Riflessioni ad alta voce

Obedience and apostolate “To work together is often difficult”. “Superiors, sometimes, do not understand the reality of the apostolate”. “If I am alone I know what to do, so surely I will do well”. Those above are just some sentences which we hear among religious, when they want to justify themselves for not asking permissions, and not involving the community in whatever they do. The reality is that those religious like to be independent. In order to understand the relationship between apostolate and obedience we have to understand well the need of apostolate. The word apostolate comes from “Apostle” which means to be sent. So apostolate does not mean to do good, but to do the will of the one who sent. Of course the first one who sends is God, but there is also the congregation and our community. So whenever I do apostolate I do it in the name of God and in the name of the Congregation. For this reason obedience and apostolate are strictly connected. If I do good but ag...

Obedience and community life Obedience is connected to community life more than the other vows. The superior has to be considered as the father, not as a boss or a manager. The goal of obedience is to do the will of God, and God called us to be family. Jesus built up a community of Apostles, not a group of individual “social operators”. So community is the place where the will of God is to be discovered. When speaking of obedience there are several aspects to be considered: Common discernment. The word discernment became famous with St. Ignatius of Loyola, meaning to evaluate different options in order to find which one comes from God and which one from the evil. To discover the will of God in a more sure way we all have to give our contribution. At the end the one in charge will take the decision and all will have to stick to it. Personal plan, community plan, provincial plan, congregation plan, God’s plan. Our work is just a small part of a reality which is much bigg...

Obedience as a challenge to the world. Pope John Paul II, in the document Vita Consecrata (nn.91-92), presents us a big challenge present in today’s society. This comes from the wrong use of freedom and power. People understand freedom as “do whatever you like”, and power as “make sure that the others serve you and understand who is in charge”. The vow of obedience teaches us that only in the fulfilling the will of God we can be sure to find happiness. Freedom is a real freedom only if it is under the truth and under the moral norms. Authority, on its part, is true only when is at the service of the will of God. Both freedom and authority should work for a better life and a better society where everybody can grow. Furthermore obedience is exercised in a community environment. Community, in the promise of Christ “When two or more are united in my name I will be among them”, is the place where Jesus lives. Community is also the place where, through dialogue and discernment, t...

Danger of a wrong interpretation of the vow of obedience Having said the importance of following the rules we have to point out once again what we already said at the beginning: every act of obedience is first and foremost obedience to the will of God, and that all the rules are the instruments to help us to do the will of God. The formation we received at home and in school while children, influences a lot the way we act now. We can see it clearly in the religious life where we have different ways to act on obedience. These are mainly a reaction to the formation received, especially in case of a discipline which was too strict or too lax and also the lack of motivations given to the seminarians on why they should act in that particular way. What was often missing was the presentation of values for life. Let us analyze some common ways of life as we see them among religious. The first way is called rebellion. A person is called a rebel when he purposely acts against t...

Obedience and the three levels of human life As we have said for the other two vows, human life develops at three levels: the psycho-physiological, the psycho-social, the spiritual-rational. In the previous chapter we have seen that real obedience requires freedom. Lack of freedom at each of the three levels will affect the way we live our vow of obedience. Level 1. Here we relate with all the needs of our body. We may have the tendency to satisfy those needs, but sometimes we may fall slaves of the same. The need of food, for example, may become gluttony, or the need for rest may become laziness or fear of pain. All these and other more influence the way we obey. In order to fulfil our vow of obedience we need to master those needs. To try to obey can become a strong instrument of discipline of the needs. Level 2. At this level we have the relationship with other people, the respect for the society in which we live and the contribution we must give to the family or the co...

Obedience and freedom God created us free. Freedom is a gift of God, a necessary one, that can never be denied to anyone. Without freedom the person cannot make the important choices in life, and especially there cannot be true love. Love can only be true when is free. Many people say that obedience and freedom are not compatible, and therefore obedience is wrong. This idea comes from a wrong understanding of the word “freedom”. If obedience is first of all to do the will of God, and freedom is the greatest gift of God, how can they be in contradiction? The word freedom is often understood as “to do whatever a person likes”. This is a very wrong definition. This mistake comes from the libertarian ideas that started after the French Revolution in the XVIII century. The real meaning of the word freedom is “to be always in the condition to make the right choices for what is really the best for the person, his family and the society”; or “That all obstacles may be removed that ...

Introduction In religious life we have three vows: Chastity, poverty and obedience. Chastity is the most visible because people see that we are not married. Poverty is where we are most criticized, because people do not want us to abuse money or have a better life than theirs. Obedience, instead, is not at all seen and normal people do not understand it or even not know that we have such a vow. Somehow, obedience seems to be the least important, but actually in the theology of religious life it is considered the most important. The main reason for which we want to become religious is to do the will of God. Vocation is to be called by God, to whom we give answer. So obedience makes the religious life, poverty and chastity are the way to live it. Obedience in the Bible. In the Old Testament we see God creating the world and entrusting it into the hands of human beings, but he sets some boundaries: “Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil”. The disobed...

Conclusions The vow of poverty is about depending on everything from the community and the superior. It is also a sharing in the life of the poor in order to promote them. Finally is to provoke the society towards a more evangelical life. The spirituality of poverty is that we should depend in everything from God alone and not on material things. To follow the vow will make us good Christians and religious, but it is only the spirituality which can make us saints. Passages for meditation -) The Providence of God Mt 6, 19-34 -) God Has chosen the poor: Lk 6, 20-26; Lk 4, 16-21 -) God will vindicate the poor: Am 2, 6-8; Lk 1, 51-53 -) Jesus tells us to take care of the poor: Mt 25, 31-46 -) Jesus and the use of money: Jn 6,5-7; 12,1-8; 13,27-30 -) The beatitudes (especially Lk) -) Poverty as lifestyle and for human promotion: Is 61,1-3 Am 8,4-14 At 6,1-7 Mt 5,3-11 -) God uses the poor as his instruments: 2 Cor 4,7-12; 2 Cor 12, 6-9; 1 Cor 1, 17-31 Vita Conse...

From the writings of Don Orione One of the principal points. One of the principal points of our rule and our religious life is holy poverty. Poverty in any case is the first point of the evangelical counsels given to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Poverty, chastity, obedience. More than one wise director has told us that poverty is the shortest and safest way to reach blessed Heaven. God, not finding poverty in Heaven, as Heaven is the infinite abundance and riches of all kinds, came down to seek and find it on this earth. And Jesus began with it Himself: "Coepit facere et docere." He Himself began to practise it, to give example and then to teach. But first of all He began to practise it, because example is the most effective of words. "Verba movent, exempla trahunt. Words move and examples attract." It was said of Jesus: "Coepit facere et docere." He practised it first, and then taught. Before saying on the mountain: "Blessed are the...

Poverty and community life When we read about the vow of poverty in our constitutions we see that the first and most important requirement is that the religious should handle any property and money under the authority of the superior. This means that all our possessions belong now to the Congregation, though we are the one using them. In this the vow of poverty is strictly connected with the vow of obedience. Practically speaking, whatever money we receive, either as donation or stipend, we should give to the community; whatever gift we receive, we should ask the permission of the superior in order to keep it; and for whatever thing we need to buy we should ask the permission and the money from the superior. This is a difficult practice which requires discipline, but it is exactly because of it that it becomes important for our life and is strengthening our personality. A good help for this discipline is to learn how to give a proper, clear, prompt and regular account of all ...