26 — IMPERFECTION

Presence of God. — O my God, make me understand how necessary it is for the soul to be pure in order to be united with You, infinite perfection!

Meditation

1 — Whereas venial sin always includes a transgression, more or less slight, of a law of God, imperfection is the omission of a better good to which one is not obliged by any law, but which nevertheless would be fitting to do. When, in a concrete case, there is clearly presented to me the possibility of doing a better action, which is fitting and proportionate to my state, to my present possibilities, which is in harmony with my duties, and for which I can reasonably think myself inspired by the Holy Spirit, and yet I deliberately refuse to do it, this cannot be without true and proper imperfection. In this case my refusal of the better cannot be considered good, nor can it be justified by the thought that, since no law or command exists imposing that better action on me, I may omit it merely to exercise my freedom; this would be an abuse of freedom, which was given to me by God only to render me capable of adhering to good, without letting myself be influenced by passions. And in fact, in the end, my refusal of the better always includes a lack of generosity, motivated by some selfishness, laziness, narrowness, attachment to my comfort; and all this is evidently contrary to perfection.

Considered thus, it is clear that voluntary imperfection can never be conformed to the will of God, therefore it too, like sin, goes in the direction opposite to charity, which tends to full conformity with the divine will. Hence the importance, for the soul that seeks perfection, of eliminating from its conduct any voluntary imperfection. It is precisely in this sense that St. John of the Cross warns: “For the soul to come to be perfectly united with God through will and love... it is required that it consent knowingly and advertently to no imperfection,” and he teaches that attachment to one habitual voluntary imperfection is enough to impede “not only divine union, but also progress in perfection” (A. I, 11, 3).

2 — Wanting to descend to something more concrete, one can consider other types of imperfection, and first of all the transgression of a law that of itself does not oblige under sin, as are generally the constitutions or statutes of various religious Orders and Institutes. In this regard it should be noted that if there is no reasonable, proportionate, and sufficient motive for failing in one of these laws, very easily such transgressions will become venial sin because of lack of a morally good end. In fact, as St. Thomas teaches, man is bound always to act for a reasonable motive, for a good end. If the end is vitiated - as it would be, for example, to transgress the law of silence, recollection, or religious modesty out of curiosity, for one’s own convenience, and the like - the action thereby becomes sinful; and generally these will be “sins, at least light, of spiritual laziness, inconstancy, ingratitude, and a certain hardness of heart that does not sufficiently appreciate the help God gives us for better works” (Salmanticenses). Another kind of imperfection is a certain lack of completeness found in an act substantially good, but carried out, for example, with some narrowness, or without employing in it all the good will and impetus of which one is capable.

In the end, every kind of voluntary imperfection always derives from lack of effort, of vigor, of momentum in spiritual life. It is always selfishness that, in one way or another, takes something from God to satisfy self. We are too calculating; we are afraid of giving too much, and thus selfishness clips our wings and prevents us from reaching full union with God.

Colloquy

I beg You, O my God, grant me a charity strong, generous, capable of destroying to the very root my selfishness. Oh, how I see that it is precisely this selfishness that is the cause of so many little infidelities of mine, of so many imperfections into which I habitually fall and which I do not care to correct under the pretext that they are not sins!

But such faults are not without importance for a soul that, being consecrated to You, has the duty to tend to perfection, for a soul therefore that You call to holiness, that You invite to full union with You. How can I claim to unite myself to You, Infinite Perfection, I who voluntarily admit into my life so many and so many imperfections? How can my will be wholly conformed to Yours, when I will and love what You do not will and absolutely cannot love?

O Lord, how I feel the weight of my selfishness that drags me downward, that would like to achieve the maximum with minimum effort, that seeks by every means to avoid toil, renunciation, full and generous self-gift! How I feel the heaviness of the flesh that always seeks to reduce somewhat the measure of my donation, that postpones to tomorrow what costs me or repels me, that presents me a thousand pretexts to evade an act of generosity!

Yes, O Lord, I feel all this, and You know better than I how far the retreats and compromises of my selfishness go. But You also know that I want to love You with all my heart, that I want to give myself entirely to You; You know that my poor desires are sincere, though ineffective. Well then, do You give me a real, operative love, capable of conquering all the resistances of selfishness, of dismantling all its plans. You who are infinite charity, consuming fire, infuse into my soul a spark of Your love, that it may destroy and burn every selfish tendency of mine. If selfishness is the weight that tries to slow my flight toward You, grant that Your love be a weight still stronger that draws me incessantly into You, by means of a total self-giving, without reserve, without measure.