Obedience
The first Sunday of October, we observe as Rosary Sunday (although the whole month is dedicated in a special way to the Rosary) and this afternoon, we will have our annual Rosary Sunday devotions here at the monastery. But today, the 1st of October, even though we won’t observe it liturgically this year, is the Feast of St Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower.
But on this 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, I want to mention an occurrence in the life, not of St Thérèse, but in the life of another French nun, not of the 19th century, but the 17th century: St Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Visitandine nun from Paray-le Monial, France, who received the Revelations of our Lord’s Sacred Heart and who helped establish devotion to, and the Feast Day of, the Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout the Church.
In receiving the mystical Revelations from our Lord, St Margaret Mary was always greatly concerned that her visions were indeed from God, and not self-deceptions, nor deceptions of the devil. Our Lord, in one of the revelations, asked Margaret Mary to begin, herself, the practice of making a Holy Hour of reparation on Thursdays from 11 PM to Midnight, and then to make the Communion of Reparation to the Sacred Heart on the First Friday of every month. Now, such a Holy Hour was not the custom, the practice of the Visitation nuns; it was not part of their highly specified daily horarium in the monastery.
St Margaret Mary had a particular loathing for anything that would set her apart still further from her Sisters. Our Lord, knowing and loving her, knew this fear, this reservation St Margaret Mary had, and our Lord told her: “I wish this devotion (meaning the Holy Hour on Thursday night) to be established, beginning with you, but I want you to do it only with the permission of your Superior. If she gives you permission, then you must obey, because Satan has no power over the heart that is obedient.”
“Satan has no power over the heart that is obedient.”
Obedience is not a very highly valued trait in our society these days. Perhaps that’s why I’ve struggled with it so much in my own religious and priestly life because I have been shaped and formed more by the world, sadly, than by the Gospel. And, as you know, Sisters, that’s quite an admission for a Dominican to make, because it’s the one vow that you and I explicitly make when we make Profession!
At one time, obedience was regarded as a virtue, not only in the Church, but in society as well. Nowadays, more often than not, it’s regarded as a pathological condition or a mental deficiency! Witness our use of the term “blind obedience” and other such phrases. We regard obedience as something we leave behind as we move out into the world as autonomous, liberated, individual adults. How many couples these days are willing to vow to “love, honor and obey” each other? (Actually, that’s not even an option for the vows in our current Catholic marriage rite!) How many parents these days are at a loss as to what to do with their children, because they are loath to make their children obey them? Just the word “obey” conjures up all sorts of unpleasant imagery of subservience and groveling and abuse.
But is that the image of obedience with which we are presented in today’s readings? Is that the type of obedience to which the Gospel calls us? Remember, it was the first son in today’s Gospel who was judged to be truly obedient, the one who first refused to do as his father asked him, but who later repented and went and did as he was told. The second son merely paid his father lip service, but his heart was far from following his father’s will. Obedience is a disposition of the heart, not simply a kowtowing to authority. True Gospel obedience is a service of love to God and to our neighbor.
“True Gospel obedience is a service of love to God and to our neighbor.”
The model of Christian obedience to which we are called is the model of Christ Himself, as we heard in the second reading, the Christological hymn from Philippians that we all love so well: As St Paul said to the Philippians, and as he says to us today: “Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ.” Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men; and it was thus that he humbled himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross.
St Paul makes it clear, the obedience of Christ to His Father’s will was not that of an inferior to a superior. No, Christ was “in the form of God.” But He did not deem His equality with God something to be clung to. No, out of love for His Father and out of love for you and me, He emptied Himself and took upon Himself our human nature, and He willingly became the servant of all and went to a shameful death on a Cross, so that you and I would not be locked in our disobedience to the will of His Father and be forever excluded from that Communion of Love God created us to share. And because of Christ’s supreme act of love and obedience on the Cross, the Father raised Him on high. And now the obedience of all creation belongs to Jesus by right: “every knee must bend in the heavens, on the earth and under the earth,” St Paul says, not out of fear, not from a position of inferiority or subservience, but out of love, out of gratitude for this sublime act of love, this ultimate obedience, that won for us our salvation.
This is the obedience a Religious owes to her or his superior. This is the obedience that a husband and wife owe each other, the obedience of equal partners who willingly set aside their self-will out of love for the other; this is the type of obedience that children are called to show to their parents, and family members to each other, so that they might grow together in faith, in hope, and in love. This is the obedience that I, as a priest and as a Dominican friar, owe to God and to the Church, and to those who have authority over me. Not lip service, not servile fear, but rather a humble service of love, motivated by a heart full of gratitude for the love God has shown us first in sending His Son to be our Savior.
“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others and let every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father: Jesus Christ is Lord!”