Religious obedience means a willingness to let go of the consequences on some level and to trust a Bigger Picture. This is what we see Mary doing in the great annunciation scene. In the obedience of faith we do something because it is true at a deeper level, we feel called at a deeper level perhaps, and not because it immediately works, makes sense or shows likelihood of “success.” Often we have to let go of the immediate consequences to trust larger or longer-term consequences. Mother Teresa loved to say: “We were not created to be successful but to be obedient.” Obedience is to be true to our deepest voices, which is the only way God can speak to us. But that means we have to have some deeper voices! We have to be practiced in prayerfully listening to our unconscious, to others and even “entertaining angels who usually come unaware” (Hebrews 13:2). How else could Mary have been ready for Gabriel? … Mary’s “yes” was said in the darkness of faith. She was not certain, nor assured by any Scripture quote, doctrine or pope. She just heard what she heard, and did what God asked her to do, accepting the consequences. She had enough inner authority to not need a lot of outer authority.
—from the book Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent
by Richard Rohr
1 thought on “Desire for the Word of God”
Inner authority vs outer authority…….. Our beautiful church is a well constructed framework for the body of Christ in which God Himself wishes to do His will beyond that with each and every one of us as individuals. I’m sure had anyone else on the planet at the time of Jesus gone into The Temple and made a whip of chords and flipped the tables of the moneychangers it would have been a sin…….and we all well know our blessed savior was and had to be sinless.
And so the fight goes on whereby we try to standardize the human being and God struggles to keep us as individuals.