Beware of examining and judging the orders of Superiors, and considering why such a thing was commanded, or whether another course would have been better. All this belongs not to the subject, but to the Superior. - Saint Jerome
One very warm summer day, Saint John Berchmans went out three or four times having been given by the Superior as a companion to several Brothers in succession. His roommate, feeling sorry for his evident suffering, advised him to use a little more discretion and prudence, for otherwise the intense heat would surely make him ill. But he answered with much gentleness: "Brother, I must leave prudence to him who gives me the orders. I am bound to nothing but obedience."
When the Bishop of Capri was going to celebrate Mass one morning at the convent of the venerable Mother Seraphina, he sent her word that he did not wish to give Communion to the nuns at the usual grating, but at the altar, and that they must therefore all come into the church. The servant of God was then in her cell, and without stopping to consider how painful was such a direction on account of the great irregularity it involved, she threw herself on her knees before her crucifix and kissed the ground; then rising, she kissed the Lord's feet, saying affectionately: "He was made obedient unto death." Without further delay, she left her cell and went to beg of her Sisters to obey the order of the Prelate. After receiving Holy Communion, they all went into the choir to make their thanksgiving. There the Mother had an ecstasy, in which Our Lord told her how much He had been pleased with this act of obedience. She told her companions of this when they were assembled at the general recreation. But when some dwelt on the repugnance they had felt, she said: "For me, the Lord gave me this morning a great reward for my blind obedience; and though the action in itself may not have been good, certainly the obedience was good."
- 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