Reflections on the Vow of Obedience
The vow of Obedience today
The vow and practice of obedience is a response to Jesus’ words, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15). These words are addressed to all his followers; but as priests and religious we dedicate ourselves in a special way as individuals and as a community to spend our lives in loving obedience to Christ wherever he is to be found: in the Gospel, in the Church, in our communities, in our brothers, in the poor.
By the vow of obedience priests and religious bind themselves to submit humbly to their superiors in a spirit of faith and love for God’s will and in accordance with the customs and way of life particular to each religious congregation and order. Collectively, all their powers of intellect and will to bear on the execution of any precepts given to them and on the fulfillment of the tasks laid upon them, realizing that they contribute in this way to the building up of the Body of Christ. “We should be imbued with the spirit of Christ’s loving obedience that seeks to discern and fulfill the will of the Father in all things. (c. Vatican II, PC, 14.)
In discerning tasks that should be given or followed in obedience, the first place to look for what the God wants us to do is in the Scriptures, the Word of God. The Gospel ought to a daily, living source of the teaching of the Lord for everyone.
Obedience commits all priests and religious, as a religious family in the Church and as individuals, to listen to and obey the voice of Christ in the Church, both in the hierarchy, teaching and governing, and in the people of God who served in the apostolic work, especially the poor and all who are afflicted or in difficulty. This obedience also commits religious as priests, when preaching the Gospel, to be careful to speak with the authentic voice of Christ.
“The question we have to ask ourselves is how well we have managed and are managing to coordinate that ‘fidelity to essential tradition’ with a ‘readiness to develop and accept new forms and directions,’ especially where these are initiated by individuals. Fidelity to ‘the corporate vocation’ and attentiveness to the Holy Spirit’s ‘calls to individuals’ is the delicate balance called for in the day to day living of the vowed life of obedience,” said Fr. Kevin Kirley, csb
The vow commits priests and religious before God to a particular religious family; where the aims are accepted, its way of life, its work and the particular tasks to which superiors appoint. We should be ready to go wherever we are sent, willing to accept any renunciations involved. But, all should also be free and open in making known to superiors their interests and abilities, together with the hopes and fears about appointments. With this two-fold freedom the Community can be truly responsive to the Holy Spirit.
In professing obedience religious accept responsibility as members of a self-governing religious community in the Church. This calls for our active participation, according to a form of government, in choosing men to lead and in making those decisions which guide the common life and work. This calls for all to listen with respect to what every brothers say. It also calls in a special way for a generous and prompt obedience to superiors both local and general and to the decisions made as a community.
excerpted from “the Basilian Way of Life”