A Loving Surrender
A Loving Surrender
Tuesday of the First Week of Lent – March 3, 2020
I am one of those persons described by Henri Nouwen who cringes at the word “obedience.” I can ascribe that to experiences earlier in life which were painful, in which I was expected to be blindly obedient to a way not my own. Like those Nouwen describes below, the word conjures up negative connotations for me.
Yet, I realize that when I love and trust someone, I am willing to surrender, submit, and even be obedient to the beloved one. It is this sense of obedience St. Benedict leans into when he offers a Rule of Life as a guide for living together in monastic community. Within community, not everyone can be in charge. You cannot get your own way all the time and form a healthy community. So Benedict addresses vows of obedience made in the monastery. And the beginning of obedience, he says, is listening.
Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you; welcome it and faithfully put it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to God from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will. . . . [Prologue, The Rule of Benedict]
Nouwen, in the section below, weaves love and listening together with obedience in a way that takes some of the edge off. Read his words, then spend a moment reflecting on where they touch you.
Jesus is not our Savior simply because of what he said to us or did for us. He is our Savior because what he said and did was said and done in obedience to his Father. That is why St. Paul could say, “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). Jesus is the obedient one. The center of his life is this obedient relationship with the Father. This may be hard for us to understand, because the word obedience has so many negative connotations in our society. It makes us think of authority figures who impose their wills against our desires. It makes us remember unhappy childhood events or hard tasks performed under threats of punishment. But none of this applies to Jesus’ obedience. His obedience means a total, fearless listening to his loving Father. Between the Father and the Son there is only love. Everything that belongs to the Father, he entrusts to the Son (Lk. 10:22), and everything the Son has received, he returns to the Father. The Father opens himself totally to the Son and puts everything in his hands: all knowledge (Jn. 12:50), all glory (Jn. 8:54), all power (Jn. 5:19 – 21). And the Son opens himself totally to the Father and thus returns everything into his Father’s hands. “I came from the Father and have come into the world and now I leave the world to go to the Father” (Jn. 16:28).
This inexhaustible love between the Father and the Son includes and yet transcends all forms of love known to us. It includes the love of a father and mother, a brother and sister, a husband and wife, a teacher and friend. But it also goes far beyond the many limited and limiting human experiences of love we know. It is a caring yet demanding love. It is a supportive yet severe love. It is a gentle yet strong love. It is a love that gives life yet accepts death. In this divine love Jesus offered himself on the cross. This all-embracing love, which epitomizes the relationship between the Father and the Son, is a divine Person, coequal with the Father and the Son. It has a personal name. It is called the Holy Spirit. The Father loves the Son and pours himself out in the Son. The Son is loved by the Father and returns all he is to the Father. The Spirit is love itself, eternally embracing the Father and the Son.
This eternal community of love is the center and source of Jesus’ spiritual life, a life of uninterrupted attentiveness to the Father in the Spirit of love. It is from this life that Jesus’ ministry grows. His eating and fasting, his praying and acting, his traveling and resting, his preaching and teaching, his exorcising and healing, were all done in this Spirit of love. We will never understand the full meaning of Jesus’ richly varied ministry unless we see how the many things are rooted in one thing: listening to the Father in the intimacy of perfect love. When we see this, we will also realize that the goal of Jesus’ ministry is nothing less than to bring us into this most intimate community.
[Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981).]
For Reflection:
o The word “obedience” is closely tied to the word “listen.” Obedience does not mean “to be in lock-step with,” but begins with a relationship characterized by listening.
o God speaks in my world. I must find ways to listen to God. I must cultivate the spiritual practice of listening.
o Nouwen invites us to notice the many things rooted in this one thing: ”listening to the Father in the intimacy of perfect love.” Spend a few moments reflecting on this phrase.
Tuesday of the First Week of Lent – March 3, 2020
I am one of those persons described by Henri Nouwen who cringes at the word “obedience.” I can ascribe that to experiences earlier in life which were painful, in which I was expected to be blindly obedient to a way not my own. Like those Nouwen describes below, the word conjures up negative connotations for me.
Yet, I realize that when I love and trust someone, I am willing to surrender, submit, and even be obedient to the beloved one. It is this sense of obedience St. Benedict leans into when he offers a Rule of Life as a guide for living together in monastic community. Within community, not everyone can be in charge. You cannot get your own way all the time and form a healthy community. So Benedict addresses vows of obedience made in the monastery. And the beginning of obedience, he says, is listening.
Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you; welcome it and faithfully put it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to God from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will. . . . [Prologue, The Rule of Benedict]
Nouwen, in the section below, weaves love and listening together with obedience in a way that takes some of the edge off. Read his words, then spend a moment reflecting on where they touch you.
Jesus is not our Savior simply because of what he said to us or did for us. He is our Savior because what he said and did was said and done in obedience to his Father. That is why St. Paul could say, “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). Jesus is the obedient one. The center of his life is this obedient relationship with the Father. This may be hard for us to understand, because the word obedience has so many negative connotations in our society. It makes us think of authority figures who impose their wills against our desires. It makes us remember unhappy childhood events or hard tasks performed under threats of punishment. But none of this applies to Jesus’ obedience. His obedience means a total, fearless listening to his loving Father. Between the Father and the Son there is only love. Everything that belongs to the Father, he entrusts to the Son (Lk. 10:22), and everything the Son has received, he returns to the Father. The Father opens himself totally to the Son and puts everything in his hands: all knowledge (Jn. 12:50), all glory (Jn. 8:54), all power (Jn. 5:19 – 21). And the Son opens himself totally to the Father and thus returns everything into his Father’s hands. “I came from the Father and have come into the world and now I leave the world to go to the Father” (Jn. 16:28).
This inexhaustible love between the Father and the Son includes and yet transcends all forms of love known to us. It includes the love of a father and mother, a brother and sister, a husband and wife, a teacher and friend. But it also goes far beyond the many limited and limiting human experiences of love we know. It is a caring yet demanding love. It is a supportive yet severe love. It is a gentle yet strong love. It is a love that gives life yet accepts death. In this divine love Jesus offered himself on the cross. This all-embracing love, which epitomizes the relationship between the Father and the Son, is a divine Person, coequal with the Father and the Son. It has a personal name. It is called the Holy Spirit. The Father loves the Son and pours himself out in the Son. The Son is loved by the Father and returns all he is to the Father. The Spirit is love itself, eternally embracing the Father and the Son.
This eternal community of love is the center and source of Jesus’ spiritual life, a life of uninterrupted attentiveness to the Father in the Spirit of love. It is from this life that Jesus’ ministry grows. His eating and fasting, his praying and acting, his traveling and resting, his preaching and teaching, his exorcising and healing, were all done in this Spirit of love. We will never understand the full meaning of Jesus’ richly varied ministry unless we see how the many things are rooted in one thing: listening to the Father in the intimacy of perfect love. When we see this, we will also realize that the goal of Jesus’ ministry is nothing less than to bring us into this most intimate community.
[Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981).]
For Reflection:
o The word “obedience” is closely tied to the word “listen.” Obedience does not mean “to be in lock-step with,” but begins with a relationship characterized by listening.
o God speaks in my world. I must find ways to listen to God. I must cultivate the spiritual practice of listening.
o Nouwen invites us to notice the many things rooted in this one thing: ”listening to the Father in the intimacy of perfect love.” Spend a few moments reflecting on this phrase.
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