AIMING HIGH
In a garden are flowers varying in hue and form and size. The roses
blow red and white and pink, scenting the air with their myriad
petals, the lilies lift up their delicate calyxes to the wandering
bee, the perfumed violets hide their modest heads in beds of green,
and the fuchsias sway from their stems in languid beauty. But varied
as are the flowers in charm, each is perfect of its kind. No artist
could improve their tints nor trace truer curves; no carver chisel
more delicate or finished forms.
And God's Church is a spiritual garden, where bloom souls varying in
every virtue, charm and grace, and all breathing forth the good odor
of Christ. In it are school-boys, gentle maidens, devoted mothers and
fathers of families, rich and poor of every nation and clime, of every
station and calling. God made them all; He loves them all, and on each
He has grafted the bud of faith, which will blossom forth into all
supernatural virtues.
God also wishes each one in His garden to be perfect of his kind.
Jesus, sitting on the Mount of the Beatitudes, and teaching the
multitudes that were ranged on the grass about Him, bade them "be
perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. v: 48.) [1]
This, then, is the perfection Christ expects us to aim at, the
perfection of God Himself, in Whom there is nor spot nor wrinkle. He
will not be satisfied with us, so long as low aims, imperfect motives,
disfigure our souls and stain our conduct.
As St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians, God chose us before
the foundation of the world to be "holy and unspotted in His sight."
(Eph. i: 4.) In fact, St. Paul, whenever he addresses the Christians,
calls them "saints" because every Christian man, woman and child, is
expected to be holy, holy in the grace of God, in conduct, in thought
and act, at every time and place. Every Christian must be sacred, a
shrine wherein dwells the Divinity, and whose doors must be closed to
everything profane. "Know you not, that your members are the temple of
the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not
your own?" (I Cor. vi: 19.) Your soul, then, my child, is holy,
consecrate to God, and into it must enter nothing defiled, nothing
savoring of the world, its maxims and principles. Keep your soul pure
as the roseate dawn, clear as starlight and bright as the sun.
"Every one of you," said Christ Himself, "who doth not renounce all
that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple." (Luke xiv: 33.) This seems
a hard doctrine, for who would be able to give up all he has, parents,
home and possessions? There are occasions when the love of God and the
love of creatures come into conflict; and when this occurs the true
disciple of Christ will not hesitate. He will fearlessly sacrifice
everything, even life itself, rather than forsake his Creator. The
martyrs did this. St. Agnes gave up suitor, home and wealth, and laid
down her innocent young life, to become the spouse of Christ. The boy
Pancratius faced the panther in the arena, and the yells of a
bloodthirsty mob, rather than abjure his faith; and so won a martyr's
crown.
Perfection then is our destiny. In heaven we shall attain to it, and
in this life we should begin to practice it. If we would have God's
love in its fulness, if we would always be worthy to nestle in His
bosom, to feel the arms of His affection drawn close about us, we must
never sully our conscience with the least taint of sin. For all the
world we would not offend our parents, and God is to us in place of
father and mother and all. He is the infinitely perfect; He is love
and beauty and tenderness itself, and His absorbing desire is to
reproduce similar qualities in us.
But how are we to be perfect? By always doing His holy Will, as we see
it and know it, to the best of our ability. Christ issues the clarion
call to all Christians, to take up their cross daily and follow Him.
He who always does his best, and, obeying the dictates of conscience,
walks by faith and charity in all his actions before God, and conducts
himself in all circumstances of life according to the principles of
faith and reason, is living up to the Divine call, and striving after
perfection.
"But are there any such persons in the world?" some one may ask. "They
say that there is nothing perfect under the sun, and this time-honored
adage, no doubt, applies to persons as well as to things." It is true
that very few are perfect in the sense that they sojourn in the world,
unmoved, like the angels, by the least ruffling of passion. But there
are many, very many, pure, holy souls, who aim constantly at
perfection, and who attain to it substantially; for day by day, year
in and year out, they keep themselves from the guilt of serious sin,
and delighting to carry out God's will in all their actions,
frequently draw nigh the Tabernacle to commune in heavenly raptures
with their Love "behind the trellis."
Nor is the number of these elect souls limited to any one calling or
profession, for they are found in the seclusion of home, in the
crowded mart, in the stress of business and professional life. When
the week-day Mass is over in the parish church, and the little band of
devout worshippers descend from the church steps, would one not say
that there is a look of heavenly peace upon their countenances, a
peace that overflows to their features from the deep well-springs of
charity within? No legitimate walk of life, then, is alien to
perfection. All Christians are urged to it; and many attain to it.
They use the things of this world "as though they used them not,"
their hearts are free from undue attachment to the possessions of
earth, and they go through life as pilgrims to their final home; and
should God be pleased to reward their constancy by sending them trials
and sufferings, they will come forth from the ordeal like pure,
refined gold.
[1] While this text refers primarily to the perfection of forgiving
enemies, it is applied also by commentators to perfection in general,
for the reason that it is closely connected with the preceding and
following exhortation of Our Lord to many and various virtues. And
even if the text were limited expressly to one virtue, the fact that
God's children are urged to the perfection of this virtue because it
is found perfectly in their Heavenly Father, would seem to imply that
He, so far as imitable by creatures, is the measure and standard of
their perfection, and hence, as He is the All-Perfect, that they too
should strive to be perfect in all virtue.