Obedience Even in Ordinary Needs

Next, the rule is kept with such strict obedience that, without the knowledge and permission of their superior, the younger monks not only do not dare to leave their cell, but do not even venture on their own authority to attend to their ordinary bodily needs. So they are quick to carry out without any discussion everything he orders, as if it were commanded by God from heaven. Sometimes, when impossible things are commanded them, they take them on with such faith and devotion that they strive with all their strength, without the slightest hesitation, to fulfill and carry them out. Out of reverence for their elder they do not even consider whether a command is impossible. [a]

But I leave aside for now any fuller account of their obedience, since we intend to speak of it in its proper place a little later on, with examples, if through your prayers the Lord brings us safely through. We now go on to the other regulations. We pass over all those that cannot be imposed or kept in the monasteries of this country, as we promised in our preface to do: for instance, that they never wear woolen clothing but only cotton, and that not doubled. Each superior gives out changes of it to the ten monks in his care when he sees that the clothes they are wearing are dirty.