The Heart of Perfection

How the Saints Taught Me to Trade My Dream of Perfect for God's

Winner of the 2020 Catholic Press Association Book Award

In a book hailed as “liberating” (Gary Chapman, New York Times bestselling author), an award-winning author and mother of four weaves her own stories and struggles with those of seven ex-perfectionist saints (and one heretic) who show us how to pursue a new kind of perfection: freedom in Christ.

Spiritual perfectionism—an obsession with flawlessness rooted in the belief that we can earn God’s love—is dangerous because so many of us mistake it for virtue. Its toxic cycle of pride, sin, shame, blame, and despair distorts our vision, dulls our faith, and leads us to view others through the same hypercritical lens we think God is using to view us.

As a lifelong overachiever who drafted her first résumé in sixth grade and spell-checked her high school boyfriend’s love letters, Colleen Carroll Campbell knows something about the perfectionist trap. But it was only after she became a mother that she started to see how insidiously perfectionism had infected her spiritual life, how lethal it could be to her happiness and her family, and how disproportionately it afflicts the people working hardest to serve God.

In the ruins of her own mistakes, Colleen dug into Scripture and the lives of the canonized saints for answers. She discovered to her surprise that many holy men and women were, in fact, recovering perfectionists. And their grace-fueled victory oer this malady—not perfectionist striving—was the key to their heroic virtue and contagious joy.

In The Heart of Perfection, Colleen weaves the stories and wisdom of seven ex-perfectionist saints (and one heretic) with Scripture and beautifully crafted tales of her own trial-and-error experiments in applying that wisdom to her life. Gorgeously written and deeply insightful, Colleen Carroll Campbell’s The Heart of Perfection is a “must-read” (Jeannie Gaffigan, executive producer of The Jim Gaffigan Show) that “gives us permission to…walk in the freedom of God’s unconditional love” (Jennifer Fulwiler, author of One Beautiful Dream).

For a free Heart of Perfection reading guide for book clubs, visit Colleen-Campbell.com.

well researched, authentic, moving

it is easy to listen to as well. this book is worth several listens! well done!

Beautiful

kept me interested throughout the entire book. I enjoyed it very much! I feel inspired and with new ideas for my daily life.

Chapter on balance was amazing, very needed for someone who works in startups

The chapter on balance stood out to me. As someone who works in startups, "balance" is not a word that you hear often in Sillicon Valley. My faith comes first before my work, and I really needed it hear this.

Thank you.

Colleen, I want to thank you for this book. I am far from a perfectionist but there is so much in your book that even I can learn. I really appreciate the telling of the saints and how you correlated your own story to it. This book is a treasure for anyone. Colleen brought to life the lives of the saints in such a way that it makes me work harder at being one.

Excellent examination of Perfectionist traits vs God’s perfecting process in ‘Love’

Thank you CCC for elucidating the tendency towards Perfectionism in several of The Saint’s lives into something I can identify with and see in our family line. Acceptance seeking on the World’s terms will never satisfy - but God’s Love through His son Jesus is the Only real path towards self Love & acceptance and then Love for others. Everything else is a shadow of that love. I very much enjoyed the Audible but now feel I want to reread it in the book format…. A few times.