Obedience

Extract

A talk given to the Dominican Sisters at Rosary Priory, Bushey, England, on 12 March 1983.

Let’s begin with the case against obedience, I mean the case against obedience in general. There is a very widely held view that obedience is a necessary evil. I think more of the sisters and brethren subscribe to this view than would admit to it, even to themselves. The view is not confined to people at the receiving end, those who have to do the obeying; it is shared by quite a lot of people who do the commanding. I don’t want to make this a matter of obedience’. To put someone under obedience is thought of as a sort of last resort. We ought to be able to get along without obedience but, the world being what it is, and interests conflicting as they do, we just have to use it from time to time, like war or surgical operations.

The root of this opinion is a certain view of what it is to be a human being. The view that we are each unique individual subjects with our own personalities and desires and talents and that the good life consists in each one of us developing her/his individual personality as far as possible. As far as possible; because the full and complete development of the personality of Sister Ermyntrude may turn out to be incompatible with the full and complete development of the personality of Sister Gladiola: they therefore have to find some kind of compromise, a little give and take on each side.