The Possibility of Perfection | Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2019
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This talk was offered at Duke University on January 17th, 2019. For more info about upcoming TI events, visit: thomisticinstitute.org/events-1/
Event Description:
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord instructs us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect . . . inspiring on one hand, but daunting on the other. Is it possible to be perfect or are we doomed to despair? Come hear how the universal call to holiness resonates really, truly, and personally in every human heart.
Speaker Bio:
Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. serves presently as the Assistant Director for Campus Outreach with the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He served previously as an associate pastor at St. Louis Bertrand Church in Louisville, KY where he also taught as an adjunct professor at Bellarmine University. Born and raised near Philadelphia, PA, he attended the Franciscan University of Steubenville, studying mathematics and humanities. Upon graduating, he entered the Order of Preachers in 2010. He was ordained a priest in 2016 and holds an STL from the Dominican House of Studies.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So tonight we're going to consider the possibility of perfection. |
| 0:04.0 | We can begin just with a simple question, is it possible to be perfect? |
| 0:10.0 | Is it possible to be perfect? |
| 0:14.0 | In a competitive academic environment, I suppose that this animates many of your efforts, right? |
| 0:20.0 | Is it possible to acquit yourself most admirably |
| 0:22.8 | when it comes to grades and research and matriculation and graduation? But more broadly, |
| 0:29.1 | is it possible to be perfect as a human being? Is it possible to fire on all cylinders, |
| 0:35.7 | to exhaust what it means to be man and woman? |
| 0:40.7 | So we have to come to grips with the biblical testimony, because as we read in |
| 0:46.4 | scripture, the standard is high. |
| 0:49.4 | So for those who peruse the pages of the Gospels, you come across in the Gospel of Matthew, |
| 0:55.3 | chapters 5 through 7, the Sermon on the Mount, which represents in kind of rarefied form |
| 0:59.7 | in its most concrete expression what this moral transformation is, which Jesus wrought. |
| 1:06.6 | And there at the end of chapter 5, it's like verse 47, we find the injunction, |
| 1:12.0 | be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. |
| 1:17.2 | Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. |
| 1:21.8 | It doesn't say like, be therefore decent. |
| 1:26.2 | Be therefore good enough. |
| 1:29.1 | Be therefore a swell fella. |
| 1:33.8 | It says perfect, right? |
| 1:36.2 | So the goal of the Christian life isn't to be nice or merely so or just kind of kind or to follow the rules well. |
| 1:42.0 | Rather that the goal of the Christian life is to be like God. |
... |
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