Obedience begins in love. If we truly cherish Christ above all else, Benedict suggests, then obedience ceases to be merely submission and becomes response. We listen because we love; we surrender because we trust.
But there is urgency here as well. Benedict does not permit us the luxury of endless deliberation while protecting our own preferences.
The obedient heart is ready to move—to lay down what it is doing,
loosen its grip on its own will, and listen.
Yet where are we to hear the voice of God? Certainly within, in the movement of the Spirit, striving to get our attention. Certainly through legitimate authority. But Benedict presses us further: we must learn to hear God in one another.
This may be the great paradox of the spiritual life. If our life is centered entirely upon God, why does Benedict devote so much attention to the human? Sister Joan suggests because the human is where God chooses to meet us. Christ comes to us embodied—embodied in the person beside us, in the community that challenges us, in the voice we would rather ignore.
We empty ourselves not to become less, but to make room.
Listen. Love is the motive. Wisdom is the way.
Obedience is the listening heart that joins them.
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