Program / Course 3: The Rule of Life / Lesson 1.1
What you will learn
- Define a rule of life and explain where the word rule comes from.
- Name the parts of a typical Christian rule: prayer, Scripture, work, rest, giving and service.
- Explain why the tradition says a rule exists to serve love and not to earn God’s favor.
- Tell a healthy rule from a rigid or boastful one.
The big idea
A rule of life is a written and realistic pattern for the day, the week and the year. It says when a person will pray, what will be read, when work and rest happen, and how time and money will be given to others. The aim is not to win God’s favor by performance. The aim is to give ordinary life a shape in which attention to God becomes a habit and not an accident. A good rule is a trellis for a living plant, not a cage.
Key terms
- Rule of life
- A pattern of prayer, reading, work, rest and service that a person or community agrees to keep, usually written down.
- Regula
- The Latin word behind the English word rule. It means a straight stick, a ruler or measure, and so a guide.
- Asceticism
- Training of body and habit, such as fasting or early rising, for the sake of the spiritual life. The word comes from a Greek word for exercise.
- Monk
- A man who lives under a rule, usually in community, set apart for prayer and work. A woman in the same life is a nun.
- Discipline
- A practice taken up on purpose and repeated, in order to grow in some habit of mind or heart. The word is related to disciple, a learner.
- Legalism
- Treating rules as the way to earn standing with God, or as a way to judge other people. The tradition warns against it.
Background
Most people already live by a rule, although they rarely write it down. A person who checks a phone before getting out of bed, eats at the desk and falls asleep to a screen has a pattern for the day. The pattern forms habits, and habits form attention. A rule of life asks a plain question: what pattern would shape my days in the direction I say I want to go? Christians have asked this since the earliest centuries, and they have answered it by choosing set times and practices for prayer, reading, work and rest.
The best known rules were written for monks. Pachomius in Egypt, Basil of Caesarea in Asia Minor and Benedict of Nursia in Italy each wrote guidance for communities in the fourth to sixth centuries. Later lessons treat each of them. Their rules were written for people who had left ordinary life. Yet Christians living in towns, with children and jobs, have borrowed from them ever since. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians all have forms of daily rule, and they differ in how formal and how detailed the rule should be.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: The word and the idea
The English word rule comes from the Latin regula, a straight bar used to draw lines or measure. Benedict used the word for his small book, the Rule of Benedict, and it has stayed in use since. A rule in this sense is not a list of punishments. It is a measure, a standard that keeps a life from drifting.
Benedict’s Prologue calls the monastery a school for the Lord’s service and says he hopes to set down nothing harsh or burdensome. The picture is a school, a place where people learn by repeated practice under guidance. This lesson uses that picture throughout. A rule is a way of learning to pray, not a test that is passed or failed.
Step 2: The usual parts of a rule
Traditional rules cover the same ground in different proportions. They set times of prayer, often morning and evening, sometimes midday and night. They name the reading of Scripture and, in some traditions, of other books. They include work, since monks and ordinary Christians alike must earn a living or do the tasks of a household. They include rest, meals and sleep. They mention fasting and giving to the poor, and they say how guests and neighbors are to be treated.
A modern rule for an ordinary person will usually add three things the monastic rules assumed: the needs of a family, the demands of a paid job and some plan for worship with others. The ordinary parts are not extras. A rule that ignores a sick parent or a night shift is a fantasy, and the tradition treats fantasy as a danger.
Step 3: What a rule is for
The purpose of a rule is to make room for God and for other people. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray (Luke 11:2) and warns against prayer meant for show (Matthew 6:5-6). Paul writes that Christians should pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Nobody can do that on feeling alone. A rule gives the intention a place in the calendar, so that prayer happens on the days when it does not feel like prayer.
Christians across the traditions agree that a rule does not buy forgiveness or earn grace. Catholic and Orthodox writers see a rule as cooperation with grace, a way of opening the soul to what God already offers. Protestants stress that salvation is a gift, and that a rule is a response of gratitude and a help against laziness. All three can say that the rule is for love: love of God and love of neighbor.
Step 4: How a rule goes wrong
A rule goes wrong in two directions. It can be too strict, so that a person lies awake feeling guilty for missing an hour of prayer, or looks down on others who keep no rule. Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27), and the same holds for any practice. A rule can also be too loose to count, a vague hope to pray more. Benedict’s term for the right measure is discretion, a sense of what a particular person can actually carry.
A third failure is the rule kept in secret and never examined. Without review, a rule can drift into a habit of pride or an empty ritual. Later lessons on accountability and review give tools for guarding against that.
- What patterns already shape my day, whether or not I chose them?
- What would I most want a rule to protect: time with God, time with family, rest, or something else?
- Which part of my present life is the least ordered, and what harm does that cause?
- Am I tempted to make my rule too ambitious in order to impress myself or someone else?
- Who depends on me, and what would a rule have to include so that they are not neglected?
- How would I know in a month whether the rule is helping me love God and others?
