The Order of Sacred Creation

A Rule for Faithful Living

A guided workbook for discerning a small, sustainable Rule of Life.

Creation · Contemplation · Formation

A Rule of Life gives gentle shape to the life you are already living. It is not a spiritual scorecard, a productivity system, or a plan for becoming impressive. It is a trellis: a modest structure that helps faithful life grow.

Move through the chapters with curiosity. Some practices may immediately draw your attention; others may have nothing to do with the season you are living now.

Begin small.

You are not trying to choose something from every chapter.

If this is your first Rule, we encourage you to begin with only two or three simple new practices. A small Rule faithfully lived is often more useful than an ambitious Rule that quickly becomes another burden.

A more established Rule may be fuller. If many of these rhythms are already part of your life, you may find that a broader Rule simply names and gathers what you are already living.

Notice what draws your attention

Discern what belongs now

Choose what can be faithfully lived

I Begin Where You Are Start with the life you actually have.

Before adding practices, notice the season in which this Rule will actually be lived.

Your name (optional)

I will live with this Rule for

What do you hope to cultivate in this season?

What is especially true about your life right now?

How will you hold and review this Rule?

When will you revisit it?

II Foundational Rhythms Notice what may already be holding your life.

These are larger rhythms or anchors. They may already be part of your life and need not be counted as new practices.

Weekly anchor

Monthly or seasonal anchor

A Rule does not need to invent an entirely new life. It can simply become more attentive to rhythms that are already bearing fruit.

III Prayer & Presence Silence, attention, prayer, and companionship.

Explore freely. Select something only if it seems genuinely life-giving in this season.
You may choose nothing from this chapter.

Daily Office Choose one or more of the Church’s daily offices as a recurring rhythm of prayer. Learn more →

Which office or offices?

Morning Prayer Noonday Prayer Evening Prayer Compline

Silent Prayer Set aside intentional time simply to be present with God. Learn more →

How often?

About how long?

Examen Prayerfully review the day, noticing grace, resistance, gratitude, and invitation. Learn more →

How often?

About how long?

Centering Prayer Enter receptive silence and gently consent again to God’s presence and action. Learn more →

How often?

About how long?

Prayer Beads or Prayer Rope Let touch and repetition give the body a rhythm for prayer. Learn more →

How often?

About how long?

Companion Prayer Pray with another person through shared listening, silence, and mutual attention to God. Learn more →

Rhythm

About how long?

Open Prayer Bring an active mind honestly into prayer while releasing the need to prescribe the desired outcome. Learn more →

How often?

About how long?

Add a Prayer Not Listed A prayer practice already meaningful to you may belong here.

Name the practice

Rhythm

IV Scripture & Worship Scripture, sacrament, worship, feast, and fast.

These practices root life in Scripture and the worshiping life of the Church.
You may choose nothing from this chapter.

Lectionary Reading Receive Scripture through the readings appointed by the Church.

How often?

About how long?

Lectio Divina Read Scripture slowly and prayerfully, attending to the word or invitation that emerges.

Rhythm

About how long?

Spiritual Reading Read theology, spiritual writing, poetry, or another text that nourishes faithful attention.

How often?

About how long?

Eucharist or Communal Worship Gather regularly with the worshiping community.

Rhythm

Confession & Reconciliation Make intentional room for truth-telling, repentance, forgiveness, and repair.

Rhythm

Keep a Feast Mark a holy day, anniversary, or sacred occasion with intentional celebration.

What feast or occasion?

Keep a Fast Practice voluntary restraint that makes room for prayer, generosity, attention, or freedom.

What form of fast?

V Body & Relationship Embodiment, dignity, boundaries, mutuality, and mending.

A Rule belongs to an embodied person living among other embodied people.
You may choose nothing from this chapter.

Gentle Bodily Care Care for the body through movement, nourishment, rest, tending, or another sustainable act of attention.

What will gentle care look like?

Sabbath from Self-Contempt Refuse to treat shame, cruelty toward yourself, or relentless self-criticism as spiritual virtue.

Consent & Mutuality Honor consent, agency, and reciprocity in every relationship. Refuse to reduce another person to their labor, usefulness, availability, or what they can provide, receiving them instead as a living member of Christ’s Body.

Reverence in Intimacy Receive every person first as a whole person rather than as an object of sexual attention, access, or gratification, allowing desire to be governed by dignity, restraint, mutuality, and love.

Boundaries that Protect Dignity Keep boundaries that allow both love and truthful limits to coexist.

What boundary will you keep?

