p. 108Of the Perfection of Our Ordinary Actions

It is a truth unanimously taught by the Fathers of the Church that our sanctity depends on the perfection of our actions, and that the fidelity with which we perform our most ordinary duties is the best criterion by which we may judge of our spiritual state.

The Gospel itself makes all the sanctity of Jesus Christ consist in this point: ‘He hath done all things well.’¹1Mark vii. 37. There are two powerful incentives to our performing our actions well, the advantages we lose and the injury we sustain by doing them imperfectly. This twofold consideration shall form the subject of the two first articles. In the third we shall explain in what manner we should perform our ordinary actions.

Article I

Of the advantages of which the imperfection of our ordinary actions deprives us

1. The loss of numberless degrees of grace and glory

Man’s life is but a succession of daily-recurring actions, which are, however, so many acts of virtue performed with the requisite perfection. So that if our actions are accompanied with holy dispositions, our whole life shall be a series of virtuous actions succeeding each other uninterruptedly, as so many precious links of a golden chain.

The Catholic faith teaches that a new degree of sanctifying grace corresponds to every virtuous action of the just man, and that every degree of sanctifying grace entitles him to a new degree of eternal glory. Hence it follows that our daily actions, when performed in the proper spirit, form an admirable and happy concatenation of innumerable acts of virtue and degrees of grace in this life and of glory in the other.

We each day perform at least twenty different actions. How many more in a week! and what a still greater number in a month! Now, should these actions be performed perfectly, they obtain for us in the space of a month several hundred degrees of grace for this life and a corresponding number of degrees of glory for eternity. On the contrary, we forfeit all these blessings should our actions be vitiated by negligence, tepidity, and sin.

Now, so inestimable is the value of one degree of grace, one degree of glory, that were the saints capable of regret they would bewail eternally the loss of those which, through their own fault, they have failed to merit, whilst to obtain even one of them the damned would willingly endure a thousand hells.

But we, blind that we are, reckon as nought the incalculable and irreparable loss of so many degrees of grace and glory. Oh, how different shall be our sentiments when standing before the dread tribunal of our Judge!

Soul destined for heaven, enter, I implore you, into your heart’s depths, and there ponder the price of those blessings, the winning or losing of which depends on yourself. If you perform well the meditation, the lecture, or the action, whatever it may be, in which you are now engaged, you shall behold the incomparable beauty of God more vividly for all eternity, you shall love Him p. 109everlastingly with a purer and more ardent love, and enjoy Him for ever with a more perfect felicity; for it is a truth of faith²2Conc. Trent. Sess. vi. can. 31. that every act of virtue in the just man merits an additional degree of glory in heaven.

But if you perform this same action carelessly, you shall lose an entire eternity of greater felicity. You shall possess a degree less of knowledge and love of the immortal beauty of God; consequently, you shall forfeit as many eternities of more intimate knowledge and love of the Divinity and of more perfect happiness as you shall perform your actions negligently.

What are your thoughts concerning these truths? What! for nothing, or rather through a disgraceful indolence so easily vanquished, to consent to know less perfectly the enchanting beauty of the Creator; to love less ardently, through endless ages, a God infinitely good in Himself, and infinitely liberal towards you, and thus deprive yourself of an augmentation of everlasting happiness! Should these reflections fail to awaken your regret for the losses you have sustained, you are unworthy your heavenly destiny.

