Lest You Remain

2 Again, bring to mind why you have entered the Congregation and recall and renew earlier resolutions as to the improvement of your life and morals. Be certain that fulfilling the will of God and submitting to it, is the most noble and highest perfection. This is the most frequently chosen path to Heaven, taken by all the saints, patriarchs and religious. Abraham wanted to offer to God’s will, his son as a holo- caust. You also, following his example, should offer something to the same Lord. Abraham, at the voice of God, left his homeland and all his relatives. (cf. Gn 12:1- 5. 22:1-12). You have also left the land of your family, for the haven of the religious voca- tion shown to you by the finger of the Holy Spirit. Just as you have abandoned your relatives and comrades, you should also abandon your bad habits and unbridled passions. You should also offer to the great and Almighty God, as a holocaust at the Mount of Moria, that is, in the Order, your one and only son Isaac, that is, your own will. In all your actions and resolutions say: “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” As for me, my Lord, may Your will be done in every minute, every hour, every day and in eternity. ( Inspectio Cordis ) 3 “And was obedient to them” (Lk 2:51). Christ teaches you the noble virtue of obedience, not with many words but by the importance of example, when you see how obedient He was to the will of his parents. Jesus, I am more surprised to see the deference You show in listening to Joseph, than the way in whichYou convince the Jewish scholars through the author- ity of unexpected words and knowledge. What is so strange in your wise discus- sions with them, when you are the eternal Wisdom? Yet, who would not be aston- ished that you, the Lord of heaven, willfully submits to your parents, that as God, you are obedient to man? My Jesus, watching your example, I accept the value and necessity of the virtue of obedience. It was necessary for the One who later was to be obedient to His tormentors, and to whom the entire world was to be submitted, to be obedient to his parents. If his neighbors or relatives had seen that he rebelled against the Fr. Founder’s Selected Thoughts on the Religious Life 155