Obedience to your confessor
“Whither goest thou?”—John 13:36
To gain heaven we must walk the road that leads to Paradise. Many Christians have faith but not works: they live in sin, intent only on the pleasures and goods of this world. Say to one of them: You are a Christian; you believe in eternal life, and that there is a heaven and a hell; tell me, then, do you wish to save your soul? If he answers yes, I will ask him, in the words of this day’s gospel, “Whither goest thou?” And he will reply: I do not know, but I hope in God that he will save me.
Granted, you do not know where you are going; but how can you hope in God to save you, if you choose to live as one already lost? How can you lay claim to heaven, if you walk the road that leads to hell? You must change your course; and to do so you must put yourself in the hands of a good confessor, who will guide you along the road to heaven, and you must obey him punctually.
“My sheep,” said Jesus Christ, “hear my voice” (John 10:27). We do not have Jesus Christ on earth to make us hear his voice with our senses; but in his place he has left us his priests, and has made known to us that whoever hears them hears him, and whoever despises them despises him. “He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me” (Luke 10:16). Happy, then, are they who obey their spiritual fathers; and wretched are they who do not, for by their disobedience they give proof that they are not among the sheep of Jesus Christ.
Today, then, I intend to show you, in the first point, how secure is the salvation of all who obey their confessor; and, in the second point, how great is the danger of perdition for those who do not obey him.
First Point.—How secure is the salvation of those who obey their confessor.
1. In leaving us spiritual fathers to guide us along the way of salvation, Jesus Christ has bestowed on us a great benefit. To be saved we must follow the will of God in all that he wills of us. What, I ask, is necessary in order to save our souls and to become saints? Some imagine that holiness consists in performing many works of penance; but if a sick man were to undertake mortifications that put him in proximate danger of death, would he become a saint? No; rather, he would sin. Others think that perfection consists in long and frequent prayer; but if the father of a family were to neglect the education of his children and go off into the desert to pray, he too would sin; for although prayer is good, a parent is bound to take care of his children—all the more since he can fulfill both duties without going into the desert.
Others believe that holiness consists in frequent Communion; but if a married woman wished to communicate every morning, and her husband justly forbade it because by doing so she brought harm to her family, she too would do wrong, and would have to render an account to God. In what, then, does holiness consist? It consists in the perfect fulfillment of the will of God. From what do all the sins that bring so many souls to hell arise? From self-will. Let us, then, says St. Bernard, cease to do our own will; let us follow the will of God, and for us there shall be no hell. Cesset propria voluntas, et infernus non erit—“Let our own will cease, and there shall be no hell” (St. Bern. serm. 3, de Resur.).
2. But someone will ask: How are we to know what God wills of us? This, according to David, is a matter full of doubt and obscurity for us. “Of the business that walketh about in the dark” (Ps. 90:6). Many deceive themselves here; for passion often makes them suppose that they are doing the will of God, when in fact they are doing their own. Let us, then, thank without ceasing the goodness of Jesus Christ, who has taught us the secure way to ascertain his divine will in our actions, telling us that when we obey our confessors we obey him himself. “He that heareth you, heareth me.”
In the book of her Foundations, chapter 10, St. Teresa writes: “Let the soul take a confessor with the determination to think no more of herself, but to trust in the words of our Lord: ‘He that heareth you, heareth me.’” And she adds that this is the certain way to do the will of God. Indeed, the saint confessed that it was by this means—by the voice of her confessor—that she came to know and love God. And so, speaking of obedience to one’s confessor, St. Francis de Sales repeats the saying of Father Avila: “However much you seek,” says the devout Avila, “you will never find the will of God so surely as by the path of this humble obedience, so commended and practiced by all the saints of old” (Introd., etc., cap. 4).
3. He who acts according to the obedience given him by his confessor always pleases God—whether he prays, performs mortifications, or communicates, or whether through obedience he omits these things; and he likewise always merits when, to obey his confessor, he takes recreation, or eats, or drinks, because in all this he is doing the will of God. And so the Scripture says: “Much better is obedience than the victims of fools” (Eccles. 4:17). Obedience pleases God more than all the other sacrifices of penance, of almsgiving, and the like that we can offer him.
He who sacrifices to God his goods by almsgiving, his honor by bearing insults, his body by mortifying it with fasts and penances, gives him a part of himself and of what belongs to him; but he who sacrifices to him his will, submitting it in obedience, gives him all that he has, and can then say to God: Lord, having given you my will, I have nothing more to give you.
4. Thus the obedience we render to our confessor is the most acceptable offering we can make to God, and the surest way of doing the divine will. Blessed Henry Suso says that God does not call us to account for what we do through obedience. Obey your spiritual fathers, the Apostle writes, and fear nothing of what you do through obedience; for they, not you, must render an account to God of what you do. “Obey your prelates, and be subject to them; for they watch, as being to render an account of your souls; that they may do this with joy and not with grief” (Heb. 13:17).
