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F e a t u r e A r t i c l e
Building to Perfection
What Does It Mean to Be Worthy of Christ?
By Russell L. Ford
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This Rock
Volume 12, Number 7
 September 2001 
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"Being a priest is easy; being a victim is what’s hard. But that’s a vocation we all have." These words were uttered to me recently by my confessor. No truer ones have ever been spoken by priest of the living God.
The many readers of This Rock who have written me over the years seems to place emphasis on three things: the logic and reasonableness of Catholicism, the need for proficiency in apologetics, and the need for effective techniques in evangelization. I have shared this emphasis throughout most of my thirteen years as a Catholic, but I am not certain it is the best thing. Certainly we should be in awe of the living, divine organism of the Church. Certainly it is a worthy goal to become a competent apologist. And certainly we should evangelize those whom God puts in our path. Still, none of these things are our primary vocation or responsibility within the Church.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us, "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Notice he was not giving us a goal to shoot for, nor merely a high-minded thought to keep ever present: Christ was commanding us to be perfect. Becoming perfect, then, should be our primary vocation and responsibility, no matter our state in life.
But what is perfection? I do not think anyone—even Pope John Paul II—grasps fully the reality of perfection. Perfection is without limit. Perfection is infinite. Perfection is God. Yet we know that the saints—whether martyrs, virgins, pastors, religious, or holy men and women—were perfect by the time of their death. The Church’s proclamation of sainthood is an infallible pronouncement that that person is in heaven. Thanks to the saints, we do know a few things about perfection and how to achieve it.
First and foremost in striving for perfection is absolute fealty to the Church. Obedience to the Church is obedience to Christ. The Little Flower understood this, as Therese wrote that she would die for even one rubric of the Mass. Unconditional obedience and assent of will are necessary steps for achieving perfection. This may require courage on our part. For example, have the courage to refuse to hold hands during the Our Father at Mass. This is a gesture that has evolved spontaneously and is nowhere in the rubrics. Don’t be disobedient just because everyone else is doing it. Fidelity in the little things will make obeying the big things easier. People may accuse you of being pharisaical, but that is unimportant. And obedience must be in spirit as well as to the letter, so be joyfully obedient.
Another important element in striving for perfection is to cultivate the virtue of charity. If you are successful in this, all the other virtues will fall into place. Charity is the one obvious characteristic of John the Evangelist in his Gospel and three epistles. During our Lord’s time on earth, he labeled John and his brother James Boanerges—that is, sons of thunder (Mark 3:17)—because they wanted to bring down destruction on Christ’s enemies (Luke 9:54). John also coveted a place next to Christ in his kingdom. But throughout his Gospel John refers to himself only as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." John also speaks frequently of love in his epistles.
Learning to cultivate charity lies in understanding our own place in the grand scheme of existence while learning to value God above all by seeing him in every person we meet. Although the effects of original sin fight against us, this is simpler than you may think.
Seeing ourselves in the light of reality is the most difficult part. (Notice I said this is simple, not easy.) We tend to see ourselves as better than we truly are. Humility is truth, and truth must begin with personal objectivity. John Bosco sometimes referred to himself as an insect when talking to God. A man I know says he is a worm who is not worthy to wallow in the bloody mire at the foot of the cross. These are men who understand who and what they are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ. And yet the miracle is that God values that insect and that worm as much as he values the greatest of the heavenly citizens.
It is difficult for me to see myself realistically. Here I sit in a state prison, a criminal serving a twenty-five year sentence, and yet I am so arrogant that I actually perceive myself as good. It is no wonder Jesus told us to call no one good except our Father in heaven. So I must constantly remind myself that I am nothing. The best way I have found to do this is to recognize, since Christ died for all the sins of all men, that my bad acts increased his suffering as he hung on a tree.
The other part of cultivating charity is deciding how we will view other people. There are only three ways we can see others: as our superiors, our inferiors, or our equals. In this age of political correctness, it is a social sin to disagree with the idea that all people are equal. But this attitude holds a feckless disregard for reason. One person is born with an I.Q. of 150, while another is mentally handicapped. One is born blind while another has 20-15 vision. One is born beautiful while another is ugly. No, none of us are equal in ability, inclination, or circumstance. We are all uniquely different, each contributing different characteristics to the overall human pilgrimage of life, as God wills it.
When we see ourselves as better than others we are discounting the inherent goodness of the soul that is created in the image and likeness of God. In a mystical but very practical way we must see ourselves as somehow subordinate to others. I have tried to teach myself two practices that have served me well as a Catholic. One practice is, each time I meet new a new person in my mind I say to him, "I love you." The person I’m meeting doesn’t know I’m saying it, but it provides the basis for a warm first meeting, as he seems to sense my decision to love him. Second, I look for some way to serve these people—especially by way of sharing the faith—because that means I’m serving Jesus. I always utter an aspiration: "Thank you for letting me serve you, Lord."
