•          the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more.

•                      the poor and humble surrender to the loving will of the Father in ever deeper union with his beloved Son.       

•          hearing the Word of God.  Far from being passive, such attentiveness is the obedience of faith, the unconditional acceptance of a servant, and the loving commitment of a child.  It participates in the “Yes” of the Son become servant and the Fiat of God’s lowly handmaid.

•          a covenant relationship established by God within our hearts.

•          a communion in which the Holy Trinity conforms man, the image of God, “to his likeness.”

•          a union with the prayer of Christ as it makes us participate in his mystery.

•          a communion of love bearing life for the multitude, to the extent that it consents to abide in the night of faith.

As these phrases suggest, obedience, union, love, prayer are all the same reality.  Pope Benedict XVI wrote “The central act of Jesus is the act of prayer, of unbroken communion with the Father.” The act of prayer is also an act of self-surrender– which is the whole basis of our obedience, which is a participation in the communion of the three Divine Persons.  The Church documents emphasize this Trinitarian aspect.  In Vita Consecrata it states:  “Obedience, practiced in imitation of Christ, whose food was to do the Father’s will, shows the liberating beauty of a dependence which is not servile but filial, marked by a deep sense of responsibility and animated by mutual trust, which is a reflection in history of the loving harmony between the three Divine persons.” (36) That’s telling us we most closely reflect this Trinitarian love when we are obedient.  We are participating in Christ’s surrender in love to the Father.

Reflection:  The painting of the figure representing obedience has a listening heart.   She has an expression of faith and love on her face. She looks on towards the One speaking, trustfully listening to the voice of God, without fear or servility, but in a spirit of freedom.

This teaches us the importance of listening with faith and responding in love in our practice of obedience.  Our Constitutions expresses this where it states: “By our vow of obedience, practiced in faith and love, we bind ourselves to obey our lawful superiors in accordance with the Constitutions.  We consider our superior God’s representative.”  There are different aspects of obedience mentioned here.  In regards to faith, we always acquaint faith with sight.  We use the expression of “seeing with the eyes of faith.”  Through the gift of faith, the mind sees something- it sees the truth of God revealing Himself.  God is not just an object of belief, but a “living fact”, an “abiding fact” meaning He is a living presence and love known experientially firsthand.  This faith element is translated into everyday life when we recognize God’s intimate involvement in our life.  In our practice of obedience, these eyes of faith allow us to see our superior as God’s representative and the commands she gives as God’s will. 

Our Constitutions also tell us we practice obedience in love.  This love is shown in our relationship with our superior and our sisters in community.  Love brings about what Fraternal Life in Community calls a convergence of “yeses” to God, united in the same “yes” to Christ.  FLC #44 reminds us that we are not only called to an individual personal vocation but our call is also a “convocation”, we are called with others with whom we share our daily life.  This challenges us today to put aside an individualistic way of thinking where there’s the need to put self at the center stage.  We as religious, are called to be strong witnesses of communion.  In our relationship with our superiors, this means striving to be in communion with her, being of one mind and heart.  In Vita Consecrata, our Holy Father gave us a strong exhortation to be experts of communion and to practice the spirituality of communion.  We are to be architects of communion. (73) The Church is very much in need of this witness.

Obedience is the foundation of this spirituality of communion.  Witnessing to this communion would mean we give the superior the same obedience we would give to Christ to reach the same communion of mind and heart that we strive to achieve with Christ.  We are reminded of this commitment to communion every night when we kiss the scapular of our superior.  We make a visible statement that we are of one mind, heart and will with her as Christ’s representative. 

Viewing our obedience on a purely natural level does much to harm communion.  We lose sight of Jesus when we begin to focus on the natural qualities of the superior, natural abilities and deficiencies, virtues or defects or become suspicious as to why she asked us to do something, how she asked us, or that she asked us.  This can result in disobedience.  It’s interesting to note that the Greek word meaning the opposite of obedience is parakouo- “to listen around, beside.”  When I “listen around” what am I listening to?  -my plans, my preferences, my convenience, my own will.  I am no longer listening to a Person.  I cut myself off from communion. 