But mark the words that follow: that they may do this with joy and not with grief. They signify that we must obey without reply, and without distressing our confessor and making him grieve. Oh, how confessors grieve when penitents resist obedience with certain pretexts, or excuses, or unjust complaints! Let us, then, obey our spiritual fathers without reply, and afterward rest secure in all that we do. St. Philip Neri used to say: “Those who desire to make progress in the way of God should place themselves under a learned confessor, and obey him in the place of God. Whoever does so is assured that he will not have to render to God an account of the actions he performs.”
And so, if you practice obedience, and on the day of judgment Jesus Christ should ask you: Why did you choose that state of life? Why did you communicate so often? Why did you omit those penances?—you will answer: Lord, so my confessor told me. And Jesus Christ cannot but approve everything you have done.
5. Father Marchese relates that St. Dominic once felt some scruple in obeying his confessor, but our Lord said to him: Quid dubitas obedire tuo directori? Omnia quae dicit proderunt tibi—“Why do you hesitate to obey your director? All that he says will profit you.” In keeping with this, St. Bernard wrote that whatever a man who stands in the place of God commands, provided it is not certainly sinful, must in all things be accepted as though God himself commanded it: Quidquid vice Dei praecipit homo, quod non sit tamen certum displicere Deo, haud secus omnino accipiendum est, quam si Deus praecipiat (On Precepts and Dispensation, ch. 11).
Gerson relates that this same St. Bernard, when one of his disciples was afraid through scruple to say Mass, ordered him to go and celebrate on his word; the disciple obeyed, and was cured of his scruples. But someone will say, Gerson adds: Would to God I had a St. Bernard for my director! My confessor is no St. Bernard. And Gerson himself answers: Quisquis ista dicis erras, non enim te commisisti in manibus hominis, quia litteratus est, sed quia tibi est praepositus; quamobrem obedias illi non ut homini, sed ut Deo. You do not speak rightly, he replies; for you have not put yourself into that man’s hands because he is learned, but because God has given him to you as your guide; and therefore you must obey him, not as a man, but as God.
6. “An obedient man shall speak of victory” (Prov. 21:28). Justly, says St. Gregory, does the Wise Man declare that the obedient overcome all the temptations of hell; for, just as by their obedience they subject their own will to men, so they make themselves superior to the demons, who fell through their disobedience. Victores sunt, qui obediunt, quia dum voluntatem aliis subiiciunt, ipsis lapsis per inobedientiam angelis dominantur—“The obedient are conquerors; for, while they subject their will to others, they rule over the angels that fell through disobedience” (Commentary on Kings, ch. 10).
Cassian, moreover, teaches that he who mortifies his own will beats down every vice, since all vices spring from self-will: Mortificatione voluntatis marcescunt vitia universa—“By the mortification of the will all vices wither away.” Furthermore, he who obeys his confessor overcomes all the deceits of the devil, who sometimes, under the pretext of good, makes us expose ourselves to dangerous occasions, and engage in certain undertakings that seem holy but may do us great harm. For example, the enemy has led certain persons given to devotion to take up immoderate penances, by which they lost their health, and so gave up everything and returned to their former loose way of life. This happens to those who direct themselves; but he who is governed by the guidance of his confessor has no cause to fear falling into any such deceit.
7. The devil is also accustomed to terrify scrupulous souls with another deceit, putting them in fear of sinning if they do what their confessor says. Here too we must take care to overcome these vain fears. Once the confessor has advised us in some matter, all the doctors and masters of the spiritual life commonly teach that we must conquer our scruple and obey. Contra illos est agendum, wrote Father Natalis Alexander in his theology—“We must act against them”—and there he cites the authority of St. Antoninus, who, together with Gerson, rebukes the scrupulous soul that, through vain fear, will not obey by overcoming its scruples: Caveas ne dum quaeris securitatem, praecipites in foveam—“Take heed lest, while you seek security, you fall headlong into the pit.” Be careful, that is, lest by wishing to walk with too much caution you fall into the very snare the devil is laying for you, by refusing to obey your confessor.
For this reason all the masters of the spiritual life advise that we obey our confessor whenever the matter is not manifestly sinful. So Blessed Hubert, the Dominican, wrote: Nisi aperte sit malum quod praecipitur, accipiendum est, ac si a Deo praeciperetur—“Unless what is commanded is plainly evil, it must be received as if it were commanded by God” (On the Instruction of the Religious, ch. 1). And Blessed Denis the Carthusian wrote: In dubiis instandum est praecepto praelati, quia etsi contra Deum sit, attamen propter obedientiae bonum non peccat subditus—“In doubtful matters we must hold to the precept of a superior; for even though it should be against God, yet on account of the good of obedience the subject does not sin” (in 2, dis. 39, qu. 3).
Gerson wrote on this point (Treatise on Conscience and Scruples) that to act against a conscience formed by deliberation is one thing, and to act against a fear of sinning in some doubtful matter is another; and he says that this fear must be driven off, and the confessor obeyed. Iste timor, quam fieri potest, abjiciendus—“This fear must, as far as possible, be cast off.” In a word, he who obeys his confessor always goes secure. St. Francis de Sales used to say, as is written in his life, that “a truly obedient soul has never been lost”; and he added that in the way of God we should be content to learn from our spiritual father that we are walking well, without seeking any further assurance of it.
