How We Ought to Go on Growing and Mounting in Rectitude and Purity of Intention

OUR blessed Father Ignatius says in greater detail how we ought to mount in this rectitude and purity of intention: “Let all strive to have a right intention, not only about their state of life, but about all particular details; ever sincerely looking in them to serve and please His Divine Majesty for His own sake, and for the singular benefits wherewith He forestalls us, rather than for the fear of punishment or the hope of reward, though they should be aided by these motives also; and in all things let them seek God, stripping themselves, as far as possible, of the love of all creatures, to bestow their whole affection upon the Creator thereof, loving Him in all things, and all things in Him, according to His most holy and divine will.”

There are several ways of seeking and serving God. To serve God out of fear of punishment is to seek God, and is a good thing; because that fear, though it be servile, ceases not to be good and to be a gift of God, and therefore the Royal Prophet begged it of God when he said: Pierce my flesh, O Lord, with Thy fear (Psalm ecxviii. 120). But if we should say to ourselves and have in our hearts this sentiment: “If there were no hell and I were not afraid of being punished, I would offend God,” divines hold that such an act as this would be evil and sinful and show a will very ill disposed. Notwithstanding, to help ourselves with the fear of punishment, with the apprehension of death and judgment, thereby to excite ourselves the better to serve God and to abstain from offending Him, is good; and it is upon this account that the Holy Scripture frequently puts these things before us and threatens us with them. Secondly, to serve God for the reward which we hope for in glory, is also to seek God, and that in a better way than the former, because there is more perfection in doing our actions for the motive of reward in glory than for that of fear of hell: this is to go increasing in perfection. Moses acted after this manner, as St. Paul teaches us, when he says: By faith, Moses, after he came of age, made nothing of being the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, who had adopted him: he despised that, and sought rather to be humbled and despised for God than to enjoy all the treasures and riches of Egypt, because he had his eye on the recompense and reward that he hoped for (Heb. xi. 24-25). And the Royal Prophet said: I have disposed my heart, O Lord, to observe thy law, looking at the recompense thou hast promised (Psalm cxviiil. 112). This motive is good also, and we should aid ourselves with it; but our holy Father will have us go further, and desires that we should still elevate our hearts and entertain higher thoughts. Aspire to better gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way (I Cor. xii. 31). He is not content that we should seek and serve God in any ordinary manner, but he would have us seek and serve God for Himself, for His infinite goodness, and for His being what He is, which is the highest of all titles.

The glorious Fathers of the Church, Basil, Chrysostom, and Gregory, treat this point excellently well. They liken those who serve God for reward to Simon of Cyrene, who took up Christ’s Cross for a price reckoned as the hire of his day’s work. So these people serve God for the price and day’s wage to be given them. They say that we should not be solicitous and careful about remuneration, reckoning up at so much the remuneration and pay; for this is the part of hirelings and day laborers who seek their own interest. We should not serve God in this manner, but as true sons for pure love. There is a great difference, say they, between the service of a slave, the service of a servant, and the service of a son. The slave serves his master for fear of chastisement and the whip. The servant, or vassal, serves his lord for the pay and reward that he hopes from him; and if he is diligent in serving him, it is because in that way he hopes to thrive and be handsomely rewarded. But the son serves his father for love and is most careful not to offend him, not for fear of chastisement, which the son fears no more when he is grown up, nor for hope of getting anything from him, but for pure love. Thus a good son, though his father be poor and has nothing to leave him, serves and honors him on the ground that he deserves it for being his father, and takes it for sufficient reward of his service and labor that his father is pleased. So other saints tell us we should serve God, not for fear of punishment, like slaves, nor for hope of pay and remuneration, like hired servants and day laborers, but as true sons of God, since God has done us the favor of making us such. See what charity the Father hath for us, in that we are called and be sons of God (I John iii. 1) ; and with truth we call God, Father, and His Son, Brother. Since we are sons of God, let us love and serve Him as sons, and honor Him as a Father, and such a Father—for pure love, to give satisfaction to our heavenly Father as He deserves for being what He is, for His infinite goodness alone, even though we had hearts and bodies without end to employ in loving and serving Him.

