Office of Readings

This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because we fear punishment, like slaves; not to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by some business-like and contractual arrangement. On the contrary, disregarding all those things for which we hope and which have been reserved by promise, we regard falling from God's friendship as the only thing dreadful and we consider becoming God's friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire. This is the perfection of life for which the soul strives — never to cease from ascending and never to discover any limit to the perfection of the journey. The ascent to God is always open before us. And so that man of God who turned his whole life into a road on which he traveled toward God, never thought that what he had achieved was perfection. He always stretched toward the things before him, always moving higher, always pressing on, never resting. His perfection consisted precisely in his never resting, always grasping what is ahead.