PERFECT LIKE THE FATHER
Fr Kingsley Idehen (14th October 2020) shared his experience from childhood. When he was still a child he always follow his grandad to the farm. There is a little hut where they rest, cook and eat after working. His grandad always come to the farm with his soap wrapped in leaves, when rain falls it fell on it and the sun shines on the leaves with the soap inside. After eating his grandad will remove the leaves and give it to him to use and wash the oily plates they used to eat. The leaves will become foamy and soapy. According to him this experience taught him that when we cling to anything or we are close to anything we become more like that thing.
St Claire of Assisi once said "we become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing, imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means that we become vessels of God compassionate love for others ".
When we look up to God, we draw closer towards perfection. We become what we look up to. When we look up to God, we try to live
up to the life of perfection which he lived on earth.
God in his infinite wisdom blessed man with numerous gifts and grace to make heaven. We all are created in our own unique way with different gifts which if put to use we will seek perfection and make heaven. We must not be like a particular Saint or act like him or her to become a Saint or become perfect. Remember that our gift differs. How can we seek perfection? We must first strive to know the will of God for us and strive to accept it and work for heaven despite all the challenges we will face. We follow and fulfill the commandment of faith and love with a "fools mentality".
God gives strength to those who declare they are foolish, he also bless them with wisdom but leaves those who claim to be wise and live according to their will to suffer. It is because of this that St Alphonsus de Liguori said, "in the journey of eternity, those who renounce their will and declare their foolishness wins God's favor more easily than those who anchoring on their own will claim to be wise for God comes to bless and revive the weak and foolish, but the strong and the weak he lives on their own accord.
True sanctity does not entail mighty for we look for God in little things and for st Theresa, sanctity entails the 'Little Way" which can
be referred to as "Foolish Way" therefore, it is only by being foolish that we can be wise, for it is only the foolish that yearns for and obtains wisdom. Hence, he that seeks sanctity with wisdom fails woefully, ending up being foolish.
To ascend into a celestial life a Christian will pass through different stages "Righteousness, holiness and perfection". The stage of righteousness is achieved when one is baptized and we follow the teaching of Christ but with reluctance. That is when we strive for holiness. We achieve perfection when we perfect our holiness by living in union with the doctrine of faith and love in good and bad times, so that we become a fool and summit to God, detaching from the things we want and like, to perfect ourselves some degree of mortification and detachment is needed on top of our good works to crown it." He who wants to be my follower must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me"
In the scriptures, perfect means “complete, whole, and fully developed; totally righteous. True followers of Christ may become perfect through his grace and atonement.”. Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has taught that perfection in this life “can be achieved as we try to perform every duty and keep every law. If we do the best we can, God will bless us according to
our deeds and the desires of our hearts.”
Now, the act of being perfect or striving towards perfection does not means never making mistakes. Jesus did not say that making a mistake means that perfection is out of reach. We can repent.
According to President Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901), the key to perfection in this life is to “be better today than you were yesterday.
… Continue to be a little better day by day.
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