4. DISOBEDIENCE

1. Disobedience consists in not fulfilling the commands of one’s superiors.

Our first parents in paradise are an instance of disobedience. He who does not obey his superiors, is like a palsied limb, which does not move as the will commands.

2. Disobedience brings temporal misfortune and eternal misery upon man.

Even in this world misery is the result of disobedience. Think of the fatal consequences of original sin! Adam’s offense was the means of bringing evil upon all his posterity. Pharao’s disobedience brought sad calamities upon himself and his subjects; remember the plagues of Egypt and the destruction of the king and his army in the Red Sea. The prophet Jonas had bitter cause to rue his disobedience. Eternal perdition is also the consequence of disobedience. God rejects the disobedient, as the money-changer rejects a counterfeit coin. The disobedient must expect a severe sentence in the Day of Judgment, for in despising their superiors, they have despised, not them, but Him Whose representatives they are. Disobedience deprives us of all merit. No virtue is acceptable to God if it is marred by the stain of disobedience; it then is changed from a virtue to a vice. Disobedience also deprives us of many graces which we might have obtained through obedience.

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