03-31# The Rule of our Holy Father Benedict. Chapter 49: Concerning the Observance of Lent
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If by chance anyone from among the nobility offers his son to God in the monastery, if the boy himself be in infancy let his parents make the petition that we mentioned above; and together with an oblation let them fold that petition and the boy’s hand in the altar cloth and so let them offer him. And concerning his property either let them promise on oath in the present petition that never of themselves, never through any deputy, nor in any way whatever will they give anything to him at any time, or afford him opportunity of possessing: or else, at the least, if they are unwilling to do this and wish to offer something as alms to the monastery so as to obtain merit, let them make a donation from the property that they wish to give to the monastery, having reserved to themselves if they so wish a life interest in it. Thus then let every precaution be taken, so that there may not linger in the boy’s mind any notions of possession, by which notions he might, to his ruin, be deceived, as experience has shewn to be possible, but which God forbid. Let those also who are poorer act similarly: but let those who have nothing at all simply make petition and with the oblation offer their boy before witnesses.
