THE RULE OF LIFE
• Introduction • Chapter I • Chapter II • Chapter III • Chapter IV • Chapter V •
• Chapter VI • Chapter VII • Chapter VIII • Chapter IX •
THE RULE OF LIFE
Proposed
to the Religious Congregation of
the Blessed Virgin Mary
conceived without stain of sin,
or the Marians Hermits,
assisting the faithful departed,
especially of soldiers
and those who died of pestilence
and corrected
by the Most Eminent and Reverend Lord
Leander Cardinal Colloredo, member of
the Commission of the Congregation for
Regulars and Bishops
In Rome, in the Year of the Lord 1694.
Chapter I
The Aim of the Community and Admission to it
1. Since no community can exist except under the guidance of laws, nor would it be possible for one to live without law in this earthly existence: because of this, you who have been gathered together in one society and enclosed in monasteries under the governance of one superior, will strive to observe these very few Statutes (over and above the Rule of St. Augustine),[1] for your inner peace and security of your consciences.
2. First, consider diligently and assiduously what the aim of your Congregation is. [It is] the one that all the Orders have in common with you: the greater increase of God's glory, and care for your own salvation combined with serious striving for perfection. What does it profit a man, teaches the Savior, "if he gains the whole world, but suffers the detriment of his own soul?" (*cf Mt 16:26) But lest you remain without work in the Vineyard of the Lord (*cf Mt 20:31), to the utmost of strength you will promote devotion to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God, and with utmost zeal, piety and fervor assist the souls of the faithful departed subjected to expiatory pains - especially the souls of soldiers and those who died of pestilence.
3. Since the contemplative life is not binding you so strictly, although you are founded in the eremitical status, those gifted with such talents will not be prevented from humbly helping pastors in their church work, if they would be called upon by pastors, and have previously obtained faculties from the Ordinaries and the Superiors.[2]
4. Those seeking to enter your Society should be well known to you, or at least they should have been recommended. They should, as well, present letters of legitimate birth. They should come with the intention of living their life in a more perfect way,' of accommodating their conduct to the norms, of striving toward the goal of their vocation; entangled by no censures, debts or lawsuits.
5. In the education of novices, let the Apostolic Constitutions[3] be followed, nor let novices be judged fit for the profession of vows and the oath of perseverance before they have been proven in every kind of mortification, prayer, penance, interior silence, in zeal for all other virtues. Let them know that having made profession, the way of deserting their vocation is perpetually blocked (except to go to a stricter observance of some - approved Order, with permission of the Superior of the Congregation and with Apostolic dispensation).[4] If anyone is found incorrigible, a plotter, a disturber, giving scandal, after the third admonition he should either be shut in a small room for six months, and unless he returns to his senses, he should be dismissed from the Congregation, or, if he chooses for himself some approved Order, and he will find those who will receive him kindly, let him be commended to this Order.
6. This will be the formula of making profession of vows, when the time of probation is completed:
I, N., son of N., of the diocese of N., of N. years of age, freely and of my own will, out of pure love of God, for his greater glory, and the honor of the Virgin, for the assistance of the dead who lack suffrages, especially soldiers and those who died from pestilence, I offer myself to the Divine Majesty, and the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, in her religious Congregation of the Immaculate Conception of Clerics Recollect, or Marian Hermits. This [I do] perpetually and irrevocably.[5] And I vow Poverty, Chastity and Obedience to its superior. May God and these holy Gospels help me.
[1] This reference to the Rule of St. Augustine is a real mystery to us. The fact is that the 1687 edition of the Rule of Life did not contain this parenthetical reference. Was it one of the "corrections" made by Cardinal Colloredo? Probably not, because he said that it was enough for the Marians to observe the Rule of Life (cf. "Informative Preface", n.4). Fr. Stanislaus himself in no other document or writing speaks about the Rule of St. Augustine as a possible or actual Rule binding the Marians. But we cannot exclude the possibility that he decided to adopt this Rule (at least as a spiritual orientation) towards the year 1697, as he was preparing the publication of his own Rule of Life, in order to strengthen the position of his Institute (which was still being accused of insufficient ecclesiastical approval). This kind of "spiritual" (and not juridical) adoption of the Rule of St. Augustine (which was one of the four Rules approved by the Holy See since 1215) did not bring with itself Pontifical approval of the Marians, but at least it gave them the semblance of an Institute firmly rooted in the sound religious tradition of the Church.
[2] While the Marians are still called "Hermits" by reason of their juridical status as hermits, which proved to be the only way to bring about their canonical foundation within the structure of the Church, right from the beginning Fr. Stanislaus tried to free himself and his religious from the restrictions imposed upon their apostolic activity by the eremitical status. Thus he succeeded in having the right of the Marians to external pastoral activity recognized even in this Rule of Life. It is a rather timid formulation, but we know that in the last decade of the seventeenth century the Marians were already de facto a full-fledged active Institute, with members engaged in extensive missionary and pastoral work outside their own monasteries.
[3] This refers to Clement VIII's constitution 'Cum ad regularum,' 1603.
[4] This declaration was intended to counteract the growing phenomenon of desertions from the ranks of the Marians. We can easily understand how difficult it was to observe this austere and strict Rule of Life and how, after the initial period of spiritual zeal, the temptation to give up this kind of strict life came to the minds of quite a number of Marians. Fr. Stanislaus knew that some canonists and moralists did not think much of the binding force of simple vows (which were considered more in line of mere promises, dispensable by any confessor; in fact the Rule of Life of 1687 in the formula of the profession had "I promise" instead of "I vow" - the poverty, chastity and obedience). So, he re-enforced the simple vows of the Marians with an irrevocable oath of perpetual perseverance in the Congregation and tried to obtain in 1692 a decree from the Congregation for Regulars and Bishops stating that only the Holy See could dispense the Marians from their vows, and only for most grave reasons (cf. Positio. pp. 514-15). It is interesting to note that in the 1687 edition of the Rule of Life the Marians were forbidden to leave the Congregation even "under the pretext of wanting to follow a more strict observance", since - Fr. Stanislaus argued - "any of you may profess such a strict observance in your present institute" (cf. Positio, p. 463, note "b"). What he meant, was probably that each Marian could apply for the residence in Korabiew Forest house, which was bound to a much more strict - penitential and eremitical - observance than the other Marian houses.
[5] At that time, in the legislation of Religious Institutes there was no practice of temporary vows.