Follow Reality

He who always acts under obedience may be assured that he will not have to give an account of his actions to God.  –St. Philip Neri

Recently, I made a large purchase. I needed to do it though, initially, I was quite reluctant. Sometimes we simply need to move forward and risk since reality might be making the road evident. Recently, I was struck by the readings, when Jesus helped the apostles catch a lot of fish. They gave up everything and followed Him. I was listening to a program regarding St. Gregory the Great. He had no interest in becoming pope yet he said “yes” and he was a great pope for the Church. Sometimes, we are asked to do many things, and we do not see it as the best thing for us. But we are looking only so far down the road. God sees the road much further ahead with all its curves and high bridges. We only need to move forward.

St. Benedict stated, "The first degree of humility is prompt obedience.”

I never liked the word obedience. It conjured ideas that made me think that I was a robot. Whenever I visit the Carmel Cloister, I call ahead out of respect, and the sisters need to inform Mother Superior if it is alright to visit. It usually is, but the obedience and respect for authority is amazing. I was reading about St. Thomas of Villanova who was asked twice to be a bishop and finally accepted the responsibility of Valencia in Spain. He preferred to live a simple and contemplative life, but he finally acceded to the post. He was a champion of the poor, converts and set the bar high for everyone. He lived by example but only because he had said “yes”. St Gregory the Great came from money, but he saw the decay of Rome in that period and the problems with the Lombards, Arianism and society at large. Pope Pelagius asked him to become a deacon and he rose in stature in the Church, and he did not want this. However, God had other ideas for him.

 “What great profit you gain from God when you are generous!” St. Thomas of Villanova said. “You give a coin and receive a kingdom; you give bread from wheat and receive the Bread of Life; you give a transitory good and receive an everlasting one. You will receive it back, a hundred times more than you offered.”

This month, Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati will be canonized. It is a beautiful event and illustrates how great things happen when we follow our reality. I would suspect that the saints all needed to struggle to find their place in the Church and what God expected from them, but this only happens through prayer and listening. We think of obedience and disobedience as from our elementary school days when, without much explanation, we were told what to do or not to do. But we need to learn that obedience and following reality to the fullest means understanding and opening our hearts to each other and to God. Pope Leo XIV accepted the papacy in an act of obedience. In a noisy world, it is a difficult thing to do. We need to say yes to reality and go against the current. But that is what we are asked to do.

“Without obedience, there is no virtue.” St. Padre Pio