In Which It Is Explained How We May Do Our Actions with Great Rectitude and Purity of Intention

a explain how we may do our actions with greater perfection and purity, the masters of spiritual life bring a good comparison. As mathematicians abstract from the matter, and deal only with the quantities and figures, of bodies, making no account of the matter in which they are, be it gold or silver or any other substance, since that is no concern of theirs, so the servant of God in the actions that he does must fix his eyes chiefly on doing the will of God, abstracting from all matter, not looking to see whether it is gold or clay, not minding whether they put him in this office or that, since our progress and perfection lie not therein, but in doing the will of God and seeking His glory in what we do. The glorious St. Basil says this very well, and it is founded on the doctrine of the Apostle St. Paul. All the life and actions of a Christian man have one end and aim, which is the glory of God, for whether you eat or drink or do any other thing, says the Apostle, you should do all to the glory of God (I Cor. x. 31).

The Apostle St. John relates how Christ our Redeemer was talking with the Samaritan woman, being very tired and weary with His journey, and the disciples had gone into the town to look for something to eat, as the hour was late. When they came with the food, they said to Him: Master, eat. But he answered them: I have meat to eat ye know not of. And when they asked one another: Hath any man brought him something to eat? My meat, he answered, is to do the will of him that sent me (John iv. 32). See here what ought to be our meat in all things we do. When you study, when you hear confessions, when you lecture or preach, your meat must not be the satisfaction of knowing or studying or preaching, since that would be to make clay of gold, but all your meat and nourishment and satisfaction should be the fact of your doing the will of God, which requires you there and then to be doing those things. And the same also should be your meat when you serve in the domestic offices of the house. Thus one and the same is the meat, and one and the same the diet, of porter and infirmarian as of preacher and lecturer. So you should be as content in your office as he is in his, since you have the same ground of contentment that he has, which is doing the will of God. Thus we should ever aim at having in our mouth and in our heart these words: ‘For Thee, O Lord, I do this, for Thy glory, because so Thou willest;” and we must not stop in this exercise until we come to do things as serving the Lord and not men (Eph. vi. 7), as St. Paul says, and until we do them in such a way as to be always in them actually loving God, and rejoicing in them inasmuch as therein we are doing the will of God, so that when we are at work it seems that we are rather loving than working.

Father Master Avila makes here a good and very homely comparison. When a mother is washing the feet of her son or husband who has come off the road, she is at once serving and loving and rejoicing, and taking particular pleasure and satisfaction in the comfort she is giving. Oh, if we could succeed in doing our actions in this manner! Oh, if we could hit on this treasure hidden in the field, a treasure so manifest and open in one way and yet so hidden and concealed in another, what spiritual and interior and advanced men should we be! This is true alchemy, most certain to make out of copper and iron the finest gold; for though the work be in itself very humble, hereby it is made very exalted and of immense value. Let us, then, from now onwards aim at turning whatever we do into the finest gold, since the thing can be done so easily. In the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Solomon, everything was either of gold or covered with gold (III Kings vi. 19-22); so everything in us should be love of God or done for love of God.