My God, what have I done in performing any of my actions negligently! Like a prodigal, I have sacrificed an entire eternity of greater happiness; I have voluntarily and irrevocably forfeited the opportunity of beholding you more clearly and loving you more ardently. Were the loss of a limb to be the penalty of the ill performance of an action, I should be inconsolable; and yet every time I neglect one of my duties, I bereave myself of an increase of grace, I lessen the lustre of the crown of glory that awaits me, and diminish the beauty of the throne reserved for me; but, fool that I am, I am stoically indifferent p. 110to this awful loss. Ye angels, be astonished, for this conduct is that of a Christian, of a religious, of a priest who knows, who acknowledges that the loss of a degree of grace and glory is incomparably more deplorable than the deprivation of all the senses, and of life itself. Yes, it is the sublimity of my vocation that enhances my culpability; ‘for I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord!’ That seculars engrossed with family cares should be apathetic about such a loss is, doubtless, very censurable, still we tolerate, and, in some manner, excuse it in them on account of their condition. But that I, a religious, whose whole life should be but a continual increase of grace; I, a priest, who believe and teach others that the joys of paradise are infinite and eternal, that I should be as indifferent as an infidel as to whether I behold more distinctly and love more ardently you who are my last end, that I am unconcerned as to whether I occupy the first or the last place in heaven, provided I be admitted there, is an outrage to God, and deserves a long and severe retribution in the other life. My God, Thou who hast granted me light to discern the unworthiness of such conduct, grant me Thy divine assistance, that I may return from my wanderings.

2. The loss of countless other blessings with which the goodness of God is wont to recompense fidelity in performing our ordinary actions perfectly.

Every action of the just man, performed with the requisite perfection, honours the Divine Majesty, rejoices the Church triumphant, enriches the Church militant with new merits, and solaces the Church suffering. Let us make a résumé of these advantages. Each of our actions, but especially the Holy Sacrifice and the recitation of the Office, may, if piously performed, obtain the conversion of a sinner, prevent the fall of a just man, procure the deliverance of a soul from purgatory. What graces will it not likewise gain for ourselves! Did we not mar the value of our actions in the sight of God by our carelessness and other defects, we might frequently preserve the religious orders of which we are members from the evils which threaten them; arrest the progress of heresies; avert public calamities, the horrors of conflagrations, the ravages of pestilence, and countless other evils. It is a truth of faith that by our good works we may ward off chastisements from the earth, and obtain all requisite spiritual and temporal blessings for our fellow-creatures. This dogma is an evident consequence of the belief in the communion of saints professed in the Creed, and is likewise confirmed by the practice of the Church, which applies the prayers and merits of the elect to all the wants of the faithful.

A soul attentive to perform all its actions well is a ‘burning lamp’³3Dan. x. 6. in the house of God, and whose flame, constantly fed by the oil of charity, serves to enlighten the neighbour. It is by its good works ‘an example of true light,’⁴4St. Greg. Hom. the ‘golden altar’⁵53 Kings vii. 48. whence the incense of prayer perpetually ascends before the throne of God, since ‘every time we perform works pleasing to Him’⁶6St. Hilary. we accomplish the precept of Jesus Christ, ‘to pray always.’⁷7Luke xviii. 1. In effect, it has found out the best method of honouring God during the whole day, by performing p. 111all its actions perfectly.⁸8St. Aug. on Ps. But what an honour for a soul to praise the Most High continually, to send up prayers as incense before Him, to be a light to others, to avert from them the divine vengeance, and each moment to enrich itself with new merits! Now all these blessings are lost when negligence mingles with our actions. Then, instead of being a shining lamp, a golden altar, we are but ‘chaff and ashes,’⁹9Job xxi. 18. ‘a barren tree’; like Job, we are covered with ulcers. What, in the sight of God, are actions imperfectly and negligently performed except stains, sterile branches, hideous sores which ruin ‘all the interior glory of the King’s daughter’?¹⁰10Ps. xliv. 14. Blind or insensate, therefore, are we when we perform our actions ill; blind, if we fail to recognise the stupendousness of our loss: insensate, if understanding it we neglect to guard against it. O my God, ‘who art holy in all Thy works,’¹¹11Ps. cxliv. 13. grant me grace to perform my ordinary actions with such attention as may render them conducive to Thy glory, to my own salvation, and that of my neighbour!

