Chapter One
Cultivate the spirit of simplicity Why does the Gospel present to us the dove as the model and ideal of Christian simplicity, saying, “Be ye simple as doves”? To understand this, we must have a clear idea of what simplicity really is. Simplicity, or purity of intention, consists in keeping before yourself, in all your thoughts, words, and acts, one and the same end, one and the same object - namely, the pleasing of God, or, more accurately, the doing of His will. Thus understood, simplicity appears to us as a virtue at once essential and far-reaching. “Man was created for God,” says St. Ignatius at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises, in that first meditation, which he justly calls fundamental, because it is the foundation of the whole Christian order. These admirable Exercises are based entirely upon this first profound truth; they are, as it were, but its commentary and development. God is, in effect, the sole veritable end, the last end of man. If man sees only God, seeks only God, attaches himself only to God; if he voluntarily directs toward God his thoughts, his words, his acts, and his whole life; if, in some sort, he passes amid creatures without pausing, if he fails to find in them his repose as in an end, but desires to rest only in God - then he is in the way of truth and order; he is righteous and holy, because he is perfectly simple. The catechism expresses the same idea in saying, “Man is created to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him, and thus to reach eternal life.” Now, how do we refer to God our thoughts, words, and actions? By our intention - that is, by the motive that determines our will freely to produce them. Our operations and our actions considered in themselves, independent of the motive that has prompted them, have, properly speaking, no moral value; they are bodies without souls. The moral value is in us, in our free will, which is the soul of all that we do and gives to our actions their meaning and their worth. Men judge us according to the exterior, according to the words that they hear and the actions that they see. This is why they are so often unjust, severe, and ill-natured. But God judges us according to what He sees within; He looks on our heart, our will, our motive, and our intention, and it is according to these that He approves or blames, rewards or punishes. Such is the meaning of these words in the Gospel: “If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome. But if thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be darksome.” The eye signifies intention, for, just as the eye directs our steps, so does the intention guide the movements of our soul; the intention is the eye of our soul. If our soul looks toward God, if it freely directs toward Him our thoughts, words, and actions, then all that we do, all that we say, and all that we think becomes by this very fact supernatural and good. The Gospel expresses this in saying, “Thy whole body shall be lightsome.”
Thus, the merit of human actions lies wholly in the intention. Our actions have simply the value of our intention. In affirming this, the Gospel overthrows pharisaism, and at the same time substitutes the religion of the spirit and the veritable kingdom of God that is within us. Thenceforth, simplicity becomes the soul of the spiritual life, since it consists precisely in purity of intention. Simplicity gives to the life of the spirit all its depth and value. The simple soul is ever pleasing to God, because it ever looks toward Him, and seeks for Him always, having no ambition other than to do His will in order to procure His glory. To be simple is to see, love, and desire God in all creatures and in all things; it is to unify one’s life with God.
