QUOTATION: Perfection

This is our perfection: to find out our imperfections.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Perfection

It is evident that one who would merely aim at avoiding mortal sin would not be living according to the standard of moral conduct outlined in the Gospel. Our Lord proposes to us as the ideal of holiness the very perfection of Our Heavenly Father: "Be ye therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect." Hence, all having God for their Father must approach this divine perfection - which evidently cannot be accomplished without progress.

--St. Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Religious Perfection

Religious perfection does not consist in having no failings, in never committing a fault, but in correcting our faults as soon as they are pointed out to us.

--St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, Conferences and Instructions

QUOTATION: Perfection

We can never attain to perfection while we have an affection for any imperfection.

--St. Francis de Sales

QUOTATION: Perfection in Little Things

The best perfection is to do ordinary things in a perfect manner. Constant fidelity in little things is a great and heroic virtue.

--St. Bonaventure

QUOTATION: Aim for Perfection

Shun, then, the least faults, in order not lo force Our Lord to make you wait for your reward. It distresses Him much to put souls into purgatory. He does it, because His justice demands it, but it is most painful to His love.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Falls from Grace

My beloved, may every fall, even if it is serious and habitual sin, always become for us a small step toward a higher degree of perfection.

In fact, the only reason why the Immaculate permits us to fall is to cure us from our self-conceit, from our pride, to make us humble and thus make us docile to the divine graces.

The devil, instead, tries to inject in us discouragement and internal depression in those circumstances, which is, in fact, nothing else than our pride surfacing again.

--St. Maximillian Kolbe

QUOTATION: Perfection

Christian perfection consists in suffering well. To acquire solid virtues, complain not of your pains. Endure contradictions patiently.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Perfect Faith

His faith is most perfect whose love of God is most perfect.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Holy Eucharist

QUOTATION: Aim High

We ought to desire to do great things for the service of God, and not content ourselves with a moderate goodness, but wish, if it were possible, to surpass in sanctity and love even St. Peter and St. Paul.

--St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Perfection

To attain perfection, we must endure our imperfection. I say: we must suffer it with patience, not love or cherish it; humility is fortified with suffering.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Fervour

Be assured that in the study of perfection, as in that of the sciences, any act animated by holy fervor makes more progress than a thousand others produced by sloth; so that what the careless man acquires with trouble, after many years, the fervent man readily obtains in a short time.

--St. Ignatius Loyola, Letter 50

QUOTATION: Perfection

Our perfection consists in combating our imperfections.

--St Francis de Sales

QUOTATION: Perfect Love of Jesus Christ

But in order to arrive at  the  perfect love of Jesus Christ, we must adopt the means. Behold, then, the means which St. Thomas Aquinas gives us:

1. To have a constant remembrance of the benefits of God, both general and particular.

2. To consider the infinite goodness of God, who is ever waiting to do us good, and who ever loves us, and seeks from us our love.

3. To avoid even the smallest thing that could offend him.

4. To renounce all the sensible goods of this world, riches, honors, and sensual pleasures.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Holy Eucharist

QUOTATION: Perfection

The best perfection is to do ordinary things in a perfect manner. Constant fidelity in little things is a great and heroic virtue.

--St. Bonaventure

QUOTATION: Elusive Perfection

Very few of us reach perfection because we esteem our opinions and our own judgments so highly.

--St. Francis de Sales

QUOTATION: Six Maxims of Perfection:

1. Desire only to be virtuous and holy, and so be pleasing to God.

2. Direct all things, thoughts as well as actions, to the increase, the service and the glory of Holy Church.

3. Recognize that I have been set here by God, and therefore remain perfectly serene about all that happens, not only as regards myself but also with regard to the Church, continuing to work and suffer with Christ, for her good.

4. Entrust myself at all times to Divine Providence.

5. Always acknowledge my own nothingness.

6. Always arrange my day in an intelligent and orderly manner.


--Pope John XXIII

QUOTATION: 50 Maxims for Attaining Perfection in the Love of Jesus Christ

1. To desire ardently to increase in the love of Jesus Christ

2. To make acts of love toward Jesus Christ. Immediately on waking, and before going to sleep, make an act of love, seeking always to unite your own will to the will of Jesus Christ.

