which "are done to be seen of men" "have their
reward," that is, the sort of reward they seek, human approval; they
have no value in the realm of the spirit.

But the life that is lived as sacrifice, as a thing perfectly offered to
God, is a life growing up in God day by day. It is our Lord's life,
summed up from this point of view in the "I come to do thy will, O
God." Its most perfect reflection is caught by blessed Mary with her
acceptance of God's will: "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord." But it is
the life expression of all sanctity; for the saint is such chiefly by
virtue of his sacrificial attitude. It is the completest account of the
life of sanctity that it "leaves all" to follow a divine call. It is the
response of the Apostles who, as James and John, leave their father
Zebedee and the boats and the nets and the hired servants, to follow
Jesus. It is the answer of Matthew who rises from the receipt of custom
at the Master's word. It is the answer of all saints in all times.
Sanctity means the abandonment of all for Christ: it means the embracing
of the poverty of Jesus and Mary.

Is sanctity then, or the possibility of it, shut within the narrow
limits of a poor life? Well, even if it were, the limits would not be so
very narrow. By far the greater part of the human race at any time has
been poor, as poor as the Holy Family. Unfortunately, Christianity is
forgetting its vocation of poverty and becoming a matter of
well-to-do-ness. But we need not forget that the poor are the majority.
However, the fact is not that economical poverty is automatically
productive of spirituality, but that accepted and offered poverty is the
road to the heart of God. It is not denied that the rich man may
consecrate and offer his goods to God and make them instruments of God's
service; but in the process he runs great risk of deceiving himself and
of attempting to deceive God--the risk of quietly substituting for the
spirit of sacrifice the spirit of commercial bargaining, and attempting
to buy the favour of God, and of ransoming his great possessions by a
well-calculated tribute. It is not so much our possessions as the way we
hold them that is in question; it is a question whether the inner motive
of our life is the will to sacrifice or the will to be rich. "They that
desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many
foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition,"

These dangers S. Pau