Real-Life Communication -- Solution
Your students have taken a keen interest in the Rule of St. Augustine.
You're pleased with their responses and plan to discuss the remaining
six chapters with them. These are the answers you wrote down for your test
on chapters 1 and 2:
1. St. Augustine doesn't believe that all
people should be treated equally, because not all have equal needs. People
who need more should be given more. "Food and clothing shall be distributed
to each of you by your superior, not equally to all, for all do not enjoy
equal health, but rather according to each one's need. The Acts of the
Apostles states that "they had all things in common and distribution was made
to each one according to each one's need".
2. St. Augustine says
that the poor should not consider themselves fortunate because they have found
the kind of food and clothing that they were unable to find in the world.
They shouldn't hold their heads high because they associate with people
whom they did not dare to approach in the world, but they should rather lift
up their hearts and not seek after what is vain and earthly.
2. The
rich shouldn't look down on the poor in order to avoid pride. They should
seek to glory in the fellowship of poor brothers rather than in the reputation
of rich relatives. They shouldn't be elated if they have contributed
a part of their wealth to the common life, nor take more pride in sharing
their riches with the monastery than if they were to enjoy them in the real
world. Indeed, every other kind of sin has to do with the commission of evil
deeds, whereas pride lurks even in good works in order to destroy them.
4.
In the oratory, no one should do anything other than that for which was intended
and from which it also takes its name. That's because a person who wishes
to pray there during his free time, outside the hours appointed, should not
be hindered by those who think something else must be done there.