Rule of Life for Lay People

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nkelly

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Greetings brothers and sisters in Christ.

I was reading a little bit about the Rule of St. Benedict and it occured to me that a laicized version of St. Benedict’s rule or some other rule would be good for me. My prayer life tends to be a bit erratic because of my tendency to procrastinate. I feel I need more structure and discipline around things such as the time I get up, go to bed, what devotions to practice and when to pray and what to pray etc. I do my best to pray morning, evening and compline from the Divine Office but I’m generally too tired/lazy to pray the rosary.

I really want to serve God better than I’m currently doing!

Any thoughts or suggestions would be very welcome.

God bless,
Noel.
 
Since you mentioned St. Benedict I looked up his order. There are lay groups that go with religious orders. Benedictine Oblates is the lay 3rd order to the Benedict religious order. You can read more about them here:
saintbenedict.org/stboblates.htm

By joining an 3rd order you would agree to the requirements of that order. One way to check out if their rule would be good for you is to try it out on your own for a while.

This site has many different topics about this order:
osb.org/index.html

Put the keyword Ireland in the search window and you can find Oblates in your area.

May God guide you in His will for you.😃
 
Read Introduction to the Devout Life, by St. Francis de Sales. 🙂
 
nkelly said:
Greetings brothers and sisters in Christ.

I was reading a little bit about the Rule of St. Benedict and it occured to me that a laicized version of St. Benedict’s rule or some other rule would be good for me…
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you are absolutely right
that is why so many of us have become Benedictine lay oblates, affiliated with a monastery, where we meet, receive spiritual direction, join in and support the work and mission of the monks and sisters, and learn to apply the Holy Rule to our daily lives within our own vocations and careers and family life.

the guide we used in my formation year was the Life-Giving Way by Esther DeWaal. There are other useful guides, which I can’t site because I have lent them all out to people. Search on this forum under oblates or third orders or seculars, to share the experience of other who have chosen this route.
 
You may want to try the book A Mother’s Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soul, by Holly Pierlot. I have not personally read it, but I have heard good things about it.
 
I believe all of the 3rd, or secular, orders have rules of life that they use. I know for a fact that our Secular Franciscan Order does, which emphasizes a life based on gospel values and following the example of Jesus. nafra-sfo.org/sforule.html It is a way of life though as compared to a structure such as what you might find in a monastery where the bell ringing tells you when it is time to move from work to prayer or to meals, or whatever.

Adapting one of the monastic rules might indeed be best suited to what you describe.

Peace,
 
OK, for those of you in 3rd orders, how hard would it be for a SAHM with kids? I’ve been drawn to this for years, but keep putting it off because I’m not sure I can follow through right now. It’s hard for me to do anything on a schedule with the babies. Should I just wait a few years?
 
well with my grandchildren who are babies I sometimes rock them to sleep with chant or taize or sing the psalms, they don’t seem to mind. If you have time to read a daily devotional in the bathroom or say a quick Our Father with your husband before he goes out the door in the morning you are doing great. Do what you can. Where the rule of St Benedict may help you is the sections that tell us how and why we do things–with humility and obedience, with love, without grumbling. The fact that manual labor, intellectual work and spiritual works all have their proper time and place and value.

Of immense help I think to what were called housewives in my day, SAHMs today is the Benedictine charism of hospitality–treating every one who comes into the home as if he were Christ, all the tasks of service, cleaning, maintenance etc as works of hospitality done for love of Christ, even caring for the pots and pans and household furnishings, because you are caring for the domestic church, become as holy as caring for the vessels used on the altar.
 
Thank you all for your kind replies.

I’m going to get in touch with our local Dominican community and ask about joining the lay group.

Parallel with this, I need to learn to pray properly so I’ll buy myself a copy of Prayer Primer by Thomas Dubay. Seems to be a good place to start.

God bless you all,
Noel.
 
Don’t forget the other main third order - which would be the Lay Carmelites! I’m afraid I don’t know a lot about them, but others around here such as JimR-OCDS could probably help.
 
If you think that a third order may be too big a jump, I can highly recommend some spiritual classics:

Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection (especially the first book, it is available online at www.ccel.org)

The Imitation of Christ

or the writings of Ignatius of Loyola.
 
just another thought for those here who are moms occupied with kids and duties, and wonder about making a specific commitment to a spirituality such as a secular order, oblates etc., a confirmation candidate taught me this: her mom stops what she is doing at 9 every night, goes in her room and prays, and her family knows this and has grown up with this habit. The girl says this more than anything has taught her the importance of prayer and putting God first, and consequently she has a healthy habit of daily prayer. this mom still prayed with her family, but made sure to reserve time for herself alone with Christ in prayer.
 
