I struggle with perfection in my relationship with God. Do you have any advice?
Striving for perfection is a noble endeavor in our spiritual life, but we must be careful that it doesn’t become an obstacle to growing deeper in our relationship with God.
It is true that we are made in the image and likeness of God, but I don’t think any of us would profess that we are gods, too. We understand that we have physical and spiritual limits, and unfortunately, we all carry the effects of original sin in our hearts. Even the greatest saints and those closest to Jesus experienced these human limits. Look at Peter, for example. Jesus knew that Peter would deny Him, yet Christ always loved him unconditionally.
The Lord didn’t give up on Peter but instead allowed him to experience a conversion in his heart and later profess his love for Christ three times. Jesus knew Peter’s limitations, even as Peter didn’t understand them himself. Think of what would have happened if Peter continued to live in despair because of his threefold denial of Christ, and allowed that to become an obstacle to turning back to Jesus?
Jesus knows each of us even better than we know ourselves! Our Lord knows our human limitations, but He desires to continue to call us to live out of love for Him through the best of our abilities.
When we wander off the path of holiness into sin, we need to trust that the Lord deeply desires to draw us back to Himself. Jesus wants us to experience renewal in our hearts and again live the truth of the Gospel.
The Lord knows what each of us is capable of. He knows each of our limits and He calls us to live lives of holiness with these in mind. We aren’t all called to be carbon copies of this or that saint in regard to their human accomplishments, but we are called to seek to imitate their total gift of self to the Lord in following the Gospel.
God calls each of us to be saints. We should respond to this call trusting that the Lord knows our own limitations and He desires to show each of us how to be perfect with the gifts that He has given us.
Father Dan Kavanagh is director of the Catholic Deaf Ministry in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
