Skip to main content

Versions

19

  1. Obedience is pre-eminent among (the vows rel- evant to) the (evangelical) counsels. By obedience a person dedicates himself totally to God and his actions approximate to the goal of profession, which is the perfection of charity. Everything else too in the apostolic life is included under obedience.
  2. Since we are united to Christ and to the Church through obedience, whatever labour and hardship we sustain in putting it into practice is, as it were, a prolongation of Christ’s self-offering. It takes on a sacrificial character for ourselves and for the Church, in whose completion the entire work of creation is perfected.
  3. Because obedience ‘plants the roots of self-discipline in our hearts’ 1 Saint Gregory, Moralia, XXXV, PL 76, c. 765, quoted by Saint Thomas, Summa theologica, IIa, IIae, q. 104, art. 1. (Literally, by which ‘we overcome ourselves in our hearts’: nosmetipsos in corde superamus) it is of the greatest benefit to that freedom of spirit characteristic of the children of God, and disposes us to self-giving charity.
Constitution
Confirmed ACG 1968 River Forest n.
Published on
  • 1

    Saint Gregory, Moralia, XXXV, PL 76, c. 765, quoted by Saint Thomas, Summa theologica, IIa, IIae, q. 104, art. 1. (Literally, by which ‘we overcome ourselves in our hearts’: nosmetipsos in corde superamus)