God is constantly inviting us to perfection whether we are aware of it or not. Not as the world defines perfection but perfect as the mirror of Christ. We are to be light in a dark world. All monotheistic religions are drawn into this state of being.
As Christians, we need to be serious about striving for perfection which is perfect, agape love. Essentially, the perfection of the Christian life consists in charity, first and foremost, in the love of God, then and the love of neighbor. Our call is to use whatever state of life we are in to reach this perfection by renouncing ourselves in order to allow Christ to do all things in us. In every prayer, we say, and every reaction we perform, and every suffering we endure, and our every act of love, we must come to realize that we are a member of Christ, and that Christ wishes still to pray, act, love, and suffer in us. He thirsts for this, to create the Mystical body of Christ living our vocation to form Christ in others.
Let us strive to allow Christ to transform us rather than the arduous task of our will, imitating Christ and being so consumed by the fire of God’s love that we say, “I live, now, not I: but Christ lives in me” Galatians 2:20
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me That every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others; The light, O Jesus will be all from You; none of it will be mine; it will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.
Amen
Cardinal Newman
Smitten With Goodness 