Today’s Chapter: Obeying with a Joyful Heart
Chapter 5: Of Obedience (vv. 14-19)
But this very obedience will then only be acceptable to God and sweet to men, if what is commanded be done not fearfully, tardily, nor coldly, nor with murmuring, nor with an answer shewing unwillingness; for the obedience which is given to superiors is given to God, since He Himself hath said: “He that heareth you, heareth Me.” And it ought to be given by disciples with a good will, because “God loveth a cheerful giver.” For if the disciple obey with ill-will, and murmur not only with his lips but even in his heart, although he fulfil the command, yet it will not be accepted by God, Who regardeth the heart of the murmurer. And for such an action he shall gain no reward; nay, rather, he shall incur the punishment due to murmurers, unless he amend and make satisfaction.
Yesterday Saint Benedict described what obedience should look like, above all its promptness. He was clear from the beginning that this is done for supernatural motives, for love of Christ, with faith that He is speaking to us in the one who commands. Today he adds, as it were, a postscript, going deeper and addressing the attitude of the heart which alone makes our externally prompt obedience pleasing to God: obedience must be willing and even joyful. Once again, the motive of faith is stressed—indeed, the very same words of Our Lord, ‘He who hears you, hears me’ (Lk 10:16) are repeated here. But to this is added the word of Saint Paul, ‘God loveth a cheerful giver.’ (2 Cor 9:7)
As we noted yesterday, Mary exercised this faith in God’s representative at the moment of the Annunciation, when He spoke to her through his intermediary, the angel. But she also exercised the same faith-filled obedience to other intermediaries who would have seemed much less impressive, beginning of course with her husband Saint Joseph. Saint Joseph was not free of original sin as were Mary and her Son Jesus, nor did he possess the various kinds of beatific and infused knowledge which Our Lord possessed and of which Our Lady may have had a share at least in certain moments. But he was God’s representative in the Holy Family, and Mary obeyed him in faith, and joyfully. She showed the same obedience in her submission to the ceremonial prescriptions of the Jewish law and the religious and civil authorities of her time. Above all she showed it in consenting freely to the Sacrifice of her Son, with all that this cost her heart. Madre Cànopi comments on this difficult obedience of Our Lady, and how it applies to the monk:
If we cling to the Lord with this promptness and uprightness, however things may go we certainly will not be disappointed, even if the journey may pass through what Jesus Himself called ‘the narrow way’ (cf. Mt 7:14). Mary followed this way right to the end, and with what radicalness! She did not live by her own will, she did not let herself be dominated by her ‘instincts’, not even the maternal instinct, so human and tender: even in her motherhood she let herself be guided by the Lord, and she remained stable in the will of God. This is the monk’s vow of stabilitas! Our stability in a determined place—stabilitas loci—is the sign of an interior, spiritual stability: stability in the will and the love of God, because in obedience there is the gift of oneself, there is the offering of that which constitutes our most precious treasure, our life with all its potentialities, its hopes, its desires. It cannot, therefore, be lacking the sacrificial aspect. It is good to be conscious of this, in order to make mature choices and to make of those ‘narrow passages’ the occasion for progress in the journey of faith. (Anna Maria Cànopi, Nel ‘Sì’ di Maria, translation by a Benedictine monk, p. 38)
So may we too embrace obedience with our eyes open, fully aware of what it may cost us, and joyfully embracing the narrow passages as the opportunity to be more closely united to Mary in sharing the redemptive suffering of her Son.
