He that is to be received shall make a promise before all in the oratory of his stability and of the discipline of his life and of obedience, before God and his saints, so that if he should ever act otherwise, he may know that he will be condemned by him whom he mocks. Of this promise of his let him draw up a formal petition in the name of the saints whose relics are there and of the abbot who is present. Let him write this document with his own hand; or, if he cannot write, let another do it at his request and let the novice put his mark to it. Then let him put it on the altar with his own hand; and, when he has placed it there, let the novice himself at once intone the verse; Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam: et ne confundas me ab exspectatione mea¹ . Let the whole community answer this verse three times and add to it Gloria Patri. Then let the novice prostrate himself before the feet of each monk, asking them to pray for him; and from that day let him be counted as one of the community. If he possess any property, let him either give it beforehand to the poor, or make a formal donation bestowing it on the monastery, and keep back nothing at all for himself, as knowing that thenceforward he will not have the disposition even of his own body. So let them, there and then, in the oratory, take off him his own clothes which he is wearing and dress him in the clothes of the monastery. But let those clothes, which have been taken off him, be out aside in the clothes-room and kept there. Then should he ever listen to the persuasions of the devil and ever propose to leave the monastery (which God forbid) let them take off him the clothes of the monastery and so dismiss him. But his petition, which the abbot has taken from the altar, shall not be returned to him, but shall be preserved in the monastery.

¹Ps. cxviii, 116 [Receive me, Lord, according to your word and I shall live and let not my hope in you be disappointed]