The perfect question

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Hello,

In the Gospel reading Mt 5:43-48 in what sense does Jesus command us to be perfect? Is it to be sinless as the Heavenly father? As a protestant I was able to easily dismiss this passage to not mean this, because of the totally depraved teaching, but being a recent convert to Catholicism I am hearing this passage much differently. I have a hope that God’s grace is great enough to make me perfect if I cooperate with it. I never used to have this I just believed I was a depraved sinner. Does Catholicism actually teach we can become perfect and without sin in this life? Can you talk about how you as used to understand this passage as a Protestant and what changed for you in your conversion to Catholicism? Do we know of anybody that has committed sins in this life and later become perfect in this life before physical death? Am I being sinfully pragmatic when I think this cant’ actually happen to me and purgatory is a necessity. Thanks.
 
In this life, you can’t be perfect, but you can journey toward perfection. In particular, you can love your enemies. That’s a big step toward perfection.
 
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When I was a protestant I used to take it in the sense that I was considered perfect by God after accepting Christ’s sacrifice, even when I sinned. Now I see it as an invitation to divinization, where God perfect me. The justified man has grace to avoid all mortal sins, God can give Grace to avoid all venial, and after death God will bring you to your perfection in heaven.

Perfect in the context of this passage also means to me to have a charity towards good and evil people, like God, since the following and preceding verses say:
{5:43} You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and you shall have hatred for your enemy.’
{5:44} But I say to you: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. And pray for those who persecute and slander you.
{5:45} In this way, you shall be sons of your Father, who is in heaven. He causes his sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and he causes it to rain upon the just and the unjust.
{5:46} For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even tax collectors behave this way?
{5:47} And if you greet only your brothers, what more have you done? Do not even the pagans behave this way?
{5:48} Therefore, be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

My enemy and neighbor are one and I am to love them, like God does.
 
While greek has an imperative, here it is a future tense (you SHALL be perfect), meaning it is not a command but Jesus’ intention to Make his 12 perfect and his promise to them to make them perfect so that they can be “Like Him”, complete in every good work.
Perfect does not mean “not making mistakes”, but it means “complete in ACT”, “ever pouring yourself into others for their life”, as your Father in Heaven is ever pouring himself (Holy Spirit) into his Son, and into us who are the Body of his Son on Earth.
A Painting is “perfect” when it is finished, all the brushstrokes on the canvas so you can see all the artist intended.
The 12 disciples were perfect when they became full evidence of the presence and love of God in Jesus, when they turned the other cheek, etc. Jesus showed them all they needed to know, gave them his Spirit, gave them his flesh and blood to be united in them so the Spirit could make him alive in them.
Anyone who likes what he sees the 12 disciples getting from Jesus can simply find them and ask them, “Make me a disciple, too; baptize me and teach me all that Christ commanded you; I want him with me also to the end of the age.” Jesus told them and their successors (Popes and Bishops) to make you a disciple also if you wanted it. (Matthew 28:19,20)
 
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If you look at the Greek of the word perfect, it implies an unattainable situation that will take work to reach… and thus you need to gain virtue
 
this helps…"Christ does not force our will, He takes only what
we give Him. But He does not give Himself entirely until He sees that
we yield ourselves entirely to Him.’’ St Teresa of Avila

the lives and writings of the saints are a great help on our spiritual
journeys.
 
MattPerk said:
Hello,

In the Gospel reading Mt 5:43-48 in what sense does Jesus command us to be perfect? Is it to be sinless as the Heavenly father? As a protestant I was able to easily dismiss this passage to not mean this, because of the totally depraved teaching, but being a recent convert to Catholicism I am hearing this passage much differently. I have a hope that God’s grace is great enough to make me perfect if I cooperate with it. I never used to have this I just believed I was a depraved sinner. Does Catholicism actually teach we can become perfect and without sin in this life? Can you talk about how you as used to understand this passage as a Protestant and what changed for you in your conversion to Catholicism? Do we know of anybody that has committed sins in this life and later become perfect in this life before physical death? Am I being sinfully pragmatic when I think this cant’ actually happen to me and purgatory is a necessity. Thanks.
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A person in a state of sanctifying grace can remain free from mortal sin. (Dogma from the Council of Trent.)