We see this played out in Adam and Eve.  They enjoyed a communion of love before the Fall.  We see this is Adam and Eve not being ashamed of their nakedness. They were thinking only of the other and loving the other through the gift of self.  Their disobedience cut them off from communion.  They “listened around” and failed to listen to God’s voice.  This turned their gaze upon self, and they became aware of their nakedness.  Their disobedience was a movement toward self and not toward God.

When we lose the sight of faith it will show in our behavior.  We may begin indulging in behaviors such as sulking, indulging feelings of being the victim or resort to interiorly grumbling about what we may be asked to do.  Here again, we are “listening around” and not “listening through”.  We have to see with the eyes of faith how God is coming to us through the present situation.

St. John of the Cross gives helpful advice on how to grow in communion with our superiors.  I’m going to quote him exactly because his words are powerful.  He hits important areas to consider.  He writes:

“Always look upon the superior as though upon God, no matter who she happens to be, for she takes God’s place.  And note that the devil, humility’s enemy, is a great and crafty meddler in this area.  Much profit and gain comes from considering the superior in this light, but serious loss and harm lies in not doing so.  Watch, therefore, with singular care that you study neither her character, her mode of behavior, her ability, or any of her other methods of procedure, for you will so harm yourself as to change your obedience from divine to human, being motivated only by the visible traits of the superior, and not by the invisible God Whom you serve through her.  Your obedience is vain and all the more fruitless in the measure that you allow the superior’s unpleasant character to annoy you or her good and pleasing manners to make you happy.  For I tell you that by inducing religious to consider these modes of conduct, the devil has ruined a vast number of them in their journey toward perfection.  Their acts of obedience are worth little in God’s sight, since they allow these considerations to interfere with obedience.” 

Besides listening to God through our superiors and obeying commands, directives given, we also surrender to God in obedience all the details of our daily life, listening to God through the events and experiences of the day.  My “yes” to Christ in obedience at these moments becomes my meeting place with Him, an occasion of communion with Him.  My response in love to all the details of our life, doing what I’m suppose to do, in the manner I should do it, and at the time it should be done, with a sense of responsibility and belonging and with the right motive draws me into loving communion with God.   But, obedience isn’t about doing particular acts of obedience.   Because we live a very structured life, there is the danger to compartmentalize our life.  Every community act may be looked upon as a separate compartment.  Obedience brings it all together- again going back to the idea of making obedience the unifying principle of our life.

If our obedience is animated by a deep and personal love for Christ it will take on certain qualities. Let’s take a moment to look at some of these.

1. One quality of obedience is that it’s cheerful showing a willingness to give and serve.  If we are truly obedient, it will show on our faces.  A cheerful attitude greatly contributes to the harmony and unity of our convents.  Superiors are helped in carrying out their responsibilities when Sisters respond cheerfully and willingly to commands given.  Much more good can be accomplished in the apostolate with this atmosphere of charity, willingness and cooperation.  On the other hand, when we grudgingly comply and show no enthusiasm when, for example, the superior asks us to help with a project, it hinders the community from more effectively fulfilling its mission and doing the good it could accomplish for the benefit of those we service.  If Christ Himself appeared to us personally and requested: “Please do this for Me.” we would happily make haste to do it and carry out His request in a willing and joyful spirit.  This is the same response we are to give our superiors.  Venerable Mother Luisita simply put it, “Let’s obey joyfully, so that we’ll be able to give glory to God.”

2.  Another quality of obedience is that it is prompt.  This shows an attitude of mind which has a readiness to respond to the situation put before us be it going to prayers, doing convent duties, recreating with the Sisters, working in the apostolate, following the schedule of the day arranged by the superior.  This is how we give the gift of our self to Christ.  Speaking of prompt obedience, St. Bernard states: “The truly obedient religious knows no hesitation; ignores delays; anticipates orders; is all intent on knowing the will of commands.”  “Making haste” like Mary by a prompt obedience shows the attitude of a servant, one who is attentive to the needs of others and ready to respond to that need.  When a hesitation or reluctance is shown to the needs and requests of the superior, we need to examine our generosity in responding to what God desires of us.  On the day of our profession we vowed to God the offering of our will, freely given as a sacrifice of ourselves to God.  Obedience is never convenient.  It involves sacrifice.  It will lead us to the cross.    

