the rule of life 66 to the custom of the place, from the Feast of St. Martin to the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and from the Octave of the Immaculate Conception to the Solemnity of Christmas. While you will hard press the body by abstaining from food, try all the more to abstain from vices. One fasts in a disorderly way if he is hard pressing the body while he neglects the spirit. Nor is food fruitfully taken away from the body unless the mind is recalled from evil. 4. Because softness of garment incites not only pride, but also lust, you, as hermits, will wear clothing from the simplest, roughest and thickest material: you will wear a habit stretching to the ankles — not one which trails on the ground or shows the ankles too much — and a short mantle reaching to the knees, and a shirt from coarse linen or some other harsh material. All of these will be white in color15, in honor of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, and the greatest cleanliness of them should be observed, because dirty poverty can please no one. 5. At least when inside the house in summer, wooden sandals will be worn with bare feet. Outdoors, for the sake of propriety, and in the winter in cold regions for reasons of health, simple, uniform but not extravagant shoes are permitted. Hats lined with sheep’s wool are not forbidden to be used to protect the body in a cold climate after the Superior General of the Congregation has been consulted. The brother-workers will have to wear a different habit from the priests: a habit reaching to the ankles, of gray color, and a mantle without a collar. (“Worker” meaning those who in choir cannot perform the Office of the Dead and devotions with the others in the Latin language.) 15 Thus the white habit was designed by Fr. Stanislaus for the Marians as one of the means by which they were propagating the devotion to the Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Later, he said: “I assumed the white habit in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary” (cf. Positio, p. 495). Strangely enough, the 1687 versionof the Rule of Life gives a different significance of the white color of the Marians’ clothing, namely: “in honor of Our Lord mocked [ridiculed?] byHerod.”
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