Mend Quickly When harm occurs, resist avoidance or defensiveness and move toward honest repair as you are able.

VI Community, Mercy & Justice Companionship, hospitality, service, justice, and repair.

These practices turn attention outward toward neighbors, community, mercy, and repair.
You may choose nothing from this chapter.

Mutual Mentorship Cultivate a relationship in which wisdom, attention, and formation can move in both directions.

Who might share this relationship?

Rhythm

Spiritual Director or Mentor Meet regularly with someone who can accompany your spiritual life with wisdom and attention.

Rhythm

Hospitality Make room for welcome, shared food, conversation, presence, or belonging.

What might hospitality look like?

Rhythm

Local Volunteering Offer time and presence to a local need, community, parish, neighbor, or organization.

Where might you serve?

Rhythm

Advocacy Use voice, attention, relationships, or resources on behalf of justice and human dignity.

Where will you focus your attention?

Rhythm

Practice Mending Notice harm and participate in healing rather than retreating into defensiveness, indifference, or despair.

A Work of Mercy Choose a concrete expression of mercy and practice it with regularity and humility.

Which work of mercy?

Rhythm

VII Creativity & Sacred Making Craft, writing, beauty, music, making, and the work of the hands.

Making can become a form of attention, care, delight, discipline, offering, and prayer.
You may choose nothing from this chapter.

Weekly Making Session Protect regular time for making without requiring productivity or perfection.

About how long?

Finish Something Small Practice completion through a modest, bounded act of making.

Rhythm

Share Beauty Offer something beautiful without requiring it to become a product, achievement, or performance.

Mending as Sacred Making Mend, repair, restore, or care for something rather than immediately replacing it.

Daily Time-Limited Creative Practice Make for a bounded period and stop without demanding that the work become something more.

About how long?

Music as Sacred Making Sing, play, listen, compose, or practice music as an offering of attention and beauty.

How often?

About how long?

Reflective Journaling Write without needing to produce finished work, using the page as a place to notice experience, prayer, questions, gratitude, grief, and emerging insight.

How often?

About how long?

Writing as Sacred Making Give sustained attention to shaping words into something offered with care: poetry, reflection, story, prayer, essay, correspondence, or another intentional work.

What kind of writing?

Rhythm

About how long?

VIII Rest, Stewardship & Simplicity Limits, enoughness, generosity, rest, and attention.

These practices make room for enoughness: enough work, enough possessions, enough striving, and enough noise.
You may choose nothing from this chapter.

Weekly Sabbath Keep a recurring period in which usefulness and productivity are not the measure of your worth.

What will Sabbath look like?

Screen Limits Set a boundary around digital attention so that presence has room to return.

Name the boundary

A No-Work Day Protect a recurring day from work when circumstances allow.

What day?

Protect Sleep Treat rest as part of faithful creatureliness, not a reward earned after everything is finished.

What will help protect sleep?

Monthly Silent Retreat Set aside a longer period for silence, prayer, attention, and rest.

About how many hours?

Proportional Giving Practice generosity by intentionally setting aside a portion of what you receive.

Proportion or amount

Where might you give?

Local parish or church Local charity or mutual aid National or global charities Order of Sacred Creation Other

A Practice of Simplicity Choose one concrete way of resisting excess and making room for enoughness.

What practice of simplicity will you keep? Consider simplicity of dress, resisting impulse purchases, mending before replacing, borrowing or sharing, reducing clutter, or keeping fewer unused supplies.

Weekly Planning Review the coming week so commitments, rest, prayer, and relationships can be held intentionally.

Day

About how long?

Gratitude Ledger Keep a brief written record of gifts, grace, provision, beauty, or gratitude.

How often?

About how long?

IX Gather Your Rule Let the possibilities become a livable pattern.

Checking a practice above means, “This belongs in the Rule I want to consider.”

If this is your first Rule, two or three new practices are usually enough. A more established Rule may be fuller, especially when many of its commitments are rhythms you already live rather than entirely new disciplines you are trying to add.

No practices selected yet.

Include practical rhythm and time details in the finished Rule.

A Rule for Faithful Living

Your Rule will take shape here as you make your choices.

“A Rule is a trellis, not a cage.”

Your Rule exists to serve faithful living, not to become another standard by which to judge yourself.

Choose faithfulness over intensity. Honor your limits and the dignity of others. Revise the Rule when it no longer helps you attend to the life God has given you.

Create faithfully. · Attend prayerfully. · Form generously.

Veni, Creator Spiritus.