AGAINST OVER-EAGERNESS.
Blessed Francis advised his penitents to avoid above all things, excessive eagerness, which, in his view, is the mortal foe of true devotion. He says: "It is far better to do a few things well than to undertake many good works and leave them half done."
This was the mistake of the man in the Gospel who began to build and was not able to finish because he had not counted the cost beforehand. There are some who think they are never doing well unless they are doing much. They are like the Pharisees who considered the perfection of prayer to consist in its length. Our Lord reproves them for this and much more for devouring widows' houses with their long prayers. In one of his Conferences the Saint speaks thus: "It is not by the multiplicity of things we do that we acquire perfection, but by the perfection and purity of intention with which we do them."
And this is what he says on the subject in his Theotimus: "To do few actions but with great purity of intention and with a firm will to please God, is to do excellently. Such greatly sanctify us. Some men eat much, and yet are ever lean, thin, and delicate, because their digestive power is not good; there are others who eat little, and yet are always in excellent health and vigorous, because their stomach is good. Even so, there are some souls that do many good works and yet increase but little in charity, because they do those good works either coldly and negligently, or have undertaken them rather from natural instinct and inclination than because God so willed and with heaven-given fervour. On the contrary, others there are who get through little work, but do it with so holy a will; and inclination, that they make a wonderful advancement in charity; they have little talent, but they husband it so faithfully that the Lord largely; rewards them for it."[1]
[Footnote 1: Love of God. B. xii., c. 7.]