His Most Profound Words

By JOE SIXPACK

Jesus said many wonderful, amazing, and profound things during His three-year public ministry. He said things no one had ever said before…anytime, anywhere. We twenty-first century Christians take the profundity of His words for granted. After all, we grew up hearing them, and they certainly didn’t seem all that profound when we were kids.
Think about it, though. Jesus, this Jewish man roaming around Israel, told us that He is God. He told us He would give us His Body and Blood for the nourishment of our souls. This Jesus, who was from all appearances just another man, forgave sins. He told His apostles they could forgive our sins in His name. He told us we could do things greater than He if we acted with faith in Him.
But none of these things were among His most profound words.
He gave us the most profound statement of His ministry during His Sermon on the Mount, which covers almost a full three chapters in Matthew — chapters five, six, and seven. In Matt. 5:48 we find Jesus’ most profound statement: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Think about that statement for a moment. It requires a lot of reflection. Break it down. He said we must be perfect. That’s not a suggestion or a mere goal to strive for. It’s a command! And He doesn’t merely tell us to be perfect. He places a stipulation on it. He tells us we must be perfect, but how perfect? As perfect as our Father in Heaven! Wow! How perfect is the Father? He’s infinitely perfect.
My first thought when I began to think about this command was: “Hey, let’s be reasonable here. How in the world can I become infinitely perfect?” Only a complete moron would believe he could become perfect at all, much less infinitely perfect. Don’t we all commonly say nobody’s perfect, and that there was only one perfect man in the world? I know I’ve been guilty of those statements. And I was ignorant, arrogant, and a little bit stupid for saying them.
Jesus never gave us any sort of command to obey that cannot be achieved. But how in the world can we obey His command to be as perfect as God the Father? Simply stated, we can’t…by our own power. We can obey this command, though, and Jesus has given and gives us all we need to become perfect.
Let’s begin by defining perfection. To be perfect is to be a saint. All of the saints were perfect, at least by the moment of their deaths. And they were infinitely perfect. Jesus told us in the Gospels that we would be like gods. Telling us that makes no sense at all…unless we consider His command for us to be perfect. To be perfect is to be like God. In other words, to be perfect is to be restored to our original state prior to the fall of man — original sin.
Prior to the fall of man we had special qualities as a consequence of man’s original perfection, and we’ll reacquire all these special qualities after the resurrection at the end of the world…provided we find ourselves saved. Those qualities are called impassibility, brightness, agility, and subtility.
Impassibility means that the resurrected body will never know pain nor inconvenience of any kind. Neither cold nor heat nor pain nor sickness will have any effect on the body whatsoever.
Brightness is that property of the glorified body that makes us shine like the sun — just as Jesus did in His Transfiguration.
Agility frees the body from all material burden. With agility the body can move more freely than anyone can imagine. You may be on one place and, by an act of your will alone, simply cease being in that one place and instantaneously find yourself wherever you will. Agility also covers what is called bilocation — the ability to be in more than one place at the same time.
Subtility is what St. Paul calls the spiritual body. Through subtility the glorified body will be completely under the control of the spirit and will be fully obedient to the soul.
Do any of these special qualities sound familiar to you? They should. Jesus demonstrated all of them Himself during His public ministry. “But He’s God,” you say. And you’re right. However, if you know anything about the lives of the saints, you’ll recognize that many of them demonstrated one or more of these same gifts during their lives…and so can you, if God sees a need while you’re striving for perfection.
Don’t strive for the gifts. That’s just plain wrong. None of the saints strove for these gifts. They strove for sanctity. They were rewarded with gifts by God when they needed them. They first became holy — perfect. And you don’t have to be a priest, nun, or monastic to achieve this perfection. There are hundreds of canonized saints who were among the laity, and thousands more who were never canonized.
But how does one become holy? Beginning on the road to perfection comes by humble acceptance of the graces God offers us. God offers us grace in two forms: actual and sanctifying. Actual grace is a divine enlightenment of our mind and strengthening of our will to help us choose what is right and avoid evil. Without actual grace it’s impossible for us to do anything that’s pleasing to God. We’re being bombarded by actual graces every moment of every day. The mere fact that you’re reading this is a sign that you’re accepting actual graces being offered to you to advance in knowledge of our faith.
Sanctifying grace, simply stated, is God’s life in us. It’s a supernatural quality infused into our soul at Baptism. Sanctifying grace gives us a share in the divine life and allows us to become a temple of the Holy Spirit, God’s friend, and an heir of Heaven. It also makes possible the ability for us to merit heavenly rewards for our good actions.
Sanctifying grace is absolutely necessary for our salvation, because it makes us pleasing to God, and only this type of grace makes it possible for us to attain Heaven. So when we say we’re in a state of grace it means we’re in a state of friendship with God; that is, we have sanctifying grace in our soul and are worthy of Heaven…usually after a period of purification in Purgatory — unless we’ve managed to obey Christ’s command to become perfect.
However, sanctifying grace can be lost, and we lose it with the commission of a mortal sin…every mortal sin, even if you don’t like what the Church says is sinful. The way we recover our state of grace — to again be filled with sanctifying grace — is by making a good Confession and receiving absolution from the priest in Confession.
Now here is where striving for perfection comes in. It’s not enough to merely be in a state of grace. We must increase the sanctifying grace in our soul at every opportunity. Each time we increase sanctifying grace in our soul we become closer to God, closer to perfection. Increasing sanctifying grace is done by performing good works for Jesus’ sake, prayer (not just formulated, but also heart-to-heart conversations with God), and devout reception of the sacraments — especially frequent Confession and the Holy Eucharist.
There is an alternative to striving to obey Jesus’ command for us to become perfect. That alternative, most unfortunately, is the route taken by most Catholics in the world today: being lukewarm. But being lukewarm is quite dangerous. Jesus said, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15-16).
Lukewarmness versus being on fire for Christ. Hmm. Let me think about that for a moment. Oops! No contest!
If you have a question or comment you can reach out to me through the “Ask Joe” page of JoeSixpackAnswers.com, or you can email me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.
Hey, how would you like to see things like this article every week in your parish bulletin as an insert? You or your pastor can learn more about how to do that by emailing me at Joe@CantankerousCatholic.com.