Be Perfect: Part Two
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect;
but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” [1]
Last week, we saw that the ‘Perfect’ Jesus asks of us is the perfection of our love - not that we love God absolutely, or even with complete freedom, but that we allow the grace of God to remove every obstacle to our love. If this is the call to perfection for every Christian, though, what does it mean for consecrated religious to be living in the State of Perfection?
Well, for those of us called to this life, a little more is asked in terms of Jesus’ admonition – though it should be clear from our last post that this does not mean that we are already perfect! Rather, we are invited to follow Jesus in a particular way.
To return to St. Thomas Aquinas, human beings are able to love at varying levels: you can love God by never doing anything contrary to charity, like mortal sin, but you can also love God by refraining even from certain lawful things in order to better turn your whole heart to Him. (Like saying ‘No’ to that extra cookie we’re all eyeing before Ash Wednesday.) The nearer an act of love is to what it was made for – union with God – the more perfect it is of itself.[2] This doesn’t mean that those who love by other means are less perfect (that depends on how well the person loves!), but that the acts that tend to God directly are more completely like the love we will know in Heaven. It is these acts of love, and the choice to forgo some very good things for God’s sake, that define religious life.[3]
The Church makes this distinction through the way Our Lord speaks about charity. He makes very clear that we are commanded to love the Lord, Our God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves if we want to enter into God’s life.[4] But He also invites some to go further. St. Thomas highlights two examples:
1. Christ says to a rich young man: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”[5]; and
2. Christ admonishes the people: “… [T]here are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.”[6]
In these examples, Aquinas finds three key aspects of this invitation – voluntary poverty (“… sell what you have…”)[7], chastity (“… eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”)[8], and obedience to Christ (“… follow me.”)[9]. These might ring a pretty clear bell, because they are widely considered to be the three pillars of the religious life. They are called the ‘Evangelical Counsels’, and while they are not exactly equivocal to the vows professed by all religious, St. Thomas makes clear that they are a necessary part of living in the State of Perfection.
This brings us to the last point regarding this State of Perfection: the vows. The invitation from Christ to live these counsels is not a requirement; we can still reach perfect charity if we choose not to accept it, and many Christians who are not living formal religious lives, keep the Counsels very faithfully. So why is it necessary for religious to vow themselves to live this way rather than doing it freely from day to day?
St. Thomas’s answer rests on one key concept: stability. When he describes a ‘state’ of life, he means a sure path toward perfect charity, a stable path that we can persevere in to reach our goal.[10] For this reason, St. Thomas requires a commitment to that way of life under due solemnity. The most fitting manner of achieving this is through the making of public vows, which binds the religious in the same way that spouses are bound by their marriage vows. In this way, we speak of professed religious as being in a state of life that strives after perfection, or in the State of Perfection.
Ultimately, this all sounds quite burdensome! Why would anyone take aboard these additional obligations when they can love God perfectly without them? Since most of us have a hard enough time realizing the simpler end, isn’t it madness to weigh down the load? This is where it’s important to remember that every state of life is one graced by God, and that with every seeming burden there is an abundant gift from the Blessed Trinity, who burns to see us united with Him more than we ourselves do. My religious life may ask a lot, but it also gives me “immeasurably more than all [I] ask or imagine”. [11]
[1] Philippians 3:12 (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition)
[2] Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, II II, Q186, Art. 1.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Matt 22:37-38; Matt 22:39
[5] Matt 19;21
[6] Matt 19:12
[7] Aquinas, ST, II II, Q186, Art. 3.
[8] Ibid, Art. 4.
[9] Ibid, Art. 5.
[10] Ibid, Q183, Art. 1.
[11] Eph 3:20 (King James Version)
