47 — SUPERNATURAL OBEDIENCE

Presence of God. — O Jesus, teach me to see only you in my superiors.

Meditation

1 — Here is an excellent teaching of St. John of the Cross: “Never consider your superior as inferior to God, whoever he may be, because, for you, he represents God” (Ct. 12). If you do not have this supernatural gaze that makes you see God in the person of the superior, your obedience cannot be supernatural. To be so, it is necessary that you be animated by this sole motive: I obey because my superior represents God to me, he speaks to me in God’s place; my superior is Christ: “hic est Christus meus”.

You must not obey for a motive of human confidence in the person of your superior, that is because he is intelligent, is prudent, capable, because he understands you and wishes you well etc.: this is human obedience, fruit of human prudence, a good act, but not supernatural. You must not even obey because that which is commanded you is the most perfect, this is not yet the true motive of obedience, which consists solely in obeying because all that the superior commands, God wills it. Only one case makes exception, that is when the superior should command to do a sin, which certainly God cannot will, or when his commands were contrary to the Rule or to the Statutes embraced by you, because then they would no longer be legitimate. But for the rest you must not place any reserve to your obedience. And you must not even hesitate fearing that the superior may ask you something less perfect, because even if he should order you a thing objectively less perfect than another (for example to rest, rather than work), for you it would be the most perfect, since by the simple fact that the superior has ordered it to you it is evident that it is precisely that, and not other, that God wills from you in that moment. It may very well be that in the abstract you see the possibility of doing a thing of greater perfection than that which is commanded you and that your opinion is better than that of the superior, but in concrete there is no doubt: there cannot be for you anything more perfect than to execute what God commands you through the superior.

2 — If you must not base your obedience on a motive of human confidence in the quality of your superior, you must however base it on a motive of supernatural confidence, that is of confidence in the supernatural government of the Lord through the superiors that He has given you. Even if sometimes you found yourself before less upright, less virtuous superiors, you would have no motive to fear; indeed, faith teaches you that God dominates and governs all and that there is no human will that can withdraw itself from his divine will. Even if the superior should err or if he should order you something in itself good or indifferent, but for a less right motive, God will always know how to avail himself of the errors of him for the good of your soul, and he will avail himself also of his little right intentions to make you do that which he wills from you. This is certain: God directs you through your superiors, and these are not independent of God, but God himself makes use of them as of instruments that he can make act at his talent. Therefore have recourse to your superior with confidence because, having recourse to him, you have recourse to God, obeying him, you obey God. A similar obedience is entirely supernatural and puts you in direct contact with the will of God.

Behaving differently, “you would do yourself the immense wrong of lowering obedience from the divine plane to the human... And your obedience will be so much the more vain and sterile, as much as you feel yourself contrarieted by the hostile attitude of your superior or more content for his easy and agreeable humor. I tell you — St. John of the Cross warns you — it is precisely thus that the demon, in the order of perfection, has ruined an infinity of religious, the obedience of whom has very little value in the eyes of God, for having fixed their gaze upon these particular things in matter of obedience” (Ct. 12).

If you wish that your obedience have all its value, fix your gaze only on God “whom you serve in your superior” (ibid).

Colloquy

O Lord, increase my spirit of faith, that I may see you living in the soul of my superiors; that faced with each of them I may know how spontaneously and sincerely to repeat: “hic est Christus meus!”. Precisely thus, through obedience, will be possible to me a life of continual relations, of continual intimacy with you. If in the Sacrament of the altar I find you living and palpitating behind the veil of the eucharistic species, always ready to receive me and to nourish my soul, I can, though in another way, find you hidden also in the person of my superiors, through whom you speak to me, always ready to loose my hesitations, to manifest to me your holy will, to direct me, to guide me by the way that from eternity you have chosen for my sanctification.

Why then, O Lord, should I stop at the appearances of my superiors? This does nothing but impede me from finding you in them, from recognizing, in their will, your will. Help me, O God, to surpass all the human sides of obedience to put myself in contact with you, with your divine will. As before the Eucharist I must not stop at the created species of bread and wine, so before obedience I must not stop at the person of the superior, but consider only your will that reaches me through the appearances of a human order, of a human command. O Jesus, what great mystery! The Eucharist gives me your Body, your Blood, your Divinity: this is the force of the sacrament instituted by you; obedience gives me your will, puts me in communion with it: this is the power of the authority constituted by you.

O Lord, after having understood this profound truth, how shall I still dare to discuss and hesitate before the orders of my superiors? “Would it not perhaps be curious that, You telling me to go do a thing that is very dear to you, I would not wish to obey with the pretext of doing another that seems better to me? Fine way to progress in your love! It would be tying my hands and believing that You cannot lead me to perfection except by one road...” (cf. T.G. Fd. 5, 5). No, Lord, not thus; but I wish to follow you wherever You will to lead me through holy obedience.