Obedience

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

Our Lord tells us in St. John, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34).

Obedience is the submission of our will to the will of another.

On many occasions and throughout His life, Our Lord humbly submitted His will to the will of His Father: “Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from me; yet not my will, rather yours be done” (Matt. 26:39).

Our Lord gives great importance to the virtue of obedience.

He wants each one of us to die to ourselves, to our self-love, to our egoism—very often through obedience to the people that He has placed there to guide us.

For children, it's parents. For husbands, it may be wives; for wives, husbands. For other people, the people that God has placed with the grace of state to guide them.

He says in St. John: “Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falling into the ground dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it, and he that hates his life in this world will keep it until life everlasting” (John 12:24-25).

Part of our Christian vocation in following Our Lord is to try and live this virtue well.

There are times when it may be easy, but there can be times when it costs, but obedience is always fruitful. The Book of Proverbs says, “The obedient person speaks victory” (Prov. 21:28). God loves the obedient soul.

Also in St. John, Our Lord says: “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this cause, I came unto this hour” (John 12:27).

Our Lord came to obey, to do His Father's will.

We're told on another occasion: “What do you think?” He said. “A certain man had two sons. And coming to the first, he said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ And he, answering, said, ‘I will not.’ But afterward, being moved with repentance, he went. And coming to the other, he said in like manner.

“And he, answering, said, ‘I go, sir,’ and he went not. Which of the two did the father’s will? They said to him: ‘The first.’

“Jesus said to them: ‘Amen I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of heaven before you’” (Matt. 21:28-31).

That’s a rather interesting phrase worth thinking about.

We haven't come to do our own will or to impose our will on other people. Our Lord wants the humble submission of our will.

St. Paul says to the Philippians: "For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, for being in the form of God, he did not think being equal to God a thing to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave and being made in the likeness of men. In the form of man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even unto death on a cross. For which cause God has also exalted him and given him the name which is above all names, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:5-10).

One of the ways in which we empty ourselves and live this virtue of humility—authentic humility—in our deeds is through this virtue.

The whole of Our Lord's life could be summed up in the two words: He obeyed.

"He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. And his mother treasured all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51).

Our Lord also emphasized: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).

Initially, it might be difficult to see Our Lord's will.

Close to where we lived in Singapore, there was a community of nuns, some of them very elderly, elderly Irish nuns who had been all over Asia. Many had looked after orphanages in many faraway places.

Then one elderly nun died. One of the other young nuns told me a story that when this lady was 67, she was asked to go and start an orphanage in Fiji.

But she had been the Superior of many orphanages in different places, and now she was a bit old and she was a bit tired, and she didn't really feel like going to Fiji.

She was sort of complaining: "I've always been the one to go and start in all these places, and now I'm this age," and she said, "I won't go. I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't.”

Then the nun finished her story, saying, "You know, in the end, she went."

It was a rather beautiful, formative story.

Initially, she didn't feel one single bit like obeying. Every human cell in her body felt like rebelling, this holy lady.

But after prayer and consideration, she came to see what the will of God was, and so she went forward to live out her vocation in and through this virtue.

Our Lord said in St. Luke: "I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and how great is my distress until it is over!" (Luke 12:50).

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem,” we're told in St. Luke, “and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished” (Luke 18:31).

“For this reason, the Father loves Me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again” (John 10:17).

In the whole course of our Christian vocation, there may be many situations in our marriage, in our family, in our workplace, where we are called to lay down our life: to work in this particular place; to fulfill this particular job; to finish this particular task that we have in front of us.

He said: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18).

St. Josemaría liked to say that sometimes the most supernatural reason for doing things is because I want to, because I see this thing as the will of God (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 17).

This is what is being asked of me, and so I interiorize the requests. I don't do something just because I have been asked to do this, or I have been told to do that. I do it because I want to, because I see this is the will of God, the Holy Spirit speaking to me, and this is His will for me in this particular moment. Therefore, I do it of my own accord and with great personal responsibility.

“I have the power to lay it down,” He says, “and I have the power to take it up again. I’ve received this command from my Father” (John 10:18).

In the Book of Samuel, we're told: “I prefer obedience rather than sacrifice” (cf. 1 Sam. 15:22).

Sometimes the temptation might be to perform some great sacrifice that may be attractive to us or looks interesting, but possibly God is not asking us for that big sacrifice. Maybe He just wants us to obey in a humble way the ordinary little things that God asks of us.

In The Forge, Point 231, it says, "A sick man is brought to Jesus, who looks at him. —Contemplate the scene closely and meditate upon his words: take heart, my son.

"This is what Our Lord says to you when you feel the weight of your errors. Have faith! In the first place: faith. And then allow yourself to be carried like the paralytic did: with interior and submissive obedience!"

This virtue is supposed to have certain characteristics.

It's meant to be supernatural: I see this thing as coming from God. I'm not just obeying a human person. I don't look at the human qualities of the person who's asked me to do this thing. They might be younger than me; they might be less qualified; they might be this, they might be that; they might be less virtuous.

