Blind Obedience

This teaching is brought to us by our team member, Liliana:

 

When I looked at the list of virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary that I could choose from to do a talk, the two that stood out to me were humility and obedience. Mother Mary seemed to be the

personification of those two virtues. I chose obedience because I have always been in awe of Mary’s blind obedience when St. Gabriel the Archangel tells her she has been chosen to be the Mother of God. Her “may it be done to me according to your word”still echoes through the centuries. It is the paragon of obedience for all of us.

So what exactly is obedience? Obedience is defined as compliance with an order, request, or law. It is submission to another’s authority. It is to do what is commanded with a willingness to formally follow the will of the commander. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the obedience of faith. Paragraph 144 states: to obey in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because truth is guaranteed by God, who is truth itself. An example of this blind obedience of faith is seen in Abraham. The Lord said to Abram: go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land I will show you. Abram went as the Lord directed him. Abram was 75 years old. (Gen 12: 1,4) Imagine what it would be like to pack up and leave the home you’ve known most of your life and to go to an unknown destination at the age of 75. That is blind obedience by Abraham. Later in the book of Genesis, Abraham, as he is now called, demonstrates an even greater act of obedience and faith. (Read Genesis 22:1–18) because of his blind obedience, Abraham received abundant blessings, not only for himself, but also his countless descendents – – which includes you and me by adoption. Holy Scripture tells us that obedience is better than sacrifice: Does the Lord so delight in holocausts and sacrifices as in obedience to the command of the Lord? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams. (1 Sam 15:22)

Obedience can be an act of worship. Before Abraham takes his son Isaac to the mountaintop for the sacrifice, he tells his servants, “Both of you stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over yonder. We will worship and then come back to you.” (Gen 22:5) When we obey the will of God we praise, revere, and glorify him. St. Faustino in her Diary tells us that, “Obedience has great power.” By obedience, we draw nearer to God. St. Therese of Lisieux tells us, “Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will and being just what he wants us to be.” Leave it to dear St. Therese to put it quite simply. We need only to discern and obey the will of God to be holy.

Mary is the perfect example of blind obedience to the will of God. St.Alphonsus Liguori states, “Mary was the most perfect among the saints because she was always perfectly united with the will of God.” As I stated earlier, I have always been in awe of Mary’s obedience to the will of God at the Annunciation. (Read Lk 1: 26– 38) Mary was a very young teenage girl at this time. She was betrothed, but not married to Joseph. The Archangel Gabriel tells her she is to bear a child, but not an ordinary child, she will bear the Son of God. She has only one question, “How can this be since I do not have a husband?” (Lk 1:34) Mary knew full well that for a woman to be pregnant out of wedlock back in those days meant certain death. She would be stoned to death as soon as people realized she was pregnant and unmarried. It must have also flashed through her mind, “What would Joseph, her betrothed, do when he

found out?” Suddenly, her ordinary world was upended, and she knew it would never be the same. There was the uncertainty about what lay ahead. Nevertheless, she courageously, with

blind obedience, said to the Angel Gabriel, “May it be done to me according to your word.” ( Lk 1:38) Her fiat is an act of worship. We see how holy she is—“full of grace”. (Lk 1:28) She

surrenders her will to the will of God. Caryll Houselander tells us that Mary’s “ fiat was for herself and for us, but if we want God’s will to be completed in us as it is in her, we must echo her fiat.”

Throughout her life, Mary continued to perfectly exemplify obedience. She and Joseph obeyed the decree from Caesar Augustus that the whole world had to be enrolled in their own

town. In spite of the fact that Mary was due any day, they obediently traveled from Nazareth to the town of Bethlehem, Joseph’s hometown. There she gave birth to the Christ Child. Within eight days, Mary and Joseph, obedient to the Jewish law, had the Child circumcised and named him Jesus just as the angel had instructed. (Lk 2:21) Then, when the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord just as it is written in the law of the Lord. (Lk 2:22-23) Mary, along with her spouse Joseph, was obedient to the law of the Lord. When Joseph told Mary of his dream in which the Angel told him to take mother and Child, flee to Egypt, and stay there until he, the Angel, told him. Mary is obedient to her husband. Joseph rose and took the child and his

mother by night and departed for Egypt. (Mt 2:13-14)

At the wedding at Cana, Mary once again teaches us about obedience. We know that the mother of Jesus was at the wedding as well as Jesus and all of his disciples. (Jn 2: 1-2) when the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”And Jeus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” (Jn 2:3–5) We know that Jesus had the servers fill six stone jars with water which he changed into fine wine. When Mary tells the servers “do whatever he tells you”, she is saying it to us also. She is telling us that by obedience to the

will of God, our own sinful, polluted water can be changed into fine wine. We need only to go to confession. With the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we are cleansed and absolved of all of our sins.We are restored by the grace of God to fine wine. (Another reason, why I am so grateful that I am Catholic!)

Then, we see Mary at the foot of the Cross. Here, Mary mirrors her son’s obedience to God the Father. She utters not a word, but she stays by her son through his agony on the Cross. We know the sword that St. Simeon had spoken of has pierced her heart. We hear the echo of “may it be done to me according to your word”. Once again, she accepts and obeys God’s Holy Will as she did all of her life. Just as Mary showed blind obedience to the Father’s will, Jesus teaches us the primacy of doing the will of God the Father. Not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord,” will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. (Mt 7: 21) The Master teaches us by example what it means to be obedient to the will of the Father. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I did not speak on my own, but the Father sent me commanded me what to say and speak... So what I say, I say as the Father told me.” (Jn 12:49-50) “I cannot do anything on my own... Because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” (Jn 5:30) But the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father commanded me....(Jn 14:31) At one point in his ministry, the disciples were concerned that Jesus was not eating enough to keep up his strength. Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” (Jn 4:34) Jesus’ every thought, word, and action are a result of his perfect obedience to the will of the Father. We witness our dear Lord’s blind obedience in his agony in the garden of Gethsemane. He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet, not as I will, but as you will.” Withdrawing a second time, he prayed again, “My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without my drinking it, your will be done!” (Mt 26:39, 42) This is the complete surrender of the human will of Jesus to the divine will of the Father. Do you hear the echo of “may it be done to me according to your word” in Jesus’ words? St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Hebrew: “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. (Heb 5:8-9) Jesus was made perfect by making the ultimate sacrifice for us. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil 2:6-8) As Father Bob told us in one of his homilies, by his obedience to death on the cross, Jesus sealed the new and eternal covenant for us. For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous. (Rom 5:19) It is through Jesus’ obedience that we are redeemed of our disobedience. St. Teresa of Avila tells us: And in matters touching on obedience he doesn’t want the soul who truly loves him to take any other path than the one he did: obideins usque ad mortem (obedience unto death).

Now you and I will not be called upon to do a great act of obedience, such as dying on the Cross, but we are called upon to do acts of obedience to the will of God the Father. As Catholic Christians, we are expected to obey the Ten Commandments. When we do an examination of conscience, it is a good idea to go over the Commandments and see if we have been obedient to them. As Catholics, we are also expected to be faithful to the teachings of the Church in such areas as abortion, traditional marriage, euthanasia, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research because the teachings of the Church are the teachings of Jesus. As members of society, we need to obey laws passed by our government, such as obeying the speed limit on our streets. In our role as wives, we are expected to be obedient to our husbands. Obedience is part of our lives. But above all, we are expected to obey the will of God. Not too long ago, I would have asked, “How in the world do I know what the will of God is in my life?” Well, about four years ago, I attended a deep prayer class led by Deacon Bob Allen here at Most Precious Blood Church. It literally changed my life, and it certainly changed my prayer life. In the class, I learned the St. Ignatius way of spiritual discernment. I learned to do the “Examine of Consciousness” which I still do to this very day. I find this helpful in trying to discern God’s will in my life. Then to my delight, this summer the WOW Leadership Team read and studied, under the guidance of Alycia, the book The Discernment of Spirits, An Ignatian Guide to Everyday Living, by Father Timothy Gallagher.

This book is absolutely wonderful in helping us to discern God’s will. To put it in a nutshell, to discern the will of God in our lives we can ask ourselves the following questions: Does this action, thought, or feeling move me towards God’s peace or away from God’s peace? Does this action, thought, or feeling seem of God or not of God? When our actions, thoughts, feelings are put in that light, it is much easier to discern what is or is not God’s will. When we can discern the will of God in our lives and obey it, we can be more like Christ and more like our Blessed Mother Mary.