In grateful response to the overwhelming love of God, we desire to give ourselves wholly, unreservedly, and continually to the One who gives himself to us. We seek to be conformed to God’s will, to share in Christ’s cross and resurrection, and to cooperate faithfully with the gifts of grace. Helpless as we are in ourselves, we pray and trust that God who has given us these desires will also bring them to fruition. By his own invitation, we set our hearts and wills on God, joyfully declaring that nothing else and nothing less will content us. And trusting that nothing else will content God either, we cast ourselves into his arms.
We intend full and unqualified consent to God’s invitations, in general and in particular. Our longing is that our whole lives may pronounce a “yes” to God’s purposes for us and the world. Our intention is to enflesh our response to the commandments to love God with our whole heart and mind and soul and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves, by adopting these means and goals in common.
This common Rule is intended to deepen community, provide a container for common life, and assist in mutual accountability. We understand it as a framework for freedom, the freedom to become increasingly who God calls us to be. Though we recognize that we will constantly fall short of these intentions, we commit ourselves to persevere in hope, trust, and dependence on God’s grace
Worship and Prayer
We will participate fully in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church as provided for in the Book of Common Prayer.
Eucharist
We will participate in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Sundays (and on major feasts and other days as our circumstances permit).
We intend to celebrate the Eucharist continually in our lives as well as in the liturgy, to offer ourselves in all that we do or suffer to God, with the intention that our offering be taken, consecrated and united to Christ’s sacrifice, broken and given. As members of a royal priesthood, we will also present to God the joys and sorrows of the world. Our intention is to give thanks to God in all things.
The Daily Office
We will pray the morning and evening offices daily. (The office for noonday and/or compline may be added, regularly or occasionally.)
We intend to participate in the Church’s continual offering of praise, thanksgiving and intercession, and, by structuring our lives around the daily office, affirm that all our lives belong to God.
We intend to pray the office and read the appointed readings with as full a degree of attention and presence as possible.
The Liturgical Year
We intend to immerse ourselves in the rhythms of sacred time, including observance of the various seasons, feasts and fasts appointed.
We will observe the days of special devotion by some special act(s) of discipline and self-denial.
Silence
We will devote time to silent prayer daily.
Our basic intention is to be lovingly attentive and available to God, whatever forms our silent prayer may take.
We seek the gift of inner silence that will dispose us to receptivity and obedience to God’s purposes through the rest of the day.
Community
We recognize and embrace our interdependence within the Communion of Saints, and joyfully accept the privileges and burdens of community life. We consent to bear one another’s burdens freely, in whatever ways are given us, visible and invisible, known and unknown.
We commit ourselves to love one another, and others whom God gives us to love, as we love ourselves; that is, to desire, serve and work for the fulfillment of God’s purposes in the other. We agree to give and receive encouragement, challenge, comfort, correction, guidance, and provocation to holiness.
Intercession: We will pray daily for one another, and for others who become part of our “extended family.”
Conversation: We will meet regularly for the purposes of mutual support and accountability.
Spiritual direction: We will each have a spiritual director.
Confession: We will make sacramental confession at least twice a year.
In all of these relationships, we commit ourselves to as much transparency, integrity and undefendedness as we are currently capable of sustaining, and intend by God’s grace to deepen these qualities.
The Rivendell Community 