“I do not receive glory from men,” Jesus tells us in the Gospel. His whole life bears witness to the truth of these words. For thirty years he lived unnoticed in Nazareth, known simply as the carpenter’s son, without seeking attention or distinguishing himself by anything artificial or eccentric. When his public life began, the same naturalness remained. He preached, worked miracles and drew crowds, but he never sought popularity for its own sake. Praise did not change the direction of his life, nor did rejection. Even when envy and hostility led ultimately to the Cross, his eyes remained fixed on fulfilling the will of his Father. Christ thus gives us the perfect example of rectitude of intention: to live and act not for our own glory, but for the glory of God.
Our Lord warns us how easily the desire for human approval can interfere with our relationship with God: “How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” There is nothing wrong with appreciating the good opinion of others or being pleased when our work is recognized. We naturally value the esteem of people whom we respect, and a good reputation can itself be a means of serving others. The danger arises when their approval becomes the motive that governs us. We can begin to choose what makes us look good, become discouraged when our efforts go unnoticed, or measure the value of what we do by the recognition it receives. Rectitude of intention gives us freedom from this dependence. We can work wholeheartedly, welcome legitimate success and appreciate gratitude without allowing any of these things to become the reason for which we live.
St. Teresa of Avila once expressed this supernatural outlook with characteristic force: everything that passes away and is not pleasing to God is ultimately worth nothing. Her words do not imply that temporal realities are unimportant. Our work, friendships, family responsibilities, recreation and human achievements all possess genuine value. Christianity does not ask us to withdraw our interest from the world, but to discover its deepest meaning by ordering everything toward God. A person may achieve remarkable professional or social success and yet fail in what matters most if God has gradually disappeared from his life. Conversely, someone whose life appears very ordinary may be accomplishing something of immense value through daily fidelity to God’s will.
This is why rectitude of intention gives unity to the whole Christian life. We do not glorify God only when we pray or perform explicitly religious actions. St. Paul tells us: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Our work, family life, friendships and recreation can all be directed toward him. We can begin an ordinary task with a simple offering: Lord, I do this for you. We then concentrate on the task itself and try to do it as well as we can. A doctor must attend to his patient, a student to his studies and a parent to the needs of the family. There is no need to maintain a continuous explicit thought of God while carrying out every duty. The intention with which we begin gives direction to the action, and we can renew it naturally during the day.
God does not need the glory we give him, since his perfection is infinite and nothing can add to it. We glorify him because it is true and just to recognize him as the source and ultimate end of everything good. In doing so, we also discover the proper order of our own lives. We were created by God and for God, and created things cannot provide the ultimate meaning for which the human heart was made. Success, money, professional achievement, influence and the affection of others are genuine goods, but they become distorted when we expect from them what only God can give. Much of the restlessness we experience comes from asking finite things to bear a weight they were never meant to carry.
Rectitude of intention is therefore closely connected with humility. St. Paul asks a question that goes to the root of the matter: “What have you that you did not receive?” Whatever is good in us has, in some fundamental sense, been received. Our intelligence, health, temperament, opportunities, education and talents depend upon countless circumstances that we did not create. Even the ability to develop those gifts presupposes other gifts. On the supernatural level our dependence is greater still, because faith, grace and our vocation to holiness are entirely gratuitous. Christ reminds us: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” As we grow in the spiritual life or see apostolic fruit around us, humility leads us to recognize the source from which that fruit ultimately comes.
This does not mean denying our own effort or pretending that human abilities are insignificant. Christian humility has nothing to do with belittling ourselves. St. Paul, who understood our dependence on God profoundly, could also say: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” These two truths belong together. We are limited creatures who depend upon God, and at the same time he has given us intelligence, freedom and real responsibility. We are expected to develop our talents, work seriously, make decisions and persevere. The difference is that we do not treat ourselves as the ultimate source of whatever good we accomplish. Our confidence rests not in self-sufficiency but in the conviction that God can work through our weakness when we place our abilities at his service.
The refusal to acknowledge this dependence lies at the root of idolatry. Scripture gives us the dramatic image of the Israelites fashioning the golden calf and then attributing to the work of their own hands what God alone had done for them. Our idols are usually less obvious, but the temptation remains. We can make an idol of professional success, money, reputation, influence or comfort whenever one of these created goods begins to occupy the place that belongs to God. We can even make an idol of ourselves by becoming excessively preoccupied with our plans, achievements and image. The more everything revolves around us, the more difficult it becomes to see ourselves truthfully.
This self-centredness is also exhausting. If we depend upon recognition, there will never be enough of it. Someone else will always receive more praise, achieve greater success or attract more attention. We become sensitive to slights and disappointed when our contribution is overlooked. Humility frees us from much of this unnecessary suffering because it allows us to forget ourselves more readily. We do not need to deny our gifts; we can recognize them gratefully and use them fully. Nor do we have to pretend that appreciation means nothing to us. We simply try not to depend upon it. When praise comes, we receive it naturally. When it does not, the value of what we have done remains unchanged if it was done well and offered to God.