3. The loss of the means which conduce to perfection

As religious, we are bound, under pain of grievous sin, to aspire to the perfection of our state. Now, according to the unanimous teaching of the masters of the spiritual life, to do our ordinary actions well is at once the promptest, easiest, and most efficacious means of fulfilling this important obligation in its full extent, while it is also the shortest and safest road to high sanctity. In reality, sanctity consists in doing what God wills and in the manner He wills, and this end cannot be more securely attained than by performing p. 112our ordinary actions well. This, it is needless to say, can only be effected by a constant vigilance.

For the space of thirty years our Divine Lord manifested His sanctity only by the perfection with which He performed His most habitual and commonplace actions.

‘The valiant woman’ is praised and declared ‘blessed’ solely because she fulfilled her duties well. She took up ‘the spindle’ and the distaff, she worked ‘flax and wool,’ she distributed ‘victuals to her maidens,’ she purchased ‘a field’ and planted ‘a vine:’¹²12Prov. xxxi. 10. behold all her merit. The consummate sanctity of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, of St. Stanislaus, Blessed Berchmans, and of so many other young saints, was arrived at by no other route than by the performance of common actions in an uncommon manner.

We are, then, our own worst enemies if, through the neglect of this safe and easy road, we expose ourselves to fail in attaining that perfection which our state renders so stringently imperative. How long, O Lord, shall we continue indifferent to eternal riches, while we grieve so bitterly for the loss of a trifle? Is perfection the only good so little worthy our esteem that we may justly place it in the last rank, and renounce the acquisition of it when we could so easily obtain it? ‘God of Hosts,’¹³13Ps. lxxxiii. 9. who commandest me ‘in all my works to keep the pre-eminence,’¹⁴14Eccli. xxxiii. 23. ‘open Thou my eyes,’¹⁵15Ps. cxviii. 18. that, recognising the value of so many advantages, I may never cease to lament the loss of those which I have forfeited, and that henceforth I may fear nothing so much as that of incurring a similar misfortune.

Article II

On the injury we inflict on ourselves by the imperfection of our ordinary actions

1. We prepare for ourselves a more gloomy death

Ah! what anguish shall not this thought occasion us at death: I might have lived holily; I might have easily done so by fervour in my daily exercises, united with a sustained and frequently renewed purity of intention, by the faithful employment of the means which were prescribed for me. It was not different works, but a different manner of doing them, that was demanded of me; but, oh! accursed negligence, whose only fruit has been to deepen my guilt, to increase my remorse and punishment, by so many Masses, meditations, and examens, by the recitation of the holy Office, by those very actions, in fine, which, had I done myself violence, would have exalted me to the sublime throne of glory occupied by that elect soul who lived with me!

Others, my friends and companions, have practised perfection; I proposed to imitate them, I even made the attempt. Why did I relax?—with a little perseverance I should have won the victory.

But, yielding to a culpable inconstancy, I abandoned the good I had begun, I neglected to tend to that degree of perfection to which God called me. Ah, I remember the labours, the sufferings, the weariness, with which my ordinary actions were fraught through life! What weariness on the school-forms!—what fatigue in travelling!—what painful vigils spent in study!—what difficulties I had to contend with in the accomplishment of my different duties! Had I borne these trials with purity of intention; had I performed all my works with the requisite perfection, I would have merited a high degree of glory for heaven.

Oh, inexplicable madness! labouring, studying, exhausting myself night and day, ‘I have laboured in vain,’¹⁶16Isai. xlix. 4. fatiguing myself unmeritoriously for trifles, I have wasted my strength, destroyed my health, shortened my life, and instead of earning a recompense, I have only accumulated debts for which I shall have to satisfy the Divine Justice. What do I say? By a just judgment of God, instead of the esteem and advantages which I have imagined would accrue to me in a worldly point of view, I have only reaped confusion and an affliction more grievous than all my sufferings!

