Salesian Literature

Vol. 1, CONFERENCE 11 : Obedience: Second Conference

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I am giving you this talk because, since evening, you have been asking me a certain number of questions.  Two questions touched upon the same subject: In what does the peace and serenity of heart consist and what are the means of acquiring it? I shall not speak on this topic today.  The other question was: Is it permissible for a Sister who has been scolded by her Superior to go and tell others? The third question was: What is the best practice to renounce totally one’s own judgement?  The fourth wants me to speak about he zeal and confidence the Sisters should have in correcting each other with charity?  Our Mother told me later on that she wished that I should speak on obedience; and since I respect her age and her motherly solicitude, I decided to start my talk with the subject of obedience.

 

I shall begin by saying that there are three types of holy obedience – I shall not speak about the others – and the first is common to all Christians; it is the obedience rendered to God and the Church by keeping the Commandments. The second is the RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE, by far richer than the first because it is not limited merely to the observance of the Commandments, but also binds us to the observance of the Counsels.  And then there is the third type of obedience, on which I am going to speak to you today, and I call it OBEDIENCE OF LOVE.  This obedience is the most perfect of all.  Our Lord himself is the model of this obedience throughout all his life.  There is a vast number of admirable examples of this obedience in the Holy Scriptures.  You will understand them better if I tell you about the qualities and conditions of this obedience of love.

 

The Fathers of the Church have enumerated several of these qualities and conditions.  However, from them I shall choose just three.  The first is what they call BLIND OBEDIENCE, the second they call PROMPT; and the third is called PERSEVERING.  Blind obedience has three conditions: the first is that it never stops short at the person of the Superiors, but looks only at their authority; the second is that it never seeks to find the reasons and motives behind the orders of the Superiors; it is satisfied to know that a command has been given.  The third does not worry about the means to be used to carry out what has been commanded.  It rests assured that God, through whose inspiration the command has been given to him, will give all the strength that is needed to accomplish it and begins the work, instead of merely reflecting how to do it if it is begun.

 

Let us come back to the first condition of this obedience of love, which is grafted on to religious obedience.  It is blind obedience because it begins to do with love all that it has been commanded to do, in all simplicity.  It does not seek to know whether the order is rightly or wrongly given, so long as the one who commands has the authority to do so and that the command leads to the union of our hearts with God.   Beyond this, the truly obedient never does anything.  Quite a number of people were greatly mistaken in the understanding of this condition of obedience.  They believed that it consisted in doing anything that could be commanded at random, even if it were to go against the Commandments of God and of the Church.  They have erred very seriously on this subject, in fancying that some foolishness is included in this blindness which is not there.  For, just as Superiors can ever command anything that goes against God’s Commandments, so too the subject has no obligation whatsoever to obey them.  Even if the Superiors give such orders or even think of doing so, they would sin seriously.

 

I am well aware that several persons led by this loving obedience have done actions spontaneously against the Commandments of God.  It impels us not only to obey the orders of God and the Superiors, but also their counsels, and preferences.  Some have hurled themselves to death, due to a special inspiration form God which was so powerful that they could not resist it.  If not, undoubtedly, they would have sinned seriously.  We have an example in the Second Book of the Maccabees.  I think it is about a man called Rasias who was impelled with such an ardent zeal for God’s glory, that he went and exposed himself to be stabbed, knowing fully well that he would get wounded; and finding himself slashed in the chest, he pulled out all his entrails through this wound and flung them in the air in front of his enemies (2 Macc. 14:37-46).

 

St. Apolonia threw herself into the fire which the enemies of God and of Christians had prepared to burn her to death.  St. Ambrose tells us the story of three girls who, to save their modesty, threw themselves into a river where they were drowned.  These girls at least had some kind of reason to do this but it will take too long to discover them.  We have so many who hurled themselves to death, like the one who leaped into a burning furnace.  All these examples have to be admired but not imitated.  However, you should never be so blind as to think that you can please God by breaking his Commandments.  Obedience of love presupposes obedience to God’s Commandments.

