GLORYING IN OUR INFIRMITIES

A SERMON FOR SEXAGESIMA

Of all the great saints in heaven, surely St. Paul must rank as one of those closest to God.  We are familiar with the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus, when Saul, as he was then known, one of the leaders of the persecutions against the new Christians, was transformed into Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles who would bring the faith of Christ to the world, and ultimately to Rome itself.  In today’s Epistle we see a different side to this complex character, as he describes his travels in horrific detail, enumerating the tribulations he had to endure in order to do God’s work.  He provides this description not so that we may admire his tenacity or love of God.  His short autobiographical account of the trials he sustained is meant to show us something far more important.

The reason for the description of his woes is made clear to us towards the end of today’s epistle to the Corinthians, and is contained in the words he attributes to Our Lord:  “My grace is sufficient for thee:  for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”  Here is the underlying message to Paul’s endurance of his trials—that the more adversity we encounter the more we are made to realize the wondrous power of God.  If God had chosen a powerful leader like the Emperor of Rome to bring the Christian message to the world, it would not have been nearly so impressive as the successful apostolate of this humble tent-maker from Tarsus.

We see this tactic of God over and over again throughout history.  None of the Apostles were powerful men; none of them had above-average intelligence or resources.  And yet these twelve men were responsible for the spread of the Gospel throughout the known world.  Look at the great saints of history:  you can pick almost any one of them at random and you will find they were not generally from a background where they had great power or influence.  But what we perceive as a disadvantage, God used very much to his advantage—as he said to St. Paul, showing his strength in their weakness.

Even the saints who were of noble birth, kings and queens, princes of the earth—all these became saints not because of their riches and high position in society, but in spite of those things.  They were saints not because they acted with mighty deeds, great conquests, or thrilling feats of political or military valour.  On the contrary, their holiness was based on their detachment from these things, their willingness to be the docile instruments of God, from whom their power came.  Thus you find Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia, walking barefoot in the snow to bring logs for the fires of his peasant subjects.  You find St. Blanche of Castile teaching her son, the young King Louis IX of France, to bestow alms on the poor.  Saints among the nobility became holy by trading their earthly crown of gold for a heavenly crown of virtue, and especially of the virtues of humility and charity.  In their humility they knew only too well that their earthly crown was nothing more than an accident of nature, and that their true purpose in life was the same as that of their subjects—to do God’s will in all things, namely to love God with all their heart and mind and soul, and to love their neighbor as themselves. 

Today’s readings at Matins continue the story of our Redemption begun last Sunday.  At the start of Shrovetide we examined the creation of the world.  We remembered how God created everything for man, upon whom he wished to bestow nothing but love so that man would love him in return; and we gasped with dismay at Adam’s betrayal of that love.  During this past week, our story has moved further into the book of Genesis:  the offences of man have continued as Cain slays his brother Abel, and mankind in general has found himself sunk into the pits of iniquity.  Today, we learn that God will take only so much from his creatures.  He sent a great Flood to wipe out the creature man from whom he desired only love, and who had given him nothing in return but only the defiance of their narcissistic love of themselves, their attachment to their own pleasures rather than the desire to do God’s will.

Certainly, mankind would have been doomed to extinction the day it began to rain, had not God found a man who had remained loyal to him.  God chose Noah for this mammoth task of building an ark to house not only his family but animals and birds of every species.  He did not choose a mighty man, even though the accounts of Genesis mention giants and other characters who would have surely been far more capable of such a feat.  Noah was already an old man, nearly six hundred years old in fact, when he began banging nails into wood to make the great Ark of salvation.  He was an elderly farmer who at first glance, seems totally unfit for the task of saving the future of mankind.  But remember God’s words in today’s Epistle: “my strength is made perfect in weakness” and “my grace is sufficient for thee.”

Look around you.  Look at what we have here today.  Is this the army of saints that God has chosen to keep the faith alive until he comes again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead?  Apparently, it is.  We and other groups like us, scattered throughout the lands, have been chosen, through no merits of our own, just ordinary men and women, with ordinary talents, ordinary bank accounts, the ordinary democratic power of a single vote—God has seen fit to choose us to keep the faith burning, to be the remnants of that Mystical Body the Church, with whom Christ promised he would remain until the consummation of the world. 

As we look around us, this may be difficult to comprehend.  But it should not be.  Sure, we are far from being rich and famous, we have very little power or influence, there are plenty more candidates among the world’s population who are better looking than we are, smarter, and  certainly more virtuous.  Why didn’t God pick them?  But surely this is the point.  Has this not always been the way of God?  To magnify and exalt the humble and meek by choosing them for great things?  It is the meek that shall inherit the earth, just as Noah did, and we should take great comfort in our infirmities as did St. Paul.  Weeks, months and years succeed each other and bring us closer to the end that God ultimately desires for the world and for us.  Today our resolve should be restored by the simple and humbling awareness of our own weaknesses, and the use to which God will put them, if only we respond to his graces with generosity and love as his instruments. 

How should we do this?  By doing what Noah did, and what St. Paul did, and all the other Apostles and Saints did.  By doing the will of God.  By following Christ.  Keep the faith, keep his commandments, and follow him.  I am a priest, not a prophet, and I don’t know where he will lead us.  Maybe to some point in our lives where we will be called upon to do great things, like Noah and St. Paul.  Or maybe not.  It doesn’t matter, so long as we are ready to answer the call when or if it comes.  Meanwhile, just follow.  Do your part to correspond with the graces God has already given you, as members of his Church, faithful to his teachings and to the true divine worship we maintain in the traditional Mass.  

We need to continue building our own Ark of Salvation, our soul.  Maybe that is our great work, our opus magnum.  But in these times, let’s not forget to do our part in keeping the rest of the Ark of Salvation, the Church, afloat through these tempest-tossed times where she threatens to founder on the rocks.   Use your talents to support our little chapel here, use your “ordinary” bank accounts to make sure we survive.  For without this church we will once again be engulfed in the great flood of iniquity that the world offers us as an alternative.  Swell the ranks of our chapel by bringing in other souls as best you can, perhaps like the animals, two by two, a little a time.  And never worry that you’re not up to the task.  Listen again to Our Lord’s words to St. Paul, that “my grace is sufficient for thee, and my strength is made perfect in your weakness.”  Leave here today with a new resolve, that the words of St. Paul may echo from your lips, saying with him “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”