Purgatory is not necessary if one does sufficient penance before death, including also the additional benefits of indulgences added by the Church from the treasury of merit.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:
For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177
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174 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I,25,6.
175 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, SCG III,71.
176 Cf. St. Augustine, De libero arbitrio 1,1,2: PL 32,1221-1223; St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II,79,1.
177 St. Augustine, Enchiridion 3,11: PL 40,236.
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MattPerk said:
In the Gospel reading Mt 5:43-48 in what sense does Jesus command us to be perfect?
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The Greek word used here is τέλειοι – it comes from the root ‘telos’, which speaks to a ‘goal’ or a ‘purpose’. Often, teleioi is translated as ‘perfect’ or ‘mature’, but what it really seems to be getting at, IMHO, is that notion of reaching the goal for which we were made. @John_Martin points out that this is a future tense verb, but I think that it’s important to point out that it’s a middle voice verb. In other words, it takes on a sort of “reflexive” dynamic, or maybe an “action for oneself” flavor.

So, I think, the vibe here is that we were made for a purpose, and Jesus is encouraging to live our lives in order to fulfill that purpose. “Be all you can be”, perhaps, or “just do it”, in modern parlance. We are the children of God, made in His image and likeness, in order that we might share in His love for eternity. That’s what Jesus is encouraging us to set as our goal and our destination, and that includes everything that we do on this earth in order to bring us to that goal-directed achievement!
 
The word teleioi has to do with actuality rather than potentiality.
Potentially complete is not perfection.
Actually complete is perfection.
Teleioi is plural, referring to the 12 disciples, meaning “perfect ones”, "You shall be 'perfect one’s as your Father is ‘the Perfect One’ ".
Actually doing the Sermon on the Mount, not just potentially could do it all.
 
Christ never asks the impossible. It is possible to grow in grace and wisdom in this life and to reach perfection.
 
We can never be worthy on our own. It is Christ’s sacrifice that makes us worthy.
 
Scripture tells us that no sinners enter heaven-that we must wash our robes, that without holiness and good works no one inherits eternal life; without purity of heart no one will see the Lord. And why would we? By our actions of remaining in the flesh, of sinning, we demonstrate that we don’t really even want to see Him, that we still prefer ourselves to Him as the catechism teaches that Adam did with his first sin. The doctrine of a merely imputed righteousness has caused much confusion and does a great deal of disservice to God by incorrectly explaining His intentions for man. He does not suddenly determine to ignore injustice for man, but rather to finally restore it, the right way, the New Covenant way, for our good. This has to do with internal change, a new heart, new creations, so that we’re not merely clean on the outside, like some Pharisees, while being filthy on the inside-‘snow-covered dung-heaps’ IOW.

The most fundamental aspect of justice or righteousness for man is love, the nature of God, Himself, which is why, incidentally, the Greatest Commandments are what they are. And this is how God fulfills the New Covenant prophecy of Jer 31:33, that of placing His law in our minds and writing it on our hearts: the law of love as it’s sometimes called; “love fulfills the Law” (Rom 13:10). This is His work in us, of justification, even if that justice is only in a nascent and seedling form at first, consisting of a gift, a grace, that we can then invest further as per the Parable of the Talents as we work out our salvation together with He who continuously works in us. Or not; we’re never forced to cooperate-or to keep cooperating or persevering.