Second Point.—How great is the danger of perdition to which they who do not obey their confessor are exposed.
8. Jesus Christ has said that whoever hears his priests hears him, and whoever despises them despises him. Qui vos spernit, me spernit—“He who despises you, despises me” (Luke 10:16). God declared the same thing to the prophet Samuel, when he complained of being despised by the people after God had given him charge over them; for the Lord said to him: “They have not rejected thee, but me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Kings 8:7). Whoever, then, despises obedience to his confessor despises God, who has set the confessor in his own place.
9. “Obey your prelates,” writes St. Paul, “and be subject to them; for they watch, as being to render an account of your souls: that they may do this with joy and not with grief; for this is not expedient for you” (Heb. 13:17). Some penitents set themselves to argue with their confessor, trying to draw him over to their own opinion; and this makes the poor spiritual fathers grieve. But St. Paul says, “this is not expedient for you”; for when the confessor sees that you do not obey what he tells you, and that he must labor hard to make you walk the straight road, he will give up directing you.
How wretched is the ship when the pilot gives up steering her! How wretched the sick man abandoned by his physician! When a patient will not obey, will not take the remedies prescribed, and insists on eating whatever he pleases, what does the physician do? He abandons him and lets him do as he likes. But in that case, what will become of the sick man’s recovery? “Woe to him that is alone . . . he hath none to lift him up” (Eccles. 4:10). Woe to the penitent who wishes to guide himself alone: he will have no one to enlighten him, no one to correct him, and so he will rush headlong to ruin.
10. To everyone who comes into this world the Holy Ghost says: “Thou shalt go in the midst of snares” (Ecclus. 9:20). We who are mortal walk on this earth in the midst of a thousand snares—the temptations of the devil, evil occasions, bad companions, and, still more, our own passions, which so often deceive us. Who shall be saved in the midst of so many dangers? The Wise Man says: “He that is aware of the snares shall be secure” (Prov. 11:15). Only he who avoids these snares shall be saved. And how shall he avoid them?
If you had to pass by night through a wood full of precipices, with no guide to give you light with a torch and warn you away from the dangerous passages, you would certainly be in great danger of losing your life. You wish to guide yourself by your own judgment: “Take heed, therefore,” says God, “that the light which is in thee be not darkness” (Luke 11:35). That light which you think you possess will be your ruin; for it will lead you to fall headlong into some pit.
11. God wills that, in the way of salvation, we all submit to the guidance of our directors. So have the saints done, even the most learned among them; for God wills that in the spiritual life we all humble ourselves and put ourselves under a director who will guide us. Gerson writes that he who forsakes the guidance of his director and wishes to live according to his own judgment has no need of a devil to tempt him: he becomes a devil to himself. Qui, spreto duce, sibi dux esse vult, non indiget daemone tentante, quia factus est sibi ipsi daemon—“He who, despising his guide, wishes to be his own guide, has no need of a demon to tempt him, because he has become a demon to himself” (Cons. de Lib. Reg.).
And then God, seeing that he will not obey his minister, abandons him to follow his own caprice. “So I let them go according to the desires of their own hearts” (Ps. 80:13).
12. “It is like the sin of witchcraft to rebel, and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey” (1 Kings 15:23). Commenting on this text, St. Gregory says that the sin of idolatry consists in forsaking God and adoring an idol. This is what the penitent does when he disobeys his confessor to do his own will: he forsakes the will of God, who has spoken to him through his minister, in order to adore the idol of self-will and do as he pleases. And so St. John of the Cross writes that “not to rest content with what the confessor says is pride and a failure of faith” (Tratt. delle spine, tom. 3, col. 4, 2, n. 8); for it seems to spring from a failure to believe the gospel, in which Jesus Christ has said: “He that heareth you, heareth me.”
13. If, then, we wish to save our souls, let us strive to obey our confessors exactly; and to this end let us choose a fixed confessor, to whom we ordinarily make our confession, instead of wandering now to one confessor, now to another. Let us choose a learned priest, and in the beginning make to him a general confession, which experience shows to be a great means of bringing about a true change of life; and then let us not leave him, for without manifest cause one should not change one’s confessor. St. Teresa writes of herself: “Every time I resolved to leave my confessor, I felt within me a reproof more painful than that which I received from him.”
Points for Reflection
1. “Holiness consists in the perfect fulfillment of the will of God. From self-will arise all the sins that bring so many souls to hell” (§1)
2. “He who sacrifices to him his will, submitting it in obedience, gives him all that he has, and can then say to God: Lord, having given you my will, I have nothing more to give you” (§3)
3. “If we wish to save our souls, let us strive to obey our confessors exactly; and to this end let us choose a fixed confessor, to whom we ordinarily make our confession, instead of wandering now to one confessor, now to another” (§13)