“If you wish to be perfect …”

Jesus said, “If you wish to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Mt. 19:21 Do these words of our Lord strike you?

Recalling your conversion

Maybe you are at a crossroads, discerning which direction, what commitment to make in Christ’s Church; how to enter more deeply into the Kingdom of Heaven. Perhaps you recall your profound discovery that God was real.  You saw that your Heavenly Father loves you ardently and has a beautiful plan for you. In showing Himself, He changed you.  Before, your priority may have been pleasing yourself and the vanities of living for the esteem of others, wealth, power, ego trips, maybe even ridiculing His Church. Your decisions were centered on yourself instead of on the Lord, His glory, and bringing others to esteem Him.

Then, suddenly, you took seriously His commands and following His Son, Jesus.  It dawned on you that the excessive pleasures of this world weakened and emptied you. Like Augustine, you thirsted for a life truly strong and free. You too longed to be a person of character, living by faith and reason, free always to do what is right, regardless of the costs.

Christ became your ideal: “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Mt. 5:48 Like Jesus, the Perfect God and perfect man, living out the Father’s will, was the goal.   You began your adventure to become a genuine Christian, a saint.

“Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness, according to the saying of the Apostle: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification”. Lumen Gentium 39

Growing in holiness

So you want to be holy! You discovered what helps: spending time with Jesus in prayer, realizing His love for you. Now you can see each person – and the whole of creation – in a different light. People are no longer to be used, but are God’s important children to serve. They have needs you can answer, even helping them get to heaven. A new life in Christ blossomed in prayer, study and service. Now it’s easier for you to know Him and His Will more deeply, daily discerning how you can fulfill His plan in your circumstances.

Finding God so deeply, you may have wanted to serve Him with a full, and undivided heart. God alone! Yet, the world each day is built by millions of choices, for and against God. It calls for Christians brave enough to witness to God’s love, and to the challenge of seeking the Kingdom of God above all. You know that God alone can save humanity from misery, injustice and war.

Eager to do what you can, committed fully to a demanding evangelization, you welcome the sanctity that God wills for you. You want to join 2000 years of grace and cross which transformed the world. But where?

Looking at those who went before us

The first Christians hungered for the Spirit of Christ:

“Now the multitude of the believers were of one heart and one soul, and not one of them said that anything he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. Nor was there anyone among them in want. For those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the price of what they sold and lay it at the feet of the apostles, and distribution was made to each, according as anyone had need.”  Acts 4:32

They were responding to Jesus’ counsel: “If you wish to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Thousands of early Christian martyrs were born from these communities.  Their faith converted the Roman Empire. But the new Christina era also brought a challenge – spiritual tepidity. Again the Church responded with many who returned to follow the Lord in poverty, chastity, and obedience. It was the beginning of consecrated life as we know it.

Consecrated life through the years

Some were called to live not only a chaste life, but one of celibacy, along with additional fasting and prayer, avoiding certain amusements, and devoting themselves to charitable works. To meet the needs of the times, consecrated life developed in new forms. St. Anthony of Egypt started a hermetical life in the desert. St. Pachomius founded monasteries. St. Benedict in the West founded monasteries of mutual support to live the Lord’s counsels and grow in union with God.

“Indeed through Baptism a person dies to sin and is consecrated to God. However, in order that he may be capable of deriving more abundant fruit from this baptismal grace, he intends, by the profession of the evangelical counsels in the Church, to free himself from those obstacles, which might draw him away from the fervor of charity and the perfection of divine worship.”  Lumen Gentium 44

Then came Sts. Francis and Dominic who in the 1200’s began to preach penance and doctrine in radical poverty, ministering to people outside of their own communities. The Catholic Counter-Reformation saw St. Ignatius raise up an army for evangelization both in Europe and in missionary lands.

Even today, you can see people consecrated to God in imitation of Christ, with vows of the same evangelical councils, but working in secular occupations,” for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven.”

“As a way of showing forth the Church’s holiness, it is to be recognized that the consecrated life, which mirrors Christ’s own way of life, has an objective superiority. Precisely for this reason, it is an especially rich manifestation of Gospel values and a more complete expression of the Church’s purpose, which is the sanctification of humanity. The consecrated life proclaims and in a certain way anticipates the future age, when the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven, already present in its first fruits and in mystery, will be achieved, and when the children of the resurrection will take neither wife nor husband, but will be like the angels of God (cf. Mt 22:30). The Church has always taught the pre-eminence of perfect chastity for the sake of the Kingdom, and rightly considers it the “door” of the whole consecrated life.” Vita Consecrata 32

I am counting on you “to wake up the world.”  Pope Francis’ apostolic letter to all consecrated people.

“Let him accept it who can.”  Mt. 19:12