What makes our actions worthwhile supernaturally, what makes them capable of causing us to grow closer to God and become more holy, is a deliberate good motive in doing them. If we have a good supernatural aim or purpose or motive in doing something, then we please God by what we do because we are responsible for it and it is done for a reason God approves of. Any good action done for a good motive pleases God and earns us a reward. If we do something without a good motive, we do not please God by doing it, even if the action is a good one. It is the aim we have that is needed, as well as the goodness of the action itself. . .
The fact is that we can not only choose our actions and decide what we will do or not do, but we can also choose the reason or purpose for which we do or omit those actions. We can alter our motives. We can deliberately do the same thing for a different reason. We can make our motives better or worse. We may sometimes even do good things for a bad motive, in which case such an action is a sin. For instance, giving money to a poor man is a good action, but giving him money to induce him to commit some crime on your behalf is a sin. Our motives can make good actions evil, or only fairly good, or very good. Of course nothing can make an evil action good. If we do evil in order that good may result, we commit a sin, for the end does not justify the means. But good actions are given much of their value by the kind of motive behind them. . .
If we want to be perfect, or at least to grow in perfection, we must try all the time to improve our motives . . . until we do everything we do for a good purpose. We must cultivate better and better intentions in all that we do. We must never do anything for unworthy or selfish motives. Our aim is to be, if God grants it, contemplatives and to see God as far as He can be seen in this life. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Purity of heart is the possession of those who do everything for a good, pure, supernatural motive. The pure in heart not only do good and not evil, but do it for a pure reason. They never act out of selfish or mean or unworthy motives. Not only do the pure in heart have good motives for all they do, but they are always seeking to make their motives better.
What is the highest motive we can have? What is the best reason of all for doing something? There is no doubt that the most perfect aim we can have in all that we do . . .
is simply to please God. . .
If we are really pure in heart, we really do live for God, and that is our all-embracing desire. If we are pure in heart, we are not only always trying to do what God wants us to do, but we are doing it because God wants it, and we try to make that our conscious aim. . .
Love for God is the one thing we should seek to have above all else. After all, the first and greatest commandment is that we should love God with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength. Jesus said that this is the first and greatest commandment, so it is the thing God wants more than anything else, as far as our conduct is concerned. If we want to please God, therefore, we want to love Him. Love for Him makes us do things to please Him. If we have the kind of love God wants us to have, it will impel us to choose always what pleases our Father in heaven. It will make pleasing God our one aim in all we do. But it is not only true that love makes us do what pleases God. It is also true that doing what pleases God makes our love for Him grow. Everything done explicitly to please God wins us the grace to grow closer to Him and to become even more pleasing to Him. So there is a double and very great value in doing anything to please God. . .
If we can make it a rule of conduct always to do what pleases God, and to remember God as we do it, as far as possible, then everything we do will enrich us beyond all belief. The least and most insignificant action done to please God becomes worth its weight in gold, or more accurately, worthy of a reward from God, which is a share, or greater share, in His own life and joy. . .
We sometimes get the impression from spiritual writers that what stops us from getting really close to God is . . . that we find pleasure in created things. Some writers give the impression that in order to find union with God we have to avoid doing anything that gives us pleasure, or, if we cannot help doing it, for example eating from time to time, then we should reject the pleasure. Now it is quite true that if we seek things or do things for pleasure alone, then they do get in the way of union with God. Our aim must always be God and not self, but God Himself has attached pleasure to many of the things we have or do, and it is good. It is not wrong to enjoy the pleasure God has attached to something when we are doing that thing for God. Have a meal for the glory of God, and the enjoyment in it is a bonus . . . Pleasure is not a bar to union with God unless we become attached to the pleasure instead of to God. Our aim may begin by being God, and then we let the pleasure draw us to it, and we end up aiming at getting pleasure instead of seeking God and His glory.
There are people who love God and pray a great deal, and their prayer gives them great pleasure. There is nothing wrong with that, but after a while they become so fond of the pleasure in praying that they no longer really do it for God’s sake. Instead of praying to please God, they are now doing it to please themselves, and God intervenes before long, as a rule, and takes away all the pleasure in prayer. Then the person gives up prayer if he has really become seriously attached to the pleasure in it. But the person who really does seek God keeps up his now pleasureless prayer because he is doing it for God and not for himself, and the chances are that before so very long, God will introduce a new and higher kind of pleasure into that person’s prayer as a reward for his fidelity and as an inducement to further efforts.
If we really do everything to please God, if we can renew that intention of pleasing God very often during the day, we shall not become attached to the pleasure involved in what we do, although we shall be glad of it and thank God for it. But we shall still seek to please God by what we do, even if it brings not pleasure but pain. Our aim is God, and whether we find pleasure or pain is secondary. We do not let that determine how we act. God’s holy will is what we want, and we try to do it without asking in advance whether we will enjoy it or find it painful.
