04-18# The Rule of our Holy Father Benedict. Chapter 63: Concerning the Order of the Community
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Let all keep their relative places in the monastery according as the time of each one’s conversion or the merit of each one’s life determines, or as the abbot shall have decided. And let not the abbot disquiet the flock committed to him, nor let him make any unjust arrangement as if using an authority wholly unrestricted, but let him always bear in mind that concerning all his judgments and deeds he is going to render account to God. Therefore according to the places he shall have assigned them, or which they shall hold by seniority, so let the brethren proceed for the Pax, for Communion, for intoning a psalm, for taking their place in choir. And nowhere at all let the subject of age determine or even suggest their relative places, for Samuel and David when mere boys judged those advanced in years. Therefore, those excepted whom, as we have said, the abbot shall have promoted for weighty reason or shall have degraded for certain causes, let all the rest as they are one by one converted, so take their places, so that, for example, he who shall have come into the monastery at the second hour of a day shall know himself to be junior to him who came at the first hour of that day, of whatever age or dignity he may be. But the discipline of authority towards children is to be universally observed by all.

