Volume III, Treatise V, Chapter XII

That to Acquire This Virtue, We Must Obey Our Superior as Christ Himself

To behold God in our superior is not only, as we have shown, a proper, but it is likewise a necessary means to acquire this virtue of obedience. For he that obeys, if he does not believe that it is God commands, and that it is God he obeys, will not only fail in the perfection of obedience, but even in the very essence of it. As this is of the utmost importance, I shall endeavour to place it in the clearest point of view. If you consider nothing but the bare man in your superior, you will find no more in him than in yourself, since you are no less a man than he: and though he be ever so learned, prudent, or holy, you will still say he is but man, and that his knowledge does not equally extend to all things, and that he may very well mistake in some one thing or other. Moreover, influenced by this consideration, you may think that, like other men, he has his particular inclinations, and that he did not look upon you with so favourable an eye as upon some other religious. But above all, if he commands you what is hard, painful, and contrary to your desires, self-love, that is always extremely ingenious, will most certainly furnish you with a thousand arguments to oppose him; and thus you will live uneasy, and will not entirely submit your will and judgment to his, because you will never want human reasons to oppose the human reasons which will not be in your favour. But if, instead of looking upon your superior as a man subject to error, you behold in him the person of Christ, who alone is sovereign wisdom, goodness, and charity, and who can neither deceive others, nor be deceived himself, then all your arguments are put down, for this reason, that the orders of Christ admit of no reply. It is this the Royal Prophet said—‘“I was dumb and opened not my mouth, because thou didst it’ (Psalms 38:10) How ready, how perfect would our obedience prove, were we but thus disposed like David! On hearing the superior’s voice we would obey it as readily as if Christ spoke to us himself. ‘Though we had begun to form a letter, we would leave it without finishing, and would deem ourselves to commit a great fault if we deferred our obedience even for a moment. How attentive, how careful would we be to comply with his commands by making his will ours!

In a word, there would be no difficulty which this consideration would not smooth.

By adhering to these principles a doubt in this matter may be easily solved. It may be asked why a religious, who has lived under obedience several years and daily practised it, has not acquired the habit of it, that is, the virtue itself in perfection, since both philosophers and divines agree that a virtuous habit is acquired by different acts and by a frequent exercise of the virtues. I answer, that a virtuous habit is acquired by frequent acts conformable to the virtue which is to be acquired; and to speak more like the schovuls, obedience is one of the branches of the virtue of religion, God and his divine worship being the object of it. Now the religious concerning whom the doubt was proposed, does not look totally to God in his superior when he performs an act of obedience, and consequently he does not obey purely to fulfil the will of God, but rather does it to content his superior, to be esteemed the more, to decline a penance or a chiding which would follow upon his disobedience, or perhaps because the command is to his fancy, or because his superior treats him well, or lastly, out of some other mean temporal motive. Hence his acts of obedience are not acts of religious obedience, since they want the very essence of it, and by consequence he neither has nor ever will acquire the habit of a religious obedience unless he change his way of acting. He may very well, indeed, acquire a sort of civil political obedience, such as soldiers pay their general, or seamen their captain, or such as is practised by any other body of men towards their head and ruler; but it will never be true religious obedience.

This made St. Ignatius say, that it is not because he is prudent or holy, or upon account of any other good quality in him, that we are to obey the superior, but only because he holds the place of God and is the representative of the Almighty. And the same doctor, speaking of obedience, says, if you turn away your eyes from this consideration, and fix them on motives barely human, it is impossible but that will utterly destroy religious obedience. For by this means there will not be in your obedience any act of religion, but you will do as seculars do when they follow the advice of any experienced person. This would be to live with men, not God, and instead of obeying the latter, to pay all your obedience to the former. The more willing you will be to attach yourself to human reason, the more you will shake off

the spirit of God and of true obedience, and debase yourself beneath the yoke of men. The same saint adds, in his general examen, that we must not consider whether it be the superior or one in authority under him that commands, since we obey God, not them. He would also have us obey all under-officers with as much respect, readiness, and resignation, as the superior himself. St. Francis truly attained. this perfection when he said that amongst many other favours he had received this one from the ‘hands of God, that he could as easily and readily obey the last novice in the convent that should be appointed his guardian, as any religious, however full of years, experience, and wisdom. He understood this great art of obedience admirably well, and therefore considered that it was God alone he obeyed in his superior. He said, moreover, that the obedience we pay to a superior who has not the qualities which command respect, is most perfect and of greatest merit. It is an ordinary saying amongst us, that he who obeys the lowest officer in the house, gives a greater testimony of his obedience, than if he obeyed father minister; and also in obeying father minister than father rector; and father rector than the provincial or general. The reason is, because the less the dignity is of the person we obey, the more pure is our obedience. For obedience to a general may be tainted by a consideration of the respect due to his person and place, or by a desire to gain his favour: whereas, the obedience paid a private religious can have no other motive than God. And our holy founder, in confirmation of what has been said, adds, that he who will not obey and submit to the lowest officer in the house, will never do it for those in higher authority, since true genuine obedience does not regard the person whom we obey, but God, for whose sake we are equally to obey all other persons in authority. Now he that observes this distinction of persons, and performs his obedience with respect to them, fails in the most essential point of this virtue. For did he obey for God’s sake, he would as soon obey a low as a great officer, since they both equally derive their authority from God in what they command. And since he does not obey the one, it is a great sign that the obedience he pays the other does not terminate in God, but is grounded upon some human motive, which destroys the perfection of obedience, which a religious ought to aim at in all he does.

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