Reading Saint Benedict

Cistercians are men and women who follow Saint Benedict's Rule for Monks and the Constitutions of Citeaux. Settling in 1098 in a remote burgundian marsh (in Latin a cisterna), the first Cistercians determined to live simply and to balance in their lives common prayer, personal reflection, and manual labor. For guidance they read the Bible, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the documents of centuries of christian monasticism. The literature they created resonates their love of God and their reasoned analysis of the intensely personal experience of growth through self-knowledge to self-acceptance to the perception of God.
Cistercian Publications brings the insights of these remarkable twelfth century writers into English in its Cistercian Fathers Series. A companion Cistercian Studies Series augments these texts with translations of ancient, medieval, and modern monastic literature, and with works of scholarship and spirituality touching the claustral tradition. Translators work from the finest available critical scholarship and strive to strike a balance between fidelity to the original and contemporary ways of expression.

To Novices	p. 11
Daily Reading of the Rule	p. 17
Principal Abbreviations	p. 19
Prologue	p. 21
The kinds of monks	p. 37
What the abbot must be	p. 42
Summoning the brothers for counsel	p. 52
The tools of good works	p. 56
Obedience	p. 67
Stillness	p. 72
Humility	p. 75
The Divine Offices at night	p. 101
How many psalms should be said during the night hours?	p. 105
How nocturnal praise should be celebrated during the summer season	p. 109
How Vigils should be celebrated on Sundays	p. 111
How the solemnity of Matins is to be celebrated	p. 115
Ordinary Days: How Matins are to be celebrated	p. 118
The Anniversaries of Saints: How Vigils are to be celebrated	p. 121
At what times the Alleluia is to be said	p. 123
How the Divine Offices are to be celebrated during the day	p. 125
How many psalms should be chanted at these same hours?	p. 129
In what order are these psalms to be said?	p. 132
Behavior during psalmody	p. 140
Reverence in prayer	p. 142
The deans of the monastery	p. 146
How the monks are to sleep	p. 149
Excommunication for faults	p. 152
What the degree of excommunication is to be	p. 155
Serious faults	p. 158
Those who associate with the excommunicated without permission	p. 161
How the abbot must show concern for the excommunicated	p. 163
Those who refuse to amend after frequent reproofs	p. 166
Whether brothers who leave the monastery are to be readmitted	p. 169
Young children: How they are to be reproved	p. 172
The monastery cellarer: What he must be	p. 174
The tools and goods of the monastery	p. 181
Whether monks are to have anything of their own	p. 184
Whether all are to receive essentials equally	p. 187
The kitchen servers of the week	p. 190
The sick brothers	p. 195
The elderly and children	p. 199
The reader for the week	p. 201
The measure of food	p. 205
The measure of drink	p. 209
At what times shall the brothers take their meals?	p. 213
Let no one speak after Compline	p. 216
Those who arrive late at the work of God or at table	p. 220
Those who are excommunicated: How they make satisfaction	p. 225
Those who make mistakes in the oratory	p. 228
Those who commit faults or anything else	p. 230
Announcing the hours for the Work of God	p. 232
Daily manual labor	p. 234
The observance of Lent	p. 242
Brothers working at a distance from the oratory or travelling	p. 247
Brothers on a short journey	p. 249
The oratory of the monastery	p. 251
The reception of guests	p. 254
Should a monk receive letters or anything else?	p. 260
The brothers' clothing and footwear	p. 262
The abbot's table	p. 267
The artisans of the monastery	p. 269
The procedure for receiving brothers	p. 272
Sons of nobles and sons of poor people who are offered	p. 281
Priests who wish to dwell in the monastery	p. 284
Unknown monks: How they are to be received	p. 287
The priests of the monastery	p. 291
Community rank	p. 294
The ordination of the abbot	p. 299
The monastery's provost	p. 306
The porters of the monastery	p. 311
Brothers sent on a journey	p. 314
If impossible tasks are assigned to a brother	p. 317
Let no one in the monastery presume to defend another	p. 320
Let no one presume to strike another at will	p. 322
Let them obey one another	p. 325
The good zeal which the monks must have	p. 328
The observance of all justice is not prescribed in this Rule	p. 333
Abbreviations and Sources Cited	p. 339
Index	p. 349
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Reading Saint Benedict

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