Volume I, Treatise III, Chapter XI

The Rectitude and Purity of Intention We Ought to Have Tn All Our Actions, More Fully Explained

It is customary to instruct those who are engaged in promoting the salvation of their neighbour, how they are to conduct themselves in the discharge of their duties. Now the advice we give them, and which we take from the doctrine of the fathers of the Church, will shew us how to purify our intention in all things; and with what simplicity and disinterestedness we ought to seek God in everything we do. When, say they, you undertake anything, whence any spiritual advantage may arise to your neighbour, let not the good success of your enter. prise, but only the fulfilling of the will of God, be your principal end and intention. And hence, when we hear confessions, when we preach, and when we teach; we ought not to have chiefly in view the conversion, the amendment, and the profit of our neighbour; but above all, our intention ought to be to do the will of God in whatsoever he employs us, and to perform it in the best manner we are able, purely to please him. And after we have done this, whether we succeed or not in our undertaking, whether any one is improved by our instruction, or derives advantage from our sermons, it is God’s affair and not ours. “I have planted,” says the apostle, ‘‘ Apollo has watered, but God has given the increase.” (1 Cor. iti. 6.) That which we are able to do is to plant and water as the gardener does; but to make the plant grow, and to make the tree bring forth fruit, is not his work, but the work of God alone. The fruit of souls, which is their conversion, their amendment, and their progress in virtue, can come from none but God; and it is not on these fruits that the merit and perfection of our actions depend. Behold the purity of intention we should endeavour to have; behold the means which will enable us to enjoy a profound peace in everything we do. For then, if to a laudable action and to the advantage expected from it, there is opposed any obstacle, we shall not be at all troubled, if the end we propose to ourselves in our enterprise has not the wished for event, but we shall rest satisfied in having done the will of God, by having performed our duty in the best manner we were able to please him. But if when you preach, hear confessions, and treat with your neighbour for his salvation, - you have in view the producing much fruit by this means—and if you make this your chief end, you will infallibly feel great trouble of mind, if your design happens to be thwarted; and sometimes you will lose not only your interior peace of mind, but your patience also, and perhaps permit yourself to be transported still farther.

St. Ignatius was accustomed to explain this by a very proper comparison: “Do you know,” says he, “how we ought to behave towards our neighbour in the employments that concern the salvation of souls? As the angel guardians behave towards those of whom God has given them care.” They give them all the good counsel they are able—they defend, conduct, enlighten, excite, and help them to do well; but if men make a bad use of their free will, and resist their good inspirations, the angels afflict not themselves for this—the felicity they enjoy is not at all diminished; but they say with Jeremias; “We have used all our care and industry tocure Babylon; and it is not healed: let us leave and abandon it.” (Jeremias 51:9) It is after this manner we ought to’‘do what wecan for the conversion and amendment of our neighbour: but when we have carefully performed our duty, we must keep our minds in peace, and not permit it to give way to any disquiet, because the sick person is not, nay even will not be cured.

The disciples, sent by Jesus Christ to preach, could not forbear, at their return, expressing the joy they felt in having wrought miracles and cast out devils. But the Son of God reprimanded them thus: ‘ Do not rejoice at this, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20) Let not your joy and contentment depend upon your success, though ever so great. but see whether you perform your actions so as to merit that your name be registered in the kingdom of heaven. See that you exactly fulfil the obligation of your charge; and let the doing so be all your ambition and all your joy; since the happy issue, the extraordinary conversations, and the other wonders God shall enable you to work, shall not be looked upon as your own—your reward shall not be regulated by these—for whether men be converted or not, the pains you shall have taken with them shall be the due measure of your recompense. On the contrary (and this will let us also see more clearly the truth of this proposition), should the whole world by your means be converted, ‘“What will it profit you to have gained the whole world, if you suffer the loss of your own soul?” (Mat. xvi. 26.) And hence believe likewise that though you should not convert one person, your recompense shall not be anything the less, provided you do everything in your power. Whereas were our reward to depend upon accidents, and our satisfaction to be derived from them, certainly the apostle St. James had been very unhappy, because, as they say, in all Spain he converted not more than eight or nine persons; yet the little success he had did not at all diminish his merit, nor render him less acceptable and pleasing to God than the rest of the apostles were.

