Who Are You Trying to Please?

Friend to Wife: “Do you think your husband is hard to please?”

Wife: “I really don’t know—I’ve never tried.”

Yeah, that's sad. What is even more sad is that for most marriages today this is true after about the first year or two. They just quit trying to please one another. What is the essence of marriage? It is not trying to get pleased by the other. Being willing to do things for the other even when you do not want to is good, but that is only a part of what self-sacrificial love is like. In truth, real love means wanting to do something for the other; always, even when it is difficult and unpleasant.

Now take this and translate it over to God. How often do we really try to please Him? Many Catholics today do not even try to please God in the Mass; they just come to Mass expecting to be pleased by the music (uggghhh!), or by the homily ("say nice things to me!"), or maybe by the other people there ("hi buddy"). When in reality we are supposed to come to Mass to please God not self; which is, of course, supposed to teach us how to live our entire lives. We are supposed to seek what we can do to please God in all things.

What did you do today to please God? Was it intentional? What will you do tomorrow? And the next day? Plan ahead, and make this the purpose of your entire life. If you do not do it here on earth, you will not be doing it in eternity.