A particularly revealing test comes when someone else receives the credit for something to which we contributed. If the good has genuinely been accomplished, can we be satisfied even when our name is not associated with it? Vanity often enters good work very subtly. We may begin with a sincere desire to serve and gradually become attached to our own importance. We want others to know what part we played, become irritated when our advice is not followed, or feel threatened when someone proves more capable than we are. These reactions should not surprise or discourage us. They simply show us where our intention needs to be purified.
Our motives, in fact, are rarely perfectly pure. We may sincerely want to serve God while also enjoying recognition, or undertake a worthwhile project partly from generosity and partly because success is personally satisfying. We should not become absorbed in analyzing every hidden motive. The spiritual life is simpler than that. When we notice vanity or self-seeking, we rectify our intention. We return the work to God and continue. Before beginning something, during the effort and after it is completed, we can renew the desire that everything be for him. Over time, this repeated rectification gradually purifies the heart.
The same principle applies especially to professional work. We should want to work well, and rectitude of intention never excuses incompetence or indifference to results. If anything, offering our work to God gives us an additional reason to carry it out with care. Yet professional excellence can easily become entangled with vanity. We may begin to seek prestigious assignments, resent criticism or compare ourselves continually with others. The remedy is not to abandon ambition in the good sense of the word, but to purify it. We should want to develop our abilities and accomplish worthwhile things because our work serves others and contributes to the common good, not because professional success determines our worth.
Apostolic work requires the same purification. We naturally want our efforts to bear fruit, but we must remember the words of the Psalm: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain.” This does not mean that our effort is unnecessary. God normally chooses to work through human instruments, and he expects us to use intelligence, initiative and perseverance. We can teach, encourage, accompany others and give good example, but we cannot manufacture conversion or control another person’s response to grace. Remembering this protects us from both pride and discouragement. When there is visible fruit, we thank God; when little seems to happen, we continue faithfully without assuming that our work has been useless.
To see ourselves as instruments in God’s hands does not diminish our personality or freedom. A good instrument must be suited to the work, and God makes use of the very qualities he has given us. Our intelligence, professional preparation, temperament and experience all matter. Docility to God means allowing these gifts to remain at his service rather than using them principally to exalt ourselves. We do our part as well as we can while recognizing that the final fruitfulness belongs to him. This attitude also makes collaboration easier, because we do not need every good result to be identified with us personally.
Failure often reveals whether our intention is truly directed toward God. When our identity depends too heavily upon success, a failed project or rejected proposal can feel like a judgment on our entire worth. Rectitude of intention gives us a more balanced perspective. We should examine what went wrong, accept responsibility where necessary and learn from mistakes, but visible failure is not the final measure of a life offered to God. The Cross itself reminds us of this. What appeared to be the complete defeat of Christ became the instrument of redemption. We rarely see the full consequences of our fidelity, and God can bring good from circumstances that seem fruitless to us.
Success presents a different danger. When things go well, we can gradually begin to attribute everything to ourselves. Yet the more honestly we look at our lives, the more clearly we see how much we have received. Our talents were given to us; other people educated and helped us; opportunities arose that we did not create; and grace has acted in ways we cannot measure. Gratitude allows us to acknowledge our genuine effort without making ourselves the ultimate explanation of our achievements. There is no need for false modesty. We can recognize that we have worked hard and done something well while still saying sincerely: Thank you, Lord.
Rectitude of intention also protects us from excessive human respect. The opinions of others matter, and prudence requires us to consider how our actions affect them. A good reputation can be important for fulfilling our responsibilities, and we should listen humbly when others criticize us. But approval cannot become our final standard. Christ remained faithful to the Father when he was praised and when he was rejected. We too will sometimes have to do what is right even when it is misunderstood. The freedom to act according to truth, while remaining charitable and open to correction, is one of the fruits of seeking God’s glory rather than our own.
Our Lady gives us the perfect example of this purity of intention. Her humility did not consist in denying the extraordinary things God had done in her. In the Magnificat she acknowledges them openly, but immediately gives the glory to their source: “He who is mighty has done great things for me.” Her life remained centred on God and attentive to others. At Cana she noticed the needs of the wedding couple and then directed everyone toward Christ: “Do whatever he tells you.” Her hidden life shows us that humility does not make a person insignificant. On the contrary, the person who does not need to place himself at the centre becomes freer to serve and more available to God.
We can ask Our Lady to help us live with the same freedom. We want to use our talents fully, work well, serve others and accomplish whatever good God entrusts to us, while resisting the temptation to make ourselves the centre of that good. When praise comes, we can receive it gratefully without living for it; when our work remains unnoticed, we can continue without resentment. Success becomes an occasion for thanksgiving, and failure an opportunity to learn and renew our trust. In this way, rectitude of intention gradually gives unity to our whole life, because beneath all the different things we do there is one enduring desire: to please God and give him all the glory.
By the Via Virtutis team
Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash
