Why the Newcomer Is Clothed by the Abbot

That is why each man, on his admission, is stripped of all his former possessions, so that he is no longer allowed to keep even the clothes on his back. In the assembly of the brothers he is brought forward into the middle, stripped of his own clothes, and dressed by the abbot’s hands in the clothing of the monastery. By this he is to know not only that he has been stripped of all his old things, but also that he has laid aside all worldly pride and come down to the want and poverty of Christ. From now on he is to be supported, not by wealth sought through the world’s skills, nor by anything held back from his former state of unbelief, but by receiving his rations for his service out of the holy and sacred funds of the monastery. And since he knows that he is to be clothed and fed from there, and that he has nothing of his own, he is to learn all the same not to be anxious about tomorrow, as the Gospel says. He is not to be ashamed to be on a level with the poor, that is, with the body of the brothers, with whom Christ was not ashamed to be counted, or to call himself their brother. Rather, he is to glory in having been made to share the lot of his own servants. [a]