Volume III, Treatise V, Chapter II

Of the Necessity of Obedience

Sant Jerom exhorting all religious to be obedient to their superior, cites divers examples to prove the absolute necessity of obedience to one supreme head, in every condition or state of life. In civil government, says he, all are subject to kings, emperors, or the lieutenants and deputies. Romulus, to build Rome, slew his brother, and “founded the city in blood”, to show us that two kings are things inconsistent in one kingdom. Jacob and Esau struggled in their mother’s womb for primogeniture. In ecclesiastical government, all people obey the bishops in their respective dioceses, and the bishops themselves are subject to his holiness, who is the head of the Church, and Christ’s vicar upon Earth. Nor is there any state of life whatsoever, where this subordination is not absolutely necessary. The greatest army submits to the authority of one general. One captain commands a man-of-war; there would be nothing but disorder and confusion on board 4 ship if every man were master; and God knows when she would get securely into the harbour, if every private seaman had full power to steer her as he pleased. Every family, every private house and poor cottage, has always one whom the rest obey, and indeed there is neither house, -congregation, city, nor kingdom that can long subsist without it. “‘Every kingdom and house that is divided shall become desolate” (Luke 11:17) This order is not only practised amongst — men, but even amongst the angels themselves, where one hierarchy is subordinate to another; nay, irrational creatures do likewise observe it. Bees have their king, and cranes in their flight form the letter Y, having always one to head them and command the rest. What more shall I say? adds this father. Do not the heavens themselves take their motion from the primum mobile? But not to trouble you with any more examples, all that I pretend to by those which I have already alleged, is only to make you sensible how beneficial it is to live under the authority of a superior and in the company of other servants of God, whose object is the same with yours, and who, by their example, may help and assist you very much to attain it the more easily.

Though St. Ignatius’s intention is that all virtues should flourish in our society, yet he most particularly and frequently recommends to us obedience, hereby to signify that as other orders are distinguished, some by their extreme poverty, others by great austerities, others by choir-duties, and others by perpetual enclosure, so he desires that obedience should be our distinctive mark and character, as if all our advancement in virtue totally depended hereupon. The great end of our society is first to attend to our own perfection and salvation, and then to our neighbour’s; and therefore we must always be in readiness to go to any part of the world where our superiors shall employ us in the salvation of souls. And for this reason the professed fathers of our society oblige themselves by a fourth vow, to go on the mission wheresoever his holiness the pope shall please to send them, whether it be amongst Catholics, heretics, or infidels, and this without their pleading any excuse to the contrary, or asking anything to maintain themselves on their journey. Nor must they be thus perfectly resigned and entirely obedient only to his holiness, but also to their other superiors, both as to their place of abode as well as employment, or whatever else they shall think fit to enjoin them. ‘There is a great variety of employments in the society, and several offices and functions of all sorts, both high and low, which necessarily require a great stock of obedience in a man, in order to be equally disposed for all or any of them, according as superiors shall ordain. Here we may justly admire the wise conduct and great foresight which St. Ignatius had, when he desired that obedience should be the proper badge and peculiar mark of the society, since he certainly foresaw that we should be employed in many things no less difficult than painful to flesh and blood.

A father of our society said (and I wish we could all say the same), that he was not afraid of being commanded anything against his will, for he was still ready for whatever he was commanded, And it is a certain truth, that a religious man, who is thus resigned and totally indifferent as to any command, never troubles himself with what is assigned to him, nor wishes to be subjected rather to this than to that superior. For true obedience ought not to depend upon this or that person, or this or that thing commanded; for if it should, it would be but a weak and lame obedience, and bring great fear and apprehension along with it. “Have you a mind not to stand in fear. of men in authority?” says the apostle. “Do well, and you shall be commended for it, but if you do ill, then you have reason to fear them’— (Romans 13:3,4) Highwaymen and others, that by their crimes deserve death, fear every moment to be seized upon, and tremble at the sight of a justice of peace. “Yet”, as St. Chrysostom observes, “it is neither the prince nor the law of the land that fills them with these apprehensions, but they proceed from an ill conscience and their own wickedness”. The same holds in religion, for the fear you have does not come from the superior’s authority over you, but from the sense you have of your want of mortification and submission. If you therefore wish to live easy and void of this fear, be always ready to comply with obedience? and be still resigned to anything your superior shall enjoin you. He that shall do this, shall enjoy a perfect peace and quiet of mind, and religion shall be to him a Paradise upon | Earth.

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