“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Jesus warned about this kind of proud complacency in his parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector: Two men went up to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, who seemed to be fulfilling all of the commands of the Jewish law, and the other was a tax collector, who was probably guilty of overcharging his Jewish brothers and sisters. The Pharisee spent his time in prayer thanking God that he was better than others, including the tax collector. He seemed to think he was already good enough. The tax collector instead prayed, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Jesus warns, “I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).
The attitude that Jesus calls us to in the Gospel doesn't say, “I'm good enough,” but “be merciful to me a sinner.” Catholic Tradition thus warns against the sin of presumption:Catechism of the Catholic Church 2092: There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God's almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit).
Yet, the message of the Gospel is not simply that we are miserable creatures. To simply repeat to ourselves “I'm not good enough” is to leave ourselves in a paralyzed despair, refusing to turn to God because we do not trust that he will forgive and accept us. God does not want us to define ourselves by our sins, to make our sins our unchangeable identity, as if we are forever branded by the bad decisions we've made.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns:CCC 2091 By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God's goodness, to his justice - for the Lord is faithful to his promises - and to his mercy.
The truth of the Gospel is neither “I am good enough,” nor “I am not good enough.” The Gospel instead reveals simultaneously both our own weakness and our capacity for greatness with God's grace. We must hold in tension both the stark words of Jesus - “without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5) - and the motivating words of St. Paul - “I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me” (Philippians 4:13). On our own, we fall far short of what we should be, but with his divine help, we can become great saints. As the Lord reassured St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”