St. Chrysostom says very well: “If you have been found worthy to do something for God and then go seeking some other reward besides the mere fact of your having been found worthy to please Him, it shows that you do not know what a good thing it is to please God; for if you knew it, you would never seek any other external reward or remuneration.” For what greater good can we desire or propose to arouse ourselves than to please and give satisfaction to God? Imitate God as dearly beloved children, and love him as Christ hath loved us, says St. Paul (Eph. v. 1). Consider, says St. Bonaventure, how liberally and without any interest of His own God has loved us and done us so many favors, and not only without self-interest, but to His own heavy cost, since we have cost Him His lifeblood. In this manner, then, we should love and serve God purely and without any manner of self-interest. Our very virtues and supernatural gifts we should desire, not for our own advancement and satisfaction, but purely for God and His greater glory, to have wherewith to thank God and give Him greater satisfaction. And the glory of heaven itself we should also desire after this manner. When we put before our soul the reward of the good that we do, to animate us to do well, that should not be the ultimate end on which our desire should finally rest; but our ultimate end should be the greater service and glory of God, since the more glory we attain, the better shall we be able to honor and glorify the Lord. This is true love of charity and true and perfect love of God. This is pure seeking of God and of His greater glory; all else is seeking ourselves and loving ourselves. This is the distinction which theologians and moral philosophers draw between perfect love, which they call love of friendship (amor amicitiae), and love of desire (amor concupiscentiae), in that the former loves its friend for love of the friend and the good of virtue, whereas the love of desire is when I love another, not so much for his own sake as for the interest and advancement which I think will accrue to me from him, as when one serves the rich and the powerful in expectation of favors to be received from them. It may well be seen that this is not perfect love, but a love full of self-love, not so much loving your friend as loving for yourself and your own conveniences and interests. Thus we say that you love bread and wine with the love of desire, since you do not love it for itself, but for yourself and as something to come in to yourself; that is loving yourself. In this way they do love and serve God who serve Him for fear of punishment or hope of the reward which He is to give them. This love is largely mingled with love of self; you do not seek God purely and disinterestedly therein. This Christ our Redeemer gives us to understand when, after He had worked the famous miracle of feeding five thousand men, not to count women and children, with five loaves and two fishes, much people followed Him, to whom He said: Amen, amen, I say to you, ye seek me and come to me, not because ye take me for God, as having seen the signs and wonders I have wrought, but because ye have eaten of the loaves and had your fill. Seek not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting (John vi. 26-27), which is Christ and doing purely the will of God. Oh, what a good answer was that of the servant of God, of whom Gerson relates that he was greatly given to penance and prayer, and the devil, envious of so many good works, tried to divert him from them, and so assailed him with a temptation about predestination: “Why weary and fatigue yourself so much? You are not to be saved; you are not to go to glory.” He answered: “I do not serve God for the glory of heaven, but for His being what He is.” Thereat the devil stood abashed.

The glorious St. Bernard goes even further still. He would have us so forgetful of self-interest in the works that we do as not to be content with loving and serving as sons, but go beyond that. The love of sons is all very well, nevertheless they sometimes have an eye to the estate and the inheritance, and think of that; sometimes, too, they love and serve their parents that they may not disinherit them, or that they may leave them an extra portion. “I hold in suspicion that love which is kept up by hope of gaining some other object besides the object loved; and when that other object drops from view, vanishes or falls off. That is no pure nor perfect love; true and perfect love is not mercenary. Pure love does not borrow strength from hope (of gain), gather strength, nor feel the depression of failing hope.” He means to say that the true lover does not need to keep himself up with extrinsic considerations to serve God, or labor for what he expects they have to give him; nor would he be discouraged or cease to labor though he knew they had nothing to give him, for he is not moved thereto by self-interest, but by pure love.

But what shall be the love so high and perfect as to exceed and supersede the love of sons? Do you know what? says the saint. It is the love of the bride for the bridegroom, for true and perfect love is content with itself alone. It has a reward, but its reward is that which it loves; loving the beloved, that is its reward. Now such is the love of the bride, that seeks not nor aims at anything else than loving and, on the part of the bridegroom, to be loved by him; that is all its concern. Now in this way, says St. Bernard, we should love God, Who is the Bridegroom of our souls, so that we should stop and rest on this love for His being what He is, and that should be all our satisfaction and joy. True and perfect love is content with itself alone; the lover is content and satisfied with this love. This should be our merit and this should be our reward; we should not seek or aim at anything else than loving. The motive of our loving God should be to love Him; the fruit of our loving God should be to love Him; and the end of our loving Him should be to love Him. I love because I love, and I love to love. Is per se sufficit, is per se placet et propter se: ipse meritum, ipse praemium sibi est amor, praeter se non requirit causam, non fructum: fructus eius USUS EUS; AMO quia amo, amo ut amen.

St. Chrysostom takes up this subject and goes on with it very well. Think not, he says, that because you have not an eye to any reward or interest, your recompense and reward shall be less on that account; nay, it will be greater. The less you think of gaining, the more you will gain. It is certain that the more a work is stripped of all self-interest, the purer and more perfect it will be, inasmuch as there is no admixture of your own in it, and so it will be more meritorious. The more you turn your eyes away from all manner of self-interest and the more purely you aim at pleasing God, says St. Chrysostom, the greater shall your reward be. The further you are removed from the spirit of a day laborer, the greater shall be your daily wage, because God will not pay you as a hireling servant, but as a son, the heir of the treasures of his father. We shall be sons and heirs of God, and brothers of Christ, inheriting jointly with Him; we shall enter with Him into our share, inheriting and enjoying the goods of our Father Who is in heaven (Rom. viii. 17). The mother of Moses had hire and salary paid her by Pharaoh’s daughter for her to rear her own son (Exod. ii. 9); but she did not do it for hire and salary, but for the love she bore her child.