Father Richard Rohr dispels the long-lasting myth that our efforts to be perfect make us more loveable or valuable to God.
There is a common misperception that deeply distorts the reading of the Scriptures and much spirituality. I call it “spiritual capitalism,” which centers around a common philosophy of “I can do it, and I must do it, and I will do it.” This is the mindset of early-stage ego consciousness. It puts all the emphasis and total reliance on “me,” my effort, and my spiritual accomplishments. It has little active trust in God’s grace and mercy. Unfortunately, the driving energy is fear and more effort, instead of quiet confidence and gratitude. It becomes about climbing instead of surrendering. The first feels good, while the second feels like falling, failing, or even dying. Who likes that? Certainly not the separate self. The ego always wants to feel that it’s achieved salvation somehow. Grace and forgiveness are always a humiliation for the ego.
The movement known as Jansenism in the 17th and 18th centuries is one theological distortion that emphasized moral austerity and fear of God’s justice more than any trust in God’s mercy. God was understood to be wrathful, vindictive, and punitive, and all the appropriate Scriptures were found to make these very points. It’s hard to find a Western Christian—Catholic or Protestant—who has not been formed by this theology. Most mainline Christians pay sincere lip service to grace and mercy, but in the practical order believe life is almost entirely about performance and moral achievement.
The common manifestation of this ever-recurring pattern might simply be called perfectionism. The word itself is taken from a single passage in Matthew 5:48, where Jesus tells us to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Of course, perfection as such is a divine or mathematical concept and has never been a human one. Jesus offers it as guidance for how we can love our enemies, of which he has just spoken (5:43–47). He is surely saying that we cannot obey this humanly impossible commandment by willpower, but only by surrendering to the Divine Perfection that can and will flow through us. In other words, we cannot be perfect of ourselves—but God can. Yet we used this one passage to give people the exact opposite impression—that they could indeed be perfect in themselves!
In his proclamation of St. Thérèse of Lisieux as a Doctor of the Church, Pope St. John Paul II said, “She has made the Gospel shine appealingly in our time…. She helped to heal souls of the rigors and fears of Jansenism, which tended to stress God’s justice rather than [God’s] divine mercy.” [1]
Thérèse rightly named this spirituality her “Little Way.” It was nothing more than a simple and clear recovery of the pure gospel message! It was she (and Francis of Assisi) who gave me the courage as a young man to read the Scriptures through this primary lens of littleness instead of some possible bigness.
References:
[1] John Paul II, Divini Amoris Scientia [The Science of Divine Love], apostolic letter, October 19, 1997, section 8.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Yes, And…: Daily Meditations (Franciscan Media, 2019), 291–293.
Image credit and inspiration: Martin Baron, untitled (detail), 2025, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. We are gentle with ourselves, broken bits and all, trusting that all of ourselves is worthy.
Story from Our Community:
I see the Church as an institution like any other. It’s run by imperfect human beings who sometimes do grievous harm to others. Despite this, I continue to remain a Christian because I see it as a community of faith rooted in God’s love and committed to a transcendent expression of that love in Jesus. It is the commitment to that transcendent love that encourages me to stay.
—Mark S.