Teakafrog said:
OK, for those of you in 3rd orders, how hard would it be for a SAHM with kids? I’ve been drawn to this for years, but keep putting it off because I’m not sure I can follow through right now. It’s hard for me to do anything on a schedule with the babies. Should I just wait a few years?
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See the post by PhilotheaZ on *A Mother’s Rule of Life *by Holly Pierot. She developed her own rule of life when she was the mother of five and homeschooling because there was no Catholic school in her part of Canada. She gives directions for developing a rule that you can live with and suggestions for living in obedience to the rule you develop. It may be more practical than a 3rd order rule for someone in your situation.
 
Jenlyn said:
Since you mentioned St. Benedict I looked up his order. There are lay groups that go with religious orders. Benedictine Oblates is the lay 3rd order to the Benedict religious order. You can read more about them here:
saintbenedict.org/stboblates.htm

By joining an 3rd order you would agree to the requirements of that order. One way to check out if their rule would be good for you is to try it out on your own for a while.

This site has many different topics about this order:
osb.org/index.html

Put the keyword Ireland in the search window and you can find Oblates in your area.

May God guide you in His will for you.😃
Click to expand...
In addition, I did Geographic search using Ireland and found 8 abbies or monasteries (2 were Trappist). One of them should have a Oblate program.

The monastery near where I live (40 miles or 64 km) has just started one and I am looking into joining in the fall. They do have a modified rule for lay people.
 
Actually, this question is a very old one. It was in the late middle ages that laypeople became inspired to follow in the footsteps of their enclosed contemporaries: to live a life of stricter regimen, to practise those forms of devotion which used to belong to monks and nuns only. This was because literacy became more widespread among the laity and because there were some good books of guidance addressed to the more “ambitious” lay Christians. From the end of the fifteenth century, printing also helped to make these books more accessible, thus contributing to the trend of “living-like-a-monk-in-the-world.”
So if laypeople could not live the “vita contemplativa” (prayer, contemplation, spiritual reading, meditation) of monks or nuns, but did not want to get stuck at the level of “vita activa” (good works with little elevated prayer for lack of time), they still had the choice to live the “mixed life” as it was classified: a life of prayer, meditation, good works, and worldly duties.
My personal favourite on this subject is Walter Hilton (Augustinian canon, late fourteenth century). Check out his treatise:
ccel.org/ccel/hilton/treatise.html

(Disclaimer: medieval stuff, don’t be surprised to find it a bit old-fashioned!)

I don’t think we need to look as high as a third order, right at the first stirring to live a more regulated life. It is a special gift if we can enter one - but I think it is beyond our will, as all vocations are. A well-ruled “mixed life” is, however, within the power of our own will, and that is towards which we should strive in the first place.
 
I am a mother and a Third Order Secular Carmelite (O’Carm). The members love my child and children are allowed to go to the meetings and are given something to do. We take it in turns to watch the kids in the room with the members whilst the meeting goes on. They all adore my child and she is fully involved in feasts and celebrations, i.e. taking up the offertory. My child enjoys the Third Order Secular and it has also deepened the faith of my child.

The Carmelite Order recognises that family comes first and a husband or wife’s permission is required for their spouse to become a member of the community. The whole family of a Third Order Secular member is embraced and prayed for.

I have found that the Third Order Carmelite Secular has enriched my life as a mother and when my child is older I intend to answer a call to the vocation of a Consecrated Religious. It has helped in this discernment process and I am happy to wait the years out. The Sisters have been very supportive and encouraging in this which I take as a good sign that I am answering a call.

Secular Orders are aware kids get sick, need all kinds of attention and are understanding when perhaps meetings cannot be attended.

There are prayers to be said from the Little Office of our Lady of Mount Carmel; matins and vespers. But this is flexible and if I am in a rush first thing in the morning I postpone prayers until later in the morning, this is perfectly acceptable. I always postpone vespers until later in the evening when all the work is done and I can give fully to it. The prevailing importance is to live the Rule in our lives. It has brought great richness to my day to day life turning ordinary household work and work in the Homeless Centre and at School into contemplation and a prayer before God.

If you feel a strong calling to join a Third Order Secular and it arises out of a desire to deepen your Baptismal Promises then I would answer that call whatever your state or vocation in life. People can have many reasons for wanting to become a Third Order Secular and they are not always the best of reasons. If you have a burning call within you and it does not fade then you pursue it and see where Jesus would have you be.🙂

In my Living Prayer of life.
 
Thank you for this post, truly encouraging and inspirational.
I feel I do have a vocation - not necessarily to become a Third Order Secular, but to be as good a Christian as I can. To live a life of prayer. To live through God, with God, in God. I do not know yet if I need an institutional framework for this (apart from the Catholic Church, of course!! 😃 ) but I feel a definite call to climb the “scale of perfection”.
I trust God will let me know what rule of life He wants me to follow.
 
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