Lest You Remain

my Commandments, now I speak to my chosen people, my servants, that is to the Religious, through their Superiors and spiritual directors and I reveal my will to them. The one who listens to the Superiors, listens as if to Me and is blessed.” You are more than blessed, when you base your happiness on this foundation, when you listen to your spiritual directors as to God, and submit to them as to God. ( Inspectio Cordis ) 6 Contemplate, that there are two serious infirmities filled with greatest unhap- piness, when someone is deaf and dumb at the same time. Symbolically these infir- mities of the mouth and ears describe the disobedient and the godless. About them, the king-psalmist says: “They have ears but hear not, they have mouths but speak not” (cf. Ps 115: 5-6). How crippling for a religious is this deafness, that is disobedience! What a great tragedy is this harmful closing of the mouth, that is a lack of the practice of prayer. Since every Order survives for extended years when it is based on these two, that is on the virtue of obedience and the love of prayer, who will not cry out in dis- may, that a religious who is disobedient and not devoted to prayer will perish? Notice whether or not you are deaf and dumb. Run quickly to Christ to open your ears and untie your tongue, that is, to bestow upon you the virtue of obedience and grace of devotion. ( Inspectio Cordis ) 7 A human will which resists God, is unfit for His service. Just as masters do not like disobedient servants, so God hates disobedient Religious. Jesus needs obe- dient servants like He himself was; His nourishment was to fulfill the will of the Father, to whom He submitted himself, till His death on the Cross. The Holy Apostles were these types of servants for Him and through them, He converted the entire world. ( Inspectio Cordis ) Fr. Founder’s Selected Thoughts on the Religious Life 157