A week ago Saturday, three young men, vested in white alb and stole, lay
face down and motionless on the cold slate floor up there before the
altar, while the people in the cathedral joined in a litany calling on
the saints of the Church, “Pray for us! Pray for us!,” “Hear our
prayer!” It was the Mass for the ordination of priests, and for those
young men and for all of us who prayed that litany it was a profound
reminder of how very small we are before God, and how much in need.
Many times over the
years I have found myself similarly prostrate before the altar – at my
own ordination, of course, but also each year at the solemn liturgy of
Good Friday. But the truth of the matter is that no day goes by that I
don’t experience how small I am before God, how weak, how much in need
of the grace of God. And isn’t that true for all of us?
Many years ago when I
was serving as director of vocations for the Archdiocese, I heard a
memorable talk on the qualities needed in candidates for the priesthood
given by a Jesuit priest by the name of Michael Buckley. Fr. Buckley
didn’t say the expected; rather, he posed this rather surprising
question for us to ponder when working with candidates: “Is this person
weak enough to be a priest?” Of course, we were at first puzzled.
But then he explained
what he meant by weakness. Weakness was, he said, an ability to live
with a certain amount of failure, along with an inability to separate
one’s self from human suffering. And he expressed the hope that
candidates for priesthood would have experienced some struggle with
self-doubt, fear and inner anguish, and that they would have learned how
to live with a certain amount of ambiguity: without easy, pat answers
for every question. He ended by relating it all to Christ the priest in
a familiar passage from the Letter to the Hebrews: “We do not have a
high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses… He can deal
gently with misguided sinners because he himself is beset with
weakness.”
Weakness. It’s not
something we normally view as desirable in a leader, is it? There are
political leaders, for instance, who model just the opposite: thumping
their chests, talking big, flexing their muscles, throwing their weight
around. That’s the way of the world - a far cry from what Fr. Buckley
was talking about, and a far cry from Jesus who modeled servant
leadership, Jesus, who knelt before his friends to wash their feet, and
who himself struggled with the demons of dread and fear. Think of the
Jesus of Gethsemane whose “sweat became as drops of blood”?
Perhaps thoughts like
these can help us understand St. Paul who, in the second reading,
actually boasted about his weakness. Paul, I feel certain, was no more
inclined than we are, humanly speaking, to feel good about being weak or
vulnerable. But God had his way with Paul as God does with anyone who is
serious about following in the footsteps of Jesus. God gave him a “thorn
in the flesh” to remind him of his weakness.
Scripture commentators
have argued for centuries about what exactly that “thorn in the flesh”
might have been for Paul. Was it some physical ailment or disability he
suffered from? Was it some form of mental anguish such as depression?
Was it a recurring temptation, or maybe a troublesome person, a fellow
believer who turned against him? We don’t know. And we don’t need to.
All we need to know is what Paul came to learn through it all: that
God’s grace was there for him in the midst of it. All we need to know is
what Paul was able to affirm with such conviction when he wrote those
extraordinary words, “I am content with weaknesses… for the sake of
Christ. I will even boast of such things so that the power of
Christ may dwell in me. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
My friends in Christ, I
began by recalling a powerful image of weakness here in this cathedral a
week ago when those young men lay prostrate before the altar. What
happened at that moment – grace working its wonders in human weakness -
is a thread which runs through the entire story of our salvation.
It’s the Moses story - the tongue-tied Moses who stood down the great
Pharaoh; it’s the David story – the ruddy youth who slew the giant; it’s
the Jeremiah story – the reluctant prophet who knew not how to speak.
It’s the Mary story – the lowly servant in whom God the mighty one
worked great wonders; it’s the story of simple shepherds called to the
manger and of unlettered fishermen called to be followers.
And, you know, it’s also
the story of the beginnings of our nation that we remember today. The
Declaration of Independence was a bold proclamation of freedom from some
strong-willed but not so powerful patriots whom many regarded as
traitors; and the war they fought, by almost any standard, should never
have been won. It’s hard not to see the founding of our country as an
instance of power made perfect in weakness.
It’s a story I
experience whenever I join the L’Arche community for Mass. If ever there
was evidence of how God works wonders in and through the little ones of
this world, and of how the weak and vulnerable touch and transform the
wise and strong of this world, it’s in L’Arche, that marvelous movement
where people living with intellectual disabilities live together in
communities of love, acceptance, and joy.
Dear friends, St. Paul’s
words are a gospel in themselves that we must take to heart: God’s grace
is made perfect in weakness, “for when we are weak it is then that we
are strong.” And it is in the Eucharist more than anywhere else that we
find our strength!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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