Final victory is not possible in this life; that has to wait for Purgatory.  What we have to achieve here is the beginning of the end, a stage, that is to say, when the soul has advanced far enough against the world, the flesh and the Devil as to leave the ultimate issue in no doubt.

It may be objected that the achievement of an unsullied perfection by ordinary people like ourselves is beyond the range of human possibility.  So it is.  “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible” (NRSV, Mark10:27).  

For as God in his holiness requires us to become like himself, so in his love he gives us the means and the power to attain that.  So, by prayer and Sacrament, by wholehearted confession of sin, and by devout reception of Holy Communion, a person’s soul – as sinners in every age have proved for themselves by their own experience – can be transformed from within by Our Blessed Lord into a true likeness of himself.