The longing for perfection is an impulse towards God, who is the sum of all that is perfect.

When in our activities we seek neatness, harmony, that careful quality which results from concentrated application, we are reaching out towards Him; sometimes we realise this and sometimes we do not, but every search for the good or for doing well has God as its goal, veiled or manifest.

There is no problem with the longing for perfection; the conflict arises when we do not accept ourselves as imperfect, when we do not accept that, in our case, perfection will always be only an intention, a model to which we aspire as the direction of our life.

What is incomplete, what is imperfect, is one of the characteristics of the human, just like our tendency towards the infinite, the search for the immortal, or sociability.

This striving for perfection can turn into scrupulosity or a kind of obsession if we forget the above. But as long as we remember that we are children, in need of mercy at every moment of our life, we will remain aware of our humility and will receive error, or the imperfect in general, as part of the spiritual path.

What is more, what is mistaken shows us what is right in its very manifestation, and because of this contrast we are continually learning. In the same way, the original fall, despite all the pain it entails, points us to our true origin, anchored in that garden of the Presence.

The Cross points to the resurrection in the same way that our lament before the imperfect shows us the possibility of a future condition, living a clarity without limits, full of a joy without shadow.

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