"Although he was a Son, [Jesus] learned Obedience through what he suffered." 104 How much more reason have we sinful creatures to learn obedience - we who in him have become children of adoption. We ask our Father to unite our will to his Son's, in order to fulfill his will, his plan of salvation for the life of the world. We are radically incapable of this, but united with Jesus and with the power of his Holy Spirit, we can surrender our will to him and decide to choose what his Son has always chosen: to do what is pleasing to the Father. 105

The duty of Obedience requires all to give due honor to authority and to treat those who are charged to exercise it with Respect, and, insofar as it is deserved, with gratitude and good-will.

"Human society can be neither well-ordered nor prosperous unless it has some people invested with legitimate authority to preserve its institutions and to devote themselves as far as is necessary to work and care for the good of all." 15 By "authority" one means the quality by virtue of which persons or institutions make laws and give orders to men and expect Obedience from them.

Sin is an offense against God: "Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight." 122 Sin sets itself against God's love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disObedience, a revolt against God through the will to become "like gods," 123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus "love of oneself even to contempt of God." 124 In this proud self-exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation. 125

"The priests, prudent cooperators of the episcopal college and its support and instrument, called to the service of the People of God, constitute, together with their bishop, a unique sacerdotal college (presbyterium) dedicated, it is, true to a variety of distinct duties. In each local assembly of the Faithful they represent, in a certain sense, the bishop, with whom they are associated in all trust and generosity; in part they take upon themselves his duties and solicitude and in their daily toils discharge them." 51 priests can exercise their ministry only in dependence on the bishop and in communion with him. the promise of Obedience they make to the bishop at the moment of ordination and the kiss of peace from him at the end of the ordination liturgy mean that the bishop considers them his co-workers, his sons, his brothers and his friends, and that they in return owe him love and obedience.

The celebration of the liturgy, therefore, should correspond to the genius and culture of the different peoples. 70 In order that the mystery of Christ be "made known to all the nations . . . to bring about the Obedience of Faith," 71 it must be proclaimed, celebrated, and lived in all cultures in such a way that they themselves are not abolished by it, but redeemed and fulfilled: 72 It is with and through their own human culture, assumed and transfigured by Christ, that the multitude of God's children has access to the Father, in order to glorify him in the one Spirit.

The liturgical traditions or rites presently in use in the Church are the Latin (principally the Roman rite, but also the rites of certain local churches, such as the Ambrosian rite, or those of certain religious orders) and the Byzantine, Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite and Chaldean rites. In "Faithful Obedience to tradition, the sacred Council declares that Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity, and that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way." 69

For this reason no sacramental rite may be modified or manipulated at the will of the minister or the community. Even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the Obedience of Faith and with religious Respect for the mystery of the liturgy.

In death, God calls man to himself. Therefore the Christian can experience a desire for death like St. Paul's: "My desire is to depart and be with Christ. " 577 He can transform his own death into an act of Obedience and love towards the Father, after the example of Christ: 578

Death is transformed by Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, also himself suffered the death that is part of the human condition. Yet, despite his anguish as he faced death, he accepted it in an act of complete and free submission to his Father's will. 572 The Obedience of Jesus has transformed the curse of death into a blessing. 573

Her role in relation to the Church and to all humanity goes still further. "In a wholly singular way she cooperated by her Obedience, Faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior's work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is a mother to us in the order of grace." 509

Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy. 36 If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain Obedience from its subjects. It is the Church's role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God's righteousness through Faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or "justice") here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and Obedience to the divine will is granted us.

Contemplative prayer is hearing the Word of God. Far from being passive, such attentiveness is the Obedience of Faith, the unconditional acceptance of a servant, and the loving commitment of a child. It participates in the "Yes" of the Son become servant and the Fiat of God's lowly handmaid.

Etymologically, "concupiscence" can refer to any intense form of human desire. Christian theology has given it a particular meaning: the movement of the sensitive appetite contrary to the operation of the human reason. the apostle St. Paul identifies it with the rebellion of the "flesh" against the "spirit." 301 Concupiscence stems from the disObedience of the first sin. It unsettles man's moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins. 302

Whoever wants to remain Faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, Obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity." 127

Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be Respected and treated humanely. Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind Obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.

The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing Obedience to civil authorities, when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience, finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community. "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." 48 "We must obey God rather than men": 49

As long as a child lives at home with his parents, the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him when it is for his good or that of the family. "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord." 22 Children should also obey the reasonable directions of their teachers and all to whom their parents have entrusted them. But if a child is convinced in conscience that it would be morally wrong to obey a particular order, he must not do so. As they grow up, children should continue to Respect their parents. They should anticipate their wishes, willingly seek their advice, and accept their just admonitions. Obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children; not so respect, which is always owed to them. This respect has its roots in the fear of God, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Filial Respect is shown by true docility and Obedience. "My son, keep your Father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.... When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you." 20 "A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke." 21

Our moral life has its source in Faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "Obedience of faith" 9 as our first obligation. He shows that "ignorance of God" is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations. 10 Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.

