The Brethren of the Common Life (Latin: Fratres Vitae Communis) (FVC) was a Roman Catholic pietist religious community founded in the Netherlands in the 14th century by Gerard Groote, formerly a successful and worldly educator who had had a religious experience and preached a life of simple devotion to Jesus Christ. Without taking up irrevocable vows, the Brethren banded together in communities, giving up their worldly goods to live chaste and strictly regulated lives in common houses, devoting every waking hour to attending divine service, reading and preaching of sermons, labouring productively and taking meals in common that were accompanied by the reading aloud of Scripture: "judged from the ascetic discipline and intention of this life, it had few features which distinguished it from life in a monastery", observes Hans Baron.
Read more about Brethren Of The Common Life: The Brethren and The Devotio Moderna, Windesheim Congregation, Education and Activity
Famous quotes containing the words brethren, common and/or life:
“The denial of our duty to act in this case is a denial of our right to act; and if we have no right to act, then may we well be termed “the white slaves of the North,” for like our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence and despair.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
“But genius is religious. It is a larger imbibing of the common heart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is a right according to which we may deprive a human being of his life but none according to which we may deprive him of his death: to do so is mere cruelty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)