Man is always obligated to be righteous, obligated to love, properly understood. That does not go away; God did not make man to be a sinner; everything He creates is good. The problem with fallen man does not consist in a “sin nature” but rather in spiritual separation from his own Creator, which puts him in a disadvantaged sick and wounded and lost-and unjust- position whether he’s at all conscious of it or not. But life on this planet should begin to give us the notion that somethin’ ain’t right, that’s something’s missing. And that something is God. We lack intimate knowledge of God (Jer 31:34) from birth and this is what our death consists of. Adam thought he didn’t need God. We’re here to learn of his error, to learn the truth of these words: “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Man was made for communion with God-and this relationship, itself, is the basis of his justice. And this relationship begins as we come to believe in Him, via faith in response to grace, to His calling. So the primary mission of Jesus, in order to reconcile man with God, is to reveal Him, so that we may know Him, so that we may then turn to Him in faith, so that we may hope in and ultimately love Him, which places us squarely into the right order of things. Our purpose and our perfection is achieved to the extent that this is accomplished in us.

"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3
 
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MattPerk said:
In the Gospel reading Mt 5:43-48 in what sense does Jesus command us to be perfect? Is it to be sinless as the Heavenly father? As a protestant I was able to easily dismiss this passage to not mean this, because of the totally depraved teaching, but being a recent convert to Catholicism I am hearing this passage much differently. I have a hope that God’s grace is great enough to make me perfect if I cooperate with it. I never used to have this I just believed I was a depraved sinner. Does Catholicism actually teach we can become perfect and without sin in this life? Can you talk about how you as used to understand this passage as a Protestant and what changed for you in your conversion to Catholicism? Do we know of anybody that has committed sins in this life and later become perfect in this life before physical death? Am I being sinfully pragmatic when I think this cant’ actually happen to me and purgatory is a necessity. Thanks.
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Jesus, like us, was human in body and soul, neither was He a stranger to the temptations of Satan — temptation is temptation; it is not sin — but through His strong will power, and calling upon the Father for help, He resisted temptation, and thus did not commit sin. And, He not only asked for the Father’s help, but also that He not lead Him into temptation. Jesus proves that humans can resist temptation, and thus be perfect in thought and action on earth as He was, if we imitate Him, and have a strong will power to do so.
 
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John_Martin said:
The word teleioi has to do with actuality rather than potentiality.
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It has to do with reaching a goal.
John_Martin said:
Teleioi is plural, referring to the 12 disciples, meaning “perfect ones”
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Look at it in context. At the beginning of Matthew 5, we see that the folks Jesus is talking to are the crowds, and not “the 12 disciples.” Moreover, “disciples” doesn’t mean “perfect ones”.
 
This is Cornelius a Lapide’s commentary on Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”:

Be ye therefore perfect, &c. The emphasis here is upon the word ye. Because ye are separated from the heathen, and chosen of God that ye should be His faithful ones, His friends, His sons and heirs, therefore imitate the holiness and perfection of your Heavenly Father.

The word therefore refers partly to what immediately precedes concerning love of our enemies. “Do ye therefore, O faithful, who are the friends of God, and who ought therefore to be better than the heathen, do you love all men, enemies as well as friends, even as your Father wholly extends His love to all.” But the therefore also partly refers to all that has gone before. For this maxim is the end and completion of all the sayings of this chapter, as though Christ said, “Thus far I have unfolded the commandments of God, which are the sanction of the perfection of all virtue. Be ye therefore perfect in meekness, in purity of heart, in patience, in chastity, in charity, and in every virtue which the Law of God enjoins.”

You will ask whether this perfection be of counsel or of precept? I reply, partly of counsel, partly of precept. First, it is of precept that every believer in Christianity should endeavour to be perfect, in such wise that he should perfectly love his enemies as well as his friends, and keep perfectly all the other commandments of God. For Christ is here speaking to all the faithful, as is plain from what precedes. Hence we learn from this passage that all Christians are under obligation to be advancing towards perfection according to their state and condition. For this is required that they should be the children of their Heavenly Father, as Christ says. Whosoever therefore desires to be the child and heir of this Father ought to imitate Him in perfection because, as S. Cyprian says (Serm. de bono Patient ), “The children of such and so great a Parent ought not to be degenerate.”

Moreover, S. James (chap. i.), addressing not religious, but all believers, says: “That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” For if soldiers in battle wish to be most brave, disciples in a school most learned, workmen, each in their own craft, most exact, servants in obeying their own masters most diligent, why should not Christians, who are called by Christ to holiness and perfection, wish to be most holy and most perfect?

