The Rewards of Godliness

 

"Lord, teach me to be generous.

Teach me to serve you as you deserve,

To give and not to count the cost,

To fight and not to heed the wounds,

To toil and not to seek for rest,

To labor and not to ask for reward,

Save that of knowing that I am doing Your Will."

--St. Ignatius of Loyola, "Prayer for Generosity"

During the course of my schooling at a Jesuit school, I became well acquainted with the above prayer by St. Ignatius.  It is a prayer to dedicated to the Lord despite all the difficulties that come our way during this lifetime on earth.  "In the world you will have trouble," informed the Lord, and this is very true.  Christians will always experience friction with the aspects of the world that have not been fully enlightened by the light of Christ.  This is the basic theme of most of the prayer: Lord, teach me to serve You despite the difficulties the world will place on me.  One line has intrigued me, though: "To labor and not to ask for reward."

We Are Men, Not Gods

Cornelius Falls to His Knees before St. Peter and Worships Him  (1582) by Philips Galle (1537-1612)

"Arise: I myself am a man."--Acts 10:26

Christ, the Crucified and Risen One, the Author of Life, is both God and man, two natures united without division or confusion or admixture.  Christians, though, even when divinized, are still men.  Holiness can lead to confusion on this matter, as it did when Cornelius fell on his feet and reverenced the Holy Apostle Peter, who had to remind him, "I myself am a man."  Even worse happened to Barnabas and Paul, when the priest of Dios almost led the crowd to offer bulls and wreaths to them in sacrifice, and they had to tear their cloaks and cry out, "Men, what things do you do?  For we are men of like passions to you."