On Christ's Obedience

"This way of obedience to God does not have, of itself, anything of the mystical or extraordinary, but is open to all the baptized. It consists of "presenting affairs to God," according to the advice that Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, gave him one day (cf. Exodus 18:19). I can decide on my own to take an initiative, to go or not go on a trip, to take or not take a job, to make or not make a visit, to incur or not incur an expense and then, once decided, to pray to God for the success of the matter.

But if love of obedience to God is born in me, then I will act in a different way: I will first ask God, with the very simple means of prayer, if it is his will that I undertake that trip, job, visit, expense and then I do or do not do it, but then it will already be, in any case, an act of obedience to God, and no longer a free initiative on my part. In general it is clear that I will not hear, in my brief prayer, any voice, nor will I have an explicit answer about what to do, or at least it is not necessary that there be one so that what I do will be obedience.

Acting thus, in fact, I have submitted the matter to God, I have despoiled myself of my will, I have given up deciding on my own and I have given God a possibility to intervene, if he so wills, in my life. What I now decide to do, regulating myself with the ordinary criteria of discernment, will be obedience to God. ....Father Cantalamessa

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