That though Our Rules Do Not Bind under Sin, We Should Not Make That an Excuse for Neglecting to Observe Them

OUR rules and constitutions do not bind under sin, either mortal or venial, and this also holds good for the other ordinances and commands, except when the superior shall command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of holy obedience, as is set down in the Constitutions. Our holy Father did not wish to bind us under sin; but no one should make this an excuse for breaking them, which is apt to be a very common temptation, whereby the devil makes many to fail in the observance of their rules. Our Father, desiring on the one hand to remove from us any occasion or snare of sin which might rise from the obligation of the constitutions and rules; and, on the other hand, wishing that we should keep them entirely and perfectly, without dropping any degree of perfection, says: “Instead of fear of offense Iet there come in love and desire of all perfection, and of doing what will be to the greater honor and glory of Christ our Redeemer.” And in the beginning of the Constitutions and Rules, he says: “The interior law of charity, which the Holy Spirit is wont to write and imprint on our hearts, is to aid us hereto;” which is what the Lord said by St. John (xiv. 15): If ye love me, keep my commandments.

For him who loves, it is enough to know the wish of the beloved. For a good son, it is enough to understand the will of his father, without further apprehensions or fears. Whoever breaks rules and holds them of little account because they do not bind under pain of sin and hell, is no good son, and no good servant. Otherwise, I ask you, what sort of servant would he be who had made up his mind never to do anything that his master commanded unless he commanded it sword in hand and under pain of death? And what sort of wife would she be who said to her husband: “I don’t mean to be a bad woman, or to be unfaithful; but beyond that, let me tell you, I am going to do everything that I take a fancy to do, though I know that it will annoy you”? Now, such are they who, because rules do not bind under pain of sin and hell, go and break them. This is the way of slaves, who serve only for fear of the whip and chastisement. An author has said: “Bad people keep away from sin and evil-doing for fear of pain and chastisement; good people keep away from sin and evil-doing for love of virtue”—and to please and better satisfy God.

St. Gregory relates that a monk called Marcius betook himself to the solitude of the desert on the Marsu Mountains [Abruzzi]. Here he fastened himself to a rock by means of a chain attached to his ankle, so that he could not go further than the length of the chain. St. Benedict, hearing of this, sent one of his disciples to him to tell him: “If you are the servant of God, let not an iron chain bind you, but the chain of Christ.” The monk immediately obeyed and took off the chain, yet he, nevertheless, never went further than where he was accustomed to go when fettered by the chain. So with us, our Father has taken off the chain of iron, not wishing to tie us with rules binding under obligation of sin and hell, but with the chain of the love of Christ. That should be a more forcible motive to induce us to keep the rules than the iron chain of fear of sin and punishment.

But here there are two things to observe. The first is that, when the constitutions and rules contain any matter that bears on the vows that we take, or is forbidden by natural law, then they will bind us under pain of sin, not by virtue of the rule and constitution, but by reason of the vow or natural law, as we observed above, speaking of poverty. The second thing to observe is that, though the rule of itself does not bind under pain of sin, yet one may sin in breaking it, by there being some intermixture of negligence, laziness, disparagement or disregard of rule, or other like things, as St. Thomas well observes, speaking of the rules of the Order of St. Dominic, which also of themselves do not bind under pain of any fault, either mortal or venial.