The Third Part - Vices and Virtues
Obedience
Second Meditation - Practice of Obedience
I. The exercise of this costly virtue must be ennobled and transformed into the virtue of religion; it must become as much an exercise of religion and piety as any act of worship.
To obey because you hope thereby to reap some personal profit, or because you will thus win the sympathy of the Prelate for the furtherance of your own selfish interests, would be vile adulation.
To obey because of the courtesy and kindly manner with which you are given orders, because you have taken a liking to the Superior, or on account of the rectitude and prudence you recognise in him, are so many tides for serving only the Superior. And this will enable you to live a life of submission and earn the reputation of being easy to handle; you will bring to a successful issue works of considerable renown and self-sacrifice; but when you come to ask your Divine Lord to reward you, He will say: "You worked for your Superior, it is for him to pay you."
And meanwhile you will have lived in subjection to a man like yourself, to a man with no other claims to your submission (as far as you are concerned) than those human and fallible claims which you yourself have endowed him with; he is a man you hope to get something from, he is pleasant and courteous, he is superior to you in knowledge and prudence.
Slavery would seem your birthright; you are no better off than any slave of an old Roman patrician.
II. There is no creature, human or angelic, who deserves that I should dedicate to him the humblest act of my free will. My "commanded" or "elicited" acts, when informed by God's grace and a right intention, no matter how insignificant they may appear, such as eating, sleeping, etc., are worthy of eternal life; this alone is their adequate recompense.
Am I going to forfeit so great a reward for the sake of some temporal advantage or convenience?
But for an act of obedience to yield its perfect fruit, God must be its "ratio formalis": God's Authority delegated to my Superior. You see now how an act of submission can be transformed into something religious and devotional?
There is no other means of ennobling our subjection to man.
Has your obedience ever reached that perfection? Have you instructed the faithful in this truth of our holy religion, which would so ennoble and lighten the yoke of obedience in those who obey, and render the exercise of authority so considerate in those who command?
If you accord to the person-in-charge, not only external submission, but also inward honour and respect, to which he is entitled, you will soon experience for yourself obedience's ennobling influence: "Pay every man his due. . . respect and honour. . . ." (Rom. xiii, 7).
How reluctantly and how badly one obeys when the person in authority has become an object of contempt!
And perhaps nothing lowers him more in the eyes of his subjects than a continual criticism of his actions: it poisons good will, alienates affection; and those under him, when obliged to obey, are like a wheel that creaks through lack of lubricating oil. And while supposing that calumny and detraction play no part, what do we stand to gain by our carping criticism, except to lower the whole tone of the moral body of which we are members, which in this case is the Church Herself?
That there are stains on those of us who are, so to speak, the Church's feet and the hem of Her garment, is bad enough; but it certainly does us no honour to be constantly harping upon and pointing out those stains when they mar the Church's very countenance. Oh, what great scorn has been poured upon the ministers of the altar by those murmurings and malicious, gossiping tongues! How often these have caused many of the faithful to waver and weaken in their Catholic belief!
Resolutions
1. I shall obey all my Superiors as I would God Himself, readily, joyfully, without discussing their orders.
2. On every occasion, in their presence or otherwise, I shall not refuse them the tribute of respect and veneration to which they are entitled as representatives of Jesus Christ; and if they have their faults I shall not allow these to prejudice me, but shall do my best to draw a veil over them.
3. From now on I forbid myself all murmuring against them; and when others indulge in it in my hearing and I cannot suitably stand up for their defence, I shall observe a discreet silence, not showing any sign of assent.
These standards required of me are all the more reasonable the more strongly I myself insist, and always will insist, on their observance by my own subjects in their relations towards me.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.
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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!
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