Such, at death, shall be the sentiments of a man who, during life, shall have performed his ordinary actions negligently and precipitately. Beware, lest you also be condemned to repeat this sad lamentation of Job: ‘I have had empty months and have numbered to myself wearisome nights,’¹⁷17Job vii. 3. void of merit and full of defects which must be expiated, ‘my days are vanished like smoke,’¹⁸18Ps. ci. 4. ‘they have been wasted in vanity,’¹⁹19Ibid. lxxvii. 33. and now too late I have shed tears of anguish. I have done but little good, and that little I have done imperfectly. My whole life presents but one long sad chain of defects with which the demons have encompassed me in order to present me to the Divine Judge. ‘My days are consumed without any hope,’²⁰20Job vii. 6. ‘my thoughts are unprofitable thoughts, my works are fruitless works,’²¹21Isai. lix. 4. ‘my soul is void,’²²22Ibid. xxix. 8. ‘I have found nothing in my hands,’²³23Ps. lxxv. 6. ‘I have p. 114spent my strength without fruit,’²⁴24Isai. xlix. 4. and yet, ‘that night when no man can work,’²⁵25John ix. 4. already enshrouds me, that awful night ‘when time shall be no longer,’²⁶26Apoc. x. 6. to amass solid goods or to repair the losses I have sustained. ‘Oh! who will grant me that I might be according to the years past, according to the days in which God kept me?’²⁷27Job xxix. 2. But since grace once lost can never return, at least, ‘O Keeper of men,’²⁸28Job vii. 20. ‘I will recount to thee all my years in the bitterness of my soul.’²⁹29Isai. xxxviii. 15. For so much lost time I will offer thee ‘a humble and contrite heart,’ in the hope that ‘Thou wilt not despise it, O my God!’³⁰30Ps. l. 19. I will be sedulously on my guard lest tepidity, vanity, or sensual pleasures, as so many ‘voracious insects,’ ‘consume what remains’³¹31Joel i. 4. to me of life.

2. A more severe judgment

After death, our works alone shall accompany us ‘before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done whether it be good or evil.’³²322 Cor. v. 10. There it will not be asked if we were an illustrious personage on the theatre of the world, but if we performed our actions well; it will not be inquired whether we filled distinguished posts, but how we have filled them; it is not the ease, but the sanctity with which we acquitted ourselves of our duties that will be investigated. In the accusatory delineation which Satan will make of our lives not one of our daily actions shall be omitted.

There we shall behold numberless meditations, examens, spiritual lectures, neglected, curtailed, or rendered worthless by our precipitation and carelessness, countless p. 115confessions, communions, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, performed through routine, with tepidity and without fruit; so many meals, recreations, studies, avocations of every description, which had their origin not in purity of intention, but in the natural vivacity of our disposition, vainglory, or some equally vicious motive.

In a word, our daily actions shall form the principal matter of this examen on which our judgment shall depend; and as they occupy the greater portion of our life, their value shall determine the measure of the rewards or chastisements which await us; for ‘the Son of man,’ from whom nothing is hidden, ‘will render to every one according to his works.’³³33Matt. xvi. 27. He will not judge according to reputation, offices, birth, but He will render to each one ‘according to his works’; to each one, that is to the king as to the subject, to the great as to the lowly, to the religious as to the secular, and consequently to myself, ‘for there is no respect of persons with God.’³⁴34Rom. ii. 11. My soul! what shall then be thy sentiments when, discerning the malice of thy actions, the just Judge says to thee: ‘Had I bid thee do some great thing, surely thou shouldst have done it.’³⁵354 Kings v. 13. Had I commanded thee to tend to perfection by the practice of rigorous austerities, perpetual prayer, the preaching of the Gospel, thou shouldst have unhesitatingly obeyed me; with how far greater reason then shouldst thou have done so when the faithful discharge of thy daily duties was all that I asked of thee? What less could I demand of thee?

