Much like the guiding principles of the Levitical laws and the precepts of Christ Jesus’ teaching, a rule is meant to offer ethical guidelines for relating in covenantal community. As Benedict explains, these instruments of good works (Chapter 4) shape the desires of our hearts in the form of our covenantal promises with G-d and each other. Within covenantal partnerships, self-selected instruments of good work for cleaved one-ness can define a bespoke relationship rule. Ultimately, a relationship rule can offer all those within the covenantal relationship (and all those in relationship with the covenant partners) to reap the fruits of the Spirt described by Paul in his letter to the Galatian faith community - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5)
Inspired by the Rule of St. Benedict, some examples that covenant couples may choose for their own relationship rule are forms of humility; silence and solitude together; regular times of prayer and scriptural study with each other; singing songs of praise or making music together; divisions of labor within the household and accountability for those responsibilities; predetermined procedures for forgiveness and reconciliation; financial equality and mutuality in sharing of resources; service to one another and hospitality to the other in each other; and provisions for when covenant partners are apart or away from each other.
Other options for a relationship rule may be based upon such avowed communal practices as Spiritual Direction (individually and as a couple); corporate worship together and group prayer opportunities as a couple; mentoring other covenant partners in faith communities; days specifically set aside to retreat, refresh, and renew together within the presence of the Holy One; and welcoming the stranger into their relationship with an ethic of homecoming and radical hospitality.
By modeling a relationship rule after the rules of religious communities, covenantal partnerships may benefit from an agreed upon structure for living together into covenant belovedness. As individuals chosen by each other to be cleaved together as one in love, covenant partners may, through a relationship rule, live as a flourishing community with G-d and each other.
Through a relational rule, covenant partners may be confident that their covenantal promises will hold even when their rule may be compromised. A rule alone does not sustain a covenant relationship, but it does provide a disciplined practice for supporting the covenantal promises that couples make with each other and G-d. By the power of the Holy Spirit cleaving individuals into one, along with the dedicated work of the individuals in the relationship, a covenantal
partnership has the integrity of being whole and complete in relationship with G-d, because G-d is 100% whole and complete, even when we are not.
Covenantal relationships with the Divine are always 100%. However, individual members aren't always able to bring 100% of themselves to their covenant relationship. Each partner never gives 100% all of the time, nor do the partners equally give 50% all of the time. There are seasons in covenantal relationships when the proportions of individual giving breaks down unevenly within a relationship. This is why the marriage liturgy asks individuals entering into covenant with one another to declare before the witnesses of their faith community that they desire to love, honor, and keep one another in sickness and in health. They covenant with each other and G-d, with the support of the faith community, to stand by each other no matter what, respecting one another as created in the image of the Divine Trinity, and desiring to understand the other’s needs while enjoying the giftedness of love until they are parted by death. This is no small task! There may be days, due to unimaginable circumstances, when neither partner is able to muster giving even 50% of themselves to the covenant relationship. These are the moments when a relationship rule can buttress covenant partners in their efforts to maintain their covenantal promises as the Spirit fulfills the relationship, making up any difference needed. Therefore, a relationship rule must be flexible enough to allow covenant relationships to pivot and adjust daily to the needs of the individual members, but strong enough to maintain the integrity of the covenant when the individuals are not strong enough on their own.
Considering the theological nature of covenants and contracts, the spiritual gift of love described by Paul to the Corinthians, and the benefit of communal rules (such as the Benedictine Rule) in maintaining covenantal promises, intimate covenant partnerships have the potential of flourishing in relationship with G-d through the disciple of a bespoke relationship rule. Understanding covenantal relationships through a hermeneutical perspective of belovedness, a relationship rule provides the space and energy needed for couples to honor one another and their shared relationship with the Holy Spirit as chosen and cleaved together as one. A relationship rule offers covenantal partnerships perimeters, disciplines, and healthy boundaries which trellis covenantal viriditas, encouraging individual and shared giftedness to grow. Just as the Benedictine Rule is structured “in order that by observing it in our monasteries we may show ourselves to have to some degree, integrity of life…” (Chapter 73), so a covenantal relationship rule can support the fulfillment of couples’ covenant promises, empowering instruments of good works to blossom through the relationship into the fruits of the Spirit for the couple and wider community.
The Rule of Saint Benedict
(Translated into English. A Pax Book, preface by W.K. Lowther Clarke. London: S.P.C.K., 1931)
