Perfection involves acting in the life of virtue, exhibiting
all the fruits of the Holy Spirit and, eventually, having a character
completely formed in the Mind of Christ, which is found in the Beatitudes.
Some people are born with strong characteristics of the
Beatitudes. These people are especially graced to maintain their innocence and
baptismal purity. Such as the saints like Gemma Galgani and Aloysius Gonzanga.
When confirmed, these saints are almost “perfect Christians”. They will suffer
the passive perfection and be united to Christ quickly, but not without intense
suffering.
We see this pattern in the life of St. Therese, the Little
Flower, the saint of love. These young saints have been perfected on a fast
track to holiness and illumination, love and unity.
Other saints must strive to conquer their predominant
faults. Manning makes the distinction between a “just man, and a holy man, and
a perfect man.”
He writes that, “A just man fulfils the law, and gives to
every man his due; a holy man is specially united with God; the perfect man is
both.”
Can parents understand why it is so important to form their
children from little on, helping them create habits of charity and all the
virtues, using the baptismal purity to move on to purity of mind and heart as
adults?
This is not impossible. Manning notes that, “because truth
is the revelation of the mind of God, the intellect is conformed to the divine
intelligence.”
Read the process which is possible for all: “As this
sanctifying grace grows in the heart, the intellect and will are conformed to
the intelligence and will of God; and this growing conformity prepares both for
the operation of the seven gifts. Then holy fear, and piety, and fortitude
control, and soften, and strengthen the will; and knowledge and counsel form
the practical reason or conscience; and understanding and wisdom enlarge the
head and the heart, and unite both with God.”
Manning states, however, that this state is still not
perfection.
“There may still be flaws and dents in the heart, mists in
the intelligence, twists and crookedness in the will. There may be roots of
many faults yet alive; habitual faults and deliberate venial sins.”
One may sin venially out of a knee-jerk reaction learning in
childhood, habits which must be broken, but deliberate venial sins, with full
knowledge, are more serious sins. Both types must be washed away in the Dark
Night.
Manning continues, “The complete circle of charity and of it
fertility is not yet expanded. There may be no self-denial, or generosity, or
fervour. Such a man may still seek his own things, and not the things which are
Jesus Christ’s. He keeps the commandments, but not the counsels. He dos many
good things, but he does not spend himself, nor is he willing to be spent for
the elect’s sake.”
As Manning notes, these people are good but not perfect. They
do good works, but seem wooden and not spontaneous. They have to enter into the
passive perfection of the soul, the purgation of self-will, the Dark Night,
when all egoism is destroyed because good men judge one as evil, but nothing
prospers from the work of one’s hands. ‘…everything goes wrong…all seem to
prosper that is evil.”
Such is the way of the saint, those who want to be perfect.
“Here is the realm which seems to be the home of those God has forgotten; where
His face is never seen, nor a ray of His light ever shines. Let us now read
over the Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit;’ Blessed are they that
mourn;’ ‘blessed are they that hunger and thirst;’ Blessed are ye when men
shall persecute you for justice’ sake.’
As Manning states most neatly—“This is the region not so
much of active charity as of passive endurance.”
One suffers in the dark.
Faith, hope and charity need to be used, daily. Those who want to be
perfect, must go through this time. “They are learning to suffer without and
within; from the world, from enemies, from friends, from Satan, from
themselves. They are learning to be patient to be patient as their Divine
Master, gentle to all, even the most unworthy; generous to the ungrateful,
thankful under the cross, and their will in perfect submission to the will of
God.”
As God told me on the Feast of Corpus Christi, “You have a
long way to go….”
To be continued…