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The Cistercians through medieval eyes: how the Cistercians saw themselves (6/7)
Our food is scanty, our garments
rough; our drink is from the stream and our sleep upon our book.
Under our tired limbs there is a hard mat; when sleep is sweetest
we must rise at a bell’s bidding … self-will has no scope;
there is no moment for idleness or dissipation … Everywhere
peace, everywhere serenity, and a marvellous freedom from the tumult
of the world. Such unity and concord is there among the brethren
that each thing seems to belong to all and all to each …To
put all in brief, no perfection expressed in the words of the gospel
or of the apostles, or in the writings of the Fathers, or in the
sayings of the monks of old, is wanting to our order and our way
of life.
Our ordo is debasement,
humility and voluntary poverty. It is obedience, joy and peace in
the Holy Spirit. Our ordo is to be under a master, under
an abbot, under a rule, under discipline. Our ordo is to
be zealous for silence, to practice fasting, vigils, prayer and
manual work, and above all to keep to the more excellent way of
charity. Moreover, it is a matter of making progress from one day
to the next, and to persevere in them until the final day. For their name arose from the
fact that, as the angels might be, they were clothed in undyed wool,
spun and woven from the pure fleece of sheep. So named and garbed
and gathered together like flocks of seagulls they shine as they
walk with the whiteness of snow. |
