The perfection of Christian morality

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

TO be upfront about this point, it is when we do everything for the glory of God when we can truly achieve the perfection of Christian morality. Our human acts should not just be done to pursue a purely natural goal, no matter how legitimate it is, as in being interested only in achieving efficiency, effectiveness, profitability, etc. It should all be done for the glory of God.

Aside from the matter of our human acts, which should in itself be in accordance to God’s laws, the intention of our human acts plays a crucial role. With it, we can determine whether we are truly good and moral, or are simply playing around, playing the game of hypocrisy, appearing righteous when we truly are not.

We know that with our intention, we can direct our acts to God, following what was once indicated by St. Paul, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10,31) That’s how our acts become good, or moral. Otherwise, they are bad, or at least dangerous.

This is so, since God, being the Creator, is the standard for everything. And more than the standard, he is, in fact, the very substance of what is good, true and beautiful, what is fair and just, what is perfection itself.

Nothing is good, true and beautiful, nothing is fair and just, nothing is perfect if it is not done with God and for God. In short, we need to refer all our acts to God. We have to make this affirmation very clear in our mind and do everything to make that ideal a reality.

It is actually when we do everything for the glory of God that we achieve the best condition of our life, where we can find peace and joy despite the challenges, trials and the possibility of committing mistakes in our life. It is when we do everything for the glory of God that we can work better.

We should see to it that we have the proper intention in all our human acts, avoiding simply being casual or cavalier about this responsibility. We can easily play around with it, since intentions are almost invariably hidden from public knowledge. We are urged to be most sincere in directing our intentions properly.

We can easily fall into hypocrisy and deception, doing what can appear good externally but is not internally, since we could refuse giving glory to God, which is the proper intention to have, and instead feed and stir our vanity, pride, greed, lust, etc.

We need to actively purify our intentions, since we have to contend with many spoilers in this regard these days. In fact, we just have to look around and see how openly opposed many people are of directing their intentions to God.

We really need to train ourselves to make God the beginning and end, the Alpha and Omega, of all our thoughts, words and deeds. We need to rectify our intentions and keep that rectitude all the way to the consummation of those intentions.

This will indeed require a lot of discipline. Very often we are simply dominated by worldly values, like efficiency, profitability, practicability, etc., which if not inspired by love for God will always fall short of what is proper to us.

Given our unreliable condition, rectifying and purifying our intentions should be a constant concern of ours if we truly are interested in achieving the perfection of Christian morality.

In the end, the perfection of Christian morality is when we do things with God and for God. And that means we do things with God’s grace, identifying ourselves fully with him.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com