caritate diligant1. But this love itself must already be of the supernatural order; this love should certainly be manifested by obedience, but obedience ought not to have as its motive power an affection that remains purely in the natural order. It is an obedience of faith that our holy Lawgiver requires of us: the commands of the Superior must be carried out as if they came from God Himself ": Ac si divinitus imperetur 2. If this is a living faith, it will render obedience easy; whatever be the order enjoined, it will make us find God: that is the best recompense.

VIII.

Born of faith, religious obedience is sustained by hope. We have indeed already touched on this subject so need not enlarge upon it, since, in a soul where faith is perfect, hope necessarily flourishes. We will therefore only say a little about this. What is the rôle of hope in the exercise of obedience? To render us full of confidence in God's help, especially in triumphing over the obstacles and difficulties that may be foreseen and encountered in the execution of the task commanded. God cannot leave to itself a soul that confides wholly in His grace. Look at Moses on Mount Horeb. The Lord appeared to him and entrusted him with delivering the children of Israel held in Egyptian bondage: Come, and I will send thee to Pharaoh, that thou mayst bring forth My people. " Moses is alarmed by the greatness of this mission: Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt ? And God answers: Ego ero tecum: "I will be with thee3. Henceforth intrepid, Moses went to the court of the Pharaohs and you know the prodigies that God wrought by his hands to deliver the Hebrews. Ego ero tecum: we often read these words in the lives of the Saints. Our Lord frequently repeated them to St. Catherine of Siena and the Blessed Bonomo 5, when He gave them commands : Have no fear," said He to the latter, I shall be with thee. He repeats these words to all of us, when obedience commands us to do hard or impossible things: Noli timere quia ego tecum sum®.

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He gives us, with confidence, that virtue of patience without which obedience is not perfect. "The sign that thou hast this virtue of obedience," said the Heavenly 2. Ibid. ch. v. 3. Exod. III, 12. 4. Life, by 5. Une extatique au XVIIIe siècle. La Bienheureuse J. M. Bonomo, moniale bénédictine, by D. du Bourg, p. 81-82, 141. 6.

1. Ibid. ch. LXXII. Raymund of Capua.

Gen. xxvi, 24.

Father to St. Catherine, "is patience; impatience makes known that thou hast it not... Disobedience has a sister given to her by self-love and this is impatience... Patience and obedience are inseparable; whoever is not patient has, by this very fact, the proof that obedience does not dwell in his heart1.

Obedience quickened by supernatural confidence, infallibly draws down help from on high. St. Benedict is explicit on this point when the Abbot commands us to do things difficult or impossible, the order must first of all be accepted. Then if we see that the burden altogether exceeds our strength we must make known, patiently and at the seasonable moment, the reasons of our incapacity, showing neither pride, resistance, nor contradiction. If having listened to these representations, the Abbot still persists in his way of thinking and maintains his command, the monk, says our Holy Father, will know that this command is advantageous for him and he will obey for love, confiding in God's assistance: Ex caritate confidens de adjutorio Dei obediat 2.

This admirable sentence concludes this chapter so lofty, so firm and at the same time so full of discretion, devoted to obedience in "impossible" things. The hope that God will be with us ought to sustain us, because it is "through love of Him that we obey.

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IX.

The expression "through love ", which we have just quoted, marks the last of the fundamental qualities, and this especially in relation to the motive of our obedience. Although he makes obedience the offspring of humility, and gives it faith as its first inspirer, you will however remark that the holy Patriarch always presents monastic obedience as an act of love: Ut quis PRO DEI AMORE omni obedientia se subdat majori3: it is for the love of God that we submit to the Superior in all obedience. Certain lines written by St. Benedict upon obedience (Ch. v, VII, XVIII, XXII) reveal a deep-lying tendency in his soul to act for love. Within him burns as it were a restrained enthusiasm for God, for Christ, for love itself. According to his way of thinking, obedience is not only an inmost disposition which inclines the monk to execute every command with promptitude and devotedness because the moral order requires that

1. Dialogue, On Obedience. Ch. I and II. 2. Rule, ch. LXVIII. ch. VII.

the inferior shall submit to the superior; the obedience of the monk is to be an exercise or a perpetual effort of love... Obedience thus becomes the expression of an habitual disposition of unitive life by the conformity or perpetual communion of the human will with the Divine Will1".

For, the Holy Lawgiver repeats to us that this virtue in its perfection is only to be found in those " who hold nothing dearer to them than Christ" : Haec convenit iis qui NIHIL SIBI A CHRISTO CARIUS aliquid existimant 2. St. Benedict wishes the monk's obedience to be the expression of love; and he adds that in this above all we shall imitate Christ: PRO DEI AMORE omni obedientia se subdat majori, IMITANS DOMINUM de quo dicit Apostolus: factus obediens usque ad mortem3.

The first act of the holy soul of Jesus in the Incarnation was to dart through the infinite space that separates the created from the divine. Resting in the Bosom of the Father, His soul contemplates face to face His adorable perfections. We cannot picture to ourselves that this contemplation could be, if I may so express myself, only speculative. Far from it. As the Word, Christ loves His Father, in very deed, with an infinite love surpassing all comprehension. But the Humanity of Jesus is drawn into this impetuous current of uncreated love and the Heart of Christ burns with the most perfect love that could ever exist. A member of the human race through His Incarnation, Christ falls moreover under the great precept: Thou shalt love

the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength." Jesus has perfectly fulfilled this commandment. From His first entering into the world, He yielded Himself up through love: Ecce venio... Deus meus volui et legem tuam in medio cordis mei 5. I have placed, O Father, Thy law, Thy will in the midst of My Heart. His whole existence is summed up in love for the Father. But what form will this love take? The form of obedience: Ut faciam Deus voluntatem tuam®. And why is this? Because nothing better translates filial love than absolute submission". Christ Jesus has manifested

