The practice of the love of Jesus Christ - 078

XLIII.-HE THAT LOVES JESUS CHRIST WISHES WHAT JESUS CHRIST WISHES

I. Now what is the surest way to know and ascertain what God requires of us? There is no surer way than to practise obedience to our superiors and directors. St. Vincent de Paul said the will of God is never better complied with than when we obey our superiors. The Holy Ghost says: Much better is obedience than the victims of fools-(Eccles. iv. 17}. God is more pleased with the sacrifice we make to Him of our own will, by submitting it to obedience, than with all other sacrifices which we can offer Him; because in other things, as in alms-deeds, fastings, mortifications, and the like, we give of what is ours to God, but in giving Him our will, we give Him everything. So that when we say to God: O Lord, make me know by means of obedience what Thou requirest of me, for I wish to comply with all, we have nothing more to offer Him.

Whoever, therefore, gives himself up to obedience, must needs detach himself totally from his own opinion. “What though each one,” says St. Francis de Sales, “has his own opinions, virtue is not thereby violated; but virtue is violated by the attachment we have to our own opinions.” But, alas! this attachment is the hardest thing to part with; and hence there are so few persons wholly given to God, because few render a thorough submission to obedience. There are some persons so fondly attached to their own opinion that, on receiving an obedience, although the thing enjoined suits their inclination, yet, from the very fact of its being commanded, they lose all fancy for it, all wish to discharge it; for they find no relish in anything but in following the dictates of their individual will. How different is the conduct of Saints! Their only happiness flows from the execution of what obedience imposes on them. The saintly Jane Frances de Chantal once told her daughters that they might spend the Recreation-day in any manner they chose. When the evening came, they all went to her, to beg most earnestly that she would never again grant them such a permission; for they had never spent such a wearisome day as that on which they had been set free from obedience.

II. It is a delusion to think that anyone can be possibly better employed than in the discharge of what obedience has imposed. St. Francis de Sales says: “To desert an occupation given by obedience in order to unite ourselves with God by prayer, by reading, or by recollection, would be to withdraw from God to unite ourselves with our own self-love.” St. Teresa adds, moreover, that whoever performs any work, even though it be spiritual, yet against obedience, assuredly works by the instigation of the devil, and not by Divine inspiration, as he perhaps flatters himself; “because,” says the Saint, “the inspirations of God always come in company with obedience.” To the same effect she says elsewhere: “God requires nothing more of a soul that is determined to love Him than obedience.” “A work done out of obedience,” says Father Rodriguez, “outweighs every other that we can imagine.” To gather a straw off the ground from obedience is of greater merit than a protracted prayer, or a discipline to blood, done out of our own head. This caused St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi to say that she would rather be engaged in some exercise from obedience than in prayer; “because in obedience I am certain of the will of God, whereas I am by no means so certain of it in any other exercise.” According to all spiritual masters, it is better to leave off any devout exercise through obedience than to continue it without obedience. The Most Blessed Virgin Mary revealed once to St. Bridget that he who relinquishes some mortification through obedience reaps a twofold profit; since he has already obtained the merit of the mortification by the good-will to do it, and he also gains the merit of obedience by foregoing it. One day the famous Father Francis Arias went to see the Blessed John of Avila, his intimate friend, and he found him pensive and sad; he asked him the reason of it, and received this answer: “Oh, happy you who live under obedience, and are sure of doing the will of God. As for me, who shall warrant me whether I do a thing more pleasing to God in going from village to village, catechising the poor peasants, or in remaining stationary in the confessional to hear every one that presents himself? Whereas he that is living under obedience is always sure that whatever he performs by obedience is according to the will of God, or rather that it is what is most acceptable to God.” Let this serve as a consolation for all those who live under obedience.