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THE RULE OF LIFE
Chapter VII
Superiors
1. One superior will govern your whole congregation for a six year term. At the end of this term - as indicated below - you will either choose another or confirm the same one. It is his office to admit or dismiss members, to approve confessors, preachers and novice masters, moderators of your Confraternity, to approve books to be published, to create or depose local superiors, to accept endowments, to make visitation of the houses, correct those erring and if it be necessary, also to punish them. It is also up to him to establish, impose and carry out other responsibilities which are proper to the office of General Superiors.
2. Let all of the superiors remember this warning of the Divine Spirit: "If you are chosen to preside ... be not puffed up, but with(them) be as one of themselves;. . ." (*Eccl 32:1). Therefore, be not a dictator, but be an example that the flock can follow" (1 Pt 5:3) Let him then first do by example what he is about to order others by word. He is equally an observer of the law with others, not only its custodian. Let him be endowed with piety, discretion and prudence, moderating zeal with mildness and moderating mildness with zeal, lest through too much strictness or indulgence he hurts the Institute, rather than contributing to its good. He should not aggravate his own men with rigid penances or commands. Rather, he should burden each with what conforms to his strength, talents and abilities. Since his subjects are bound to obey without any excuses, the one in command must foresee that he imposes on each such things as they will be able to fulfill for God's glory and their own merit.
3. For their part, the members should not trouble the superiors either by their impudence or stubbornness, but they should agreeably acquiesce, in the Lord, to the superior's wishes, respecting them rather from love, than being afraid of them out of empty fear. If any one of the superiors should seem to someone somewhat negligent or less than exemplary, he should not - because of the Lord - on that account cease to honor and obey him. The Lord himself warns, ". . . do everything and observe everything they tell you. But do not follow their example" (*Mt 23:3). Indeed, the superiors are worthy of much compassion, since while they serve all, they are at times forced to neglect themselves. Therefore, the members will always pray for the superiors, so that God may enlighten, direct, help and keep them in his grace.
4. The Superior of the entire Congregation will visit the whole congregation every three years; the Provincial, his houses every year; but the local superior will visit the rooms of all members almost every single month, lest anything be found in them not according to your vocation and poverty, or neatness. All superiors will unanimously apply themselves to this, that there may flourish: an ever greater worship of God, in their churches; peace, recollection, love, uniformity, in their houses; holiness, in their members; and conservation of temporal goods. They may not give away these goods of the Congregation to outsiders, under ecclesiastical penalties.
5. If it will be necessary in any of your churches to preach the Word of God, this task is to be given by the Superior to such ones who have been instructed in the necessary doctrine and who have virtuous qualities, so that their preaching may bring salutary fruit to the listeners, enlightening by their teaching, stirring by their persuasion. Let them always attempt to speak those things which would bring forth more praise of God than of themselves; those things which would call forth in the people, with God's help: edification, correction of behavior, love and fear of God, exercise of virtue and good works, contempt for the world, and fervent desire for and striving after eternal happiness, just as in their own churches they will not preach without the mandate of the superior, so in other churches they will not preach without the blessing of the Ordinary.
6. Let the professors perform the duty of teaching imposed on them (if at some time it comes to instituting them) for the glory of God, carefully and diligently and with progress of the students. Let them use the textbooks of the most acknowledged authors, rather than fatigue themselves and their students with writing. Let them, however, not so immerse themselves, together with their students, in their subject matters that they forget prayer and mortification.
7. Masters of novices should be appointed who are exemplary, prudent, industrious, endowed with discernment of spirits. They should teach their novices all of the [spiritual] exercises perfectly. Likewise, they will occupy and exercise them in denial of themselves and of what belongs to them, in the following of Christ the Lord, in contempt for passing goods and the desire for the eternal, in patience, humility, modesty, silence, penitence, zeal for prayer, regular observance, and most of all, in the love of God. Novice Masters will always have before their eyes that the care of those to be formed has been entrusted to them - care, first of all for attaining the salvation of their souls, and in the second place for the honor and advantage of the Congregation.
8. The Superior [General] will assign to each house the promoter of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception assisting the souls of the faithful departed. It has been erected or is to be erected in your churches on the basis of the permission granted by the Holy Father Innocent XI on March 20, 1681, and on the basis of the admission of this document on the part of the Ordinary. He to whom this duty, full of merit, shall be entrusted will in every way apply himself to this so that he may bring forth as many fervent and devout members, lovers of the Immaculate Virgin, and helpers of the dead as possible. Let him administer this Confraternity prudently so that he may obtain great profit for souls. To this end he will especially exhort and incite those who become members of this Confraternity by inspiring them to the frequent and salutary use of the Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist, as well as to works of charity and to the abandonment of vices.
9. The same Superior [General] will take care to have other officials throughout the whole Congregation - Procurators, Economes, Zealots - who will try to fulfill their duties most diligently from a love of God, for the merit of obedience, so that they may one day receive an assured reward for their love and their labors from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ch.9, n.l
The text makes reference mistakenly to Eccl. 31. The proper reference is given here; the text was freely altered.
The Latin term "Diocesanus" probably supposes a division of the Congregation into provinces according to the lines of dioceses, i.e., houses in a diocese form a separate Province.
In the 1687 edition of the Rule of Life Fr. Stanislaus had more extensive instruction included in this paragraph concerning preaching the word of God (see: Positio, p. 477, note "p" and p. 478, note "g"). Obviously he was giving here the fruit of his own experience as a preacher. The Marians partially restored the missing text in their Statutes of 1778.
See footnote 3.
The task of the "zelator" was to "proclaim" or denounce the faults of others in the Chapter of the Faults (cf. Ph. Schmitz, Chapitre des Coulpes, in Diet. Theol. Cath. II/l, col. 485). It is surprising that Fr. Stanislaus does not mention "zelator" in the paragraph dedicated to the Chapter of the Faults (see above, ch. 4, n. 3).
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