The first and most important virtue that my parents and other elders in my youth tried to teach me was obedience. In the seminary where I spent most of my formative years, obedience was the supreme virtue, even ahead of charity and chastity. The sins I most often confessed were transgressions against the Fourth Commandment. And there was some malicious thrill in being rebellious and disobedient.
Today, obedience seems passe as the black and white TV and the rotary dial phone that I grew up with. Children today are encouraged to find their own answers and to discover their own paths. Freedom is the most important value and one is expected to make his own decisions. Independence is to be most cherished and protected when necessary.
Yet, I still see and appreciate the value and virtue in obedience. I do not have all the answers and there have been many times where I have made the right choice because I heeded the words and wisdom of those older than I am. Obedience is the humility to submit my will – in freedom – to the will of another person. Obedience is the acknowledgement that there are other and better ways and answers than my own. As I have advanced in age, I have realized that there are things I know now or that there are things I know better now that I did not know when I was younger. There is wisdom in age that youth can learn from. There is wisdom and grace in the infinite that the finite must heed and follow.
Jesus said to the people, ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.’Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.
Matthew 7:21, 24-27