To ordain our daily lives according to some definite rule constitutes a further method in the service of our inner transformation. Apart from the specific importance which the single provisions of that rule may possess for our progress in virtue, a certain wholesome effect proceeds from order as such. It pervades life with a certain rhythm of composure and continuity, which makes it easier for us to collect ourselves; it protects us from being absorbed by the succession of varying events and impressions, so apt to interfere with our concentration upon essentials.

An orderly regulation of our lives relieves us from the temptation to let our attention to prayer, contemplation, and work, our avoidance of peripheral concerns, depend on chance and circumstance; it enables us to provide systematically for the meaningfulness and depth of our existence. It makes it possible for us to acquire constancy without which all good endeavors are condemned to sterility.

Finally, an established outward order also raises us above our dependence on our own arbitrary whims and momentary dispositions; it commits us from the outset, and enduringly, to our direction towards God. The last-named advantage is more perfectly attained, of course, in the case of a rule followed—as in monastic life—from holy obedience, as contrasted to merely self-devised and self-imposed regulations.

In any event, however, we must keep aware of the fact that all technical regulation of life is but a means, not an end in itself; its observance must not be allowed to become a matter of rigid mechanical routine. We should not erect the rule into an absolute, nor abandon ourselves to its automatism as to a supreme law. Otherwise it may easily blunt, rather than sharpen, our perception of the call of God, and harden our hearts rather than open them to Christ.

Work promotes virtue

An indispensable function in our lives is assigned, furthermore, to work as such. Idleness—the absence of regular activity and effort—cannot but demoralize us and hamper our inward progress. Human nature is ordained to a regulated display of its active energies; to the habitual performance of activities subservient to some objective and rational purpose.

No matter how humble that purpose may be, in order to impart to the activities it governs any moral relevancy it must possess some rational meaning and usefulness; mere activity for the sake of activity, or activity of a merely playful character, falls short of that function of moral training and strengthening. No such function can attach to activity unless it implies an element of service, which, in however indirect a fashion, has some place in the hierarchy of services in reference to the kingdom of God. To despise work because of its character of subservient usefulness would be, therefore, a gross mistake.