CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - As we end the first week of our Lenten observance, the Gospel passage at today's Mass shakes us to the bones. It should. It is a call to complete transformation, beginning right now - and right where we are. It is a call to become saints in the stuff of the real world. It is right there where our transformation takes place. It becomes the very real material which is used to recreate us more fully into the Image revealed perfectly in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus. 

In its dogmatic constitution on the Church,Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council affirmed the  teaching of Jesus Christ, the clear teaching and witness of the early Church and the consistent teaching of Church Councils throughout the ages - holiness of life is not an option, for any member of the Church. We are all called to Christian perfection, "all the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord, each in his own way, to that perfect holiness whereby the Father Himself is perfect" (Lumen Gentium, Light to the Nations, 11).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us "All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity. All are called to holiness: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (CCC #2013) Christians are saved from sin, death and separation from God, through Jesus Christ.

We are Called for holy living.

We are to live differently - beginning right now- because we live our lives now in Jesus Christ. We are to love differently, because we are capacitated by grace to love in Jesus Christ, and with His Love. And all of this is made possible, as we cooperate with grace. The character of Christ is being formed in us as we cooperate with grace.

As I age the words from today's Gospel become ever more sobering, "Jesus said to his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." ( Matthew 5: 43-48)

How can we be perfect?

This admonition from Jesus is repeated in other Gospel accounts and developed in the New Testament Epistles. Our question should not be "is it possible?". Rather, it should be "HOW is it possible?"  How do we respond? Perhaps our problem with both understanding and responding is that we confuse the meaning of the word, "perfect". Filtering this word through our linguistic limitations, we may come up with a false translation and, as a result, not even attempt to respond to the admonition. 

However, Jesus has saved us from sin and death - and saved us for a new way of living. We can tend to focus on what we are saved from and forget what we are saved for. We do not yet comprehend who we are to become in Him.

In Greek, the word often translated perfect is telios. It refers to something being completed, brought to its full purpose, potential and intended end and vocation. For example, in the world of objects, a hammer is telios or perfect when it is hammering a nail. In the world of subjects, things are telios or perfect when they are fulfilling their nature. In our Western minds, we can limit this word "perfect" and thereby fail to grasp its promise and potential. We think of it mathematically rather than relationally.We fail to understand it is a work in process.

The God who is Love fashioned us in His Image. We are made to love as He loves. In Jesus Christ, we are now also being capacitated - to use a term frequently used by the early father and Bishop Ireneaus of Lyons - made capable - by the grace of His Redemption - of actually loving with God's love. "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 Jn 4:16).
Notice that the concept of being "perfected' is also applied to Jesus by the author of the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews in chapter 5 verses 8-9:

"Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him." Jesus was made perfect through what He suffered? Yet, Jesus was without sin. How then was He perfected? He came into the world to redeem, to transform us by a life, and a death, and a Resurrection of perfect love. He fulfilled His purpose when He ...