Fiat

Two words that tend to scare non-Catholics are adoration and obedience. I would be the first to admit that they scare Catholics also.

As a young college graduate I joined a Congregational Church in Portland, Maine where I was drafted to lead the Adult Discussion Group. I don't remember a lot about our discussions, but I will never forget the day we talked about how to be good stewards of our resources.

"I hate the words sacrifice and obedience; don't talk to me about making sacrifices just because we are Christians!"

This young mother vented and then withdrew from the discussion altogether. Nothing we could say eased her discomfort with any sort of demands being placed upon her that she herself did not generate. Obedience was in her mind the equivalent of childish behavior; it took away her freedom to think and make her own decisions. If the world was beginning to overflow its landfills, it was up to her to decide whether that mattered, whether she would reduce, reuse or recycle. And the ten commandments? They were there in the background but they did not require anything so hard-nosed as obedience.

Most Catholics I have met are not so entrenched in their own way of thinking and doing. Just to be Catholic, especially these days, calls for a sort of public declaration that rules, standards for behaviour, the will of God, are more important than individual opinion.

Yet many Catholics do withhold small parts of themselves from the teachings of the church. Complete, unfettered obedience is a tremendous act of humility that never comes easily to those of us who still long to share with Adam and Eve in the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

"The holy People of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office: it spreads abroad a living witness to him, especially by a life of faith and love and by offering to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips praising his name...The People unfailingly adheres to this faith, penetrates it more deeply with right judgment, and applies it more fully in daily life." (Lumen Gentium, 12.)

"The people unfailingly adheres to this faith"...there's the rub.

Still, it's a beautiful call to us, and one which is life-giving. I suspect that it is a long - term goal rather than a given for most of us, but how wonderful to have as a goal such humility, such love for Christ and the church that his directions for life are valued above our own.

It is the antithesis of the position held by my long-ago companion in the faith in Maine. And it is the antithesis of our own desires to the extent that we do not fully embrace life with its accompanying shedding of all means to prevent life from occurring. The antithesis to our desire to remarry without the blessing of the church. The antithesis to a reception of Holy Communion without first having examined the soul and made a confession. The antithesis to every human act that is not worthy of the calling God has issued to us.

To be obedient is to love God more than we love ourselves, and that is an act of pure adoration.

There is the other word that offends. Adoration.

At a staff meeting in my former Episcopal church the members of the staff decried adoration as idol worship. "It amounts to worshipping a wafer more than God." "It is evil." "It is Catholic." Well, they got the last one right.

To adore is to place God first, nothing more, nothing less. It is the supreme act of a humble heart.

I wrote in an earlier blog post about my experience praying the Lord's prayer during adoration. The Lord's prayer is a sublime prayer of adoration, linking obedience (thy kingdom come, thy will be done) to the hallowing of God's name. It frees each of us to come to Christ present in the monstrance with outstretched hands and open hearts.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And a life that carries that attitude of faith out from the reservation chapel into the world is a holy life, a life dedicated to God.

Would that we could each find that perfect union of obedience and adoration, as Mary found it.

Fiat...let it be done to me according to your will.