3.  Obedience is also active and responsible.  By our obedience, we take an active part in contributing to the mission of the community.  Obedience goes beyond the bare minimum of obedience of carrying out orders.  It implies honest, open communication with the superior, giving an account for our own activity, and being available to receive directives.   This means we share a co-responsibility in community, taking initiative and anticipating the needs of the superior, offering ourselves as a supportive presence.  We don’t just wait for the superior to tell us what needs to be done.  There is also an accountability for the work we are assigned, seen and unseen, carrying out our assigned duties with a sense of responsibility, doing them with thoroughness and completeness. 

4.  A fourth quality of obedience is a supernatural motive.  We obey because we are in love with God’s will, and His will is being made know to us in the command.  If our obedience varies, meaning we obey promptly, readily, cheerfully when the superior is pleasant or the command agreeable and act opposite when the superior is unpleasant or command disagreeable, we are not practicing the virtue of obedience.  The virtue of obedience does not direct itself to the superior, but toward God; we may even say in a theological sense that true obedience ignores the superior.  It only sees Jesus in the command.

There is an inner freedom involved in all this.  When we obey we become more free.  A trait of a free, mature religious is she obeys because she wills to obey.   Father Thomas Dubay, S.M.  has a good definition of a person who’s free.  He says, “One is free to the extent that he wants to do what he does.” meaning we “will what we want.”  If we want perfect union with God, will it, will everything Christ wants.  This demands a constant surrender of our own plans and how we use our time which can be experienced as a real suffering.  St. Paul tells us:  “Christ learned obedience by what he suffered.”  “Learned” here means experience- Christ achieved through all His sufferings the experience of obedience.  He teaches us by His own obedience what it looks like to be obedient to the Father’s will.  

One of the main things Christ teaches us by His obedience is it always involves a free choice.  If we are maturely free, then what our superiors ask of us and what extends to all the details of our life and lifestyle, are not seen as imposed, something we have to do.  We obey because we choose to obey; we choose to be submissive; we choose to surrender.  Evangelica Testificatio on freedom and obedience states it beautifully: “Christian obedience is unconditional submission to the will of God.  But your obedience is more strict because you have made it the object of a special giving, and the range of your choices is limited by your commitment.  It is a full act of your freedom that is at the origin of your present position: your duty is to make that act ever more vital, both by your own initiative and by the cordial assent you give the directives of your superiors.”  We can obey in freedom because we obey out of love for a person, the person of Jesus Christ.  It is a willing surrender of ourselves to Him.

Reflection:  Going back to the painting of obedience, the figure is holding on to one of the branches with a firm, secure, permanent grasp with her gaze still fixed on the voice sending her.  As she holds on to the branch it looks as if it is being transformed into a lightening rod pointing up to heaven which could be symbolic of her vow of obedience- her way to union with God.   She seems to transcend the situation, the “what” and “how” of her obedience, looking through and beyond it, and is caught up with what she must do to please her Beloved.  By her attentive stance she indicates a readiness to respond to all the signs by which God manifests His will.

For us as religious, God manifests His will to us in our superiors who exercise authority according to our rules and constitutions.  I would like to have us look at the place of authority in our practice of obedience.  By our vow of obedience, we submit to the authority given to superiors by the free consent of our will.

This reminds us that our obedience is a matter of “hearing towards”.  To “go towards” something desired we have to “go through”, implying mediation.  In obedience, we “go through” our superiors to go to God- In this, piercing through the secondary causes as Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity says, to see and experience God’s presence. 

In faith, we believe God manifests His will to us in our superiors because they are given the authority to command. We consider our superior as standing in God’s place.  To stand in God’s place means the superior is the one who receives the surrender of our will in the name of Christ.  The superior carries out a role of service to the community, which is a service of mediation.  Gambari in Religious Life speaks of about the mediation of authority in these words:  “The divine element of obedience does not refer directly to the content of the order but the faculty on the part of the superior of being able to give the order.” (317)  

The superior accepts the use of authority to make the surrender of our will to God in obedience possible.  If we didn’t have Sisters who accepted the use of authority it would make it impossible for us to obey.  We need someone to accept the gift of our obedience.  This reason alone should be enough to instill in us the greatest respect and gratitude shown to them.  We can also be grateful to our superiors in opposing our own desires because we believe in faith God is directing our life in obedience and showing us how we are to use our time, energy and talents as He wishes.  In living in community, it’s so important to have a willing and docile attitude otherwise we make it hard for superiors to give commands.

