Be Perfect: Part One
“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” [1]
Let’s be perfectly honest for a moment. If you’re anything like me, this verse is likely to bring on a light sweat. “You… must be perfect” is rough enough, but “as your heavenly Father is perfect”? I used to have trouble keeping up with the Martha Stewart Home Collection! What on Earth can Our Lord mean by this? Because if it’s that I ought to be pulling myself up by my own boot straps, I’m going to go ahead and hand in my boots right now.
On this World Day for Consecrated Life, the problem appears to be made even worse for us consecrated religious (or those on the way to becoming consecrated religious). By professing a vow to maintain poverty, chastity and obedience for life, the religious is said to enter into a ‘State of Perfection’. Now, with respect to all my sisters, the closest thing I’ve seen to perfect in our house is Sr. Mary Catharine’s Triple Crème cheese. What hope is there of our living in a constant ‘State of Perfection’ for life?
I feel tired just thinking about it.
Fortunately, St. Thomas Aquinas is here to help. After a few thousand words, he can always clear things up. With regards to Christian perfection, he only needs a few paragraphs! In Question 184 of his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas makes it clear that actual perfection is not required, not for the Christian, and not even for those called to enter the religious life – “The Divine Law does not prescribe the impossible.”[2] For which we can all be exceedingly thankful.
So, what does it mean, then, for the Christian to ‘be perfect’? And what does it mean for consecrated religious to live in a ‘State of Perfection’?
First of all, St. Thomas reminds us that, for something to be perfect, it should attain to its proper end – that for which it was made. For the human person, that ‘proper end’ is nothing less than total union with God Himself. And, since St. John tells us that “he that abides in love (charity) abides in God, and God abides in him”[3], it is clear that charity is the path to that end. Therefore, the perfection of the Christian life consists in perfect charity.
So far, a little clearer, but how do we reach perfect charity?
St. Thomas tells us that it can be perfected in three key ways. The first is absolute on the part of the lover and the one loved. This means that God is loved fully as he deserves to be. Since He is infinite Goodness, nothing can love Him in this way except Himself. We creatures are finite, so we could never contain that much love in our limited selves!
The second kind of perfection is at least possible for us, and that is perfection on the part of the lover. This means that the person loving (that’s us!) loves with their whole being, without any obstacle between their love and the one loved. Well, at least it’s possible for us in Heaven...
But what about right now?
That’s where the third kind of perfection comes in, what we’re ultimately capable of in this life, and that is a partial perfection on the part of the lover. This means that, while we’re still on the way to total charity, there is nothing tripping us up on the road – we’re free to run to Him, without mortal sin, or any other affections barring the way or keeping us distracted from giving our whole selves to Him. This is what many of the saints lived while on earth, and it’s the ‘be perfect’ that Jesus earnestly desires for us and knows will help us to reach total union with the Father in Heaven. That’s why He said that all of the law and the prophets rest on two commandments, “… love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” [4] and “… love your neighbor as yourself”[5].
Does that mean that those who are in a ‘State of Perfection’ have already made it? Hardly.
But if you want to learn more about what it means for the consecrated religious to ‘be perfect’, you’ll have to tune in for our next installment where we’ll break into Question 186!
[1] Matthew 5:48 (Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition)
[2] Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, II II, Q184, Art. 2.
[3] 1 John 4:16
[4] Matthew 22:37-38
[5] Matthew 22:39
