Motives of Action

Mary, Mother, meek and mild-Blessed was she in her Child.  

Our actions derive a great deal of their character and merit from the motive or intention with which they are performed. The lowest of supernatural motives in the service of God is the fear of hell. It is a servile motive, it looks to self, it does not savour of spiritual intelligence or of the generosity which God deserves from us; yet it is not a bad or even an unworthy motive. If indeed this fear were the same as natural fear in slavish minds, if it led to service under compulsion, to service which would not be exhibited except for the mere dread of punishment without any thought of God, then our fear would be absolutely servile and worthless. But hell, properly considered, is chiefly the loss of God; and the fear of hell involves a desire for the possession of God as the essential perfection of our nature and the sum of all good to us; it is a fear of the evils involved in the loss of God. This is not a bad motive, for it is put before us in Holy Scripture. The wise man tells us that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. i. 7); and Jesus Himself says: " Fear Him that can destroy both body and soul in hell" (Matt. x. 28). The thought of the terrors of eternal punishment is certainly one of great power in helping the well-disposed to withstand temptation. Any motive wrhich has that effect has done much good; it may be an inferior one, yet our nature is not so lofty and generous that it can afford to dispense with even lowly motives as an assistance to a fervent life. Think often of the terrors of judgment; learn thence the odiousness of sin, and serve God better. Take care, however, that this be not your sole or chief motive. The lower one by no means excludes the higher.

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The Infirmities of Conscience

Mary, Mother, meek and mild-Blessed was she in her Child.  

The conscience is subject to two special infirmities which warp its judgment, and mislead us in action, and may be productive of great evils. One of these is scrupulousness. The word scruple connotes a petty and continual annoyance. A scruple is an exaggeration of conscientiousness; not that this can go too far; but it is the conscientious temper acting on a false judgment and an insufficient grasp of truth. It is the habit of timidity which thinks there is sin where there is no sin. It gives rise to hesitation before action and unprofitable self-searchings after it. It may proceed from a fervour which has not yet arrived at ripeness of experience, or from a secret pride, or from imprudence in following views that are accounted safer because they are more narrow and more rigorous. Scruples may be a result of our personal character, or may be permitted by God as a temptation to be resisted, or as a trial for our humiliation. They may injure us by causing discouragement and weariness of religious living; but judiciously treated they will conduce to our advantage. Remember that there is no sin except by a conscious act of the will, that God does not lay traps for you or rejoice in your destruction, that He does not expect absolute perfection from you in this life, that He is generous beyond possible conception in making allowance for your natural infirmities, and that the more miserable you are, the more His tenderness abounds. Thank your Lord for all this, and cast yourself upon Him with complete abandonment.

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The Deficiencies of Conscience

Mary, Mother, meek and mild-Blessed was she in her Child.  

In consequence of the Fall, Conscience is by no means perfect; it is liable to the influences of ignorance, prejudice, malice, and to those of heredity and surroundings; it has not the universality and rigidity of instinct in animals; it is often wanting in accuracy, in certainty, sometimes it fails entirely in its functions. Under the most favourable circumstances conscience sometimes fails to give a clear definite answer on an intricate question. We may find duties conflicting with one another. We may doubt about the law, its application, its modifications. Our course may be embarrassing, we may doubt which side is right, or suspect there is sin on both. Conscience is not useless even then. We must not indeed act upon its uncertain verdict, and run the risk of committing sin. True, it fails to enlighten us, but it has fulfilled its function in making us doubtful, and so impressing on us the duty of seeking counsel from God and men. Like the star which led the Magi, it sometimes sheds its light upon us directly and again partially fails us, so that we may use the other aids which God provides, and learn to mistrust our own faculties. The very uncertainty of conscience secures us a further degree of certainty from the other organs of God's speech to us. Beware of being too reliant on what you consider to be the supreme verdict of your conscience. It is difficult to discern the voice of human desire from the voice of God. Mistrust the influence of self, and be not too arrogant to seek advice from others.

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The Nature of Conscience

Mary, Mother, meek and mild-Blessed was she in her Child.  

God is the rule of perfect human life. Our goodness is conformity to God in inward and outward action. The principles that will guide us aright towards God are made known to us by the external aid of God's laws and the internal light which flows from Him upon the faculties of our soul. We have a misleading influence within us in the form of our animal emotions and inordinate passions. This is to be counterbalanced by the influence of our supersensible endowments. The intellect guides us in the apprehension of God as truth; the affections in the apprehension of Him as good; and these are supplemented by the conscience, which is a perception of the moral rectitude in God that should be reproduced in our actions. Conscience is an illumination superadded to the intellect for the guidance of the will; its object is all justice. This light is communicated to all mankind in a more or less perfect degree. In every action, the man who reflects is conscious of its relation not only to utility, or to pleasure and pain, but to honour or shamefulness, to moral goodness or evil. Unless we deliberately close our eyes, this sentiment will enlighten us before action; and afterwards, if we have done well, "Our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience" (2 Cor. i. 12); and if ill, it will sting us with remorse. Thank God for this gift, which is a further participation with Him, a manifestation of Himself to you under the form of sanctity, as well as truth and goodness. Endeavour to apprehend Him fully and reflect Him perfectly in a pure and upright conscience.

