Imperfect...

Imperfection is the organizing principle of the entire human and spiritual enterprise. In the great spiritual traditions imperfection is not to be just tolerated, excused, marginalized, contextualized or even forgiven. It is the very framework inside of which God makes the God-Self known and calls us into union.

You can't talk about union when you are talking about two perfections. It's like trying to put two balloons together. They are both so whole, inflated and entire - they don't need one another.

Richard Rohr, from The Little Way

How long will it take us to realise, as Christians, that perfection just isn't within our grasp. We cannot choose perfection. St. Francis wasn't perfect. St. Teresa of Avila, whom we remembered yesterday, wasn't perfect. You have only to look at their writings, or those (especially in Francis' case) of their contemporaries, to see that they were under no illusions themselves. Abba Moses the Black, one of the holiest of the Desert Fathers, famously recognised this of himself:

When a brother committed a fault and Moses was invited to a meeting to discuss an appropriate penance, Moses refused to attend. When he was again called to the meeting, Moses took a leaking jug, filled with water, and carried it on his shoulder… When he arrived at the meeting place, the others asked why he was carrying the jug. He replied, "My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, but today I am coming to judge the errors of another." On hearing this, the assembled brothers forgave the erring monk.

This passage carries within it the seed of the explanation of that strange passage in Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 7.48) For this comes directly after his remarks about loving and forgiving people, even our enemies... precisely Moses' point.

Only Jesus, himself true God from true God, can forgive out of perfection. We can only do it out of our own imperfection, our own need of forgiveness.