Perfection and Union with God

Have you ever wondered about the call to "perfection, as your heavenly Father is perfect?" How can we answer that call, when we always hear, "nobody is perfect." That is true if "perfection" is defined in earthly terms as "not ever making mistakes."

But, those of us who are children of God, St. Therese of Lisieux instructs a Divine definition: "Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be...who resists His grace in nothing." Ralph Martin in his book, "The Fulfillment of all Desire" writes that St. Teresa of Avila explains that "holiness is a matter of bringing our wills into union with God's will" (p. 2).

I always find that St. Faustina echoes scripture in her Diary, the saints that came before her, and even current Magisterial documents that were published after her death. In paragraph 1107 of her Diary during meditation she writes:

"Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God. God never violates our free will. It is up to us whether we want to receive God's grace or not. It is up to us whether we will cooperate with it or waste it."

If you have not heard of this meaning for "perfection" before, we can celebrate that it is way beyond not making mistakes. Perfection relies on God's mercy. He makes us perfect. He gives us union with Him. Our part is to desire union. In the simplest terms, it is the desire "to be with God." For God, that is to be "through Him, with Him, and in Him." It is more than being His friend or leaning on Him, which we do through His Son Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. When we are "through Him, with Him, and in Him" we have mystical union. It is "mystical" because it is a mystery that is beyond the ways of understanding something as we do as human beings living in the earthly kingdom. 

The saints are travel guides through the Kingdom of God. They use images and metaphors to depict what happens when we desire union with God. It is right and good that they do so because Jesus used symbols and parables to illustrate the Kingdom of God, too. For example, "the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed" (Mt. 13.31) and "my Father is like a Vine Dresser" (Jn 15:1).  St. Teresa of Avila speaks of desire to be with God through the imagery of the soul being "like a diamond castle." She is our travel guide through the castle, what we will find in the rooms of the castle and outside the castle which are things and events which will try and keep us from journeying into the diamond castle. 

St. Teresa of Avila teaches that it is knowing that Christ the King dwells in the innermost room of the castle that will help us to desire to have union with God. We can't journey towards something we do not know or believe exists. The saints are our travel guides for union with God. But how can we get people to pay attention to the saints who have achieved union with God?

I believe that the mandate from God through Saint Faustina to "proclaim His Mercy" is the key starting point when trying to evangelize the Good News. The Good News is ultimately that we can have union with God. We are taught, the Good News of what Christ did for us. My grandmother before she died expressed her wonderment about Redemption. She asked, "What good did it do?" I was small and could not express the answer. The second part to the Good News is "union with God." That is the good that it did. Before the Redemption we could not have union with God. It is more than how it is expressed which is "getting to Heaven." But, one does not have to wait to die to get to Heaven. The soul can have union with God, now, here in the earthly kingdom because their soul offers the means. 

In evangelization and catechesis, there should not be a disconnect between the announcement of the Good News and perfection.

When I was driving home from Mass today, I noticed the full parking lot of the new second location for the Methodist Church, of the Resurrection. I thought of all the people who have heard of the Good News and are going to Church at non-Catholic Christian communities. But, they are not hearing the Good News in its fullness. They are missing out on learning about having mystical union with God. They are taught that the Good News brings joy here on earth, and it does in a limited way. But they are disadvantaged because they are not hearing that God is so merciful that he wants union with them here on earth. The theology and spirituality of union with God by doing His Will when He presents it in grace moments is not present in the non-Catholic Christian communities and congregations. It has not been present in the formal catechesis of the Catholic Church either.

Grace has lead many saints to be our travel guides to union with God, therefore, we don't have any reason to not strive for perfection. It is God's will and if we want to be perfect, we will do this Will of God. He is waiting for us in center room of the castle.

Helpful Catechesis on "Lead us not into temptation"

The text below can help clarify why the Church in the United States does not need to follow Italy and Germany in revising this line of the "Our Father."

See Chapter 9 of St. Augustine's Treatise on Matthew 6-7, "On the Sermon on the Mount", Book II:

30. The sixth petition is, And bring us not into temptation. Some manuscripts have the word lead, which is, I judge, equivalent in meaning: for both translations have arisen from the one Greek word which is used. But many parties in prayer express themselves thus, Suffer us not to be led into temptation; that is to say, explaining in what sense the word lead is used. For God does not Himself lead, but suffers that man to be led into temptation whom He has deprived of His assistance, in accordance with a most hidden arrangement, and with his deserts. Often, also, for manifest reasons, He judges him worthy of being so deprived, and allowed to be led into temptation. But it is one thing to be led into temptation, another to be tempted. For without temptation no one can be proved, whether to himself, as it is written, He that has not been tempted, what manner of things does he know? or to another, as the apostle says, And your temptation in my flesh you despised not: for from this circumstance he learned that they were steadfast, because they were not turned aside from charity by those tribulations which had happened to the apostle according to the flesh. For even before all temptations we are known to God, who knows all things before they happen.

31. When, therefore, it is said, The Lord your God tempts (proves) you, that He may know if you love Him, the words that He may know are employed for what is the real state of the case, that He may make you know: just as we speak of a joyful day, because it makes us joyful; of a sluggish frost, because it makes us sluggish; and of innumerable things of the same sort, which are found either in ordinary speech, or in the discourse of learned men, or in the Holy Scriptures. And the heretics who are opposed to the Old Testament, not understanding this, think that the brand of ignorance, as it were, is to be placed upon Him of whom it is said, The Lord your God tempts you: as if in the Gospel it were not written of the Lord, And this He said to tempt (prove) him, for He Himself knew what He would do. For if He knew the heart of him whom He was tempting, what is it that He wished to see by tempting him? But in reality, that was done in order that he who was tempted might become known to himself, and that he might condemn his own despair, on the multitudes being filled with the Lord's bread, while he had thought they had not enough to eat.

32. Here, therefore, the prayer is not, that we should not be tempted, but that we should not be brought into temptation: as if, were it necessary that any one should be examined by fire, he should pray, not that he should not be touched by the fire, but that he should not be consumed. For the furnace proves the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation righteous men. Joseph therefore was tempted with the allurement of debauchery, but he was not brought into temptation. Susanna was tempted, but she was not led or brought into temptation; and many others of both sexes: but Job most of all, in regard to whose admirable steadfastness in the Lord his God, those heretical enemies of the Old Testament, when they wish to mock it with sacrilegious mouth, brandish this above other weapons, that Satan begged that he should be tempted. For they put the question to unskilful men by no means able to understand such things, how Satan could speak with God: not understanding (for they cannot, inasmuch as they are blinded by superstition and controversy) that God does not occupy space by the mass of His corporeity; and thus exist in one place, and not in another, or at least have one part here, and another elsewhere: but that He is everywhere present in His majesty, not divided by parts, but everywhere complete. But if they take a fleshly view of what is said, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool, — to which passage our Lord also bears testimony, when He says, Swear not at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool, — what wonder if the devil, being placed on earth, stood before the feet of God, and spoke something in His presence? For when will they be able to understand that there is no soul, however wicked, which can yet reason in any way, in whose conscience God does not speak? For who but God has written the law of nature in the hearts of men? — that law concerning which the apostle says: For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing them witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another, in the day when the Lord shall judge the secrets of men. And therefore, as in the case of every rational soul, which thinks and reasons, even though blinded by passion, we attribute whatever in its reasoning is true, not to itself but to the very light of truth by which, however faintly, it is according to its capacity illuminated, so as to perceive some measure of truth by its reasoning; what wonder if the depraved spirit of the devil, perverted though it be by lust, should be represented as having heard from the voice of God Himself, i.e. from the voice of the very Truth, whatever true thought it has entertained about a righteous man whom it was proposing to tempt? But whatever is false is to be attributed to that lust from which he has received the name of devil. Although it is also the case that God has often spoken by means of a corporeal and visible creature whether to good or bad, as being Lord and Governor of all, and Disposer according to the merits of every deed: as, for instance, by means of angels, who appeared also under the aspect of men; and by means of the prophets, saying, Thus says the Lord. What wonder then, if, though not in mere thought, at least by means of some creature fitted for such a work, God is said to have spoken with the devil?

33. And let them not imagine it unworthy of His dignity, and as it were of His righteousness, that God spoke with him: inasmuch as He spoke with an angelic spirit, although one foolish and lustful, just as if He were speaking with a foolish and lustful human spirit. Or let such parties themselves tell us how He spoke with that rich man, whose most foolish covetousness He wished to censure, saying: You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall those things be which you have provided? Certainly the Lord Himself says so in the Gospel, to which those heretics, whether they will or no, bend their necks. But if they are puzzled by this circumstance, that Satan asks from God that a righteous man should be tempted; I do not explain how it happened, but I compel them to explain why it is said in the Gospel by the Lord Himself to the disciples, Behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; and He says to Peter, But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not. And when they explain this to me, they explain to themselves at the same time that which they question me about. But if they should not be able to explain this, let them not dare with rashness to blame in any book what they read in the Gospel without offense.

34. Temptations, therefore, take place by means of Satan not by his power, but by the Lord's permission, either for the purpose of punishing men for their sins, or of proving and exercising them in accordance with the Lord's compassion. And there is a very great difference in the natureof the temptations into which each one may fall. For Judas, who sold his Lord, did not fall into one of the same nature as Peter fell into, when, under the influence of terror, he denied his Lord. There are also temptations common to man, I believe, when every one, though well disposed, yet yielding to human frailty, falls into error in some plan, or is irritated against a brother, in the earnest endeavour to bring him round to what is right, yet a little more than Christian calmness demands: concerning which temptations the apostle says, There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; while he says at the same time, But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it. And in that sentence he makes it sufficiently evident that we are not to pray that we may not be tempted, but that we may not be led into temptation. For we are led into temptation, if such temptations have happened to us as we are not able to bear. But when dangerous temptations, into which it is ruinous for us to be brought and led, arise either from prosperous or adverse temporal circumstances, no one is broken down by the irksomeness of adversity, who is not led captive by the delight of prosperity.