But they have been placed in this particular situation to guide me. Therefore, with faith, I have to try and see the hand of God working in and through this person.

Our obedience should be intelligent. It's not a blind obedience. We pass that obedience through our reason.

If there is some particular thing that we find problematic, then we ask about it. We ask for clarification. If we're still told to go ahead, it’s better to go ahead and do it, with faith, with a supernatural outlook, with trust in God.

When we're asked to do something, our obedience should be prompt.

“Mary went with haste into the hill country” (Luke 1:39). “The shepherds went with haste” to Bethlehem (Luke 2:16).

In Scripture, as soon as people see what the will of God for them is, they go quickly to fulfill that will.

One lady advised her child when her child began to have children after marrying. When he asked for advice on how to bring up children, this experienced lady said, ‘Teach them to obey.’

One great lesson that parents should try and instill in their children is to teach them to obey, and to obey with haste.

When I say something, will you give that priority? When I call you, you come. When I tell you to make your bed, you make your bed. When I tell you to be on time for meals, you be on time for meals.

The domestic Church has to cultivate many virtues. A family is meant to be a school of virtues, and this is one of them. It's a great preparation for a child for their future marriage, for their future work, for the future contribution they have to make to society.

Our obedience should be interior. We don't just obey exteriorly, grinding our teeth and getting on with it.

Because we see that indication was coming from the hand of God, we make it our own with our mind and heart. I do this because I want to, because I see this is the will of God.

God gives us the grace and the help to be able to fulfill that thing.

Sometimes our reason can become unreasonable. What we are asked to do might seem unreasonable.

There was a little girl once, five years of age, who was quite talkative, particularly when she went visiting her neighbors. One day she remarked to the lady who lived next door, “I don't think my mother knows anything about raising children."

The lady next door asked, “Well, how is that?” She said, “She makes me go to bed when I'm not sleepy, and she makes me get up when I am sleepy.”

Sometimes obedience does not seem reasonable. But yet, looked at from a different perspective, it can be a different story.

And lastly, our obedience should be responsible. When we're asked to do something, we report back about that thing that we have done.

We help the person who asked us to do something to be at peace: this job has been done, and I can now tick it on my list—whether it's our boss, whether it's our spouse, whether it's our parent, whoever it may be.

Obedience breeds peace in the humble soul. When we do what we're asked to do, then we can relax. We've done the best thing. We've done the will of God.

A principal obstacle to our obedience can be pride: pride expressed as rebellion, a critical spirit, a poorly understood freedom of spirit.

The remedy is always humility and sincerity. Speak about it in spiritual direction.

These are some of the areas where the enemy can attack: trying to promote a critical spirit or a judgmental spirit, a lack of docility.

Obedience is not against our freedom.

I heard a canon lawyer many years ago, shortly after the new Code of Canon Law was promoted in 1983.

He was saying that in our society, law is almost a dirty word. We have to improve the public opinion of the law. Everybody wants to be out from underneath the yoke of the law.

He talked about the relationship between law and freedom. He said in every city, the airport is about half an hour from the center of the city. Everyone is free to go to the airport. Everyone has a right to go to the airport.

To go to the airport, you've got to go down one road, turn left here, turn right there, go around the roundabout. Maybe around another roundabout. Eventually, you turn left, and you get to the airport.

But he said if you take away all the laws, and you tell people that now if they don't want to drive on the left side of the road, they can drive on the right side of the road. And when they come to the roundabout, instead of going clockwise, if they feel like it, they're free to go anti-clockwise. And if they want to drive to the airport all the way on the footpath, they can do so. And if they want to have fun, they could reverse to the airport on the wrong side of the road.

What would be the result? The result would be chaos. Instead of taking half an hour to get to the airport, you might never get to the airport.

It might take you hours and hours, because if everybody else is reversing all the way to where they're going on the wrong side of the road, you may have a monumental traffic jam.

The moral of the story is that the opposite of law is not freedom; it's chaos.

Freedom comes with the law. We maintain our freedom by following the law.

This is a very important Christian concept, not just in society in general, but in the family, in any organization, in a school, in the workplace, in the university.

We maintain our freedom by following the laws or the indications that are laid down to preserve everybody else's freedom.

Through this virtue, we show that our self-surrender to God is real; that our love is effective; that our faith is high-quality faith; and that our intention is upright.

I haven't come just to do my will, what I think is best, what I want to do. I've come to do what God wants me to do.

Therefore, obedience and things may be difficult or costly, and can demand a lot of fortitude, and possibly a lot of sacrifice. But sacrifice is the touchstone of love.

“Greater love than this, no man has, than to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

To subject our will to another in a regular way can be heroic: to our spouse, to our boss, to the law, to the organization. We have to ardently desire to do the will of the Father at all times.

We find that the fullness of obedience is found on Calvary. The whole of the Redemption is the fruit of the obedience of Christ.

