The “call” to holiness is a call from God to pursue an active program of spiritual development. It is the call that Jesus gave us when He said: “You shall be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Dose this mean that God expects us to be perfect now during this life? It is regrettable that the words of Jesus, “You shall be perfect,” were mistranslated by some as “You must be perfect”. The Greek verb eseste, used in the original Greek, is a verb in the future tense. It is a promise which says very clearly that perfection is to be granted in the future by grace. It is an ongoing process of continued growth in the life of Christ of which perfection is the goal. In the English translation it is incorrectly translated in the present tense and in the imperative implying that we are expected to reach perfection now. It is not you must be prefect but you shall be perfect.

Perfection in this life according to Eastern theology and spirituality is not the state of “I have arrived. I have made it. I am saved.” Rather, it is the state of “I am on the way. I am moving. I am on a journey. I am growing.” Man’s life is never complete even in the Kingdom of God. We shall always be “on the way.” Our very perfection is always to grow more perfect, more like unto Christ. And this is a never-ending process.

St. Gregory of Nyssa used the word epectasis which means a “stretching out,” a striving to exceeds one’s capacity. It is based on Paul’s statement: “I strain ahead for what is still to come”. The Holy Spirit plants a power in us that expands our capacity and makes us capable of possessing God in an unending process of great and greater growth, both in this life as well as in the life to come. St. Gregory described true perfection as “never to stop growing toward what is better and never to place a limit on perfection.” God, in creating us, saw that the process and growing, without limits, was something good and allows us to freely return His love.