What Is a Personal Rule? (And Why You Need One)
How to Create Spiritual Structure in a World of Constant Distraction
The Drift Toward Disorder
It's 6:47 AM. Your phone buzzes with notifications before your feet hit the floor. By the time you've scrolled through messages, checked the weather, and glanced at the news, the day has already begun to shape you, rather than you shaping your day.
We reach for distraction before we reach for prayer; we consume before we consider; we react before we reflect. Modern life is loud, fast, and frictionless, and most of us are unequipped for it.
Without intentional rhythm, the soul is ruled by appetite and urgency. We live reactively, pulled along by the speed of our surroundings. One moment we long for silence; the next, we've opened another tab. This drift is always at work, quietly eroding our attention and will. Without structure, the will softens. Without boundaries, the mind becomes restless and scattered. Many Christians today are sincere, but unstable. We desire devotion, but like water, it needs a shape to hold it..
The early Church knew something we've mostly forgotten: the interior life must be guided to properly form. So how do we guide it? Like any guide, we need rules. But more than just rules: we need a Rule.
“This disorder in the mind brings with it a corresponding unruliness in the imagination.”
—Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, The Soul of the Apostolate
What Is A Personal Rule?
A personal Rule is a spiritual framework. It's a pattern of commitments that gives form to the soul's desire for God, much like a trellis guides the growth of a vine. It answers the question: How shall I live, day by day, in a way that allows Christ to govern me from within?
A good Rule doesn't crowd or complicate your life. It steadies it. It creates space for what matters most to remain in view, even when distractions and demands press in. Unlike a schedule, which slices time into tasks, a Rule organizes the whole of life around prayer, sacrament, work, rest, and self-forgetful love; the kind of love that folds laundry without being asked or listens fully without rushing to speak.
A good Rule doesn't crowd or complicate your life. It steadies it. It creates space for what matters most to remain in view, even when distractions and demands press in.
A working mother might focus on morning prayer and cultivating patience. A college student might emphasize daily examen and temperance. A retiree might center on contemplative prayer and hospitality.
You might be thinking: "This sounds like legalism" or "What happens when I fail?" A Rule isn't a rigid schedule that condemns you when life intervenes. It's more like a compass that shows you true north.
Unlike a schedule, which slices time into tasks, a Rule organizes the whole of life around prayer, sacrament, work, rest, and self-forgetful love: the kind of love that folds laundry without being asked or listens fully without rushing to speak.
Like architecture shaping how a space is used, a Rule gives shape to how the soul is inhabited. It brings alignment. Not all at once, but slowly, through practice and grace, as habits of holiness take root.
The Rule stays steady when our emotions and circumstances don't. It becomes a quiet guardian of grace when life grows noisy and burdensome.
“It is called a rule because it regulates the lives of those who obey it.”
—Rule of St. Benedict
Where It Comes From
The earliest Christians knew that zeal alone couldn't carry the soul. Passion fades, emotion flickers, and without structure, even the sincerest devotion begins to drift.
In the centuries following persecution, when the Church was no longer underground but surrounded by comfort, a new danger emerged: the slow, invisible pull of spiritual drift. In response, men and women withdrew into deserts, caves, and monasteries to better anchor themselves in God.
What they discovered was that interior holiness could not be left to improvisation. It needs shape, rhythm, and order. It needs a Rule.
St. Benedict's Rule became the most enduring, centering daily life on ora et labora (prayer and work), woven through with humility, stability, and hospitality. You can still hear the echoes in monasteries today: the bell ringing for prayer, the garden tended in silence, the meal eaten with reverence.
Other great Rules each brought their own emphasis: St. Basil emphasized charity and communal responsibility in the East; St. Augustine rooted his Rule in the inner unity of mind and heart, while St. Francis chose joyful poverty and radical detachment. Each carried a distinct flavor, but all pointed toward the same truth: spiritual growth requires form.
Though written for monasteries, these Rules were tools for forming the whole person. Through repetition and intentionality, they trained desires, disciplined habits, and aligned the heart with divine love. Their strength was clarity: holiness doesn't happen by accident, but by pattern.
What the monastics discovered applies far beyond cloister walls. The principles behind their Rules (rhythm, intentionality, the slow formation of desire) are universal needs of the human soul.
“Although spiritual warmth in your heart is sweet, its absence is bitter, troublesome and scary… once one's attention moves toward earthly things, the spiritual warmth wanes… the zeal he had for the spiritual life is eroded, if not completely destroyed.”
—Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat
But What About the Rest of Us?
Most of us don't live behind cloister walls. There's no abbot to guide our day, no bell to summon us to prayer, no shared silence at the table. Instead, we wake to alarms, juggle commutes, meetings, and kids. We are people immersed in the concerns of the world.
But our souls are no less in need of order. The fact that we were not called to a monastic life doesn't erase the interior calling. It just makes it harder to hear the quiet voice of grace amid constant noise and urgency.
St. Francis de Sales saw this centuries ago. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, his message was simple: holiness is not reserved for the cloister but is a universal call that must be adapted to one's state in life. "It is an error," he wrote, "to wish to banish the devout life from the company of soldiers, the shop, the court of princes, or the household of married people."
A personal Rule allows anyone, regardless of vocation, to shape their life around God by rooting them more deeply in their actual circumstances.
Whether this is your first attempt at structured spiritual life or you're returning after previous efforts that didn't sustain, what matters is your willingness to let God form this attempt according to His grace and your circumstances.
A Rule makes devotion livable in ordinary time, accessible to anyone willing to begin. In a world that constantly seeks dominion over us, it becomes an act of resistance, refusing to let external forces set the terms of our attention. You don't need to create a monastery; you just need to claim the interior.
“Almost all those who have written concerning the devout life have had chiefly in view persons who have altogether left the world… But my object is to teach those who are living in towns… and whose calling obliges them to a social life.”
—St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life
Where We’re Going
A personal Rule isn't built overnight. It takes shape bit by bit through reflection, trial, missteps, prayer, setbacks, and grace. Think of it as clearing a path through dense woods. You don't need to see the entire trail to take the first step, but you do need to know the general direction you're heading.
In the articles that follow, we'll walk through this process together, exploring four foundational elements: prayer, sacrament, vocation, and virtue. We'll start with the most essential question: How do I begin? Before you add a single practice or commitment, you'll learn to listen for His invitation and discern the direction He's pointing you.
For now, simply notice this: somewhere in your ordinary day, perhaps in a moment of quiet, or in the midst of chaos, your soul is already longing for something more. That longing is God's invitation, and the path to respond is already being prepared for your feet.
“I applied myself to the practice of little virtues, not having the facility to perform great ones.”
— St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul
