In Spiritual Exercises #53, St. Ignatius Loyola has the retreatant reflect upon himself and ask:
-“What have I done for Christ?”
-“What am I doing for Christ?”
-“What ought I to do for Christ?”
The things that we do, for St. Ignatius, are ways of expressing gratitude to God and collaborating with Christ his son. It is our love for Jesus that motivates us to join him in his work. Thus, our activities are an expression of our desire to be with Christ. The epistle of James expresses a similar idea. “Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). Works are an expression of a living faith. What a thing does, reveals what the thing is. If you perform Christian acts, that expresses your Christian faith. If you are devoid of Christian acts, then either you have no faith at all, or your faith is dead. “Faith without works is useless,” (James 2:20) “what good is it?” (James 2:16).