“Obedience is always followed by blessings”

Christ said, “I am the Truth”; he did not say “I am the custom.” St. Toribio: (1900 – 1928: was a Roman Catholic priest and Mexican martyr who died in the Cristero War)

Scripture Text: (1 SM 15:16-23)

Samuel said to Saul:
"Stop! Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night."
Saul replied, "Speak!"
Samuel then said: "Though little in your own esteem,
are you not leader of the tribes of Israel?
The LORD anointed you king of Israel and sent you on a mission, saying,
'Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction.
Fight against them until you have exterminated them.'
Why then have you disobeyed the LORD?
You have pounced on the spoil, thus displeasing the LORD."
Saul answered Samuel: "I did indeed obey the LORD
and fulfill the mission on which the LORD sent me.
I have brought back Agag, and I have destroyed Amalek under the ban.
But from the spoil the men took sheep and oxen,
the best of what had been banned,
to sacrifice to the LORD their God in Gilgal."
But Samuel said:
"Does the LORD so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obedience to the command of the LORD?
Obedience is better than sacrifice,
and submission than the fat of rams.
For a sin like divination is rebellion,
and presumption is the crime of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the command of the LORD,
he, too, has rejected you as ruler."

Obedience is better than sacrifice…….

God's ways are indeed not our ways: "Obedience [to him] is better than sacrifice, and submission better than the fat of rams."

Fasting and penance are good and most helpful. Jesus has come to stress the law of love as he declared when he washed the feet of his disciples at the last supper: "If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also must wash one another's feet."  (Jn 13: 14)

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (Jn 14:15)