When the Superior orders anything, consider that it is not he that speaks, but God, so that the Superior is but a trumpet through which the voice of God sounds. And this is the true key to obedience, and the reason why the perfect obey in everything so promptly, and make no difference between one Superior and another, and submit to the lowest in authority as well as to the highest, and to the imperfect as well as to the perfect; for they regard not the persons nor the qualities of Superiors, but God alone, who is always the same, of equal merit, and of equal authority. - Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez
Saint Aloysius Gonzaga said that he did not remember ever to have disobeyed the slightest order of a Superior. He even showed as much reverence and submission to the beadle as to the General himself.
The blessed Solomea observed the orders of Superiors with as much exactness as if they had been given by God Himself - for this reason, that he regarded them as originating from God, and only promulgated by the voice of the Superior.
The venerable Mother Seraphina sometimes had confessors who possessed but little wisdom, yet she obeyed them with the same exactness as she did the others; and she often said that when they did not command anything sinful, it was always necessary to obey them, without seeking a reason for their orders.
- 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