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Internal and External Activity

Mary, Mother, meek and mild-Blessed was she in her Child.  

Man has a double activity, that of the mind and soul within him, that of the bodily acts proceeding from the inner principle. The conscious, deliberate, internal activity is peculiar to him as man, and distinguishes him from the beasts, and gives his outward deeds their moral quality as good or bad. If by accident the inner principle is inactive, as in infants, or somnambulists, or lunatics, the overt action is not regarded as a human act, or as responsible before divine and civil law. When mind and will are active, they determine the character and the value of the external operation. The true human life is within us: there the battle is chiefly fought out between good and evil; there firstly is the Kingdom of God to be established (Luke xvii. 21). That which is visible is not the constituent of moral goodness, but that which is invisible. Therefore all judgment is reserved to God, and we must never pass sentence on our brethren; " for man seeth those things that appear, but the Lord beholdeth the heart" (1 Kings xvi. 7). Things which to the eye are most admirable may be in reality deeds of ostentation and hypocrisy; on the other hand, that which is lowly and unassuming may be an act of most exalted virtue. So the simplest action of Our Blessed Lord was worth infinitely more than the natural and supernatural virtues of all men and angels, by reason of the divine principle whence it proceeded. So the widow's mite was more than the offerings of the rich. So the humble life of Mary and Joseph in attendance on the Son of God was more than the lives of all Apostles and Martyrs, of all kings and sages and conquerors. So your merit and glory before God are not to be measured by opportunity or visible result, but by the dispositions and desires of your heart.

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The Morality of Actions

Mary, Mother, meek and mild-Blessed was she in her Child.  

Human actions, besides being intelligent and free, have in virtue of these qualities a further one. They have a moral character, i.e. a relation to a transcendent moral law; and they are good or bad accordingly. The mere fact that it pleases us to do a thing, that it proceeds from our intelligence and free-will, does not make it morally good. Neither does the command of the civil law, or the common custom of mankind, or the immediate utility of an act, or its pleasantness, or the fact of our being under a certain compulsion, make our actions good. They are good if they forward the chief purpose of man's existence, and bad if they are adverse to it. That purpose is the conformity of our lives to the ideal of human perfection as it is in the mind of God; and this ideal is made known to us by our reason, our conscience, and the revelation of God in His word and in Jesus Christ. God Himself is the rule of human morality. There are three factors in our actions which determine their conformity to their supreme standard; viz., their natural object and tendency, man's intention in performing them, and their accompanying circumstances. Some acts are good in all these respects; others are deficient in one or the other point, and are bad accordingly. Let your actions be perfect in all respects, and conformed to justice towards God and man. Let them not be guided by any considerations of selfish utility or human respect, but only by high principle of duty towards God and to your Christian character.

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Remedies For The Passions - Pt 2

Mary, Mother, meek and mild-Blessed was she in her Child.  

During this life good is always mingled with evil. "Mourning taketh hold of the end of joy" (Prov. xiv. 13). The dangers that beset our natural life are numerous, serious, unavoidable. "I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and affliction of spirit" (Eccle. i. 14). In order to warn us against natural evils and give us power to resist them, God has implanted emotions or passions in man of aversion, discontent, fear, horror, hatred, resistance, in the same way as the corresponding instincts in animals. All these have a good purpose of their own. Our work of progress in this world demands that we fight against and reduce the multitude of evils as we can; and we are provided with natural impulses accordingly. These are either to be followed in part or resisted in part, according to the nature of the evils in question, and the recommendations of reason enlightened by grace. The useful effects of natural evils on us, and the different modes of encountering them, are exemplified in the life of Our Lord. Though God, He was not imperturbable or unaffected by evils. He was sensible to emotions of fear, sympathy, disappointment, and even anger and indignation. He either resisted evil, or avoided it, or endured it painfully, as occasion demanded. His sensibility to it led Him to relieve the miseries of the afflicted, or to fight courageously against wrong, or to exhibit patience and the penitential spirit in submitting to it. The Stoic insensibility to evils was no virtue; natural emotions are not to be extinguished but regulated; the evils of life are useful as eliciting either our energy in resisting or our patience in enduring.

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