Our Lord Jesus Christ said: "If thine eye be single" (that is, simple and pure), "thy whole body shall be full of light."Our Lord Jesus Christ said: "If thine eye be single" (that is, simple and pure), "thy whole body shall be full of light."
The intention is the eye of the soul, because it is the motive which makes the soul act, the end which the soul proposes to herself, and the torch which enlightens and guides her. If this eye of the soul is single, that is to say, if the intention is simple and pure, if it only looks to God, if it is not double, if it does not seek its own interests, then our whole body that is to say, all our actions will be holy and will be enlightened by the true light, which is God.
The simplicity of the intention also includes its uprightness and its purity. The intention is upright when we do not seek to deceive ourselves, when we act in good faith, when we do all we possibly can to learn and to follow the truth. This uprightness of intention is very rare amongst men. Errors, prejudices, passions, vices, and even smaller defects and failings do it great harm, and create a false conscience often upon very important matters. As long as we are not upon our guard, and always upon our guard against self-love the most dangerous of all deceivers we have always reason to mistrust the uprightness of our intentions, and we are not free from reproach in this respect.
The intention is pure when it is not mixed, when God alone is the object of it, and when it is not infected by any motives of self-love. This purity of intention has its degrees, and is only perfect in the most holy souls; indeed, it is precisely in this purity of intention that holiness really consists. As long as we love God with some thought of our own advantage remaining as long as we do not love Him for Himself alone as long as we seek our own interest in His service as long as we seek ourselves ever so little as long as we strive after perfection for our own sakes and for the spiritual good which it will bring to us in a word, as long as the human enters into our intention, so long will that intention be, I do not say positively criminal and bad, but mixed up with imperfection and impurity; it will not have that beautiful simplicity which is so pleasing to God. Simplicity of intention absolutely excludes all multiplicity; it does not rest upon several objects, but upon one alone, which is God; and even in God it only considers His own glory, His good pleasure, and the accomplishment of His will. The simple intention is all for God; the soul has no thought of herself there, she counts for nothing there: it is not that her true interests are really neglected God forbid! but she pays no attention to them, she forgets them, she is even ready to sacrifice them if God required such a sacrifice of her, and she consents with her whole heart to serve Him for Himself alone without any hope of return. When we reach such a point as this, our intention is perfectly simple and pure, it communicates to even our smallest actions a value which is inestimable; God accepts them, God adopts them, looks upon them as His own, because they are done only with the view of pleasing Him; and we may imagine, when the time for rewards is come, will He not reward them liberally!
I boldly affirm that the least thing done with this purity of intention is of far greater value in the eyes of God than the greatest actions, those that are most painful and most mortifying to human nature, if they contain the least mixture of self-interest. It is because God does not look at the matter of our actions, but at the principle and the motive from which they spring; and because it is not what we do that glorifies Him, but the disposition of our hearts while we are doing it. We find a difficulty in understanding this because we cannot agree to put ourselves entirely on one side, and because our wretched self-love will glide in everywhere, and will corrupt and poison everything. But from its very nature the thing is and must be so; and if we will only consider ourselves we shall see that in the services rendered to us by others we follow the same rule as God does, and that we value these services less for what they are in themselves than on account of the affection which prompts them, and that it is this disposition of love and goodwill on the part of our neighbour which makes his services of real value in our eyes. The great difference between God and ourselves is that we cannot always be quite certain about this disposition of the heart, but God always can, because He always sees and reads our hearts.
But the truth remains; we wish, as He does, to be loved and served for our own sakes; this is what gives us pleasure, this is what makes the smallest action dear and precious to us; indeed, we think far more of the affection and goodwill to oblige us, even if no actual benefit follows, than we think of benefits that are not accompanied by the will to oblige us.
Now, we do not deserve to be loved and served for our own sakes; it is an injustice, it is a theft from God, when we desire to be loved in this way. But God does deserve it, and He alone has the right to claim such a love as this; He would have a right to it for many reasons even if, through His infinite goodness, He had not promised to reward our love and service.
But what must we do to attain to this purity of intention? One thing only: not guide ourselves, not dispose of ourselves in anything, but leave ourselves in the hands of God, and beg of Him to take charge of us not only as to exterior things but still more as to all that concerns our souls; that He would take possession of our mind and our heart; that He would inspire us with thoughts and affections and motives worthy of Him; that He would purify us from this leaven of self-love which is corrupting the innermost depths of our souls; and that, by means which He alone knows, and can alone make use of, He would at last raise us to this sublime purity. These means are hard to human nature, and they must be so, as their object is to destroy it. We must then expect to pass through many severe trials; but God will give to a generous soul the strength to bear them. She will feel that these trials are purifying her, that they are detaching her from herself, and uniting her to God more entirely; and this feeling will make them not only light and easy, but agreeable and desirable; so that, notwithstanding the extreme repugnance of nature, which cannot consent to its own destruction, she will accept them and embrace them with all her heart, and would not for anything in the world be delivered from them or see them at an end until the moment comes when God wills to deliver her.
All that we on our part have to do is, as soon as we perceive in our intentions anything that is human, or natural, or imperfect, to cast it away from us and disown it, following the light which God gives us. This light will change, according to the different states of soul into which we enter. At first it will only show us our most serious imperfections and faults; let us confine ourselves then to amending these, and let us take great care not to wish to be raised suddenly to a purity of disinterestedness of which we are not capable. Let us suffer God to act. Let us only have the intention that He may purify us; let us act with Him, making the sacrifices as He presents them to us; let us not try to go too fast, through the fervour of our imagination; and let us be quite sure that God will purify us at last by ways we could never have expected nor foreseen.
But is it not necessary, in every action we perform, to have an express and marked intention, and to say to ourselves "I do such and such a thing with such an intention"? This is what is called the direction of our intention. I reply that, when we have given ourselves once for all to God, this is not necessary, or even advisable. The general intention of always pleasing God, and always doing His will, is quite sufficient; and we always have this intention when once we have really and truly given ourselves to Him. As long as this gift of ourselves to Him lasts, the intention lasts also; there is no necessity to renew it or to reflect upon it, or, so to speak, to render an account of it to ourselves. If we ever perceive that we are seeking ourselves in anything, we have simply to give back to God what we were taking away from Him after having once given it, and then go on our way in the path of abandonment and resignation.
This general intention, which it is a good practice to renew every morning, includes perfectly all particular intentions, and in itself has more perfection than all the others put together. And if it is more perfect, it is also more advantageous to the soul, and gains for her more good than any other. Thus there is no need for us to propose to ourselves to satisfy for our sins by such and such a good work, or by acquiring such and such a virtue, or by obtaining such and such a grace.
The general intention of doing the will of God comprehends all this, and has the advantage of taking off our thoughts from ourselves, which the others have not. We need not then be surprised when we hear Saint Catherine of Genoa say that she could no longer think about gaining indulgences. Was it because she set no value on these treasures of the Church? It would be a crime if we were to think so. Was it because she had not the general intention of gaining them? Certainly she had that. Was it that she did not gain them for want of thinking expressly about them? God Himself was occupying her thoughts with something much better, and could He refuse the pardon of her sins, and the share in the merits of His saints, to a soul that lived only for His love, which was only governed by His Spirit, and which had no object but His glory?
Let us then have this pure intention, in the sense I have explained it, this simple look of the soul towards God, this zeal for His glory and His interests only. Let us think and act and suffer only for Him; and all our sins will be remitted, we shall acquire all virtues, we shall obtain all graces, and we shall in a manner oblige God to provide, because He is God, for all our needs, and to take care of our interests which we have neglected and forgotten and sacrificed for the sake of His.
This is the most holy and the most excellent method of all.
- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou