Achieving Perfection amidst Imperfection

[BarbaraTherese]

wcr.ab.ca/columns/rolheiser/1999/rolheiser120699.shtml

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Achieving perfection amidst imperfection
By FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi
Rome

“There are two classical concepts of perfection, one Greek and the other Hebrew. In the Greek ideal, to be perfect is to have no deficiencies, no faults, no flaws. Perfection, to the Greek mind, means to measure up to some ideal standard, to be completely whole, true, good and beautiful. To be perfect then is never to sin.
The Hebrew ideal of perfection is quite different. In this mindset, to be perfect simply means to walk with God, despite our flaws. Perfection here means being in the divine presence, in spite of the fact that we are not perfectly whole, good, true and beautiful.
Our concept of holiness in the West has been, both for good and bad, very much shaped by the Greek ideal of perfection. Hence, holiness has been understood very much as a question of measuring up to a certain benchmark. In such a view of things, a view many of us were raised in, sanctity is understood very much as achieving and maintaining something, namely, moral goodness and moral integrity.
Such a view is not without its merits. It is…………”…………Read on here

There is another thread (if you have not already read it) "Calming The Inner Storm (St. Therese’s way to Peace) which deals with this same subject and perhaps in a little more detail:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=3948429&postcount=1

 

[InLight247]

It is a good article to read.

	I think for people who are earnestly working toward holiness, the ideal path is to balance the Greek and the Hebrew definition of perfection. It is good to set the bar high. At the same time, we don’t beat ourselves up for failures.

	Just because we can never measure up does not mean we can stop trying and allow ourselves to be slack. We ought to keep a persistent desire for holiness. When we fall, by God’s grace, we pick ourselves up and move forward.

The Greek and Hebrew perfection should be both applied, not either or.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

As the article points out, we need to have both Greek and Hebrew concepts applying…Jesus, in the Gospels, does set the bar very high “Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is Perfect”…and at another point in another Gospel story, Peter asks Jesus “who then can be saved?” as Peter recognizes that the bar has been set very high indeed. Jesus replies to Peter “what is impossible to man, is possible to God”. So as we strive daily for what we know is the impossible probably, we know that all things are possible to God.

This is something that St. Therese of Lisieux sighted and grasped so well after a few years trying by force of will to achieve the common concept of perfection - that The Lord does not want us until we are perfect, but that He loves and wants us in all our failures and imperfections…and that He will lead us to that perfection that is His Will (St. Therese wrote: “when a jug is full, it is full - and when a thimble is full, it is full”). She also insighted that salvation and perfection, holiness and sanctity, would be a Gift of God totally undeserved and unearnt in any way at all. This is why I linked the article that is the subject of this thread, to the article on St. Therse and her Little Way of Perfection through Imperfection “Calming the Storm” (see my opening post).

 

[MarieVeronica]

Hi Barb. Thanks for this. It really turned a light “on” in my lil punkin’ head.

It helps me understand my scruples a little better. Now I know, that I probably grew up with the Greek understanding. But my “walk with God” has definitely been the Hebrew version.

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Hi Barb. Thanks for this. It really turned a light “on” in my lil punkin’ head.

It helps me understand my scruples a little better. Now I know, that I probably grew up with the Greek understanding. But my “walk with God” has definitely been the Hebrew version.

Howdy MV…Thank The Holy Spirit Dei Gratius!

Quite often my “lights are on but nobody home” which is an Aussie way of saying…not exactly thinking much at all at this time. Sometimes the simplest of concepts totally eludes me absolutely. I’m one of those bods told a joke at school at lunch time who laughs politely and then 2hrs later in class bursts out laughing to the point of tears - which my teachers, I am sure, write off as an expression of my mental illness (laughing at seemingly nothing at all) and I am laughing too much to explain.

Scruples are a dreadful trial indeed, and I hope that you will be very soon relieved of them! I am glad to read it has been a walk with the Hebrew version, for I think the Greek version (if adopted solely) does the most damage to self and indeed to others as well. The ideal remains a balance between the two…and ideals are what they state - a form of perfection - with balance achieved by The Holy Spirit and Grace.

I think probably most of us have the Greek notion sitting somewhere in the background leading astray, as it does reflect a previous spiritual age and one that existed in St. Therese’s day quite often and perhaps often too in our own time…this is why St. Therese is such a very important saint with very important matters to share with us - and probably contributed to her being made a Doctor of The Church. She did not sit down and write a spritual text on the spiritual life…she simply shared her story where great truths and important truths of our Faith shone and with great simplicity speaking to the greatest and most complex, brilliant, of thinkers(if they have a mind) and also to the very humble and simple, ‘uneducated’, person in the pew.

We need to have our ideals, because ideals do exist in The Lord…and at the same time, we need to be able to sight, accept and forgive ourselves for being imperfect and faulted and often and sometimes very often…sometimes seriously…yet walk on in confident trust in the Ideal and Perfect Loving Mercy of God…this was the way of St. Therese. I absolutely love her little anecdote of when some great news arrived at the Convent when her sister was prioress. She supressed her urge to be the first to tell her sister, The Prioress…and instead fled to her cell to stop herself from doing so, where she hugged herself for joy for her victory over herself. How very very human…no saintly type story here of mysterious mystical type victory over passions - rather a quite human little anecdote from her life that is so very human indeed.

Blessings and my regards…Barb