That’s what Christ told his disciples, and now, us. “Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them; otherwise, you shall not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 6,1)
As an example, he said: “Therefore, when you do an almsdeed, sound not a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honored by men. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Christ wants us to practice our charity quietly, without fanfare, vanity or pride. We have to carry out what we may call as the ministry of the unnoticed. That way, we do good works with purity of intention.
Doing good while passing unnoticed was the way Christ lived charity. He helped a lot of people but refused to be given praise for it. Even in his best expression of love for us when he conquered sin and death through his resurrection, it was hidden. What was made public was his crucifixion and death.
This way of acting would ensure that our works of charity are fully directed toward God, and not for human applause, which can easily be used as a cover for hypocrisy. This may be called as a holy discretion which would only allow God to know the good works, protecting us from the dangers of vanity and pride. All the glory should be to God, making the effort to avoid diverting it to us, not even in a most subtle way.
This way of acting can only show the supernatural maturity we have reached. It reflects a shift from a “childish” need for approval to a living divine filiation where being seen by God alone is sufficient.
This should also be a lesson for all of us to follow. In all our thoughts, words and actuations, we should see to it that we feed our faith, that we are led to God, that in the end we manage to live true charity that includes all the other virtues.
We should do our best to avoid getting hijacked in the purely material or practical aspects of our life. We should imitate Christ in his discretion and restraint, in his art of passing unnoticed, in his effort to avoid grabbing unnecessary and dangerous attention from others, by seeing to it that our thoughts, words and deeds truly lead others to God, and not simply to us.
At best, we should simply be conductors to bring others to Christ. We should avoid making ourselves something like idols, objects of interest. The ideal situation would be that all who see us should see Christ, as he himself said it clearly to his apostles, then to us.
We have to learn to pass unnoticed while doing things that would lead others to Christ! We need to realize then that we have to take utmost care of our intention, making it as explicit as possible, and honing it to get engaged with its proper and ultimate object who is God.
We should try our best to shun being simply casual or cavalier about this responsibility. We can easily play around with it, since intentions are almost invariably hidden from public knowledge. We are urged to be most sincere in directing our intentions properly.
We can easily fall into hypocrisy and deception, doing what can appear good externally but is not internally, since we could refuse giving glory to God, which is the proper intention to have, and instead feed and stir our vanity, pride, greed, lust, etc. (Fr. Roy Cimagala)
