Du temps que les Enfants s'habillent
Holy Detachment in Daily Routine
Children are taught to dress with speed and humility to avoid vanity and remember their mortality.
They are urged to comb their hair and dress as quickly as they can, so they get used to giving as little time as possible to adorning a body that must serve as food for the worms; and so as to make reparation for the idle fuss worldly women put into dressing and fixing their hair.✦1
Order and Devotion in Service
Older girls assist the younger ones with silence and prayer, ensuring the morning routine is completed in time for Mass.
As soon as the older girls are dressed, they comb and dress the little ones with the same speed and silence. They make sure everything is finished by 6:15 at the latest, which is about the time the bell rings for the first Mass. Each older girl makes sure the little ones say their prayers while she combs and fixes their hair.
Read the original Latin
On les exhorte à se peigner et s'habiller le plus promptement qu'elles peuvent, pour s'accoutumer à donner le moins de temps que l'on peut pour orner un corps qui doit servir de pâture aux vers : et pour réparer les inutilités des femmes du siècle à s'habiller et à se coiffer.
Aussitôt que les grandes sont habillées, elles peignent et habillent les petites avec la même promptitude et le même silence. On fait en sorte que le tout soit achevé au plus tard à six heures et un quart, qui est environ le temps où on sonne la première messe.
Chaque grande a soin de faire répéter les prières aux petites, en les peignant et coiffant.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Job.17.14 — I have called the Pit, 'You are my father; my mother and my sister, to the worm.
Notes
- 1 ↩French réparer here is taken in the spiritual sense “make reparation for / offset,” not mere physical repair; inutilités names the vain, useless fuss of worldly grooming.
Règlement pour les enfants companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit