The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Jesus went down with his parents and was subject (obedient) to them.

We see in this the most perfect foundation of the family. Obedience is the key to holding any unit of society together especially the most fundamental unit _ the family.

Christ came not to do His own will but to do the will of His heavenly Father. And in accordance with the will of His heavenly Father he was obedient to his earthly parents, both His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and His foster father St. Joseph. We see the King of kings submitting Himself to a simple carpenter and his wife. This is truly a most profound lesson in humility if we will only awaken ourselves to see it.

Who is the greatest in this Holy Family? (Jesus). And who is the least in this Holy Family? (St. Joseph). But, who is the head and who rules the Holy Family if not the least in supernatural dignity, St. Joseph? And next in authority is the Blessed Mother Mary. She is greater in dignity than St. Joseph but she is obedient to him as his wife. And then the Child Jesus is obedient to both, yet He is the greatest in dignity because He is God!

And Christ continued this obedience to others in this world. He obeyed the civil rulers, etc. He was obedient unto death!

There are basically two types of obedience servile or forced obedience and filial or loving obedience. It is obvious that the obedience of Christ was not a servile or forced obedience but was more of the filial or loving obedience of a child. Perhaps we should not even create a classification of forced obedience, because such coercion is not really obedience at all. It is only mentioned because this is perhaps what most in the world conceives of obedience. The child who unwillingly does what he is told thinks he is obedient and his parents are satisfied with this charade, but it is not true obedience.

True obedience is a conforming and uniting of wills. The subject enters into and makes his will conformable to the will of his superior. He does that which his superior desires not because of force or fear of punishment but because he loves the superior and wishes to fulfill his superior's desire or will. When the subject becomes of one mind with his superior and wills that which his superior wills, desires that which his superior desires, and then sets out to do that which his superior wishes him to do; this subject is obedient!

The child that obeys like the Pharisee the letter of the law but not the spirit is not truly obedient. Such a child might tell his mother that he has cleaned his room and think that he is obedient when all he did was open up his closet and shove everything inside there. He has fulfilled the letter of the law (he has cleaned his room), but he has not been obedient because this was not the will of his mother when she asked him to clean his room and he knew this. He has not conformed his will to hers. This is not true obedience but is only the illusion of obedience.

And as much as women may not like to hear it, they have a superior in their husbands. They are expected to obey their husbands, just as their children are expected to obey them. If wives will not obey their husbands, how can they expect their children to obey? The children will imitate the example that they are given. If they never see true obedience being practiced, how will they ever learn or implement it themselves?

What does this leave for husbands and fathers? Are they then given free reign to be tyrants or dictators? By no means! St. Joseph was far from this. St. Paul tells us that Husbands must love their wives as their own bodies, they must love their wives as Christ loves the Church.

When the superior loves the subject, he wills and desires only that which is good for the subject. He would never ask or command anything that he would deem hurtful, harmful, degrading, etc. in any way. And when the subject sees the love the superior has for him, he all the more readily reciprocates that love and strives to conform to his will as much as possible (true obedience).

We have witnessed the destruction of the family simply by the destruction of true love and true obedience. And following the destruction of the family is that of all of society: the city, state, and nation.

Let us truly obey the superiors that God has placed over us: secular, religious, and familial. Let us obey in all things except sin. And in doing so we will know that we are not only pleasing God but we are truly obeying Him. Let us strive not only to keep the letter of God's laws or the Church's laws but let us also keep the spirit of these laws by conforming our wills to His.

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