Obedience is the summary of perfection and of the whole spiritual life, and the securest, shortest, least laborious and least dangerous way of becoming enriched with all virtues, and arriving at the goal of our desires, eternal life. - Alvarez
Saint Teresa was fully persuaded of this truth, which led her to say that if all the Angels together told her to do one thing, while her Superior commanded the contrary, she would always give the preference to the order of the Superior. "Because," she added, "obedience to Superiors is commanded by God in the Holy Scriptures, and consequently it is of faith, and there can be no deception about it; but revelations are liable to illusion." And, in fact, she often disclosed to her director things revealed to her by God, and when he disapproved of them, she immediately let them pass.
Saint Frances of Rome, on many occasions, received commands from God to do certain things, but she never did them without first having the consent of her confessor, which was very pleasing to Our Lord.
On her deathbed, Saint Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi said that nothing in the review of her whole life gave her so much comfort as the certainty that she had never been guided in anything by her own will and judgment, but always by the will and judgment of her Superiors and directors.
Saint Paul, surnamed the Simple, received grace to perform miracles, after serving God only a short time in perfect obedience.
- text taken from A Year with the Saints, composed by an unknown Italian, translated by a member of the Order of Mercy; it has the Imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan, Archdiocese of New York, New York, 21 January 1891