Learning obedience from St. Catherine, even as an American

As a red-blooded American adult, I’ve been conditioned to think I don’t owe obedience to anybody. I’m independent. I am my own boss in charge of my own decisions. I obey myself alone. Christians might voluntarily “cede” some authority in order to be obedient to God, and to some lesser (and more debatable) extent, voluntarily defer to a spouse, but these concessions seem to be about all that’s expected. In fact, I suspect the most full-throated individualists among us would be quite firm that even this is too much.

These days, I’m not even sure adults think they owe continued obedience to their parents. Any duty owed in this regard is left behind at the age of 18. For instance, I was listening to a podcast the other day in which a woman argued persistently that her parents (if they really love her) have the obligation to support her no matter what decisions she makes, even if those decisions are terribly immoral or harmful. Her viewpoint leaves no room for honoring the values of her parents. For the sake of the relationship, it was they who are expected to conform to her, almost as if the parents are the ones who owe obedience to their children.

As a priest, when I discuss St. Paul’s teaching with engaged couples that spouses must submit to each other, meaning they obey each other within their respective spheres of responsibility, they wince and explain away this admonition as culturally-conditioned and no longer relevant. I try to help them see that St. Paul relates the virtue of obedience within marriage directly to the relationship of Christ and his Church (meaning it cannot be dismissed as a variable cultural norm), but even faithful Catholics sometimes continue to disagree. It’s hard to get people to recognize the role of obedience in a healthy marriage.

Everything around us in our me-centered society rejects the idea of obedience because it cuts against prioritizing the individual ego. Perhaps we are simply a society of disconnected egos in which no one trusts anyone else anymore. We’ve lost appreciation for the happiness of self-sacrifice for the sake of relationship. We fear that, if we are responsible to others, then we cannot simply do whatever we want. This lack of control is frightening, so we give our obedience only conditionally. No one can be allowed to place any obligation upon us permanently. This condition, I think, is even applied to our obedience to God. We’ll obey him so long as it’s what we want to do anyway.

This loss of the virtue of obedience has resulted in damage to the way we create and maintain our relationships. In casting aside our obligations to each other, we lose the unifying qualities of the relationships themselves, eventually resulting in fractured families, marriages, and churches, wreckage of the attempt to preserve the individual ego.

The feast of St. Catherine of Siena, celebrated each year at the end of April, makes me think about her famously fractious relationship with Pope Gregory XI. She disagreed with him about important issues but always obediently assented to his leadership.

In the 14th century, the papacy had split into contending factions. Many didn’t want to obey the true pope, Gregory XI. They preferred other candidates more to their liking. But St. Catherine insisted that the Church had to obey the Holy Father for better or worse. Disobedience in favor of a more likable would-be pope was shattering the unity of the Church.

Her obedience to Gregory does not mean she thought he was perfect. She actually thought him to be fearful and timid. She wanted him to be a better leader and didn’t hesitate to say so. She wrote him a candid letter urging him to be a better spiritual father and to put aside his fear.

It was quite a bold thing for someone to write. St. Catherine wrote it because, for her, obedience was about much more than being quiet, following rules, and doing exactly what she was told. For her, obedience was an act of love. She was obedient to Gregory because she loved the Church, and in offering him advice and pushback, she was expressing the fullest extent of an obedient heart.

Obedience is so difficult to practice because it removes our sense of being in control. It makes us feel vulnerable. But of course, love requires vulnerability. A refusal to practice proper obedience is a defect in love. This defect filters down to other virtues.

St. Catherine makes the connections when she writes, “obedience shows whether you are grateful,” and also, “there is no obedience without humility, nor humility without charity.” Disobedience is related to ingratitude and ego, precisely the vices that caused mankind to fall into all sorts of other sins.

On the other hand, “obedience is the nurse of all virtues.” If we continue to obey our parents, submit to our spouses, and adhere even to Church teaching we’d rather ignore, it helps us make great progress in other areas of our interior lives.

As St. Catherine well knew, commitment to obedience involves sacrifice and suffering, as it requires submitting to God’s plan and not our own. This difficulty didn’t sway her. It made her even more committed, because the suffering of obedience is redemptive. Ultimately, it is unitive with God himself, as she explains, “The soul that loves God perfectly becomes one with Him through obedience.”

For a modern-day American, the idea of obedience isn’t easily accepted because we think it limits our individual rights, but as St. Catherine shows, it’s precisely the opposite. It is only through obedience that we understand and follow God's will for us. This virtue is the key that unlocks fullness of life. It allows us to love God, spouse, and family. It unites us to them and returns to each of us our eternal destiny.