Reflections | TRANSFORMING PERFECTION

Msgr. Don reflects on how God uses certain measures to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of perfection.

Good morning. You know, it's one thing for us to evolve and to change and to become these wonderfully other scented creatures that really cared deeply about everyone around us. There's a shadow to that that you might begin to feel that, “Hey, I've achieved this goal. I feel that, you know, I'm just there. I don't have to do anything more.” That leads to a place where you're going to be caught in a very subtle, subtle trap, and it's called perfection. 

God is usually very, very wise and he will take a person who's achieved a very high level of awareness of care for people, and they have a deep relationship with God, and they're saying, “Hey, everything is great.” And then all of a sudden, out of seemingly nowhere comes this urge to sin. I will if you've ever experienced that. But something comes into your life and all of a sudden you're attracted to doing something that's wrong. And you say to yourself, “What's going on?” I’ll tell you what's going on. There's a wonderful way in which God works with you so individually, imperfectly, that when he sees you growing in this direction of perfection and unconsciously if you are in that, and you're looking at other people saying, why don't they do a better job? They should be doing it. It's dangerous. So he reminds you of your humanity. He reminds you that sin is a part of this life that we lead, and it continually grounds us in the need for a loving, forgiving God. And if you get into perfection too much, the sign that you are, you begin to lose compassion and you're irritated by the people around you that simply don't seem to have what you have. That's the danger of perfection. 

Perfection separates you. Human weakness, shared human weakness, weakness unifies us. It's the most bonding thing in a sense if you think about it. We're all making mistakes. We all need to work through those mistakes and understand what we've done and change. That's so much more binding than a bunch of people who looked at each other and said, “We are so perfect, we have done it. We're so much better than them.” 

Watch out for perfection. And don't be afraid to sin. I don't mean that you get into it without resistance, but don't be afraid if it shows up and all of a sudden you feel, “What's wrong with me?” And you know what's wrong with you? You're human, and you just say yes to that.

Have a good day.

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Kyle Cross