I called thee to great sanctity, will the Lord say, addressing our soul; I furnished thee with easy means of attaining to it: ‘it was not above thee nor far off from thee; it was not in heaven nor beyond the sea, but it was very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart;’³⁶36Deut. xxx. 12, and fol. it consisted simply in not doing imperfectly the good to which thou wert obliged. ‘Thou art’ then, ‘inexcusable, O man,’³⁷37Rom. ii. 1. because, neglecting so easy a means of acquiring perfection, thou hast multiplied thy faults and punishments in the fulfilment of those very duties which might have augmented thy merits and rewards, and that at so little cost to thee; thou art inexcusable because thou hast applied more assiduously to profane reading than to spiritual lecture, to play than to prayer, to study than to assisting at the Holy Sacrifice, and because thou hast taken less pains to serve me and merit heaven than others have done to please the world through the hope of some perishable gain. ‘Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thy iniquities,’³⁸38Isai. xliii. 24. when thou didst compel my omnipotence to concur in thy acts and my sanctity to behold the hideous spectacle of thy imperfections. Alas! what excuses shall we allege to appease the wrath of our Judge?

‘O God, the searcher of hearts and reins,’³⁹39Ps. vii. 10. what reply shall I make? ‘I cannot answer one for a thousand accusations; and if I would justify myself,’⁴⁰40Job ix. 3 and 20. my own works shall condemn me. There should not have been a single act of my whole life which did not lovingly tend to Thee, and yet scarcely is there one amongst them unsullied by numberless defects. Every day, and almost every moment, I have compelled Thee to concur in my sins by the incessant abuse of my senses and the faculties of my soul for which I am indebted solely to Thy bounty.

How guilty have I not been in offending Thee, my p. 116God, I who belong to Thee by so many titles, who am Thy servant and the son of Thy handmaid, who am bound by so many obligations to serve Thee perfectly? But I repent of my ingratitude, ‘pardon me my iniquities,’ my God, ‘before the great accounting day.’⁴¹41Prose of the Dead. Grant me grace now to accomplish all my duties with that religious attention which I shall one day so ardently desire to have brought to them, and the absence of which would then cost me such deep and unavailing regret.

3. A longer and more rigorous punishment

What shall be our horror at judgment to find that by so many labours we have merited torments instead of recompenses, and that our actions which inflated us with vanity and caused us to prefer ourselves to others, are, owing to the imperfection with which they were performed, but straw destined for an expiatory fire in the sight of God.

Labour and sorrow are as the two pivots on which our life has continually turned. How wretched, then, we are, while labouring, running, and fatiguing ourselves all day, to have only collected wood and straw to intensify the avenging flames of purgatory! How we are to be pitied, after so much misery and suffering, to have this place of torments and atonement as our heritage; but especially to have merited it by neglecting to perform our ordinary actions perfectly!

Alas! how often do religious themselves perform imperfect, consequently unmeritorious and almost wholly dead works, because inattention, indevotion, want of purity of intention, or some equally vitiating principle has accompanied them. Hapless that we are! What p. 117shall be our dismay when, entering the prison of purgatory, abandoned by all, we shall find ourselves encompassed by darkness, flames, and torments, without any alleviation or intermission of our sufferings; when we learn that we are expiating those very actions which we might so easily have sanctified; which, instead of having subjected us to the pains of purgatory, might have augmented our glory in heaven? Let us ask ourselves how should we then wish to have acted.

But those desires and wishes shall then be unavailing. If we are wise let us take precautions now that ‘an acceptable time’ is given us, and that the day of salvation’⁴²422 Cor. vi. 2. still shines upon us. Oh! could a soul in purgatory return to this world, with what assiduity would it not accomplish its daily actions! We are guilty of an unpardonable cruelty towards ourselves, if we do not act as this soul would do, and we shall one day bitterly bemoan the omission.

‘Lord, all of whose works are perfect,’⁴³43Eccli. xxxix. 21. grant me grace to do nothing in future but what is good, and to do that good with purity of intention. Ah! how many ties bind me to Thee! By Thee alone I live, from Thee I have received all that I possess, on Thee I absolutely depend; I detest, therefore, every action which shall be performed through any other motive than Thy love; may my tongue become mute, my hand wither, my mind become a blank, rather than that I should in future say, do, or think anything of which Thou art not the principle and the end. ‘Place Thyself as a seal upon my heart that I may act through pure motives; and place Thyself ‘as a seal upon my arm,’⁴⁴44Cant. viii. 6. that I may serve Thee fervently by the perfection of my ordinary actions.

