Learning Obedience with St. Thérèse
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
Ephesians 6:1
I remember memorizing this verse in Sunday school. Yet we often forget that obedience belongs to all of God’s children, regardless of age. One saint whose journey can teach us much about obedience is the 19th-century Thérèse of Liseaux.
When Obedience Has Been Misused
It saddens me how the language of obedience has been used to manipulate, control, or coerce people through fear of eternal damnation or other consequences. Perhaps what troubles us is what some have made obedience mean.
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Obedience does not place us beneath an “umbrella of protection” from suffering or hardship. Even obedience to rightful authority cannot control outcomes. It does not guarantee happiness, ease, prosperity, or joy. Obedience is not a bargain that secures a painless life.
Obedience to God never requires a person to remain in abuse, conceal wrongdoing, submit to violence, or protect the reputation of an individual or institution at the expense of safety and truth. We are not called to submit to every person who claims or assumes authority. Children are not called to obey every adult, nor are women called to obey men merely because they are men. At times, obedience requires us to question, resist, or leave harmful authority. Human authority is limited, bounded, and accountable.
Our dogs follow commands for a treat and a “good boy.” Their compliance is transactional, but compliance alone is not Christian obedience. My depraved dogs, after all, cannot possess a posture of the heart.
God does not create star charts for his children. A fear-shaped understanding of obedience organizes life around appeasing authority—managing its anger, earning its favor, and avoiding its displeasure. Christian obedience does not require abandoning conviction, conscience, or choice. God does not ask his children to earn his love. He is not an arbitrary or abusive parent, and his correction is never vindictive.
God desires his children to hear him, trust his love, and respond freely in love. For those harmed by authority, learning to distinguish God’s voice from voices of coercion may take time, safety, and wise support.
Learning Again to Hear
The word obey has roots in the Latin oboedīre, meaning “to listen” or “to give ear,” and is related to audīre, the source of words such as audible and audience. In Hebrew, shāmaʿ means “to hear” or “to listen” and often carries the further sense of heeding what one has heard. Deuteronomy 6:4 opens with precisely that summons: “Hear, O Israel.” The Greek hypakouō, often translated “obey,” is related to akouō, “to hear,” and carries the sense of hearing and responding under authority.
Across these words, obedience begins with hearing, more than blindly doing what we are told. Obedience invites us to trust the One to whom we have turned our ear, particularly when what we hear—or what we experience—is not what we would choose. We choose where we turn our ear. In time, listening becomes trust, and trust takes shape in a willing response of love.
St. Thérèse and the Courage to Persist
St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) discerned a call to religious life in the Carmel at Lisieux from a young age. When she first sought entrance, however, she was denied because of her age. She could wait or pursue her vocation through ecclesial channels; either could be an obedient response.
For Thérèse, obedience did not mean abandoning what she understood to be God’s call when she encountered initial resistance from ecclesial authority. During an audience with Pope Leo XIII, though pilgrims had been instructed not to speak, Thérèse personally appealed for permission to enter Carmel. She eventually entered the Lisieux Carmel in April 1888, after receiving the necessary permission. There, she continued under her superiors’ direction. Mother Agnès later testified that Thérèse sought and accepted the guidance of those in authority, calling obedience an “infallible compass.”
Her autobiography opens with
It is to you, dear Mother, that I am about to confide the story of my soul. When you asked me to write it, I feared the task might unsettle me, but since then Our Lord has deigned to make me understand that by simple obedience I shall please Him best.
Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of the Little Flower, trans. Michael Day, ed. Mother Agnes of Jesus (TAN Books, 2010), 2.
At the request of her sister, Reverend Mother Agnès of Jesus, then prioress of the Carmel at Lisieux, Thérèse recorded the story of her soul; she did not intend it for a broad audience. Near the end of her life, Mother Marie de Gonzague asked her to continue.
Thérèse’s Early Joy and Sorrow
Thérèse’s mother died when she was four. In her autobiography, she remembers both the joy and love of her early childhood and the sorrow that followed. Thérèse rejoices that her mother is in heaven. Loss remains part of her story without becoming its whole meaning.
How does this relate to obedience? St. Thérèse was independent, deeply sensitive, and certainly had her own opinions. Yet she prioritized yielding herself to Jesus. Her response to suffering calls to mind James 1:2-3:
Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-3
St. Thérèse did not confuse joy with the enjoyment of suffering. In a letter encouraging her sister Céline Martin in suffering, she reflected:
He who says peace does not say joy, or at least sensible joy: to suffer in peace it is enough to will heartily all that Our Lord wills.” She continues, “Do not think we can find love without suffering…”
Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of the Little Flower, trans. Michael Day, ed. Mother Agnes of Jesus (TAN Books, 2010), 2
St. Thérèse understood that suffering presents us with a choice: even in what is bitter, we can remain open to receiving the love of Christ poured out for us, rather than letting bitterness become all we receive from what has happened.
