WHAT WE HAVE DONE OR FAILED TO DO
FOR GOD DURING THIS YEAR

90.1    First Point

            We are in this world only to love God and to please him. This is what we should do throughout all our lives, for this is the first thing God commands of us, which includes the whole law,[i] as Our Lord says. Our love for God should be so great that we love nothing but God or for God. We can prove our love in three ways: the first is when we have a high esteem for God; the second is when we attach ourselves to God alone; the third is when we do all our actions for God.

            Has it been apparent during this year that you have esteemed God alone? Have you often considered with admiration his infinite greatness, and then have you been filled with so profound a respect at the vision of his sublime perfections that you cried out with the Royal Prophet that their excellence cannot be conceived, nor can they be adored or praised as much as they deserve? Have you recalled to yourself that God was present with you everywhere? Have you interiorly realized your nothingness with a felling of adoration at the thought of God’s presence? And since there is nothing more pleasing for a soul who lives God than to pay attention to him, have you made this your joy[ii] as David did? Out of respect for the presence of so great a God have you been careful to maintain yourself in an attitude of recollection appropriate and proper to his grandeur? And since God is present everywhere, have you adored him everywhere? Pay attention to all this in order to show God how great an esteem you have for him.

90.2 Second Point

            Since our soul has been created by God only teat we might en­joy him, all our happiness on earth consists in being attached to him alone,[iii] as the Royal Prophet says very well. It would be disgraceful for a soul, says Saint Leo, that shares in the divine nature, to fall so low from its original nobility as to degrade itself f by taking its pleasure in creatures. And to whom should we attach ourselves if not to the one from whom we have received everything, `who alone is Our Lord and our Father, and who, as Saint Paul says, has given being to all things and has made us only for himself?[iv] It is this thought and the gratitude we owe him for all his goodness to us that should have fre­quently occupied our minds and touched our hearts during this year in order to engage us to give ourselves entirely to God, and to tell him with Saint Augustine, My God, you have made us for yourself alone, and our hearts will never be at rest until fey rest in you!

90.3 Third Point

            If we truly love God, everything we do we should do for his glory,[v] Saint Paul says. It should be for no other reason that you have withdrawn yourselves from the world, for it is God who must be the purpose of your actions, just as he is their source If you seek to please anyone other than God, you would not deserve, says Saint Paul, to bear the name of servants of Jesus Christ,[vi] bemuse you would really not be such, since a servant must do everything for the service of his master. This was the advice that Saint Paul gave to the faithful in his day. Whether you eat, he says, or whether you drink, or whatever else you do, do it all for the glory of God,[vii] and again, Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.[viii] Such should be the whole consolation, of a Christian in this life: to act for the God who made him, from whom he receives everything, and to whom he owes all the good that he can do in this life.