Obedience to the Commandments also implies obligations in matter which is, in itself, light. Thus

Christ proposes the evangelical counsels, in their great variety, to every disciple. the perfection of charity, to which all the Faithful are called, entails for those who freely follow the call to consecrated life the obligation of practicing chastity in celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, poverty and Obedience. It is the profession of these counsels, within a permanent state of life recognized by the Church, that characterizes the life consecrated to God. 454

Throughout the Old Covenant the mission of many holy women prepared for that of Mary. At the very beginning there was Eve; despite her disObedience, she receives the promise of a posterity that will be victorious over the evil one, as well as the promise that she will be the mother of all the living. 128 By virtue of this promise, Sarah conceives a son in spite of her old age. 129 Against all human expectation God chooses those who were considered powerless and weak to show forth his Faithfulness to his promises: Hannah, the mother of Samuel; Deborah; Ruth; Judith and Esther; and many other women. 130 Mary "stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from him. After a long period of waiting the times are fulfilled in her, the exalted Daughter of Sion, and the new plan of salvation is established." 131

Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but co-operate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in Obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation. 110 Christ's human will "does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will." 111

The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the "New Adam" who, because he "became obedient unto death, even death on a cross", makes amends superabundantly for the disObedience, of Adam. 305 Furthermore many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the woman announced in the "Proto-evangelium" as Mary, the mother of Christ, the "new Eve". Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ's victory over sin: she was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life. 306

All men are implicated in Adam's sin, as St. Paul affirms: "By one man's disObedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners": "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned." 289 The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men." 290

The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. 282 Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. 283 Because of man, creation is now subject "to its bondage to decay". 284 Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disObedience will come true: man will "return to the ground", 285 for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history. 286

Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disObedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. 280 They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives. 281

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of. 278 All subsequent sin would be disObedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the Obedience of Faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that "with God nothing will be impossible" and so giving her assent: "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." 12 Elizabeth greeted her: "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." 13 It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed. 14

To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to "hear or listen to") in Faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such Obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. the Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.

By Faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. 2 With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, "the Obedience of faith". 3

Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross, 179 but this mystery is at work throughout Christ's entire life: -already in his Incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty; 180 - in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disObedience; 181 - in his word which purifies its hearers; 182 - in his healings and exorcisms by which "he took our infirmities and bore our diseases"; 183 - and in his Resurrection by which he justifies us. 184

By his Obedience unto death, 444 Christ communicated to his disciples the gift of royal freedom, so that they might "by the self-abnegation of a holy life, overcome the reign of sin in themselves": 445

"The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the Faithful - who confirms his brethren in the Faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.... the infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," above all in an Ecumenical Council. 418 When the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine "for belief as being divinely revealed," 419 and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions "must be adhered to with the Obedience of faith." 420 This infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself. 421

Missionary paths. the Holy Spirit is the protagonist, "the principal agent of the whole of the Church's mission." 345 It is he who leads the Church on her missionary paths. "This mission continues and, in the course of history, unfolds the mission of Christ, who was sent to evangelize the poor; so the Church, urged on by the Spirit of Christ, must walk the road Christ himself walked, a way of poverty and Obedience, of service and self-sacrifice even to death, a death from which he emerged victorious by his resurrection." 346 So it is that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians." 347

The missionary mandate. "Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of salvation,' the Church, in Obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men": 339 "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age." 340

"For as by one man's disObedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous." 443 By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who "makes himself an offering for sin", when "he bore the sin of many", and who "shall make many to be accounted righteous", for "he shall bear their iniquities". 444 Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father. 445

This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices. 441 First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disObedience. 442

The evangelists indicate the salvific meaning of this mysterious event: Jesus is the new Adam who remained Faithful just where the first Adam had given in to temptation. Jesus fulfils Israel's vocation perfectly: in contrast to those who had once provoked God during forty years in the desert, Christ reveals himself as God's Servant, totally obedient to the divine will. In this, Jesus is the devil's conqueror: he "binds the strong man" to take back his plunder. 243 Jesus' victory over the tempter in the desert anticipates victory at the Passion, the supreme act of Obedience of his filial love for the Father.

Jesus' Obedience to his mother and legal Father fulfils the fourth commandment perfectly and was the temporal image of his filial obedience to his Father in heaven. the everyday obedience of Jesus to Joseph and Mary both announced and anticipated the obedience of Holy Thursday: "Not my will. . ." 223 The obedience of Christ in the daily routine of his hidden life was already inaugurating his work of restoring what the disobedience of Adam had destroyed. 224

At the announcement that she would give birth to "the Son of the Most High" without knowing man, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary responded with the Obedience of Faith, certain that "with God nothing will be impossible": "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word." 139 Thus, giving her consent to God's word, Mary becomes the mother of Jesus. Espousing the divine will for salvation wholeheartedly, without a single sin to restrain her, she gave herself entirely to the person and to the work of her Son; she did so in order to serve the mystery of redemption with him and dependent on him, by God's grace: 140

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Quite early on, the name catechesis was given to the totality of the Church's efforts to make disciples, to help men believe that Jesus is the Son of God so that believing they might have life in his name, and to educate and instruct them in this life, thus building up the body of Christ. 7

Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been Faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ's Faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer. 6

So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." 4 Strengthened by this mission, the apostles "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it." 5