Article III

1. On the means of performing our actions perfectly

Two conditions are necessary for the perfection of our actions: that they be good in themselves and performed well.

To find acceptance with God, they must not merely be performed in a state of grace, but also in the order of obedience, that is, we must have received a command, or at least the permission to do them. It does not suffice, therefore, that our actions be intrinsically good, neither is it sufficient that purity of intention sanctify and render meritorious such as are indifferent; it is likewise necessary that obedience be the mainspring of them. To confess, visit the sick, study, read pious books, are undoubtedly excellent things; nevertheless, if neither commanded nor permitted us they are reprehensible, and instead of recompense they merit chastisement. Hence, our actions, to be raised to a supernatural order, must be regulated by obedience; for of all that is done in opposition to the order, or without the approbation of superiors, being the fruit of self-will or singularity, must be perverted from good to evil. No, it does not suffice that we perform good works, we must perform them well. It is not so much the nature as the modifying circumstances of our actions that shall be scrutinised before the divine tribunal. ‘Glory,’ says Seneca, ‘consists less in our deeds than in doing them well.’ This philosopher was right, since, according to the beautiful remark of St. Cyprian, no work ‘is holy unless it be performed holily.’ God commands us in Holy Writ ‘to accomplish justly that which is just,’⁴⁵45Deut. xvi. 20. ‘and in all our works to keep the pre-eminence.’⁴⁶46Eccli. xxxiii. 23. This perfection requires four conditions: purity of intention, fervour, perseverance, and fidelity in performing them at the time prescribed.

Purity of intention consists in always and under all circumstances proposing to ourselves the greater glory of God, as the pure and sole end of all that we do. This virtue is to our whole life what the eye is to the body. In the same manner as ‘the eye,’ according to the words of our Divine Master, ‘is the light of the body,’ so also purity of intention is the light of our works. ‘If our eye be single, our whole body shall be lightsome; but if our eye be evil, our whole body shall be darksome;’⁴⁷47Matt. vi. 22. consequently our actions derive all their light and value from the purity of intention with which they are performed.

Let us now interrogate our heart. Have we not unjustly sought our own glory with that of God? Have we not in the innermost recesses of our soul, in our most intimate will and secret motives, proposed to ourselves some personal advantage, gratification, or satisfaction? Let us beware lest self-love, insinuating itself into our actions under the guise of piety, deteriorate their merit, if not in their commencement, at least during their continuance or at their close. To avert this calamity, we must always take great care to form a good and pure intention at the commencement of each action and to renew it from time to time during its continuance, particularly if the act is to be of considerable duration. In default of this precaution our intention, becoming weakened of itself, will cease to animate the succeeding works, whose value and title to reward will thus be materially diminished.

2. Fervour dispels and dissipates our natural listlessness in the discharge of our duties. Our soul, just as the weights of a clock, always gravitates towards the earth, to which its propensities attract it. If we make an effort for a moment this ardour soon relaxes, like the activity of the flame that has consumed its aliment: it therefore stands in constant need of having its courage sustained and stimulated by an undivided attention and constant application to the proper performance of the duty in which it is actually engaged.

However, we must not confound true fervour with a certain impetuosity, an inconsiderate and insatiable activity ‘which causes us,’ says Hugh of St. Victor, ‘to precipitate the present action and desire to have already begun another of which there is no question at present; so that we act badly as regards both the present and the future.’ He alone acts well who is fervent without precipitation, hastens with moderation, and executes everything with such admirable tranquillity that one would not imagine he had any other business to attend to. The fervent soul, by the faithful discharge of its daily duties, will speedily attain a degree of virtue to which the cowardly and slothful will not arrive in many years. ‘An ounce of gold is of more value than a mass of lead,’ says St. Gregory Nazianzen; so it is with an exercise performed with fervour: it is infinitely more meritorious than many others fulfilled with tepidity and sloth.

