A few years ago I was talking to a man who was telling me about himself. He said that most things in his life were fine, except for one thing. He had a terrible temper, which was so frustrating and caused him great distress. He often lost his temper with his family and he was so ashamed of it. He said, ‘If only I didn’t have this temper, I’d be perfect!’ I couldn’t help thinking that this weakness which was so frustrating to him, was probably also one of the things that helped him to stay close to God. If we thought we were perfect, or even fairly together, we would probably not be aware of our need for God. If we are not aware of our weaknesses, we can become very arrogant.
There is a priest known simply as Brother Andrew, who co-founded the Brothers part of the Missionaries of Charity, with Mother Teresa. She asked him to help her found the male branch of her order. He was a Jesuit priest. In one of his books about his experiences, he begins by saying: ‘Few people would believe the weakness on which the Missionaries of Charity is built.’ He writes a lot about his own weakness, although he doesn’t say exactly what it was, but that he suffered from some kind of addiction. But this weakness, which frustrated him so much, was also one of the things that helped him to grow in holiness. He doesn’t say that, but you can see it from his writings. The reason why God did such great work through him, through Mother Teresa and through so many others, was not because they were extraordinarily talented people, but because they were aware of how weak they were and so they came to totally rely on God for everything.
The reason why God was able to do such wonderful things through the saints, is not because they were perfect, but because they were weak people who continually turned to God and so God was able to use them in an extraordinary way. It is very easy to get a false impression of what a holy person is. Books can often give us the impression that they were people who did little or no wrong. The truth is that the saints were and are weak people, with just as many weaknesses as anyone else, but they continually turned to God for help and as a result God was able to work through them in such an amazing way. To understand that, is key to growing in the spiritual life. If the saints were perfect people who never did any wrong, then very few of us would be able to relate to them. But if they were weak people just like any of us—which they were—then not only can we relate to them, but it can help us to see that the exact same path is open to us, because it doesn’t depend on us being good enough, rather it depends on us continually turning to God. That is the key.
There is no one here who doesn’t have weaknesses of one kind or another. It could be some kind of addiction, it could be a need to control, an emotional dependency, whatever. We all have something and as you well know it can be extremely frustrating.
I find it comforting that two thousand years ago, St. Paul writes about the exact same thing (See this Sunday’s second reading 2 Cor 12:7-10). Paul was a very intelligent man, well educated and obviously very talented and even though he had visions of Jesus which converted him and he then went and preached everywhere and miracles were worked through him, he too suffered from some kind of weakness, although he doesn’t say what it was. But he understood that the Lord allowed him to suffer this way, because of the extraordinary things God had done through him. In the second reading he starts of by saying,
“That I might not become too elated, because of the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me…” You can hear his frustration as he says, “Three times I asked God to take this thing away from me, and three times the Lord said ‘No, my strength is at its best in weakness.”
This weakness, whatever it was, obviously helped him more than he realised. It kept him humble, and helped him to be aware of how much he needed the Lord’s strength and ask for his help and that is why he and so many other men and women were such powerful instruments in God’s hands, because they relied totally on God and not on themselves, as they were well aware of how weak they were.
I have no doubt that all of us probably feel we would be much better off if only we could overcome the weaknesses we struggle with. We could then serve God better, because we would be more pleasing to him. But perhaps these readings will help us to see that the Lord knows what He is doing when He allows us to struggle with them. They are frustrating yes, but they can also be a gift, in the sense that they make us rely on the power of God more than on ourselves. It also reminds us that it is not a question of being ‘good enough’ for God. We will never be good enough, but that doesn’t matter. As long as we know that we are weak, then we will see that we have someone to turn to who really can and will help us. God is not put off by our weakness.
The Twelve Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous—and all the other addiction groups—is essentially the Christian life in twelve steps. It begins by acknowledging that I have a problem, an addiction, which I cannot overcome by my own strength and so I must turn to a higher power, God. I also must acknowledge my past wrongdoing, which is confession and try to make amends, which is penance. Then I must try and live a spiritual life. The reason it is so successful and has helped so many people recover, is because it is based on living the Christian life as the Lord has revealed to us. God knows what works and if we listen to what He tells us, we will succeed.
Success in God’s eyes is often very different from success in our eyes. We tend to think that success is worldly success, achievements in work and education, making enough money to live comfortably. All those things are good and we certainly should try and use our gifts to the best of our ability, but they are not the most important thing.
In worldly terms, many of the saints would be considered failures. Often their lives were filled with apparent failures, sometimes with them ending up in poverty or sickness, unable to care for themselves. But in God’s eyes they are something very different, because it was often those earthly failures which brought them closer and closer to God.
When we die and come before God, having become president, or ending up on the street will make no difference. What will make a difference is how we have lived and everyone can live as God calls us to live, regardless of their situation.
Many of the saints were only recognised for their holiness after their death. St. Therese of Lisieux (Teresa of the Little Flower), died at the age of 24. When she was dying, she overheard two of the other sisters in her convent talking about her. One sister was saying to the other, “I wonder what mother abbess will say about Therese at her funeral, because she never really did anything.” She was just 24 when she died, unknown in a convent in a small town in France, with no apparent achievements. Now she is a canonized saint and doctor of the Church.
So the very things that cause us the greatest frustration, those weaknesses that we often don’t seem to be able to get past, are often the same weaknesses which can help us to grow in holiness. All that matters is that we keep striving to grow. The saints were not people who didn’t sin, rather people who kept getting up again each time they fell.
“So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast, so that the power of Christ may stay over me.”
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