 

This obedience of love is called blind also because it obeys all the Superiors, regardless of their appearance, I mean the kind of persons they are.  All the ancient Fathers have greatly reprimanded those who did not respect their Superiors because they had less qualities than their subjects.  They asked: When you obeyed the other Superior, why did you do it?  For the love of God?  Not at all.  Does not this one too hold the same place of God in your life, just as the other one?  There is absolutely no doubt that he is God’s representative and God commands you by his word and he makes his will known to you through his orders.  You obey your Superiors because you like them.  Alas! You are not better than people in the world.  They not only obey the people they love, but they would not think that their love is perfect enough if they were not able to follow as closely as possible their inclinations and affections.  The truly obedient do so towards their Superiors as well as God himself.  The pagans, wicked as they were, have given us admirable examples of obedience, for the devil spoke to them through different kinds of idols: some of them were rats, others dogs, lions, snakes and things like that.  These poor people believed equally in all, obeying the statue of a dog as also that of a man (there were also statues of men) without any difference.  And why this?  Because they looked for their gods in the variety of these statues.

 

St. Peter commands us to obey our Superiors, saying: Obey, yes I tell you!  Obey your Superiors, even if they are severe (1 Pet. 2:18).  Of this St. Paul gives us an example: for one day he was taken before the High Priest and one of the servants struck him on the face shamelessly.  The great Apostle seeing that he was struck for no reason, using his apostolic authority cursed him saying: May God strike you.  But later knowing that the man who had struck him had the authority given by the High Priest, he repented and expressed his regrets: certainly I did not know him (Acts 23:2-5).  We Christians, however, have always been taught to honour, those who have some authority over us.  Our Lord, Our Lady and St. Joseph have taught us very well this obedience when they undertook the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem (Lk. 2:1-5).  For Caesar having issued a decree that all his subjects go to the place of their birth to be registered, they went there lovingly to fulfil his orders, even though Caesar was a pagan and an idolator.  Our Lord thus wanted to show us that we should never look at the mere appearances of those who command us, so long as they have the power to command.

 

As I mentioned to you, we have many admirable examples of blind obedience in the Holy Scriptures.  Among all others we find in the Gospels, there is a very remarkable one hardly noticed.  It is that of the paralytic (Lk. 5:17-26; Mk. 2:3-12).  I like this narrative very much, indeed, because of the extreme simplicity, with which this man allowed himself to be handled letting them do with him as they wished.

 

I come now to the second quality of the first condition of obedience which is that it is blind.  After gaining the attitude of not stopping at the person who commands, rather it is ready to obey all kinds of Superiors equally well, it goes yet further and reaches the second quality.  It is to obey without seeking to know neither the intention nor the purpose of the command.  One is satisfied to know that it is given without wasting time to examine whether it is rightly or wrongly given or whether one is right or not in giving such a command.

 

This paralytic was sick for a very long time.  There was no remedy that would help him.  His friends thought and decided among themselves that if Our Lord were to see hi, he would cure him.  They then decided to carry him to Our Lord.  One day they came to learn that Our Lord entered in a certain house where he was invited for a meal.  He was at table, but he was surrounded by a great multitude of people.  Because of the fame of his miracles everybody ran to see him or to be cured.  The friends of the paralytic hit upon an ingenious plan to carry this poor man before Our Lord by taking him up to the roof of the house.  They uncovered the roof, then lowered this poor sick man (whose whole body was crippled an swollen all over) by ropes to the middle of the room in front of Our Lord.  He healed him immediately – as much because of the faith of the man as also the charity his friends practised to have him cured.  But you still don’t know what delights my heart in this narrative and serves my purpose to make my point clear: it is the extreme simplicity of the paralytic’s obedience.  You seem, he could very well have said: Alas! What do you want to do with me?  Do you want to kill me, taking me up to the roof?  Are you fed up with my life?  What harm have I done to you to make me suffer martyrdom, which I will have to, being pestered like this?  He was certainly right in fearing the harm that could befall him at the way his friends were carrying out this venture.  But we find nothing of the sort.  The Gospel does not tell us that he ever uttered a single word of protest, but in all simplicity let his friends do with him whatever they desired, even though this obedience could have cost him his life.

 

The story of Abraham is very famous.  God says to him: Abraham, leave your country and your kinsmen, that is, leave you town, and go to a place that I will show you (gen. 12:1).  Poor Abraham goes without saying a word.  He could very well have said: Look here, Lord, you tell me to leave the town, but tell me at least which side of the town I am to leave from.  There are many gates leading to many different destinations.  But he says not a word, but goes where the Spirit leads him, without any question.  Am I doing right of wrong?  Why – and with what intention – has God so suddenly given this order without even showing me the way, which I should take?  Of course, a truly obedient man does not make all these reflections.  He just goes ahead with the task, without enquiring about anything else except to obey.

