Be Ye Perfect

Our Lent began in a haze, we all had the flu and infections, we stayed in bed for about 2 weeks.  I had thought about giving up chocolate for Lent, or coffee, but in the end, considering the state of our family life, I have joked with friends that I have decided, for Lent, just to try hard not to give up.

One day, in the midst of the illness, I thought I was well and I got up and hauled myself to an early morning Mass.  The homily was on this passage, from the Gospel of Matthew, and it is a great gift to me, because it has given a spiritual focus to my Lent that I never expected.  I have been meditating on this passage for several weeks now.

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.  Matt 5:48

For most of my adult life, I have had a love/hate relationship with this exhortation to be perfect.  Yes!  I think, I do want to be perfect, and God wants me to be perfect, so I just need to try harder!  No! I am reminded when I fail, I can’t be perfect, so why does God even ask this of me?  Bible studies have taught me that this perfection can only be acheived in and through Him, so we are more perfect the more dependent we are on the Lord, the closer we are to Him.  We are more perfect when we take full advantage of the sacraments and open up the fonts of grace in our lives.  But still, I never understood, because I have remained so very imperfect.

I had it all wrong, I learned, as the priest explained that a Greek understanding of “perfect” is totally different from our Western understanding.  To the Greeks, this would have meant to be “one, united, whole, complete.”  In other words, it does NOT mean that all of your shoes are lined up neatly in your closet, or that you always know the right thing to say, or even that you never fall apart.

As a classicist, I don’t know how I missed this, but I can really get absorbed in this Greek notion of perfection.  I think of a world view cultivated in white buildings, against a blue sky, reflecting the bright Mediterranean sun.

Perfection is to be united with the Blessed Trinity, and this comes  Only through love.  Whatever you do is perfect if you do it with love.  God’s love for us is perfect, and we are called to reflect that love, back towards God but also out into the world, all around us.  So, you put away your shoes, with love, because you know that the family life is smoother when there is order, or you accept that the shoes are not put away, because when you came in the door you had to run to change a diaper and start dinner and dry a tear and find a baseball glove.  This does not mean that anything goes, but that when you correct your children you do it with love because you know that they need help to make better choices.  When the love starts to slip away, you take a deep breath and say a prayer that the Infinite Source of Love will fill you up again.  You try, a little bit at a time, to remove those things which cause you stress and separate you from God’s Love, but you accept, in humility, that those things which you cannot remove must be there to help you grow, so you try to love them, too.

For me, this unity with God also means asking, at any given moment, what I am supposed be doing, and then giving my whole self to that one thing.  I am supposed to be bandaging this knee, and being present to this child.  I am supposed to be washing these dishes, and feeling the warm water.  There is a peace that comes with it, because I really can only do one thing at a time, and the other things just have to wait.  If I am interrupted, I need to take a moment to think, and pray, am I supposed to stop for this interruption, and change what I am doing, or am I supposed to lovingly put off that other thing to finish this task?

They will know we are Christians by our love, and for perfection that love must be pervasive.  When our lives and our homes are aglow with love, they are perfect.  Western perfection, in the form of order and joy and beauty are parts of this, but they are not ends in themselves, and they are sterile without love.  Even sacrifice is empty without love.  This Lent I have had to do without the strength that comes from checking off a box every day, yes, today I did without butter.  Right now, I am too weak to do without butter, or chocolate, or coffee, or bread.  I can rely only on Christ’s sacrifice to give me the strength that I need each day, and I have had to ask myself, am I acting in love?  I only have His strength when there is love.  Am I trying to be perfect for this world, or perfect as my Father in Heaven is perfect?  Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing, and am I doing it with love?  When I try to be perfect for this world, I work hard for a while, fail, and give up.  It happens over and over again.  So this Lent, I am striving for something much smaller, something that no one can really see, I am trying to love and I am trying not to give up, on myself or on God.  God knew that this was just what I needed.