Good Intention: The Life of One’s Actions

What the body is without life, the same is the action without good intention … What St. Peter left in order to follow Christ, and what the widow offered in the Gospel, is most estimable because of the good intention with which it was done. (OOCC, X, pp. 601 - 602; STA, 202)

The goodness or the evilness of an action depends on the good or evil intention with which a person performs it. The merit one can gain from an action is in proportion to the quality of the good intention involved in the performance of the action in question. Realizing this truth, St. Vincent Pallotti considered good intention as the life of one’s actions. He compared good intention to life saying that just as a body cannot be alive without life, so also an action would be dead without the good intention. He illustrated  this  truth  with  two  examples  from  the  Gospel:  St.  Peter’s response to the call of Jesus and the offering of the widow at the temple. When Jesus called St. Peter to be his disciple, he immediately left everything and followed him. Similarly, the widow in the temple offered the little she had to the Lord. In both of these cases, the generosity St. Peter showed in offering himself to the Lord, and the generosity the widow showed in offering all she had to the Lord were meritorious because of the good intentions of the two people involved in performing these actions. St. Vincent Pallotti translated this belief in his everyday life. He took great care to have the purest of intentions in everything he did in his life. Whether it was prayer, apostolic activities or interactive relationship with others, St. Vincent was motivated by the purest intention of glorifying God.

Am I conscious of the intentions with which I perform the various actions of each day? Do I recognize the value of good intention in making my acts more meritorious? Do I take care to form good and pure intentions before I begin performing an action?

Create in me a new, clean heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires. (Ps. 51: 10)