All that we do receives its value from conformity to the will of God. When I take food or recreation, if I do it because it is the will of God, I merit more than if I went to suffer death without that intention. Plant this principle finnly in your mind, and then at every action fix your eyes upon it, in imitation of the carpenter, who brings every board under the square. Thus, you will do your work with perfection.—-St. Francis de Sales

This truth was well understood by the good lay-brother who said that when he was sitting at table, he was preaching Xavier’s sermons in India; for the best thing about Xavier’s preaching was that he did the will of God by it, which the lay-brother was also doing.

St. Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi had this perfect conformity, not only habitual and implied, but also actual. So that while it seems to most spiritual persons a very difficult thing to direct every action actually to God, it was so easy and familiar to her that she thought it impossible for anyone to work without reflecting upon the will of God.