3. Often to meditate on His Passion.

4. Always to ask Jesus Christ for His love.

5. To communicate often and many times in the day to make spiritual communions.

6. Often to visit the Most Holy Sacrament.

7. Every morning to receive from the hands of Jesus Christ himself your own cross.

8. To desire Paradise and Death in order to be able to love Jesus Christ perfectly and for all eternity.

9. Often to speak of the love of Jesus Christ.

10. To accept contradictions for the love of Jesus Christ.

11. To rejoice in the happiness of God.

12. To do that which is most pleasing to Jesus Christ, and not to refuse Him anything that is agreeable to Him.

13. To desire and to endeavor that all should love Jesus Christ.

14. To pray always for sinners and for the souls in Purgatory.

15. To drive from your heart every affection that does not belong to Jesus Christ.

16. Always to have recourse to the Most Holy Mary, that she may obtain for us the love of Jesus Christ.

17. To honor Mary in order to please Jesus Christ.

18. To seek to please Jesus Christ in all of your actions.

19. To offer yourself to Jesus Christ to suffer any pain for His love.

20. To be always determined to die rather than commit a willful venial sin.

21. To suffer crosses patiently, saying, “Thus it pleases Jesus Christ.”

22. To renounce your own pleasures for the love of Jesus Christ.

23. To pray as much as possible.

24. To practice all the mortifications that obedience permits.

25. To do all your spiritual exercises as if it were for the last time.

26. To persevere in good works in the time of aridity.

27. Not to do nor yet to leave undone anything through human respect.

28. Not to complain in sickness.

29. To love solitude, to be able to converse alone with Jesus Christ.

30. To drive away melancholy.

31. Often to recommend yourself to those persons who love Jesus Christ.

32. In temptation, to have recourse to Jesus crucified, and to Mary in her sorrows.

33. To trust entirely in the Passion of Jesus Christ.

34. After committing a fault, not to be discouraged, but to repent and resolve to amend.

35. To do good to those who do evil.

36. To speak well of all, and to excuse the intention when you cannot defend the action.

37. To help your neighbor as much as you can.

38. Neither to say nor to do anything that might vex him. And if you have been wanting in charity, to ask his pardon and to speak kindly to him.

39. Always to speak with mildness and in a low tone.

40. To offer to Jesus Christ all the contempts and persecution that you meet with.

41. To look upon Superiors as the representatives of Jesus Christ.

42. To obey without answering and without repugnance, and not to seek your own satisfaction in anything.

43. To like the lowest employments.

44. To like the poorest things.

45. Not to speak either good or evil of yourself.

46. To humble yourself even towards inferiors.

47. Not to excuse yourself when you are reproved.

48. Not to defend yourself when found fault with.

49. To be silent when you are disquieted.

50. Always to renew your determination of becoming a saint, saying, “My Jesus, I desire to be all Thine, and Thou must be all mine.”

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Perfection

First, I do not here pretend to deny but that we are to rejoice when God approaches us, and be sorry when he withdraws himself from us. For it is impossible a soul should not feel a sensible joy in the presence of her beloved, and be sensibly afflicted at his absence, since by this she is left to desolations and temptations. Jesus Christ himself was sensibly affected on seeing himself forsaken by his eternal father, when on the cross he cried out: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? (Matthew 27:46). But what I desire is, that we make our profit of this hard proof and trial which God sometimes sends his elect; and that we endeavor to fortify our souls, in conforming ourselves to the divine will, saying: Nevertheless, O Lord, not as I will, but as you will. (Matthew 26:39).

We must make use of this means the more readily, as Christian perfection consists neither in the sweetness of consolations, nor in sublime prayer; and as our advancement is not measured thereby, but only according to the rule of charity, which is independent of all other things, and which consists in a perfect union and submission to the Divine Will, as well in adversity and desolation, as in prosperity and comfort. Wherefore upon this account it is, that spiritual crosses and aridities ought to be received from the hand of God, as well as consolations and favors: and we must thank him equally for both. If it be your pleasure, O Lord, that I remain in darkness, blessed be your holy name; if you will have me enjoy the light, blessed be your holy name; if you confer comforts upon me, blessed be your holy name; and if you will have me suffer afflictions, blessed be your holy name. This is the advice of the apostle when writing to the Thessalonians, he says: In all this give God thanks; for this is what God would have all do in Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

--St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

QUOTATION: Spiritual Perfection

Rushrochius a man very learned, and excellently well versed in spirituality, relates that a holy virgin, explaining to her director, who was a great servant of God, the method she used in prayer, told him, she was accustomed to make her meditation upon the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ: and the fruit she reaped thence, was to have a knowledge of herself, of her own faults, and her vicious inclinations; and above all to have a great compassion and sorrow for the sufferings of the Son of God. The director answered her, what she said was very good, but that any one might without attaining any great perfection, be extremely touched with the sufferings of Jesus Christ, even as amongst men, the very sentiments of nature make them feel for the afflictions and calamities of their neighbour. But, the holy virgin, who desired to know the opinion of her confessor, thereby to regulate her way of proceeding, demanded, if a continual lamenting her sins, were not a profitable devotion? Yes, my daughter, replied the confessor: but still that is not what is the most perfect; because naturally what is evil in itself, causes in us dissatisfaction and regret. Would it then be, answered she, a perfect devotion to exercise ourselves in meditating on the pains of the damned, and the glory of the blessed? Nor is that, replied he, what is the most sublime in perfection. For nature itself abhors all that causes it any grief or pain, and is always inclined to what affords it joy and content. At last seeing she could get no other answer from her director, she departed in tears and very much troubled, that she could not understand, to what she should more particularly apply herself in her meditations, to render them more acceptable to God.

Awhile after, as she was still in the same affliction, there appeared to her a young child, of surprising beauty, to whom, after she had discovered the cause of her affliction, and that she could find no one capable of giving her any comfort — not so, said the child: for I both can and will comfort you. Go seek your spiritual father, and tell him that true and real devotion consists in an entire renunciation of one's self, and an absolute resignation into the hands of God, by a strict union with him in love, and a perfect conformity in all things to his divine will. The holy woman, abundantly satisfied with this, told it her director; who answered, that that very thing in reality was the essential point, to which she ought most particularly to apply herself in meditation. Because in this consists true charity, and love of God, and consequently all our advancement and perfection.

--St. Alphonsus Rodriguez