PRACTICE: Obedience.

   I. Jesus is twelve years old... how many pains He has suffered till this day! As soon as Purification was accomplished, the angel of the Lord ordered Joseph while asleep to fly into Egypt, in order to save the Child and his Mother from Herod's murderous hand. Here is a second trial of obedience. The most holy, obedient, poor, humbled family in the world fled by night. They live in Egypt seven years poor and unknown in the midst of superstition, idolatry, and sin. The Innocents have been murdered by Herod, who does not spare even his own son, and who dies at last gnawed by worms with insupportable fetidness. The prophecies on the Messiah's birth have been fulfilled. The seven years of exile have elapsed, and the Angel orders Joseph to return to Israel. Joseph is always the chief Jesus and Mary are silent, and they suffer themselves to be guided, observing the laws of the most exact obedience. How many new toils in this second journey! what sufferings and privations! Holy Patriarch Joseph, the true model of interior souls, let my soul be a partaker of your inward silence, of your peace produced by your perfect obedience to God's commandments, and of the purity of your heart and mind, so as to fulfill his divine designs, his holy inspirations, and his voices coming to me both from my superiors and from the duties of my condition.

 

     II. And when Jesus was twelve years old, they going up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast (Easter), and having fulfilled the days, when they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and his parents knew it not. It was not through his fault, but with a formal view of divine Wisdom. Jesus remained in order to manifest himself to the Jewish Doctors, to confirm in Joseph and Mary the idea of His divinity, and to make them both the model, shelter, and consolation of afflicted souls. Ah, only the souls loving Jesus, who feel no longer the sensible sweetness of His presence and of devotion, and who see themselves sunk in the dark night of their senses and passions, of tiresomeness, temptations, and abandonment... only these souls can have an idea of the deep sorrow that oppressed the holy hearts of Mary and Joseph! They inquire after him, they seek him and nobody has seen him.

     Oh, Mary, oh Joseph, what was then your anxiety? What was the excess of your sorrow? How did you spend those cruel nights? How many fears! How many thoughts! How many reproaches did each of you make to himself! You felt nothing like it by the furies of Herod and the dangers of Egypt: then you had Jesus with you, and now you have him no longer.

     My God, my God, how many times I lost thee without feeling any sorrow! Alas, how often I lived without thee, untroubled? What would have become of me, if Thou thyself had not sought me for the first?

   

     III. And having found him after three days in the temple in the midst of the doctors, they returned to Nazareth: and the prophecy was fulfilled: He shall be called a Nazarite... And he was subject to them. These are St. Luke's only words revealing what Jesus did until his thirtieth year. And the other evangelists said nothing about that, because He wished us to know of his thirty years life nothing but this, viz. He was subject to those whom His Father had given him as is superiors. This submission is the abridgment of his whole life and doctrine, and according to St. Paul, it is also the origin of all His glory. He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross: for which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above every name. In fact, his first words related in the Gospel, are words of obedience: Did you not know, said He to his Mother, when she found him in the Temple, that I must be about my Father's business? And in his private life, Jesus appeared to men only a son obeying his wise and moderated parents. 

     Consider, my soul, with how much pain, humility and perfection, Mary, and Joseph commanded and received the services of such a Son, whom they knew to be their Creator. Joseph, as the chief of the family, was respected by God's Mother, and Son, and this superiority made him infinitely humble; to see a God subject and obedient to a simple joiner!... Mary knew that, when she commanded her Son, she obeyed God who wished that. Jesus obeyed them both in silence, respectfully, and joyfully, as those who held the place of God his Father. There is the most perfect obedience that was ever practiced on earth. Oh sweet model of a hidden life! They exactly observed God's law, and they lived according to their condition by their work! When they had done working they retired to prayer: what a prayer! what heavenly gifts!

    In his public life also, Jesus showed himself obedient to his Father's will. Here is doctrine: he had come down from heaven to do the will of his Father, and this was his meat: his doctrine was not his own, but his Father's: the chalice he was to drink was the one his Father had given him.

     He abridged all the observance of the law in charity; but he reduced all the proof of charity to the practice of obedience. If you love me (says He in S. John) keep my commandments: he loves me who keeps them. He who does not love me does not keep my words. No one, therefore, pleases God if he does not love, and he who loves, obeys.

    Love and obedience, then, reconcile our souls with God, unite them to him, and deserve Paradise for them.

    In fact, He obeyed with a perfect submission to his unjust judges, to a heathenish President, to cruel ministers, as to superiors whom his Father had given him for that time. Therefore, in order to obey well, we must not consider in those who command us either the age, or the skilfulness, or the merit, or the talent, or the affability, or even the virtue, or holiness; but we must only look at Him, whose place they keep.

     Jesus Christ raised obedience to its highest perfection. A slave obeys because he hopes for his freedom: a servant hopes for his reward, a son for his father's inheritance. But the Son of God served a poor house to such a degree that He fatigued his most delicate limbs without any hope of reward; nay he knew well that, to obey his Father, he would at last lose his rest, honor, blood, life, and die an ignominious death between two thieves.

     And in order that his last words might be conformable to the beginning and progress of his life, on expiring on the cross He cried: All is consummated, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

     The wisdom of a Christian, then, consists in obedience, and therefore David so often asked God for it: Oh, Lord, teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God... One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, like a faithful servant who knows and does the will of his master.

      All evil proceed from disobedience, which comes from three causes: 1st The esteem of ourselves, that cannot see another person's superiority, of which we think to be worthy. This presumption precipitated Lucifer to hell, as the opposite virtue lifted up Mary to the dignity of God's Mother. 2nd The tenaciousness of our own sentiment, which is always accompanied by obstinacy, pride, whence proceed heresies and schisms in the Church, rebellions in States, turbulences, and disorders in families. 3rd A disorderly affection for any person or thing whatever. For this reason, Adam disobeyed, to please his wife and to satisfy himself. For which, the Saints, founders of religious Orders, provided against the above said evils by the sacred vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, as Jesus Christ teaches: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me; as it were: during the whole space of my life I found pleasure and rest only in obedience.

     Oh, eternal incarnate Wisdom, I adore thee. Everything is naturally submitted to thee: the Angels and worms, the earthly bodies and celestial globes. Nevertheles, in order to confound my pride, thou hidest thy greatness, thou submitted thyself even to unjust and cruel creatures. What need art Thou in of Mary and Joseph's guide during thirty years, obliging them to command thee, in order to obey them, Thou who art the true light and infinite Wisdom, who governest such as obey? Ah, Thou sawest my continual rebellion, the effect of presumption and self-love! Therefore I am always uneasy and full of a thousand errors, of bad humor, contradiction, and anger. Oh, divine Master, let my ghost and flesh be submitted to thee, and let this my slime never oppose thy will. Pour forth this so estimable a virtue, obedience into my poor soul, and reform it of all errors and of its miserable faults.

     And you, oh most pure Mother of God, and glorious Patriarch St. Joseph, the humblest and most obedient of all creatures, have mercy on the pitiful transgressions of my pride, Obtain for me, from your most obedient Son, the grace of always doing his will. So be it. 

 

REFLECTION: Do today other people's will, without contradicting. Restrain your character of wishing to be always right in everything, and of wishing to have your advice taken. Be persuaded that God likes us better to obey another person, though not one of the best, than to follow our own judgment. Obedience, says the Wise, is better than sacrifices.

JACULATORY PRAYER: Oh Mary, Star of the ocean, save me from the anguish thou seest me in.