Adopting this attitude toward others—as well as interpreting their words and actions in the best possible light—contributes more to success at evangelization in prison than anything else. A good example is dealing with homosexuals, of which there is no shortage in prison.
Homosexual behavior is an abomination before God. It is unnatural and a grave sin. Still, there is no sin in having homosexual tendencies; only in submitting to the temptation to act them out. It is most unfortunate that the natural repulsion that most of us have toward homosexual behavior causes us to respond uncharitably to homosexual persons.
Many of my brothers, despite frequent admonitions to charity, treat homosexuals badly, even sometimes with contumely. Some homosexuals who have wanted to attend Mass or catechism class have been made to feel ostracized. If you want to experience humility and growth in charity, try another approach: embrace the heart and soul of the homosexual person.
I am friendly to all homosexuals. To those who have an interest in Catholicism, I say privately, "I love you. I despise the things you choose to do with other men, but I love you. I realize my brothers have made you feel unwelcome, and I also realize you don’t want to accept the Church’s teaching on homosexual behavior. But that doesn’t keep me from being your friend. When you’re ready to learn to live chastely, when you need someone to help you, or when you simply need a friend, I’m here for you. Anytime."
The growth in charity this promotes comes from learning to overcome your own natural repulsion to homosexuality, thus learning to hate the sin while loving the sinner. The humility learned comes from the attitudes of others.
The homosexuals I know view me as a friend who opposes their lifestyle. Other prisoners, seeing how I treat homosexuals, have spread ugly rumors about me. Others treat me disrespectfully to my face. Some of my own Christian brothers are critical of me. I have to humble myself to ignore them so I can love and be available to these tragically unhappy homosexual men. Because I have been there over the years, a few have converted.
Harking back to the opening statement of this article, learning how to be a victim is the hardest part of growing to perfection. When you sincerely tell our Lord that you want to become a saint, he will give you numerous opportunities to become a victim. It is our duty to say yes when the opportunities come. Jesus told us that "he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:38, emphasis added).
To the first-century Jew, crucifixion was the most humiliating form of death imaginable. It meant being branded as a capital criminal by a foreign power that the Jews perceived as having no such moral authority over them. Furthermore, crucifixion meant a dehumanizing public execution. All basic human decency was tossed aside for the victim of crucifixion. Imagine the humiliation of being slowly and cruelly executed while left naked for all the world to see, in front of your own mother.
To the Roman, crucifixion was the most excruciatingly painful mode of death that could be conceived. Nails were driven through a man’s hands or through his wrists, where a particular nerve causes horrible pain and forces the thumbs to stretch and draw inward unnaturally. The nails through the feet made the victim immobile and made it unbearably painful for him to support his weight. Once he is raised in crucifixion, the victim’s position causes the rib cage to constrict the lungs. In order to breathe, the crucified must push himself up with his nailed feet to give relief to the lungs, but the pain in his feet forces him to allow his body to sag again, making breathing all but impossible. The victim eventually becomes too exhausted to lift himself and suffocates.
Though Jesus rarely demands our willingness to accept this level of suffering, he is gracious about the way he offers us opportunities to become a victim. Because he gave us our own will that we might choose him freely, he asks us if we will accept the suffering necessary to move up, as it were, to the next level in the journey toward perfection. As the angel waited for Mary’s assent of will when she was offered the divine maternity, so will God await our assent to each offered opportunity to accept a new cross.
Being a victim is much in vogue these days. Some African-Americans say they are victims because their ancestors suffered hundreds of years of slavery. Some homosexuals say they are victims because others refuse to accept or understand their lifestyle. Some women claim victimhood because of the dominance and oppression by males since the dawn of time. Some criminals say they are victims of a system that refuses to accept they were victimized by the injustices of their childhood. This type of whining victimization is for cowards and children trapped in adult bodies. If people really want to be victims, they should unite themselves with Christ on the cross and learn the immense spiritual value of silent suffering.
For those of us who are devoted to the mission of the Catholic Church, becoming a victim is essential. If we don’t, if we fail to strive for perfection in sanctity with God’s help, then all our efforts as apologists, catechists, and evangelists will be worthless and hollow. If we are not victims for Jesus Christ, we are merely crying "Lord, Lord" without the benefit of substance and genuine commitment.
Be courageous. Be a victim. Be a saint. In other words, be a true Catholic. The late Fr. John Hardon, S.J., repeatedly warned us we must be ready for martyrdom, as it will be required of many of us. We will not be prepared to be martyrs if we are not striving for sanctity
Russell L. Ford, a longtime contributor to This Rock, is an inmate in an Alabama prison. He is author of The Missionary’s Catechism, available from Catholic Answers.
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