And that is the pattern for our love for God – true and unspoilt, so that whatever we do, we seek to please, not ourselves, but him only, who alone is the adorable source of all goodness and love; who alone has created us and died for us so that we might have the joy of being his for ever; who preserves us hour by hour and day by day; and who, in return for all his generous love, asks us for one thing and one thing only – that we should love him truly for himself alone, just because he is God.

But in order to love him like that, we have to do the most difficult thing which the Lord requires of us – we have to put ourselves right out of the picture.  For what counts with God is not just what we do as why we do it.

There is all the difference between people who obey God because they love him, and those who obey God because they want to get to Heaven; between people who serve the Church for the Lord’s sake, and those who serve in order to secure a position of influence or standing in the Christian community of which they are a member.