“Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”

 Repeatedly, we hear in Church and elsewhere: “We can’t be perfect.” “That word should be ‘perfected,’ not perfect.” “I don’t know where that expression came from!” “We are expected to improve, yes, but not be perfect.” “Humans cannot be perfect.”

 Modern liberal theology notwithstanding, we are called by God to be perfect. God warns us not to change a single divine word—not even a smallest part of His word to us. The hard fact is that no one gets into heaven unless they are perfect. Throughout Scripture God insists on perfection. Yes, there is forgiveness here on earth, there is mercy, there is understanding of our human weaknesses. Nonetheless, perfection is what God expects.

After death and before the Last Judgment there is time, for those already on the way to heaven, to become perfect. That’s what Purgatory is for (some refer to this as a state for “restless souls”). “You will not get out until you pay the last penny.” However, at the Last Judgment, there is either heaven or @#!*% .

 If we don’t understand the interaction between Deuteronomy 28, the Passion of Jesus, Galatians 5, Romans 8 and other related texts, then “perfection” is understood in the secular sense as a personality free of bad habits and other social wrinkles. Of course, such “perfection” is impossible in sinful human beings. But that is not what God is saying. The early Church too had to discover the source of our perfection.

 If you want to know more, see ME, PERFECT? SURELY YOU JEST!