SOURCE: "Foreward," "The Cult of the Rule," and "The Rule of Today" in Serving God First: Insights on "The Rule of St. Benedict," translated by James Scharinger, Cistercian Publications, 1985, pp. 3-10.

In the following excerpt from his Dieu premier servi (Serving God First), originally published in French in 1974, Kleiner comments on the spiritual importance of the Rule of St. Benedict and its enduring role in Christian life.

Serve God First: there is here a norm, a measure, a hierarchy of values. It appears to be beyond question, yet it is not easy. We hear about the human crisis nowadays. A crisis is a reversal of values and criteria. Man has always had the tendency to want to be served first, but the formulation of a theory, a doctrine of self-service, has been reserved to our own day. An immense process of secularization is under way when God, having...