The Pattern of Perfection

Extract

Perfection consists in the love of God, and this is independent of any particular way of life, and can reach the highest degrees where there is nothing demanding or compelling great perfection, through the subjective love which is put into the most ordinary everyday actions. But there is also an objective perfection, a life which, by its obligations and the activities it entails, of its nature requires a high degree of perfection; and where such a life is embraced by a solemn and perpetual obligation, it places a person in a state of perfection. While the Spirit breathes where it wills, and the subjective degree of love of God depends chiefly on individual grace, the objective means of perfection (namely, good works which, so to say, compel the exercise of a high degree of love of God and other virtues which accompany it) can be studied as a pattern of perfection, and organised as a means of perfection.