Obedience: Our Lord’s Example
In another post, I considered the question of whether obedience becomes less important as one becomes an adult. I recently read the following in I Believe in Love.
The spirit of obedience is a subject appropriate to a chapter on humility, and I shall undertake to talk to you about it, for it is not a virtue reserved to religious. It is the great lesson of Jesus, and therefore it is a lesson for everyone.
Père Jean du Coeur de Jésus D’Elbée
What do we see at the origin of this folly of Love, the Incarnation? Obedience: Ecce venio ut faciam, Deus, voluntatem tuam: “Behold I come . . . it is written of me, that I should do your will, O God” (Heb 10:7).
In the very consummation of the Redemption what do we again find? Obedience:
Factus obediens usque ad mortem: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death” (Phil 2:8).
If we search the Gospel to find what the life of God incarnate on earth was for thirty years, we find the answer in three words: Erat subditus illis, “(He) was subject to them” (Lk 2:51). Seated on the edge of Jacob’s well he said to his disciples, “My meat is to do the will of Him, who sent me” (Jn 4:34). What strong words: “My meat. . . .”
The Word became flesh. He shed his blood to the last drop in order to save us. Yes, that is true; but he did this in order to obey his Father, and by this loving obedience to carry out the immolation of this sacrifice.
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (
Mt 16:24).
“Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it remains alone” (
Jn 12:24).
What within ourselves is most intimately ours? Our own will: that is the center of our person. To die to ourselves, is to die to what we cling to most: our own will. Only obedience can bring about in us this crucifixion and this liberation (78-79).