3. Perseverance, which is the third condition required for the perfection of our daily actions, consists in preserving to the end the purity of intention and fervour with which they have been begun, and, above all, not to leave them unfinished and incomplete. We sometimes commence meditation, Mass, spiritual lecture, and the divine Office with true fervour, but afterwards the oppressive and stifling wind of tepidity arises, and our actions, undertaken with the zeal of perfection, gradually relax, drag painfully on, and terminate in apathy. It also frequently happens that, disgusted with our duty and the continuity of our labours, we leave a work imperfect and little more than half begun, which we had undertaken generously and courageously. Like the Sulamitess, ‘we go up into the palm-tree,’ but our efforts are not sufficiently sustained ‘to take hold of the fruits thereof,’⁴⁸48Cant. vii. 8. our courage evaporates too soon, and we lose the fruit of our first labours. Let us, then, frequently recall this maxim, ‘Corrupt not unto the end’⁴⁹49Title, Ps. 74. what has been begun well, since it is to perseverance the crown is promised.

4. Finally, our works should likewise be performed at the time prescribed. ‘He,’ says St. Ambrose, ‘who does good and accomplishes the work of God must be most careful in the distribution of his time.’ Let us then punctually follow our rule of life as regards the manner and time to be observed in the distribution of our daily actions.

This advice is of the utmost importance, and we can form no conception of the happy results which docility to it will produce on the perfection of our actions; for all that is done according to order is regular and perfect, and a constant obedience to our rule is a voluntary and continual holocaust of our own will: now, such an exactitude and such a sacrifice are as profitable to us as they are pleasing to God. By the faithful observance of these four conditions the value of our actions, according to the words of the apostle, shall be comparable to that ‘of gold, silver, and precious stones,’⁵⁰501 Cor. iii. 12. they shall deserve to be offered by angels ‘to Him that sitteth on the throne.’⁵¹51Apoc. v. 13. But if we neglect them our works shall be but wood, hay, and stubble, destined for an avenging fire; for, adds the same apostle, ‘every man’s work shall be tried by fire: if any man’s work,’ tried like gold, ‘abide, he shall receive a reward, and if it burn’ as worthless straw, ‘he shall suffer the loss’⁵²521 Cor. iii. 13 and fol. of it; that work shall vanish like smoke.

‘Let us,’ therefore, ‘fear all our works, knowing that the divine justice will not allow one fault to pass unpunished.’⁵³53Job ix. 28. Let us enter into the depths of our soul to see with what purity of intention, what fervour, what perseverance, and what order we have been wont to perform our actions. Do we not merit the same reproach from the Almighty as that addressed by Him to the Bishop of Sardes? ‘I find not thy works full,’⁵⁴54Apoc. iii. 2. because vainglory, vanity, human respect, sensuality, immortification of the senses, detain thee in their nets and cling to thy works to rob them of their merit and leave only the spurious proceeds of thy own capital.

Wretched souls! what shall be our consternation when, at the approach of death, we are compelled to cry out: ‘My days have fled away, and have not seen good,’⁵⁵55Job ix. 25. ‘I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength.’⁵⁶56Isai. xlix. 4. I have laboured during all the night of this life, and have taken nothing; soon my sentence shall be pronounced, and ‘I am able to show no mark of virtue: but am consumed in my wickedness.’⁵⁷57Wisd. v. 13. At that awful moment how shall we desire to have performed our ordinary actions?

Let us, then, take precautions while we have time, ‘before it be dark, and before our feet stumble upon the dark mountain,’⁵⁸58Jerem. xiii. 16. that is, before we reach the term of life when the infirmities and chill of old age render us powerless for good. Let us hearken to the advice of Solomon: ‘Give not your years to so cruel a master as vanity, if you would not groan in the end, when you shall have consumed your strength in vain.’⁵⁹59Prov. v. 9, 10, 11.