This perfection is of counsel so far as it extends itself to the observance, not only of commands, but of evangelical counsels, such as voluntary poverty, chastity, and religious obedience; such, I mean, as when Christ said, “If thou wilt be perfect, sell that thou hast and give to the poor.” (Matt. xix. 21.)

continued….
 
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Moreover, this perfection mainly consists in charity and love, especially of our enemies. For this is the perfection of life, since the perfection of the country consists in the vision and fruition of God. Christ here tacitly intimates that the way of attaining perfection and eminent sanctity is for any one to exercise himself in love of his enemies, both because this is the highest and most difficult act of charity, as because it is the greatest victory over ourselves. For he who does this generously vanquishes anger, revenge, and the other passions of the soul; and God, requites his charity with far more abundant gifts of grace. So that holy virgin mentioned by D. Tauler, when asked how she had attained to so great sanctity, replied, “I have ever loved with a special love any who have been troublesome to me; and to any one who has injured me, I have always endeavoured to show some special mark of kindness.”

As your Father which is in heaven, &c., For He with a perfect love loves all men. Upon all He sheds the beams of His beneficence, as it were a perennial sun of kindness, Who expects not to derive any advantage from any one, but out of pure love desires to communicate His benefits to others, that thus He may contend with the wickedness and ingratitude of man; for few indeed are they who love Him, their Benefactor, in return as they should do. The word as signifies likeness, not equality; for we cannot come up to the perfection of God, for that infinitely transcends all our perfection; but we ought to imitate it as far as we are able.

The perfection then which Christ here requires of a Christian is not merely human but Divine perfection, and similar to God’s perfection. For he is our Father not only by nature, but by grace, for by it “we are partakers of the Divine nature,” as S. Peter says. Therefore we are made to be really sons of God, and as it were gods upon earth. And so S. Peter proposes the words in Lev. xi. 44 as a kind of mirror for Christians saying, “Ye shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Pet. i. 16.) And S. Paul says, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.” (Eph. v. 1.) Beautifully says S. Cyprian, “If it be a pleasure and glory to men to have children like themselves, how much more is there gladness with God our Father, when any one is so born spiritually, that the Divine nobility is manifest in his actions?”
  1. The perfection of God consists in the most ample love of all men, bad as well as good. And it is to this Christ has special reference in this passage.
continued….
 
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  1. It consists in the highest forbearance, kindness, and tranquillity, and the impossibility of being affected by injury, wrath, or revenge, so that He is imperturbable and without passions. So in like manner must we, if we would be perfect, be meek and tranquil, and to that end must mortify anger and all other mental passions. Whence S. Ambrose says (lib. de Jacob et vita beata), “It is the part of a perfect man to sustain like a brave soldier the onset of the most terrible misfortunes, and like a wise pilot to manage his ship in a storm, and as he runs through the surging billows, to avoid shipwreck rather by facing the waves than by shrinking from them.”
  2. God looks down from on high upon all earthly things as mean and poor, and gloriously presides over heaven and heavenly things. So in like manner, ought the man who is aiming at perfection to despise earthly honours and pleasures as worthless matters, pertaining to flies and gnats and fleas, and ought to look up to and covet the heavenly things, which are God’s.
  3. The mind and will of God are most just, holy, and perfect. With this mind, then, ought we to be clothed, that we may be like God—yea, one with God. Hear what S. Bernard says about this: “The unity of a man’s spirit with God is his having his heart lifted up towards God, and entirely directed to Him; when he only wills what God wills; when there is not only affection, but perfect affection for God, so that he cannot will anything save and except what God wills. For to will what God wills is to be already like God. But not to be able to will except what God wills, this is to be what God is, to whom to will and to be are the same thing.
  4. God is of a great and lofty mind, which transcends all things, and which ever abides and is established in His own blessed and tranquil eternity, and so converts and draws all things to Himself. Hear, again, S. Bernard (ad Fratres de Monte Dei): “Thou shalt, amid the adverse and prosperous changes and chances of the world, hold fast as it were an image of eternity; I mean an inviolable and unshaken constancy of mind, blessing God at all times, and vindicating for thyself, even in the uncertain events of this changeful world, and in its certain troubles, to some extent at least, a condition of abiding unchangeableness, so shalt thou begin to be changed and formed anew into the image and likeness of the eternal God, with whom is no changeableness, neither shadow of turning; for as He is, so also shalt thou be in this world, neither fearful in adversity nor dissolute in prosperity.”
With regard to avoiding purgatory, no it’s not necessary for a Christian to go to Purgatory provided one lead an upright life. Fr O’Sullivan wrote a book on this called “How to Avoid Purgatory” available for free here:


St Therese of Lisieux also taught that it’s not necessary to go to Purgatory:

https://web.archive.org/web/20041023214908/http://www.franciscan-sfo.org/ap/litfwrpu.htm
 
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Gorgias said:
Look at it in context. At the beginning of Matthew 5, we see that the folks Jesus is talking to are the crowds , and not “the 12 disciples.” Moreover, “disciples” doesn’t mean “perfect ones”.
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Look again.

Jesus sees the crowds. They are watching.

Then the disciples come up to him and he instructs them.
A teacher teaches his students what they must know to be his hoi teleioi even if others listen in like the crowds.

The crowds, like non Catholics, are observers of Jesus with his kingdom, so the crowds will see what life could be like if they were Catholic rather than “in the world and of the world”.
 
Have also checked the other commentaries I have on Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”:

The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible Genesis (Scott Hahn):

5:48. Jesus advocates moral righteousness higher than the Old Covenant—it is a standard of mercy. Just as Israel was to imitate God in being “holy” (Lev 19:2), so Jesus calls the Church to imitate God’s perfect compassion (Lk 6:36). The Father is kind and merciful to the good and evil alike, so his children must extend mercy even to their enemies (5:7; Lk 10:29-37; Jas 2:13). See note on Lk 6:36 (CCC 1968, 2842).

A Catholic Commentary of Holy Scripture (Bernard Orchard):

5:48. By way of conclusion to his programme of the new perfection our Lord refuses to set bounds to the ideal. The children are asked to aim at the completeness of their spiritual capacity. When, in their measure, they achieve this they will be like their Father who possesses (though he eternally and of necessity) the fullness of his being.

Haydock Bible Commentary:

5:48. Jesus Christ here sums up his instructions by ordering us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect; i.e. to imitate, as far as our exertions, assisted by divine grace, can reach, the divine perfection. See here the great superiority of the new over the old law. But let no one hence take occasion to despise the old. Let him examine attentively, says S. Chrysostom, the different periods of time, and the persons to whom it was given; and he will admire the wisdom of the divine Legislator, and clearly perceive that it is one and the same Lord, and that each law was to the great advantage of mankind, and wisely adapted to the times of their promulgation. For, if among the first principles of rectitude, these sublime and eminent truths had been found, perhaps neither these, nor the less perfect rules of mortality would have been observed; whereas, by disposing of both in their proper time, the divine wisdom has employed both for the correction of the world. Seeing then that we are thus blessed as to be called, and to be the children of so excellent a Father, we should endeavour, like Him, to excel in goodness, meekness, and charity; but above all in humility, which will secure to us the merit of good works, through the infinite merits of our divine Redeemer, Master, and model, Christ Jesus the Lord.

Catena Aurea:

REMIGIUS. Because the utmost perfection of love cannot go beyond the love of enemies, therefore as soon as the Lord has bid us love our enemies, He proceeds, Be ye then perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. He indeed is perfect, as being omnipotent; man, as being aided by the Omnipotent. For the word ‘as’ is used in Scripture, sometimes for identity, and equality, as in that, As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee; (Josh. 1:5.) sometimes to express likeness only as here.

PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. For as our sons after the flesh resemble their fathers in some part of their bodily shape, so do spiritual sons resemble their father God, in holiness.

continued….
 
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