We have, moreover, in what has been said, a great subject of consolation; because, hence it follows, that not only God will not ask of us, whether or not by our preaching we have produced great fruits? Or whether we have preached well? Because it is not that which he commands, nor to which our merit is annexed. That which he requires of us is, that we do what we are able, according to the talents he has given us. He desires but little of us, if we have received little: “But of him,” says the gospel, “to whom he hath given much, he also requires much.” (Luke 13:48) St. Chrysostom explains admirably well this doctrine, when, discoursing upon the parable of the talents, he asks,—-why the servant who had gained two talents was as well treated as he who had gained five? The gospel says, that when the master came to take account of his servants, of the talents divided amongst them, he to whom he had given five presented himself, saying, My lord, you gave me five talents, behold here are five others I have gained. “Well done, good and faithful servant,” says his master, “‘ because you have been faithful in small things, I will place you over many, enter thou into the joy of your Lord.” (Mat. xxv. 21.) Then, he who had received two talents presented himself, saying, My lord, you trusted me with two talents, and I have gained two more. His master made him hereupon the sane answer he made the other, and promised him the same recompense. “It is with justice,” says this great saint, “that he rewarded them equally; because the more or less gain the one and the other had made, proceeded not from the care of the one, nor from the negligence of the other, but from the sum committed to their charge. As to the care thereof, it was the same in them both; and it is for this reason that they received an equal reward.” (Chrys. hom. xli. sup. gen.) This point is of great advantage and extreme consolation; because it may be applied to all things, and all sorts of employments and functions. So that he who labours and takes as much care as another, to perform what is commanded him, merits as much, though perhaps he performs not so great things. For example, if I take as much pains as you in preaching, and yet I preach ill, and you well, it may happen that hereby I merit as much as you, nay, perhaps, more; because I do all that I am able, and perhaps you may be able to do more than you perform. It is the same as to studies; although he who studies with you succeeds not well in them, and you make great progress, so that he remains very ignorant, and you become very learned; it may happen, nevertheless, that he merits more in his ignorance than you with your learning. In like manner, in matter of employments; if I perform not mine as well as you do yours, and my strength is not able to extend itself so far as yours, it may happen that there may be more merit in the little I do, than there is in all you perform. And without doubt, this consideration will also help very much both to repress the motions of vainglory in those that have better qualities than others, and will hinder those who have less genius and talents from losing courage through a consciousness of their own weakness and incapacity.

St. Jerom’s opinion is very conformable to what I have already said, who speaking of the same parable:—“In fine,” says he, “the master gave the same kind of reception to his servant, who had increased his five talents to ten, as to the other who had increased the two talents he had received to four; and without taking notice of the great gain they had made he considered only the great zeal and diligence they had thereby manifested.” It is not the value of the oblation, says Salvin, but it is the affection with which it is offered, that renders it pleasing to God. He regards not how much we give, says St. Gregory, but the good will with which we give it—he esteems not the present, but accepts of the heart that bestows it: so that we may even do less than another, and yet often please him more, if we act with a greater extent of charity. It is in this that the greatness of God appears, that all the service we are able to do him is inconsiderable in his sight, unless on account of the excess of love wherewith it is performed. For.he wants not our goods; since he cannot increase in riches, or in anything else, “and all our good actions can give him nothing he has not.” (Job 35:7) All he desires of us, therefore, is, that we love him, and that we do all in our power to manifest it. We have a formal example of this in the two mites which the widow in the gospel offered. The Son of God standing near the treasury in the temple, took notice that the Pharisees and rich people put very ~ great alms into it, and that a poor widow approaching put in only two mites. Our Saviour hereupon turning towards his disciples said, “Verily, this poor widow hath given more than all the rest; for they cast in of their abundance, but she of her want cast in all she had, even her whole living.” (Mark 12:43,44) In this manner God judges of our actions; “and as he rewarded the widow,” says St. Chrysostom, “so he will reward those that instruct others.” He will act in the same manner towards those who preach, study, labour, or employ themselves in other religious duties—he will not take so much

notice of what they do, as of the charity and fervour with which they do it.

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