Before speaking about perfection, we need to say a word about the One toward whom we are walking, because a mistaken idea of God automatically produces a mistaken idea of holiness. The common way of thinking about God is to attribute qualities to Him: God is good, God is just, God is merciful, God is love. The grammar of these statements is the same grammar we use for people: we say that someone is kind as though we were describing a characteristic that person possesses and might not possess. Applied to God, that grammar misleads us. In God, essence is not distinct from attributes. God does not have goodness: God is goodness. He does not possess justice as one possesses an acquired virtue: He is justice itself. He is not merely loving; He is Love, and every love that exists in the world participates in that Love. Theology has a name for this: divine simplicity, which St. Thomas treats in the Summa Theologiae (I, q. 3). It may sound like a scholastic subtlety, but it is not. It has an enormous practical consequence. If God were simply a very good being among other good beings, drawing near to Him would be a matter of improving our behavior and moving up the scale. But if God is goodness, love, and truth itself, then drawing near to Him is not merely improvement: it is union. Holiness then ceases to be a matter of moral performance and becomes a matter of relationship. Keep this in mind, because it is the key to everything that follows. Now we come to the statement that gives this article its title, one many people hear for the first time with surprise. Christian perfection is not a pious suggestion or an optional activity for the most fervent. It is a command of Jesus Christ. The words are in the Sermon on the Mount, and their demand is one that lukewarm devotion often tries to soften: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). Not "try to improve." Not "do your best." Be perfect — and the standard given is God Himself. The same demand runs through all of Scripture, from Leviticus: "Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy" (Lv 19:2). And St. Paul is equally direct: "This is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Thes 4:3). The Second Vatican Council left no room for doubt about how far this call extends. Chapter V of Lumen Gentium, the Council’s central document on the Church, is titled precisely "The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church." Universal: not only for religious, not only for clergy, not only for those who feel a special inclination. It is for all the baptized, in every state of life. Concretely, for the person reading this text, that means you cannot treat holiness as something that does not concern you. A father of three with two jobs is not exempt; he is called to holiness in that life, not in some other life he does not have. A teacher with 150 students and a pile of grading is not exempt; that teacher is called to holiness in that work. There is no category of practicing Catholic with an exemption.
Father preparing a meal with his children after work
And here comes the relief, which is considerable, because the demand above, when misunderstood, can crush a person. Christian perfection does not consist in having no defects. It is not the sum of accumulated virtues, the flawless fulfillment of a set of practices, permanent serenity, or never making another mistake. St. Thomas states the tradition’s answer precisely: the perfection of the Christian life consists principally in charity (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 184, a. 1). In other words: perfection is union with God through love. That is what it is — and nothing else is. The difference between these two ideas is the difference between two entirely different spiritual lives. If perfection meant the absence of defects, the path would be anxious self-surveillance, a constant inventory of one’s faults, and guaranteed discouragement, because defects do not simply disappear. If perfection is union through love, the path is different: to grow in love of God and allow that growth to correct the rest, in the order and at the time He determines. This does not minimize the struggle against sin; sin is precisely what obstructs love, and that is why it must be fought. But it puts priorities back in order. A person who loves God deeply and still has visible defects is further along than a person whose conduct is impeccable but whose heart is cold. The tradition is unanimous on this point, and the saints who insist on it most strongly are often the most demanding. The greatest commandment is well known: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind (Mt 22:37). And then comes the second: love your neighbor as yourself. The objection this often raises is sincere and deserves a serious answer. If I must love God above all things, does that not mean loving the concrete people in my life less — my spouse, my children, my friends? Is this not a competition in which God wins and creatures lose? The answer is no, and the reason is what we established at the beginning of this article. If God were one being among others, then yes, there would be competition: affection given to one would be taken from another, as happens among creatures. But God is Love itself, the source of every love that exists. To love Him above all things is not to subtract love from creatures; it is to connect oneself to the source. And the observable effect is the opposite of what we fear. By grace, a person begins to love those around them with a love beyond what they could produce on their own: a supernatural love, steadier, less dependent on mood or reciprocity, able to persevere when natural affection would have given up. Anyone who has seen up close a long marriage sustained by faith, or a mother caring for a sick child for decades, knows what this means. That is not merely psychological endurance; it is love of another order. God’s priority, therefore, is not a hierarchy of affections in which the first places exclude those that follow. It is the right order of the whole: when God is in the right place, everything else receives more, not less. And when some creature takes God’s place — work, a child, a project, a loved one — that creature is crushed beneath a weight it cannot bear. In the old language, this is called idolatry; and the first thing harmed is always the idol itself.
Circular fountain with concentric ripples radiating from an illuminated center
A practical word is needed, because all of this can sound far too lofty for an ordinary Tuesday. You do not begin with grand resolutions. You begin with the ordinary means the Church has always indicated, deliberately modest ones: the sacraments, including regular confession and Mass; daily prayer, even if brief, but faithful; Scripture, read in small portions and with attention; and the fulfillment of the duties of your state in life — the work you have, the people who depend on you — done well, out of love. It is not spectacular, and that is exactly the point. The holiness the Church proposes is not a separate career alongside the life you already have. It is that same life, lived in union with God. A teacher’s path to holiness passes through the classes that teacher gives, not through something they might do if they had a different life. And there is something consoling here: those who begin usually feel nothing extraordinary. Union with God grows beneath our perception, the way truly living things grow. Ask yourself one simple question and answer it honestly. Do you truly believe that you are called to be a saint? Not whether you should be — that has already been established. Whether you believe it. There is an enormous difference between knowing that the Church teaches this and ordering your own life as someone who takes it seriously. If your answer is something like, "I know I am, but in practice I do not really count on it," it is worth knowing that this is the honest answer of most people — and that this is precisely where the spiritual life often begins in earnest. This same pursuit — living the faith as the center of everything rather than as a detail — is what sustains Acutis Academy and the formation we offer each student.

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