_THE VOW OF OBEDIENCE._
The Vow of entire, unquestioning, and absolute Obedience renders the
Superiors tyrants and their subjects slaves. A novice, or nun, must give
up her will, conscience, judgment, reason, and her intellect, and must
be merely a tool in her Superior’s hands.[8] She may not speak to her
Superior without first prostrating her whole body to the ground, kissing
the hem of her “sacred habit,” and then, leave to speak being given, she
may address her Superior, kneeling on both knees, with the eyes fixed on
the ground. She must listen to her voice as the voice of God; for has
not God addressed each nun with some such words as, “The Lord hath in
His wisdom set thy Superior, and her alone, over thee, and He will only
accept thy obedience through thy Superior”?
Of course we soon learnt to look upon our Superiors as possessing
infallibility. In the words of the Lady Prioress of Llanthony convent:
What the Pope is to Roman Catholics, that a Superior is to a
nun. _I_ cannot err, in regard to you; though I may do wrong or
make mistakes in regard to matters belonging to myself, yet I
cannot err as regards you, for our Lord would not permit this.
Therefore, no matter what I do or say to you, it must be right,
so far as it concerns you; it is God’s will for you, and the
very slightest rebellion against my wish or orders, even in
thought, is rebellion against God.
In “The Rule of our Most Holy Father St. Benedict” (Burns & Oates), on
page 53, these words occur: “The third degree of humility is that a man,
for the love of God, submit himself to his Superior in all obedience,
imitating the Lord, of whom the apostle saith, ‘He was made obedient unto
death.’ … And in order to show that we ought to be under a Superior, the
word of God says, ‘Thou hast placed men over our heads.’”
That this is a most extraordinary and utterly unwarranted application (?)
of Scripture, I need scarcely point out to my intelligent readers.
Of course the Father Superior is as infallible as the Mother Superior;
and yet I have heard the Llanthony Mother frequently criticise the
reverend Father’s doings when his actions did not exactly fall in with
her ideas, or if they at all clashed with her will. This Mother, too,
often accused me to the reverend Father of things I had never done.
I recall to mind an occasion when I was smarting under one of these
unfounded accusations, and how, in an agony of mind, I exclaimed, “It is
not true, and she knows it is not true.” The Father Superior commanded me
to be still, and listen to God speaking to me. Practically we were taught
that the Lord only reveals His will to us through our Superiors. A nun
must obey the convent bell as if it were the voice of an angel. If she
should be writing when the bell sounds, she must instantly lay down her
pen, without even waiting to finish the formation of a letter; and as an
example of how pleasing such instant obedience is to God, we were told
that a certain saint was called three times whilst reciting the office
of the Blessed Virgin; she obeyed promptly, and on returning and taking
up her book, she found the letters written in gold;[9] and thus, even
in this life, was her perfect obedience rewarded. When the bell rings,
or a Superior calls, everything must be left at once, even though the
nun knows full well she will be penanced for leaving things about, and
yet she dares not stay to put them away without a breach of this Vow of
Obedience.
Once I was in the “Lady Chapel,” decorating the shrine, and the bell
rang before I had cleared the faded flowers away. By _rule_ I dared not
leave them, and by _rule_ I dared not clear them away, and of the two
evils I chose to clear away the faded flowers. Soon the Lady Prioress of
Llanthony came down, looked at me, and then slammed the doors, which shut
me out of the nun’s choir. I was afterwards reproved by the Superior, who
said to me:
“Sister Agnes, if you go on in this way very much longer, you
will find yourself at last where you are now, outside the doors
of heaven, with the gate shut.”
The truth is, a nun’s obedience must be blind in its character; there
must be no waiting to consider consequences, for by her vow she has
renounced all claim to herself, and should the Superior command her to
do what she believes to be even wrong and sinful, it is her duty to
simply obey without a question, since the responsibility rests rather
upon the Superior who gave the command than upon the nun who obeys it.
In obeying a Superior, a nun is more sure of doing God’s will than if
an angel came down from heaven to give a command, seeing that Satan can
transform himself into an angel of light; but there can be no possibility
of mistaking the Superior’s voice! (so we were taught).
Obedience to God being the only sure road to heaven, such obedience,[10]
for a nun at least, can only be rendered pleasing and acceptable to God
through the channel of her Superior; so, without strict obedience to the
Superior, there can be no hope of heaven. Thus a nun must act as one who
is not responsible to God for her actions! I pity the Superiors, who have
not only upon them the weight of their own sins, but also that of all the
nuns under their care! They have yet to learn that salvation is not the
reward of man’s obedience, but the free gift of God, by faith, without
works.