Obedience…Light…Foundation

Obedience is never a popular virtue. One is never happy with obedience when it is most important. When obedience is convenient, it is hardly virtuous. It is only when it is difficult, when obedience is tested, that it becomes meritorious. This is what parents learn when they have children and especially so when those children get older. St. Paul, however, presents to us the model of obedience in Jesus. The significance is not only that is the the model of all Christians, but because he ties it with Jesus’s equality with God in nature. If Jesus, despite being God Himself, but by virtue of being “the Son,” can still be obedient, than who are we to deny this virtue in ourselves? While this appears to be a person shutting off his or her brain and just “following orders,” our Psalm shows us it is where the true light is revealed.

The Psalm refrains that “the Lord is my light and my salvation” but this light is only revealed when we are obedient to Him. This is easy when we have an isolated, “me and Jesus” relationship with God, but what about when it is the human spiritual authorities God has put into our lives like a pastor or bishop? This is when obedience is tested, but it is also when it becomes efficacious. How many Saints have had to defer to their spiritual authorities even when that authority is misguided and even sinful? Yet, this obedience, a vow which they often had voluntarily taken in religious life, showed their sanctity. They lived a saintly life because they had this as their foundation.

Jesus then shows us in the Gospel reading how this obedience, even in opposition to worldly authorities, is the foundation of the spiritual life. It is when the costs have been weighed, prudence has been exhibited, that one can make this informed decision to serve God completely. We are choosing whom we will obey not just in our thoughts and words, but in our actions in how we live our lives. This life of obedience will lay the strong foundation for eternal life where obedience will no longer be difficult because we will have united our entire minds, hearts and wills to that of God.