Vigils Reading

THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTER

OF MONASTIC PROFESSION

From “Mirror of Charity” by St Aelred of Rievaulx

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Although it may not seem completely pertinent to our subject, I think it

advisable for us who are called monks to take into account and examine more

closely the force of our rule. Since many things are said there about things

spiritual and physical, let us investigate by careful questioning which of these

the force of the rule and the norm of our profession consist of most particularly.

I read a letter on this subject by a certain person who replied as follows to

someone who had questioned him on this:

“I do not hesitate to say that the rule of the monastic state, yes the virtue of

the monastic order, indeed, the essential character of monastic profession itself,

consists in those practices which make the monk when all others cease to exist,

and without which the others, I will not say do not make a monk, but do not even

give an idea of what a monk is.

“But what are these? The things we have solemnly promised and whose

stability and observance we have sworn to God and his saints [to keep]. And

what are they?

“Stability in the monastery”…”conversion of our life, and obedience

according to the Rule of Saint Benedict.” And further on, [he adds]: “I want to go

back to Saint Benedict’s book for monks and I will point out in it how the things

which we have already stated constitute the essential character of our rule and,

even more, of our monastic profession, so my mind may comprehend them as

necessary; I will strive with complete devotion to fulfill my promises and those

things which I have vowed—to the extent that the Lord will grant this to me. But

as for the other things, I will try to accomplish them, not as part of the body of

our rule, but as practices which support and sustain it.”

We would perhaps be in doubt as to what those other things are, had he

not himself introduced them afterwards: not to go out of the cloister, to practice

manual work, the quantity of food and drink, the number of dishes and their

variety, the bedding, the use of trousers only by those sent on a journey.

“What then”, he says? “If these are of the essential character of monastic

profession, dispensing someone from them or changing any of them on

occasion would not be allowed, would it? Otherwise, no essential character

exists, and I am discovered not to be a monk once I have destroyed in myself

what is essential to being a monk.”

At the end of his tractate, he says: “So then, beloved brother…since it is

permitted to give dispensation in these matters, just as blessed Benedict himself

also dispensed monks of delicate health to eat meat, and those sent on a

journey, at least, to wear trousers, so also, I say, that because these matters

admit of dispensation and change, they are not part of the essential character of

profession.”…

What he has called the body of the Rule and the essential character of

monastic profession is clear: stability, conversion of life, and obedience

according to the Rule of Saint Benedict.