One morning I indulged in the rare luxury of dallying around the breakfast table over multiple cups of coffee just to enjoy sharing ideas with the two sisters with whom I am sharing a house this summer.

A Sister of Charity from New Jersey, a Sister of Mercy from Nebraska, and this Benedictine from Georgia are all involved in vocation work in our respective communities and are presently enrolled in the graduate theology program at the University of Detroit.

We share much that is common to all religious women in the church at the same time we recognize those distinctive differences which give each religious community its unique charism.

What does this have to do with the nature of religious life, or more specifically with obedience, which is the topic to which I wish to address myself? Just about everything in religious life is related to obedience. Centuries ago, St. Benedict legislated only that the monk promise obedience and stability in the monastery.

As I pulled myself away from the table saying I had procrastinated long enough I told the two sisters that I was going to write this column on obedience and asked them to give me their definitions.

One quipped, “Doing what you are supposed to do without procrastinating.” The other, a classics scholar, recalled the root of the word, “to listen” or “to hear”. Upon reflection, I find that their comments summarize very well what I want to convey.

As a young religious I heard (not without considerable skepticism) stories of medieval monks being told to plant cabbages upside down as a test of their obedience. Hollywood and residue from post- Tridentine and 19^th century lifestyles combined to complete the image in many peoples’ minds that the “good” religious had to completely submerge her intelligence in order to follow any order in “blind” obedience.

The effect of these concepts has been to frighten today’s articulate young women from considering religious life as a viable option and to scandalize some of the laity who encounter religious who not only are not submissive but may even be aggressively opinionated and do not hesitate to act upon their own decisions.

Very few of the traditional superiors remain today (or if they remain they are quite likely very frustrated) who make all the decisions or who must be consulted about any decision that is made by the individual sister.

Today most communities have some form of discernment to enable each sister to choose not only the type of work she wishes to do, but also where and how she will serve in that apostolate; many communities have open placement in which it is the sister’s responsibility to contract for her position. Where, then, is the need for retaining the vow of obedience?

Once again I return to the idea of spousal commitment. As in any love relationship, the OUGHT flows from the IS. Because she loves her spouse the woman does those things which she recognizes she ought to do as her responsibility to the love relationship.

In marriage this ranges from the joy of sexual fulfillment to the nitty-gritty of daily household chores. In religious life this OUGHT likewise encompasses many things: primarily, her responsibility is developing, sustaining and deepening her personal and ecclesial love relationship with the Lord; she must discern what are her responsibilities to her community and to the church by prayerful assessment of her own capabilities and charisms in the light of input from those in all forms of authority and the needs of the various societies with which she is involved. She must “listen” and “hear” what she must do.

We live in an age of personalism when the needs of the individual are often considered prior to the needs of the group. Part of this is a reaction to past excesses on the part of establishments when the individual suffered; however, there are too many factors involved to state this as the only cause.

In one sense it was much easier in the long run to let someone else make all the decisions; then we can blame them when things fail. Today’s religious often finds it difficult to know, much less to carry out, that which she believes to be the will of God for her.

It is because of, not in spite of, her vow of obedience that she consciously must strive to find that happy medium between individual inclination and institutional demand. But then, nobody who has ever really tried it has said that it is easy to live a real spousal relationship.