To obey, obedience, disobedience

See also: Order, disorder.

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File:ChatGPT Not my will but yours.png

The agony of Jesus in Gethsemane, where Christ consummates His perfect act of obedience to the Father. Artistic illustration by AI inspired by the visions of Maria Valtorta.

Obedience to the will of God is a path of holiness and salvation. Obedience brings Peace and light, and although it is easier to obey than to command, obedience can require difficult effort in certain circumstances.

In "The Gospel as it was revealed to me"

• Obedience always saves.  
• I obey my Father. You obey your Master. It is the first condition to be a son of God, to obey without questioning.
• It is easier to obey than to command.
• To understand is to obey without questioning because one is convinced of the holiness of the One who guides.  
• Sintica to John of Endor, demoralized: "It is a great thing to obey, simply because it is obedience. Therefore, it is a very great thing to obey a holy order, which I judge and you must also judge with me, as a great mercy."     
• For, know this forever, God chooses whom He wills and removes from those who deserve it, having corrupted their will by Pride and disobedience.   
• Peace! That is, success, that is, victory over Earth and in Heaven, because God is with the one who has the good will to obey Him. God does not so much look at the resounding works that man accomplishes by his initiative, as at the humble, prompt, faithful obedience to the works He proposes.          
• God is Father, He loves us and He weeps if we are evil, but He does not force us to obey. Yet the one who is evil will be punished one day with horrible torments...  
• Where do I find my calm? In doing the will of God. Where does my serenity come from? From doing that will.           
• Obedience is holiness when it does not nullify the great Law.        
• Jesus to Margziam: "The first sin you must promise me never to commit is disobedience. You will obey, always. Me now, and whoever will speak to you in my Name, thereafter".        
• Obedience is difficult. What is difficult causes pain to the one who does it. Therefore, I must suffer in order to conquer, to wipe out not one or a thousand sins, but the original sin itself par excellence, which has been and will always be, until the last man, the sin of disobedience to God.  
• Obedience is pain and glory. Obedience never dies […] Obedience is light […] Obedience is patience […] Obedience is humility […] Obedience is charity […] Obedience is heroism. […] If charity is the virtue where one finds the One and Triune God, obedience is the virtue where you find Me, your Master.         
• Reflect that obedience always saves at least from one sin: that of presuming to be capable of acting by oneself. You do not know how the demon circles around you to grasp every reason to make you sin, …
• The pain of the world comes from disobedience, but obedience consoles the Most High. Mary: "It has been granted to me, a creature, to console my Creator!" Jesus: "Blessed are you, who teach me the ultimate obedience and make it, by this thought, so pleasing to accomplish!"

In other works by Maria Valtorta

In the Notebooks

• Catechesis September 18: Now, if you think about the fact that in life, the one who loves — whether a child, a brother, a sister, a husband, a wife, a student, a subordinate, whoever — always seeks to please the beloved, you can easily understand that those who love God greatly conform themselves to His desires, whatever they may be; those who love Him less conform less and only to those desires that do not cost them much pain; and finally, those who do not love Him at all do not conform at all to the desires of His holy will, but instead revolt, throwing themselves on the path leading to the antipodes of the destination that God advises, and distance themselves from the Father by blaspheming Against Him.
  
  One could therefore conclude, without fear of error, that the measure to which a creature knows how to obey the desires of his Lord and Father gives the measure to which he loves his Creator. He who says he loves God and does not know how to follow His voice that speaks to him with love to lead him to His home, that one lies (see note [3] on the site).
• Catechesis November 3, 1943: "Obedience has more value than the word, even if this word is written under my dictation. For you hear and write the word, but it is not yours; you repeat it, but it is not yours. Obedience, on the contrary, is yours. It is fitting to say: "Let her act, for you always have the poor, but Me, you do not always have." The poor to whom to give the word, you always have them. The opportunity to spread the precious aroma of holy obedience, defying the comments of others, you do not always have. And know that obedience was the virtue of the Word, who was destined to be Man and to become the Redeemer. Love, power, perfection, wisdom are common to our Three Persons. But obedience is mine, exclusively mine. I obeyed by incarnating, by becoming poor, by accepting to be subject to humans, by accomplishing my Mission of evangelizer, by dying."

In the fundamental Christian texts

In the Bible

• Aaron is about to die. Indeed, he will not enter the land that I give to the Israelites, because you disobeyed my orders at the source of Meribah.
• My people did not want me. So I left them to what they deliberately chose. Ah, if my people would listen to me, I would make their Enemies bend, I would direct my strikes against their adversaries!

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• CCC § 143: By faith man completely submits his intelligence and his will to God. With all his being man gives his assent to God the revealer (cf. Dei Verbum 5). Holy Scripture calls this response of man to the God who reveals Himself the "obedience of faith" (cf. Romans 1:5; 16:26).
• The first sin of man: disobedience.
• Jesus substitutes His obedience for our disobedience.
• The perfection of charity entails for those who freely accept the Call to consecrated life, the obligation to practice chastity in celibacy for the Kingdom, poverty, and obedience.
• Mary brought to the Savior’s work a cooperation absolutely unparalleled by her obedience, faith, hope, and ardent charity, so that supernatural life might be restored to souls. That is why she became for us, in the order of Grace, our Mother."
• Having become a member of the Church, the baptized no longer belongs to himself but to Christ. From then on he is called to submit to others, to serve them in the communion of the Church, and to be "obedient and docile" to the leaders of the Church and to regard them with respect and affection. CCC 1269 – 1567 – 1733 – 1900 – 2053 – 2216 et seq. – 2240 et seq. – 2313