Examples
A rule that fits
A bus driver prays a short psalm before his morning shift, reads one chapter of a Gospel during his break, and says an evening prayer with his children. He keeps one afternoon a week free of chores. The rule is small, but he keeps it. (A constructed example, not a real person.)
A rule that is too heavy
A student reads about monks and decides to rise at 3:00 a.m., fast every day and pray for two hours. Within two weeks she is exhausted, misses her classes and drops the rule altogether. She concludes that she is no good at prayer. (A constructed example. The fault was the plan, not the person.)
A rule that is only a wish
A man says he intends to pray more and read the Bible more. He sets no time, no place and no length. A year later he cannot say whether anything has changed. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
The monastic tradition (Catholic and Orthodox)
In both traditions the rule is a structure that frees a person from the tyranny of mood. Monks and nuns keep it under the guidance of an abbot or abbess. Lay Catholics may take it up through a third order or as an oblate of a monastery, and many Orthodox lay people keep a prayer rule agreed with a spiritual father.
The Protestant tradition
The Reformers rejected the idea that monks lived a higher Christian life. They still taught daily prayer and Scripture reading. Luther’s Small Catechism provides short morning and evening prayers for households. Later movements, such as the English Puritans and the early Methodists under John Wesley, developed detailed habits of prayer, Bible reading and examination. Wesley’s General Rules for Methodist societies are one example.
The Anglican approach
The Book of Common Prayer, first issued in the sixteenth century, set out a daily pattern of Morning and Evening Prayer for clergy and lay people. It is a rule in the shape of a prayer book, built from Psalms and Scripture readings.
A scholarly view
Historians of religion note that many traditions, Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist among them, use set daily practices. Scholars disagree about how much the Christian forms borrowed from others and how much grew from Jewish prayer and the New Testament. What is clear is that the habit of a written pattern appears early and lasts.
Why it matters
Without a plan, the urgent crowds out the important. Prayer and Scripture rarely happen by accident in a busy life. A rule is a modest way to ask whether the day has a shape or only a succession of demands. Understanding what a rule is for, and how it fails, comes first, because a person who begins with a harsh or boastful rule usually gives up and is then tempted to give up on prayer altogether.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: A rule of life is only for monks and nuns.
Correction: The first rules were written for monastic communities, but Christians in every century have adapted them for households and jobs. Benedict himself called his rule a modest beginning. Today lay people, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant, keep forms of rule.
Misunderstanding: Keeping a rule earns salvation.
Correction: No major tradition teaches this. Catholic and Orthodox teaching describes the rule as cooperation with grace. Protestant teaching describes it as a response of gratitude. In all three, the rule serves love and does not buy forgiveness.
Misunderstanding: A rule means I must never miss a day.
Correction: A rule is a measure, not a trap. The tradition expects missed days and teaches return without despair. Benedict asks for discretion, and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers repeat the advice to begin again.
Misunderstanding: A strict rule proves a person is serious.
Correction: Heroic plans often fail within weeks. The tradition values a small rule kept faithfully above a large one abandoned.
Knowledge check
What is a rule of life, and what is its purpose?
A rule of life is a pattern of prayer, reading, work, rest and service that a person or community agrees to keep. The word rule comes from the Latin regula, a measuring stick or guide. Its purpose is not to earn God’s favor but to give daily life a shape in which attention to God becomes habitual and in which other people are not neglected.
Name four things a typical rule covers.
Typical rules cover set times of prayer, reading of Scripture, work, rest and meals, fasting, giving to the poor and the welcome of guests. Any four of these is a correct answer. Modern rules for lay people add family duties, paid work and worship with others.
How did Benedict describe the monastery in his Prologue?
He called it a school for the Lord’s service and said he hoped to establish nothing harsh or burdensome. The picture is a school, where people learn through repeated practice under guidance. A rule on this model is for learning, not for testing.
Give two ways a rule can go wrong.
A rule can be too strict, producing guilt and pride, or too vague, leaving nothing to keep. It can also go unexamined and become empty habit. The tradition’s answer to each is discretion, review and, where possible, the counsel of a trusted person.
Think it through
- What is the shape of your day now? Where does the day have a center, and where does it have none?
- Which of the failures in Step 4 are you most likely to fall into, and why?
- Why might a rule be freeing as well as binding?
Independent assignment
A map of an ordinary day
In your own notebook, write 300 to 400 words. List the hours of a typical weekday: waking, work, meals, rest, screens and sleep. Mark in the margin the two places where a short time of prayer or reading could fit without taking time from anyone who depends on you. Then name one pattern in your present day that you would want a rule to change. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.
Further study
- Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of St. Benedict Read the Prologue and notice the language of a school and of a gentle beginning.
- Martin Luther, The Small Catechism Read the morning and evening prayers for households.
- Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection Read a few sayings on beginning again after failure.
- Luke 11:2 Jesus teaches the Lord’s Prayer.
- Matthew 6:6 Pray to your Father in secret.
- Mark 2:27 The Sabbath was made for man.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.