The challenge of obedience in the day-to-day living is obeying commands which demand us to surrender what we want, what we are used to, what we prefer, what we seem to not have time for, in other words, to adjust our mental attitude to accept any new situation created by obedience whether we like it or not.  It can happen at a very busy time, the superior expresses a need for help with something.  We can respond by becoming frustrated or irritated because we see it as one extra thing to add to our present workload, or we can communicate to the superior a desire and willingness to help discussing with her ways you may be able to fit in the time.  Sometimes it may not be possible, but at least there is the communication with the superior of our willingness to be supportive.          

Christ’s obedience is a model for us in submitting to authority.  When Christ’s “hour” arrived, he hands himself over to human authority in obedience to the Father.  He submits his decisions to the authority and will of another.  In submitting to authority He allows Himself to be acted upon because He trusts in the Father’s plan for Him. 

Christ’s obedience wasn’t a passive acceptance or mere resignation to the Father’s will but an active and free response of His total person to His Father’s loving plan to carry out His redemptive mission.  In saying to Pilate:  “You would not have any power over me unless it were given to you from above,” Christ recognizes Pilate’s exercise of legitimate authority even if it was misused.  He lays aside exercising his divine power of escaping the situation because His hour had arrived.  He enters totally into our human experience of being acted upon by human authority to teach us how we are to obey God.   He totally hands himself over, thus entering more profoundly into our human experience of dependence, giving up His autonomous will;  relinquishing power to self-determination; becoming powerless; weak; vulnerable; all as a free choice.

Reflection:  Looking at this figure a last time we see a foreshadowing of suffering.  The figure appears to be moving into a thorn bush which alludes to the presence of the cross.  The thorn bush could be symbolic of what she has vowed to obey: the directives of her superiors given in accordance with her Constitutions as a sacrifice of herself to God. There seems to be a force drawing her into the twisted vine which gives a sense of danger, hardship, sacrifice, suffering.  She doesn’t seem to be aware of the danger ahead of her or at least not fixated or distracted by it.  However, she seems to be indifferent to it because all her attention fixed, firm and secure, on the voice of her Beloved sending her in obedience.  She communicates an attitude of earnestness in participating in God’s redemptive plan by losing her life to follow Christ no matter the cost.  You sense an urgency about her as she moves with purpose to accomplish the mission He has entrusted to her.

This attitude of service and generosity makes possible God’s saving plan to be carried out in us. By our vow of obedience, as our Constitutions state, “we enter more deeply into the mystery of Christ’s total self-emptying and bind ourselves as religious more firmly to the service of the Church.”  To delve deeply into Christ’s total self-emptying is what we have been sent to do, strengthened by the Holy Spirit.  Going back to the idea of Christ sending the Spirit back to the Father, He promises the Spirit will come again from heaven to dwell in the Church.  We who have received the Spirit at our baptism, return the Spirit to the Father like Christ in our being sent in obedience.

“Being sent” is here not referring to a physical act- but a spiritual one, communicating a union of love between us and God.  Like Christ, in every obedient act, the surrender of our wills to God’s will, we send out, hand over, the Spirit within us, back to the Father.  This is the nature of loving communion- an exchange of love- receiving and sending back.  The external expression of this communion is manifested in the exercise of obedience and authority.  Through the intervention of the Holy Spirit the exercise of obedience and authority becomes an exercise of love.  Our union of mind, heart and will with the superior is the means through which we strive to be one in mind, heart and will with Christ and with one another.  It is a union which extends to all the community united in obedience, not only on the level of external conduct but even on a personal level.  This communion moves us to carry our mission in the Church.    

As religious, Vita Consecrata reminds us we are consecrated for mission.  “We are sent into the world to imitate Christ’s example and to dedicate ourselves wholly to ‘mission.’  Consecrated life itself is a mission, as was the whole of Jesus’ life.  Consecrated persons are ‘in mission’ by virtue of their very consecration, to which they bear witness in accordance with the ideal of their institute.” (118)  Pope Benedict XVI, “Christ’s entire existence is a “sending”, a “mission”, i.e., a relationship.” 

