My Thoughts 14/06/2022

I am a sucker for books on productivity such as “How to get things done.” It is part of my desire to feel in control, competent and on top of things. It is part of my desire to be seen to be perfect. I had a great priest friend whose office was always the picture of order and industry. When he was a student he had finished his assignment before I had begun to put pen to paper. As a priest, his parish was well run and he was a very preacher. He was a great example and encouragement. But I am sure he would be the last person to say he was perfect.

What is the perfection that Jesus asks of us when he says in the gospel today: “You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect”? He is speaking in the context of loving; “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

The perfection we are called to is to love as God loves us. As one writer has put it “The call to be perfect is not an invitation to strive with fanatical will power after some abstract ideal. It is to look at God, to see how perfectly he loves and then to try to imitate in out own human way the expansiveness of his love, his unconquered good will.”

Give me Lord, the grace to love as you love. I thank you for your unconditional love of me and your understanding of my many imperfections. Through your grace my I move beyond the limitations I set on my love of you and love of others.