Spring cleaning and the Rule of St. Benedict

          “ I put away my winter clothes this morning.  What a chore!” and “I cleaned the ceiling fan today.” These two comments made during lunch last week caused me to reminisce about good old fashion spring cleaning. Without coal furnaces and open windows, the emphasis is no longer so great. But some really old memories gave me cause for enjoyment. Helping my grandmother to put the lace curtains on the curtain stretcher was a treat.(Can you tell I was young?)  She only had two rugs that had to be taken outside, hung on the clothes line and beaten.(Thank God for more powerful vacuums and steam cleaning.)  My favorite was helping my parents to clean the coal dust from the wallpaper with this play-dough-type eraser. ( It was tricky to not leave stripes so I think we children probably got to do the wall behind the couch!)

          And then my brain jumped to the related wisdom as found in the Rule of St. Benedict. Some quotes follow.

• ·         “regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels of the altar.” (Chapter 31)
• ·         “ Whoever fails to keep the things belonging to the monastery clean or treats them carelessly should be reproved.”  (32)
• ·         “The utensils required for the kitchen service are to be washed and returned intact” (Ch 35)
• ·         “Idleness is the enemy of the soul.  Therefore the brothers should have specified periods of manual labor” (Ch 48)
• ·         “additional help should be available when needed” (Ch 53)
• ·         “a brother may be assigned a burdensome task. . .should he see that the weight of the burden is altogether too much. . .he should explain patiently . . . the reasons why he cannot perform the task” (Ch 68)

And one for the person exchanging clothing:

• ·         “clothing distributed to the brothers should vary according to local conditions and climate. . . they are to wash it. . .(Ch 55)

Happy transition from winter to summer!

            Sr. Mary Rabe, OSB