We are called to mission in the context of community, not in isolation.  Vita Consecrata states, “Communion leads to mission, and itself becomes mission; indeed ‘communion begets communion’; in essence it is communion that is missionary.” (74)  This quote expresses the intimate bond between community and mission.  Obedience brings with it a bond to the mission and to the community who carries it out.  Vita Consecrata also states:  “Obedience binds together the various wills and unites them in one single fraternal community, endowed with a specific mission to be accomplished within the Church.” (54)  Our Regulations brings out the same point.  “Our Holy Mother, Saint Teresa, wrote that obedience is the “axis” upon which religious life turns.  It is essential to our apostolate and our community life.” 

By our life of obedience lived in common, we all commit ourselves to a shared burden in carrying out the community’s mission.  Community life is strengthened when all the members are shouldering their share of the burden which takes various forms of the cross- It is that aspect of Christ’s self-emptying we are called to imitate.

Our Constitutions remind us, “our primary apostolate is the witness of our consecrated life.”  All our other apostolates are ways of carrying out this primary apostolate.  It is the means by which we communicate Christ to others.  All the work we do in the apostolate needs to be seen in this greater context.  The tasks of themselves have no meaning unless they are done out of a spirit of obedience with love and faith in the service of the mission of the Church.

All the work within the apostolate as required by obedience communicates an interior reality- our communion with God- the union of our wills with the will of God.  What we are asked to do is not as important as the submission of our will in love to do what is asked.  The most important aspect of obedience is the giving of self and being present to Christ.  It is not in what we do.  When we get caught up in what we do and the importance of it or insignificance of it, we become turned in on self which is opposed to communion.   If I am being obedient to what God is asking me through my superiors, than I am carrying out my mission and contributing to the sanctification of the world.  It’s no little matter.  Christ’s 30 years in Nazareth being obedient to Mary and Joseph was no less redeeming than His death on the cross.  His entire life was redemptive because His whole life program was a total preoccupation with the will of the Father. 

Obedience frees us of those attitudes that can creep into our spiritual lives, weakening the commitment to a common mission.  It safeguards us from disordered tendencies.

1.  First of all, obedience helps to curb ambition; it keeps our self-love in check.  Ambition makes us singular rather than one among the brethren.  Religious life is about communion and unity not about being a star.  When we start thinking one task is more important than another, that I am more valuable in community if I’m assigned to this task as opposed to this other task, communion will suffer and so will our contribution to the community’s mission.  When done under obedience, all positions, tasks, are equally important.  Washing dishes under obedience gains more for our souls and the Church than founding a thousand institutions in defiant disobedience.  Our greatest service is our communion, not our work. 

2.  Secondly, obedience moderates the tendency to over work, giving into an excessive zeal.  As religious we are zealous for the Kingdom.  The temptation is taking on work that exceeds our abilities.  Something we do may be a good but it isn’t necessarily holy especially if it drains us of all energy and makes our spiritual life suffer.  St. John of the Cross gives this good advice.  He says, “Don’t take any work upon yourself however good and full of charity it may seem without the command of obedience.”  Because obedience puts limits on our work time in the apostolate, our community and prayer time is protected.  In limiting time to do tasks, obedience can also help temper the tendency to perfectionism.  I might not be able to spend as much time to make something turn out as I want.  This helps to curb the vanity of wanting to make things perfect for the wrong reasons.  Obedience also challenges us to trust leaving the outcome of our tasks into God’s hands. 

3.  Starting Afresh From Christ mentions this next challenge: “The prevalence of personal projects over community endeavors can deeply corrode the communion of brotherly and sisterly love.”  We can be tempted to slip into a preference for individual work or for prestigious work with no reference to the community, building our own little kingdom.  When the work I have been assigned becomes “My” work rather than my participation in the community’s work, I’ve moved out of communion with my sisters.  We have to see our work in the broader context of a common mission.  Apostolic work and mission must be in conformity. 

From this symbolic representation of obedience there are various attitudes to be developed in our practice of the vow:

·     an attitude of mind focused on God and forgetful of self;

·     an attentiveness to listening in faith and love, in a spirit of freedom;

·     a readiness to respond to God’s will in our submission to authority;

·     an earnestness in carrying out the mission God has entrusted to us.