When Christ said to His disciples, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect,” He was calling on us to be more than what some would say is humanly possible. But after witnessing current events, I would say that His prescription for happiness is the only way to survive in a world overwhelmed with war on the preborn, the born, and each other.
Planned Parenthood tells the world that when it comes to Ukraine the solutions to the problems women are facing are birth control, abortive emergency contraception, and surgical abortion. Its recipe is to send concerned women and girls to the Women on Web website because abortion and contraception are what are needed to win the war. In this case, what is left unsaid, but that is clearly obvious, is that Planned Parenthood and its allies prefer waging a chemical war on women that will end the lives of their preborn babies, and sadly, leave many of the expectant mothers infertile.
This is the opposite of being perfect, and it is the very epitome of evil itself. But in our secular world there is a dearth of honesty, even when the resulting deception causes death. If you have ever heard the adage “what you don’t know can’t hurt you,” then be aware that when it comes to the stealth methods of abortion, everything can hurt you, definitely kill your preborn children, and possibly thwart your future expectations of getting pregnant.
This is sad, and it calls to mind the wisdom of our heroic forerunners, especially St. John Paul II. On the subject of striving for perfection in a broken world, he taught that “God left man ‘in the power of his own counsel’ (Sir 15:14), that he might seek his Creator and freely attain perfection. Attaining such perfection means personally building up that perfection in himself. Indeed, just as man in exercising his dominion over the world shapes it in accordance with his own intelligence and will, so too in performing morally good acts, man strengthens, develops and consolidates within himself his likeness to God.”
The perfecting of oneself is a challenge some might say is impossible. This is so because the siren song the evil one sings is a dirge that calls every human being to live only for himself, to eradicate that which is an impediment to his personal happiness, and to eliminate impositions—such as the preborn, the suffering, the elderly, and the dying—on his personal time.
The opposite of this self-absorption is the pursuit of acts that are directed at the good of others, especially those most at risk. The quest for holiness begins with the admission that if we truly want to imitate Christ, we must pour ourselves out for others, especially those most in need of our aid.
On this, it is Thomas á Kempis who reminds us in the classic Imitation of Christ: “He who has true and perfect charity seeks self in nothing, but searches all things for the glory of God. Moreover, he envies no man, because he desires no personal pleasure nor does he wish to rejoice in himself; rather he desires the greater glory of God above all things. He ascribes to man nothing that is good but attributes it wholly to God from Whom all things proceed as from a fountain, and in Whom all the blessed shall rest as their last end and fruition.”
As pro-life Americans, we strive to be examples of perfect charity through our devotion to the defenseless preborn, the aged, and others at risk. Such people have accepted as gospel society’s false promise of self-gratification. The only way we can break through this wall of death is by being examples of Christ’s love.
In times like this, it is necessary for us to take time out, reflect on what the Lord truly expects of us as His children, and act in ways that we hope are pleasing to Him. In doing so, we are following Christ’s instruction to His first disciples: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
