Our intentions are important to God. Why are we doing what we are doing? Doing all the right things, going through all the motions of a pious life don’t matter to God if our heart is not in the right place. That’s the message I get from Jesus’ parable comparing the ostentatious scribes and other rich folks to the poor widow in today’s gospel. Giving just to look good to the community doesn’t cut it with God. God looks into the heart and sees our motivation, knows if we are offering ourselves, all that we are, all that we have, all that we do, to God’s service – or not.

When our intentions are pure, God-centered rather than self-centered, God can use us as his hands and feet and voice to incarnate God’s love in the world around us. That is his desire. When, on the other hand, we intend our actions to glorify ourselves rather than God, we are no more than “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”(I Cor. 13:1b) to use Paul’s words. People may hear us, notice us, pay attention to us, but God’s love will not be shining through all the noise, all the busy activity, all the work we do to garner status and self-esteem. Regardless of what all our effort looks like on the outside, regardless of what others think of what we do, what counts is the intention of our heart, what inspires us in our doing.

God continually pours out Love into our lives in more ways that we can ask or imagine. It is God’s intent that Love so freely given will be received joyfully and passed on just as freely to others so that everything we do is done for Love, through Love, and in love.