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous," says St. Paul to the Romans (Rom. 5:19).

A very good aspiration or word to have on our lips occasionally is the word serviam, I will serve.

I've come to serve God in my family, in my workplace, in public life, in and through the individuals that God has placed around me; to serve my children; to serve my neighbors.

The obedience of the children of God reflects our identity with Christ. We are children of His, with the same obedience that He has.

The more we go along in our Christian vocation, then the more refined our obedience should be. It's not that as we get older, we impose our will more on other people.

Our Lord lived obedience to the end: “obedience until death” (cf. Phil. 2:8). Christ is always present in obedience.

If we have difficulty obeying, it can be an opportunity to grow in humility.

Blessed Álvaro del Portillo used to say that availability is one of the signs of those people who deal constantly with the Holy Spirit.

We have an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit when we find it easy to do things. Can you do this? Can you do that? Can you come here? Can you go there?

In principle, yes, because I have come to serve. That's what my life is all about in this marriage, in this family, in this organization.

We can't be co-redeemers without obeying. This virtue confers a supernatural value to the whole of our life.

The need to obey doesn't depend exclusively on the good it does to the soul nor on the requirements of organizational efficacy, but on its intimate union with the Redemption. It's an intimate part of the mystery of the Cross.

In Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council it says, "To carry out the will of the Father, Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us the mystery of that Kingdom."

For us to imitate Christ and to be co-redeemers, we need to obey. If we set limits to our obedience, we reduce our union with Christ.

We haven’t come to impose our personal criteria. We have to decide to become a saint because that's what our Christian vocation is all about, and that equates with submitting ourselves or lowering ourselves, emptying ourselves.

This virtue allows us to cut off many deviations of our will at the beginning.

“It happened that on the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up: ‘No, he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘But no one in your family has that name,’ and they made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. His father asked for a writing tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they were all astonished. At that instant, his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God” (Luke 1:59-64).

Only the person who has learned how to obey is capable of commanding, because they've discovered that the intimate sense of obedience is love, and that the mission of governance is also an act of love, part of the full and unique love that stirs souls of all who serve the Church.

St. Josemaría used to say that the task of governance anywhere in the Church is another opportunity to serve, and to cease holding some position of governance is not a failure, but another way of serving.

"Whatever our task," says St. Paul to the Colossians, "work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men. … You are serving the Lord Jesus Christ” (Col. 3:23-24).

Precisely because we live and work in the world, we have to try to obey with more zeal and exactitude at whatever is asked of us.

No one in the world should make themselves untouchable, no matter how important our professional work may be, because “our food has to be to do the will of him who sent me” (cf. John 4:34).

This is what gives meaning and strength to my life: to do God's will even in the smallest things, not in doing my preferences or my caprices.

This virtue is the touchstone of humility: humility put into practice, of supernatural meaning that animates us. It gives us the assurance that we are truly serving God, and not our vanity, our caprice, or our selfishness.

We also have to try and be obedient to the advice we receive in spiritual direction.

Our Lord told the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests (Luke 17:14). He didn't cleanse them there and then. He wanted their response of obedience.

The blind man washes his clay-filled eyes in the pool of Siloam, and then he begins to see (John 9:7).

The superabundant catch of fish comes from lowering the net to the other side of the boat (Luke 5:4-6).

Many miracles occur after the exercise of this virtue.

Our obedience may sometimes require the cheerful rearrangement of our personal plans. Instead of your plan, can you change your plan and do this or do that, or pass by here or pick up this thing? This is what makes us free to be fruitful, and this is the way that we love.

We can ask Our Lord to make us personally responsible for the things that we do: obedience to the Church; obedience to the Holy Father; being docile and allowing the image of Christ to be forged in us; letting God act in us and through us.

Identifying ourselves with Christ means being obedient in everything. I don't decide to obey the Church in this, this, and this, but not in that, that, and that.

I'm not a cafeteria Catholic, that I pick and choose what I want to obey. It's a very safe thing always to obey what the Church tells us.

In the Furrow, Point 374, it says, “Obey with your lips, with your heart, and your mind. —It is not a man who is being obeyed, but God.”

It helps us to be very supernatural. The spirit of service in the world can come to have greater importance when it seems that nobody wants to obey.

In the Furrow, Point 381, it says, "When will you be convinced that you have to obey? And you disobey if, instead of fulfilling your plan of life, you waste your time. You have to fill every minute with work, study, and interior life."

Other people may be watching and learning from your self-giving.

We can turn to Our Lady, who “kept all these things carefully in her heart” (Luke 2:19,51).

In the Furrow, Point 415, it says, "Discipline does not seem at all heavy when it goes together with a clean and sincere love. Even if it costs you a lot, it unites you to the Loved One.”

“‘Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?’ And they did not understand the things he said to them” (Luke 2:49-50).

There were things that Mary and Joseph did not understand, but yet they obeyed.

Mary, may you teach us to have a greater, more refined obedience in all the things that we do.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JM