OBEDIENCE
As I had self-love as well as the love of what is right it was sufficient but once to tell me: “Such a thing should not be done,” and I would have no desire to do it again.
From what anxieties do we not free ourselves by making the vow of obedience! How happy are single-minded religious. Their sole guide being the will of Superiors, they are ever secure of going the right way without fear of error, should it even appear to them certain that the Superiors are mistaken. But when one ceases to consult the sure compass, the soul forthwith loses her way in arid paths where the waters of grace soon fail her.
During her illness the Infirmarian had recommended Sœur Thérèse to take a little walk in the garden every day for a quarter of an hour. For her, this advice was a command. One afternoon, a Sister seeing her walk with much difficulty said to her: “You would do far better to rest; in such circumstances walking can do you no good, you exhaust yourself, that is all.”
“It is true,” replied this child of Obedience, “but do you know what gives me strength?... Well! I walk for a Missionary. I think how some one of them far away, yonder, is perhaps exhausted in his apostolic journeyings, and to lessen his fatigue I offer mine to the good God.”