Chapter 5
(90) Since God alone is the final end toward which we must all tend and aspire, striving to transform ourselves in Him, we exhort the Brothers to direct, with the most ardent impulses of love, all their thoughts, intentions, and desires toward this goal: so that, being continually united to this infinitely good Father, with all their mind, all their heart, all their soul, and all their strength, they may love Him with an effective, pure, constant, and generous love.
(91) And since it is not possible to reach an end without taking the means to do so, let each of us strive to cast far from himself the useless and dangerous things that might hinder or divert our progress on the path of salvation, and choose only those that are useful and necessary for going to God; such as the most exalted poverty, inviolable chastity, humble and prompt obedience, and all the other evangelical virtues that the Son of God taught us by His words and by the examples He gave us in His own person and in that of His Saints.
(92) But since it is very difficult for a person to remain constantly lifted up in God, in order to flee idleness—the root of all evils—and at the same time to edify one’s neighbor and be less burdensome to people in the world, following the example of the Apostle Saint Paul, that vessel of election who united work with preaching 1, as well as many other Saints; and in order to observe the admonition that our seraphic Father gave us in his Rule, to work, and to conform ourselves to his will so clearly expressed in his Testament: we wish that the Brothers, whenever they are not occupied with exercises of piety, devote themselves, under the authority of their Superiors, to honest works suitable to their state: priests to sacred ministry, clerics to their studies, lay brothers to duties and manual labor, to the care of the sick, and to alms-seeking.
(93) Let the Brothers, even while engaged in manual labor, not fail to nourish their minds and hearts with holy thoughts, as much as human frailty allows. Therefore we exhort them, during the time of work, either to speak of God with modesty and in a low voice, or to listen with humility and charity to the reading of some pious book, or to keep silence.
(94) And let the Brothers be careful not to make work their final end, nor to cling to it in any way, nor to apply themselves to it in such a manner as to extinguish or diminish in themselves the spirit of devotion, to which all things must serve; but rather, keeping without interruption the gaze of their soul fixed upon God, let them strive to go to Him by the most perfect and shortest way: so that the work imposed on man by God Himself, accepted and recommended by the Saints as a means of preserving the interior spirit, may not become for them a cause of distraction and laxity.
(95) Let the Brothers not work for seculars unless obedience obliges them to do so. Moreover, let no one dare to involve himself in the affairs of worldly persons, or meddle in things foreign to the Order, or little in conformity with the religious state, or finally to practice pharmacy or medicine outside the Order 2. And we order that those who contravene this prohibition be severely punished by the provincial Superior.
(96) The devout Saint Bernard says that nothing is more precious than time and nothing is less valued 3; he also warns us that we shall be severely examined on the use we have made of it 4. Therefore we exhort all the Brothers never to remain inactive, nor to waste time on things of little or no usefulness, and even less on vain and idle conversations; but let them take care to employ this most precious time in holy, praiseworthy, and useful occupations—whether of body or mind—that may glorify the Divine Majesty and edify their confreres as well as seculars.