2. Means of performing our actions well

The first means of performing our ordinary actions well consists in selecting from esteemed authors a good and safe method of acting according to the principles of sanctity. We should afterwards endeavour to conform each of our daily exercises to it, until we have contracted the habit of acquitting ourselves of them piously. Order demands that this spiritual renovation be directed in the first instance to such actions as relate immediately to God, then to those which regard our neighbour, and finally to those which concern ourselves.

These rules of perfection given us by the masters of the spiritual life are a rich mine, whence we may draw a thousand different modes of sanctifying even our most commonplace actions. ‘They are the line and measuring reed;’⁶⁰60Ezech. xl. 3. it is by them that our works attain the four sublime dimensions of charity,⁶¹61‘I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . . that being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, . . . . to know all the charity of Christ.’—Ephes. iii. 14 and fol. and are raised to the pinnacle of perfection.

The second is to finish our actions, or at least the most prolonged of them, by a short examen, in order to p. 122discover the faults committed during them, to beg pardon of God, and renew our good resolution, which we should reiterate every time we commence the same occupation.

He who neglects this examen resembles a person who constantly travels the same road, and yet always ‘dashes his foot against a stone,’⁶²62Ps. xc. 12. without once remarking the obstacle which impedes our steps. It is thus that, unless we call ourselves to task for the faults committed in our various duties, the same defects will recur every time we repeat the action, and rob our works of their value before God; whereas if we promptly and generously correct the failings discovered by means of this examen, they shall shine ‘as the sun in the sight of the Sovereign Master.’⁶³63Eccli. xvii. 16.

The third means consists in performing each of our actions as if it were to be the last of our life, and as if at its conclusion we were to be cited before the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge to render an account of it.

This is admirably expressed by St. Bernard, who says: ‘Before acting, always say to yourself: were you to die immediately afterwards, would you do this? In what manner would you do it?’ Thomas à Kempis counsels a like vigilance: ‘Thou shouldst comport thyself,’ says he, ‘in all thy acts and in all thy thoughts, as if thou wert to die to-day.’⁶⁴64Imit. b. i. ch. 23.

These maxims are full of wisdom. In effect, since each of our actions may be the last of our life, it is only rational to perform it with as much care as if our eternity were immediately to follow. St. Augustine admonishes us that all our days should be holy, because we know not which will be the last, and that possibly no tomorrow may await us; but since also the present action may terminate our life, so likewise we should acquit ourselves of it with as much perfection as if we were certain of dying after its completion.

Supposing, however, which is very probable, that the action in which we are now engaged will not end our career, it is not the less true that the faults committed during it shall be faults for all eternity, and that the advantages of grace and glory thus lost by our negligence never shall revive. Such a motive for fulfilling our duties perfectly needs no development; the prudence and advantage of following the conduct we advise is self-evident.

A last means of sanctifying our ordinary actions is to employ a pious stratagem against ourselves, by devoting the whole undivided attention of our mind to the present action as though no other remained to be done, or at least to perform it, with the same care and perfection, as if such were the case. By this artifice we forestall the temptation to distrust, of which the devil makes use to intimidate and deject us, asking us, for instance, whether we shall be able to accomplish all our actions with fidelity and exactitude through the whole course of our life, and whether we shall be capable of sustaining our efforts and mortifying our senses and faculties to the end.

These were the arms adopted by St. Ignatius against similar assaults which he experienced at the beginning of his conversion. Let us have recourse to the same weapons, never allowing ourselves to be occupied, except by the present action; let us discard from our mind all anxiety concerning the future, and about what still remains to be done; we shall thus lighten our labour, avoid weariness; and, gaining courage from the facility of the actual duty, we shall execute all our other obligations with energy and perseverance.

These four means are so many excellent practices, p. 123proper to give value and perfection to all our actions, and to render them supernatural and meritorious. Let us now ask ourselves whether we are resolved to perform our actions in such a way as to be able to say with Jesus Christ, ‘I do always the things that please my Heavenly Father.’⁶⁵65John viii. 29. Happy we, if we thus place our will in the law of God! ‘We shall be like a tree planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit’⁶⁶66Ps. i. 3. in due season.