Salesian Literature

Chapter 13  :  The third proof of inspiration – obedience to the Church and to superiors

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Peace of soul and patience are inseparably bound up with humility.

 

However, I do not call obsequious words and gestures, or bowings and scrapings, humility; especially when they are done, as frequently happens, with no inner conviction of self-abasement, no due regard for one’s neighbour.  All it amounts to is the play-acting of weak minds – humility’s shadow, not it substance.

 

The humility I mean is dignified, genuine, deep-rooted and solid; a quality that makes us docile to correction, tractable and prompt to obey.

 

The first inspiration God ever sends to a man is that of obedience.

 

A man who claims to be inspired, but refuses to obey his superiors or to follow their advice, is an imposter.  All the prophets, all the preachers, whom God inspired, always loved the Church, always held to its teaching, always won its approval, always proclaimed the truth of the saying: No utterance like a priest’s for learning; from no other lips men will expect true guidance (Mal. 2:7).

 

An extraordinary mission is an illusion of the devil, not an inspiration from God, unless it is recognized and approved by those pastors who have the ordinary mission – a point on which Moses and the prophets are in agreement.  St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, and the other founders of religious Orders, were called to the service of souls by an extraordinary inspiration.  All the greater, on that account, was the humility and wholeheartedness of their submission to the Church’s hierarchy.

 

It comes, therefore, to this: the three finest, surest proofs of the genuine character of inspirations are – perseverance in contrast to fickleness, peace of soul in contrast to impulsive anxiety, humble obedience in contrast to stubborn wilfulness.

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