Untitled - Saints' Books

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True
INSTR. x.] The Love of God. 397
which we perform: Let not thy left hand know what thy
right hand doth? The Son of God tells us to conceal our
works, that, as St. Augustine remarks, what we do for
God may not be afterwards lost through vanity. 2 God
abominates rapine in the holocaust: / the Lord . . .
hate robbery in a holocaust? By rapine is meant precisely
the seeking of our own glory, or of self-interest in the
works of God. He who truly loves, says St. Bernard,
merits a reward, but does not seek it: the only recom
pense that he demands is to please the God whom he
loves. 4 In a word, as the same saint says in another
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love is content with itself;" with
place,
being love, and demands nothing more.
that is,
The marks by which a priest may know whether he
acts with a pure intention are the following:
i. If he
loves works that are attended with greater incon
venience and less glory.
2. If he preserves peace when
he has not attained the object that he proposed. He
who works for God has already attained his end, which
is to please God; and, on the other hand, he who is dis
turbed when he fails in the attainment of his object
shows that he has not labored solely for God. 3. If he
rejoices in the good done by others as if it had been
done by himself, and entertains no jealousy when others
engage in the works that he performs, but desires to see
all laboring to give glory to God, and says with Moses:
Oh that all the /"
people might prophesy
The days of the priest who performs all his actions
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y
app.
Ixi. 8.
Nesciat sinistra tua quid faciat dextera tua." Matth. vi. 3.
Quod facit amor Dei, non corrumpat
vanitas." Serm. 63, E. B.
Ego Dominus, . . . odio habens rapinam
in holocausto." Isa.
4
Verus amor "
prsemium non requirit, sed meretur; habet prsemium,
sed id quod amatur." De dil. Deo, c. 7.
5 "
Verus amor seipso contentus est."
6 "
Quis tribuat ut omnis populus prophetet!" Num. xi. 20,.