Choose a topic from Part 2B:
1. Disobedience is the refusal to conform to the commandof a superior. We have seen that obedience is a virtue; it followsthat disobedience is a vice. And when a just command, a requirementof law, is disregarded with contempt, we have disobedienceof a seriously sinful character. Many acts of disobedience arevenial faults, because they are done with thoughtlessness, or forsome purpose other than merely contemning the law and thuspractically denying man's duty to submit to law. Such acts donot show the full character of disobedience as a vice.
2. For real disobedience is essentially acontempt of just precept or command. A greater sin is contempt ofpreceptor and commander. Hence, disobedience is not so great a sinas blasphemy, for instance, or murder; these sins involve contemptfor God's law, and also contempt for God himself as the supremeexcellence and the master of life and death.
"What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. "
Thomas á Kempis
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"Before a man chooses his confessor, he ought to think well about it, and pray about it also; but when he has once chosen, he ought not to change, except for most urgent reasons, but put the utmost confidence in his director."
St Philip Neri
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"Let persons in the world sanctify themselves in their own houses, for neither the court, professions, or labour, are any hindrance to the service of God."
St Philip Neri
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