In a preliminary note to the Contemplation to Attain Love, the prayer that draws together and concludes his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius of Loyola remarks that ‘Love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words’ (Exx 230). This was not an original thought. One of his mentors, Thomas à Kempis, had written a century earlier in Of the Imitation of Christ, ‘I had rather feel contrition, than know the definition thereof’. And Jesus himself is recorded in the synoptic Gospels as saying that only those who do the will of his Father, and not simply those who call him Lord, will enter the Kingdom of God. A broad current of Christian thinking is suspicious of words alone, and expects any fervent professions of faith to be matched by actions that demonstrate that faith in practice.
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