St. Benedict's Rule for Monasteries

"Listen, my son, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart. Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience. To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King, and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience." [From the Prologue] This translation of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict was made from the third edition of the text as edited by Dom Cuthbert Butler of Downside Abbey in England.