Fourth Lesson of the Infant Jesus - Obedience
Jesus teaches us from His crib that in order to live as true Christians the spirit of poverty and of purity are not sufficient, we must also be governed by the spirit of obedience. Filled with this virtue, the Divine Infant already says in His Heart and proclaims by His deeds what later on He will teach aloud. "I am come not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me" - "My meat is to do the will of My Father," "I do always those things that please Him." "But," as the Eternal Father said to Saint Catherine of Sienna, "it is not sufficient that obedience be found in the Word made flesh, if it is not found also in you." Here we have the key which opens Heaven. And this is not for religious only. Every good Christian should live in a large and wholesome measure under the law of obedience in order to enjoy the blessing of freedom from the tyranny of self. It was in this spirit that Blessed M. Magdalen, O.P., made herself the servant of all her Sisters, even her equals and inferiors, in order to have the happiness of living in perpetual subjection.
Aspiration
O sweet obedience! thou dost set sail without trouble and arrivest without peril at the port of salvation. Thy calm comes of thy strength. Thou art a precious but hidden pearl which the world tramples under foot. Thou hast acquired thy liberty by killing sensuality with the hatred and contempt of self. – Saint Catherine of Siena
Practice
Recall the advice received from your director in your annual retreat.
– taken from the book Saints and Saintly Dominicans, by Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P.