dience
an excuse before God. In fact, when God asks why you have done this or
that, and you reply, it is because I was so ordered by my Superiors,
God will ask for no other excuse. As a passenger in a good vessel with
a good pilot need give himself no farther concern, but may go to sleep
in peace, because the pilot has charge over all, and 'watches for him';
so a religious person who lives under the yoke of obedience goes to
heaven as if while sleeping, that is, while leaning entirely on the
conduct of his Superiors, who are the pilots of his vessel, and keep
watch for him continually. It is no small thing, of a truth, to be
able to cross the stormy sea of life on the shoulders and in the arms
of another, yet that is just the grace which God accords to those who
live under the yoke of obedience. Their Superior bears all their
burdens.... A certain grave doctor said that he would rather spend his
life in picking up straws by obedience, than by his own responsible
choice busy himself with the loftiest works of charity, because one is
certain of following the will of God in whatever one may do from
obedience, but never certain in the same degree of anything which we
may do of our own proper movement."[187]

[187] Alfonso Rodriguez, S. J.: Pratique de la Perfection Chretienne,
Part iii., Treatise v., ch. x.

One should read the letters in which Ignatius Loyola recommends
obedience as the backbone of his order, if one would gain insight into
the full spirit of its cult.[188] They are too long to quote; but
Ignatius's belief is so vividly expressed in a couple of sayings
reported by companions that, though they have been so often cited, I
will ask your permission to copy them once more:--

[188] Letters li. and cxx. of the collection translated into French by
Bouix, Paris, 1870.

"I ought," an early biographer reports him as saying, "on entering
religion, and thereafter, to place myself entirely in the hands of God,
and of him who takes His place by His authority. I ought to desire that
my Superior should oblige me to give up my own judgment, and conquer my
own mind. I ought to set up no difference between one Superior and
another, ... but recognize them all as equal before God, whose place
they fill. For if I distinguish persons, I weaken the spirit of
obedience. In the hands of my Superior, I must be a soft wax, a thing,
from which he is to require whatever pleases him, be it to write or
receive letter