delicate a sort of meat or drink. The third is in the act of eating and drinking outside the proper times. We regard the time up to * Tierce as being outside the meal-time, because up to this hour it is not the custom with us to eat or drink except in case of sickness. It is allowable for the sick to take nourishment at any time. For them no rule is set down. For those that cannot fast, but yet are not to be counted as sick, we consider the hour of repast to be between Tierce and Sext, and for those that fast between None and Vespers. Thus we follow the advice of the Apostle that “all things be done decently and according to order ” (i Cor. xiv. 40). Indeed we must not only be temperate in the use of food and drink, but we must also observe the regular hours for taking our food, lest we give occasion of scandal by irregularity. It would indeed be most harmful if our life were in this respect reprehensible, seeing that it is incumbent upon us to show to others the pattern of good living.
1 The reference to the time of the recitation of the little hours and to the meal-time has no application in modern arrangements. Originally, Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None were to be recited at the first, third, sixth, and ninth hour from sunrise, as the names indicate.
Obviously, the point that is still in force is that which concerns the abstention from food outside the regular meal-times as observed in each community.
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