The Gift and Difficulty of Correction
Christlike obedience does not require a child to express gratitude for correction or an adult to feel grateful in the moment. Correction can stir defensiveness or self-protection before it produces reflection. I often find myself explaining why my choice or response was understandable, as though understanding it somehow made it less worthy of examination. I suspect I am not alone.
There is beauty and grace in receiving wise, trustworthy correction as an opportunity for growth. Perhaps Thérèse shows us gratitude formed through reflection.
Jesus himself did not approach suffering happily. In Gethsemane, he asked the Father to remove the cup from him, yet yielded:
“Not my will, but yours, be done.”
Luke 22:42
His obedience did not require him to deny his desire or call suffering pleasant. He named his desire for the cup to pass and then entrusted his will to the Father.
Thérèse’s reflections show this same distinction between obedience and pleasant experience. As a postulant, Thérèse was assigned to sweep the cloister and left behind a cobweb. She describes the response she received:
“Then, too, dear Mother, Our Lord allowed you unconsciously to treat me very severely. I had left a cobweb in the cloister and you said to me before the whole community: “It is easy to see that our cloisters are swept by a child of fifteen. It is disgraceful! Go and sweep away that cobweb, and be more careful in the future.”
Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, 94.
After describing further harshness, she continues,
And yet, dear Mother, how grateful I am to you for giving me such a sound and valuable training. It was an inestimable grace.
Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, 94.
Thérèse’s gratitude does not make every correction she received good or comfortable, nor does her obedience require us to conclude that every person who exercised authority over her did so perfectly. She retained the freedom to discern God’s presence within an experience she had not chosen and to choose how she would respond.
When Past Pain Shapes the Present
Moving forward acknowledges pain and suffering for what they were; it does not minimize what happened or ignore the need for accountability. Rather, it means learning to organize our lives around the love of Christ rather than around what has wounded us.
Even apart from significant trials, we all have off days—times when our responses do not exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. Because suffering rarely makes logical sense, we often interpret the present through what we already know: times when we were mistreated, rejected, or lost something we loved. When the pain of the past becomes the primary lens through which we view the present, we can give an ordinary moment a larger meaning than it can bear.
Grace in Suffering and Trials
Christianity was never built around avoiding suffering and trials. Neither does it ask us simply to “get over” what has wounded us. Christianity invites us to honor our suffering truthfully, without letting it become the organizing center of our lives. God knows, sees, and acknowledges the truth of our wounds through a Savior who bears wounds of his own. We rightly desire validation, accountability, understanding, or even an apology. These things may help, but they do not fully heal our wounds. The apology or validation we imagine may not be what another person can—or is willing—to offer. Even a sincere response cannot undo what has happened, though it may be an important part of truth-telling, repair, and accountability. Even when these things are absent, God’s grace is not; he can gently lead us forward.
Our defenses are often our hurts on display, trying to protect us. They may tell us something important about what we have experienced, but they need not determine what we do next. When people have used obedience to manipulate, control, or harm us, we may understandably hear its language through the memory of that experience. If hurt or fear makes it difficult to discern a faithful response, this is a good time to seek wise, trustworthy counsel. In situations of present danger, abuse, or coercion, seeking safety and appropriate help is not a failure of faithfulness.
A Response of Love
Obedience does not question whether our wounds are real. It does not require us to call suffering good or correction pleasant. Instead, obedience invites us to turn our ear toward God, even when we would not choose what is before us. We may grieve, question, persist, and even ask that the cup pass from us. Yet we remain free to choose how we will respond within circumstances we did not choose.
Hearing becomes trust, and trust takes shape in a willing response of love. Such obedience is not an effort to earn another person’s approval, secure promotion, or make ourselves worthy of love. It does not ask, “What must I do to be safe, admired, or favored?” It rests in God’s love and, from that place of freedom, chooses the next small act of love.
Sources
- Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, “Oboedio,” A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), Scaife ATLAS, Tufts University.
- Deuteronomy 6:1–9—The ‘Shema,’” Enter the Bible, Luther Seminary, accessed September 15, 2026.
- Joseph Henry Thayer, “Ὑπακούω,” A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.
- Mother Agnès of Jesus, testimony in the Ordinary Process, in The Testimonies of the Ordinary Trial, Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, accessed September 17, 2026.
- Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of the Little Flower, trans. Michael Day, ed. Mother Agnes of Jesus (TAN Books, 2010), 2.
Professional Disclaimer: The reflections in this article are offered for educational and informational purposes only. They do not constitute psychotherapy, counseling, or professional advice. Individuals experiencing distress related to religious, spiritual, or institutional experiences are encouraged to seek support from a qualified mental health professional or a trauma-informed spiritual director.
Image: Thérèse of Lisieux, public domain photograph. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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