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1. D. I. Ryelandt, l. c. p .209. 2. Rule, ch.v. 3. Ibid. ch. vII; Philip. II, 8. 4. Marc. XII, 30. 5. Ps. XXXIX, 8-9. - 6. Hebr. x, 7. — 7. The Eternal Father said to St Catherine, I wish thee to see and know this most excellent virtue in that humble and immaculate Lamb, and the source whence it proceeds. What caused the great obedience of the Word? The love which He had for My honour and your salvation. Whence proceeded this love? From the clear vision with which His soul saw the divine essence and the eternal Trinity, thus always looking on Me, the eternal God, His fidelity obtained this vision most perfectly for Him, which vision you imperfectly enjoy by the light of holy faith. He was faithful to me, His Eternal

this perfect love and this full obedience from the moment of the Incarnation even to the death of the Cross Usque ad mortem.

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Not only has He never for an instant hesitated to obey, but love draws Him, despite the sensible shrinking that He feels, towards the consummation of His obedience: "I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished1?" It is with intense desire that He desires to eat the Pasch with His disciples 2, that Pasch which is to inaugurate the Passion. If He delivers Himself up to death, it is that the world may know that He loves His Father: Ut cognoscat mundus quia diligo Patrem3. And this love is unutterable because this perfect obedience is the very food of His soul: Meus cibus est ut faciam voluntatem ejus qui misit me, ut perficiam opus ejus1. A similar sense of love ought to inspire the monk "in all his obedience ": Ut quis pro Dei amore, omni obedientia se subdat majori. Our Lawgiver is very explicit upon this point. The obedience of the monk, enlightened by faith, is to spring from the love that he bears to Christ, as the Model and mainspring of his submission. There is not after all any motive more essential and fundamental, more effectual also, for making us perfectly obedient than this ambition to imitate Christ Jesus our Ideal. Why have we left all things, renounced all things, even our own will, except to follow Him more closely: Vende quae habes... et veni sequere me... Reliquimus omnia et secuti sumus te5.

It is not an easy thing to follow Jesus as far as the death of the cross. Only those hearts inspired by an intense faith, hearts humble, steadfast and generous are capable of it. In order to march courageously in the footsteps of Christ Our Lord and King, as St. Benedict wishes, a man must renounce his own will and take up the most strongly tempered arms, the only ones that can lead us to glory: those of obedience: Quisquis abrenuntians propriis voluntatibus, DOMIÑO CHRISTO VERO REGI MILITATURUS obedientiae fortissima atque praeclara arma sumis®. Obedience may sometimes require heroic patience and self-abnegation. Our Holy Father himself forewarns us of this. But did our Divine Master find it agreeable to be delivered up to the Jews, insulted by the Pharisees, spat upon by the soldiery? No, Father, and therefore hastened as one enamoured along the road of obedience lit up with the light of glory. Dialogue. On Obedience, ch. 1, translated by Algar Thorold.

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1. Luc. XII, 50. — 2. Ibid. XXII 15. 3. Joan. XIV, 31. 5. Matth. XIX, 21, 27. - 6. Prologue of the Rule

4. Joan. IV, 34.

all this filled Him with horror and disgust; and yet He accepted all to prove to His Father the love wherewith His Heart overflowed. His Father had willed that He should be treated as the last of men, the outcast of the people; that He should undergo the death of one cursed, cum sceleratis1. And so deep was His submission that He allowed Himself to be led to immolation as a Lamb that does not open his mouth," Et non aperiet os suum2.

Now it is even as far as this that Christ Jesus is the Model of our obedience. None will ever make us suffer such things, nor ask of us such obedience. If God sometimes permits that obedience should crush us, let us, in those difficult moments, look at Christ Jesus in His agony or hung upon the Cross, and let us say to Him from the depths of our heart: Diligam te et tradam meipsum pro te3: "Because I love Thee I accept Thy will. Then divine peace that peace which passes all understanding will descend into our soul with the sweetness of heavenly grace. This alone will give us the strength and patience to endure all things in silence of heart and lips: Tacita conscientia patientiam amplectatur*.

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But when a man has not this faith which shows God to be the one Good, when he is not carried on by this generous and ardent love for the Person of Christ Jesus, he seeks himself, he is attached to such or such a work, to such or such a charge, he goes no further than his own ideal. Does the Superior happen to touch this charge, this work, to oppose this ideal, then woe betide !... It cannot be said of these souls what our Holy Father declares of the perfect monk that he leaves what is his own": Relinquentes quae SUA sunt. When a man "truly seeks God, Si revera Deum quaerit, and not self, he is content with whatever task obedience imposes upon him, however humble, obscure, painful or difficult this task may be; he even judges himself to be unworthy of it, as St. Benedict wills, because all obedience, coming from God, leads us to God, and it is always a signal grace to be enabled to draw near to God in order to be united to Him 8.

It needs great love to arrive at this degree of the virtue. In fact, to obey always without faltering, to submit in I. Isa. LIII, 12. 2. Ibid. 7. 3. Cf. Gal. II, 20. 4. Rule, ch. VII. 5. Rule, ch. v. 6. Ibid. ch. LVIII. -7. Ad OMNIA quae sibi injunguntur velut OPERARIUM SE MALUM judicet et INDIGNUM. Rule, ch. vII. - 8. We are speaking here of the orders of Superiors, but this can be applied, all proportion guarded, to obedience to the Rule and to the traditions established by the Constitutions. We touched on this point of faithfulness to the Rule and the common life in the conference on The Instruments of Good Works ", and The Cenobitical Society".