If you were asked to choose someone for the priesthood or religious life, what kind of person would you look for? Someone enthusiastic about their faith and hopefully well grounded psychologically. Someone who had a good background, preferably not a scandalous background. Definitely not someone with extremist views. These are the kind of characteristics we would usually look for.
Then we turn to some of the people God chose and continues to choose. Very often they were the kind of people that would be turned away from priesthood, because they were not well grounded, or psychologically unstable, or extremists. I have often heard Franciscans joke that if St. Francis applied to the Franciscan order today, he would be refused, as he would be considered way too radical.
One person we read about all the time, who was a religious extremist, was St. Paul. He was a Jewish extremist, a Pharisee and an expert in the Law and bent on destroying the Christians. He had permits to imprison Christians and he oversaw the killing of at least one person, St. Stephen. It’s quite likely he approved of other killings too. He was the equivalent of one of the leaders of ISIS, or other extreme groups like them. He was a dangerous man for Christians.
Then out of the blue Jesus appeared to him. He did not know who Jesus was. When he had this vision and Jesus said, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ He replied, ‘Who are you sir?’ He didn’t know who Jesus was. It is interesting that Jesus didn’t say, ‘I am Jesus and you are persecuting my followers.’ He said, ‘You are persecuting me.’ To persecute Christians is to persecute Jesus, because from our baptism we are intimately linked to him, as we receive the gift of God’s Spirit. We are part of his mystical body.
After this vision, Paul went into Damascus and stayed there for three days. He was completely blind after the vision. He remained there until a man named Ananias was sent to him. Jesus also appeared to Ananias and told him to go to Saul. But listen to his reaction to Jesus telling him to go to Saul (who becomes Paul).
‘I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to all your holy people. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.’ (Acts 9:13-14).
He was basically saying, ‘Are you crazy? Do you realize who this man is?!’ That was the human response. In other words, no one in their right mind would choose him. It says that some of the first times he went to preach to the Christians they were afraid of him, because they didn’t believe his conversion could be real. Who would blame them?
Another man was king David. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband murdered, to cover his tracks. After he repented he eventually took Bathsheba as his wife, but later the child they conceived was the future king Solomon who brought peace to Israel and built the temple, one of the most important events for the Jewish people.
Moses also murdered a man when he was a young man. He then had to flee the country so that he would not be killed himself. But fifty or so years later God sent him to rescue the people of Israel.
What this tells us is that our past does not disqualify us from being pleasing to God, or even an instrument of God. I think we often have the impression that our past sins leave us displeasing to God, or inadequate in some way. But the Scriptures tell us the opposite. As long as we repent of our sins, then we can be at peace.
After Paul came to believe in Jesus, he went away for three years to Arabia and only then did he go to check with the other Apostles if what Jesus had revealed to him, was the same as what Jesus had taught the Apostles and it was. Everything he learnt, was directly from Jesus appearing to him. That is also a wonderful confirmation that what the Apostles taught was also from Jesus and not in any way made up.
After Paul was converted, many people are converted through his preaching and he worked many extraordinary miracles and Jesus appeared to him several other times as well. Now you would think that since he is now living a holy life and no longer struggling with his own weaknesses. But what he says about his own struggles is very comforting. He seems to have struggled with some weakness in particular, although he doesn’t say what it was, but this is what he writes about it:
‘Because of the abundance of these revelations. Therefore, that I might not become too elated, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan to beat me, to keep me from becoming too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this that it might leave me, but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’’
(2 Cor 12:7-9).
God is not put off by our weaknesses and in fact they serve a purpose. As long as we are struggling, we are aware of how much we need God’s help and mercy and so, frustrating as they are, the Lord allows us to have them, so that He can go on working through us. We are more effective instruments when we are aware of how weak we are. This should help us never to become discouraged. God’s power is not hindered by the fact that we are weak and in fact our struggles are the very things that can help us to stay close to God.
In regard to his struggling with sin, St. Paul also wrote this: ‘I do not understand what I do. What I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.’ (Rom 7:14). You wouldn’t believe how many times I have heard people say that, word for word, in confession. It means that the struggle with sin, is also part of the journey and we shouldn’t be afraid of it. All that matters is that we keep trying.
The devil tries to discourage us and shame us. He accuses us: ‘You are a hypocrite, you are a fraud, you could never be pleasing to God. How can you even call yourself a Christian.’ Accusation after accusation. Jesus called him ‘The Accuser.’ He tries to discourage us and pull us away from God, but the Lord is always the one to encourage us. God confronts us when we sin, because He loves us, so that we might repent of sin. But God is always the one to encourage us.
So the next time you think that you could not be pleasing to God because you are weak, read what St. Paul struggled with and you will find we are in good company.
‘Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’’
(2 Cor 12:9).
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