 

Our Lord wanted to show us how dear this kind of obedience is to him when he appeared to St. Paul to convert him.  He called him by name, caused him to fall to the ground and made him blind.  You see, to make him disciple, Our Lord made him fall to the ground so as to humiliate him, and thus make him submit.  And then, suddenly, he made him blind.  And blind as he was, Our Lord orders him to go to the town and seek Ananias and do all that he would tell him (Acts 9:4-8).  But why did not Our Lord himself tell him directly what he ought to do, instead of sending him further since he himself had deigned to speak to him in order to convert him?  The poor St. Paul did as he was commanded.  It would have cost Our Lord nothing to tell him personally what was said by Ananias to him.  He did this so that we learn from this example how much he loves blind obedience, since it seems that he made St. Paul blind only to make him truly obedient.

 

The man born blind finding himself before the Lord, did not ask to be cured.  Our Lord himself asked him whether he wanted to be cured and recover his sight.  Yes please, I want it (Jn. 9:6-7).  And Our Lord then spat on the ground, made a paste with the spittle and spread it on the man’s eyes and said to him, go and wash.  This poor blind man could well have been astonished at the means Our Lord was using to cure him and say: What are you doing?  If I was not blind what you are doing to me could make me lose my sight!  You tell me to go and wash in such a place.  Please take me there?  You know well, I cannot go there on my own, blind as I am unless somebody leads me.  The man, however, simply obeyed, he did not think of all this, but went without bothering whether he could do it or not.  The truly obedient always believes quite simply that he can do all that is commanded.  He holds that all commandments come form God or are given through his inspiration.  They are not impossible because God who commands is all powerful.

 

Here are two stories of examples of a different kind that of Jacob and Namaan.  They wasted their time a little by examining whether the commands which we were given to them were good because they thought whether they would bring them evil.  You know the story of Jacob.  In order to say what I intend, I am obliged to repeat something from the story.  Isaac had two sons.  The older son was called Esau.  Now Esau was rough, ill-natured and hairy.  He loved to live in the woods and among beasts as he was very fond of hunting.  The other son was called Jacob who was the younger.  He was most pleasant as much by his beauty as by the great gentleness of his heart.  He was his mother’s favourite.  She was thinking how she could enable Jacob to receive the paternal blessing.  This blessing belonged to the eldest of the family by hereditary right.  The sublimity of the great priesthood and the succession to the paternal inheritance were included in this blessing.  One day, the mother overheard her husband Isaac telling Esau to go out hunting and to get him some venison and on his turn he would give him the blessing.  While Esau had gone hunting, she called here son Jacob and told him what she had heard from his father and the promise he had made to his brother.  Then she said to him: “Hurry! Go to the flock and pick one kid and bring it to me immediately and I shall prepare it in the sauce of venison the kind of dish your father relishes.  You will take it to your father and without doubt he will give you his blessing.”  At this poor Jacob began to make excuses saying: “My dear Mother, he said, how can I do that?  My brother Esau is very hairy and my skin is smooth.  If my father touches me and realizes that I wished to deceive him, instead of giving me a blessing, he will give me a curse.”  His mother, however, assured him: “Go, my son, I assure you that if there is a curse, it will fall upon me.”  And poor Jacob went and did what he was asked to do. Later his mother put the goatskins on his hands and on his neck and handed him the savoury dish she had prepared for his father.  Isaac did not see through the deceit because he was blind, he allowed himself to be deceived by his touch though he felt that he heard the voice of Jacob and gave him his blessings.  Since that time Jacob became the high priest and is an ancestor of the Lord.  You see how dearly it cost him for wishing to make some reflections on what was commanded because he would have lost all the graces which he received.

 

Namaan the Syrian, (2 Kgs. 5:9-14), a leper, went to see Elisha to be cured because all the remedies he had tried had proved to be useless.  Hearing that Elisha was performing great marvels he went to him.  Arriving at his place, he sent a messenger to Elisha to come out and cure him.  On receiving the message Elisha did not even get out of his room.  He only ordered him through his servant Gehasi to go and wash in the river Jordan seven times and he would be cured.  But Namaan was furious and said: Do we not have waters in our country which are as good as those of the river Jordan?  And he did not want to do anything.  But his servants remonstrated with him and told him to do what the prophet had commanded, since it was so easy.  You would have been right, to refuse today, they said, if the prophet had told you to do something quite difficult.  So Namaan was won over by these words and went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as he was commanded, and he was cured.

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