Jesus of Nazareth did not need a talent contest to establish His credentials 2000 years ago. Yet, by the same token, His fame and His popularity were enough for His townsfolk to become suspicious and start casting aspersions. How could someone they knew so well be a prophet? Of course, the real trouble was that Jesus was challenging their complacency, and so they succumbed to the classic temptation of seeking to discredit Him. Even Jesus was taken aback and expressed His dismay. But perhaps what is more remarkable is that because of their attitude towards Him, Jesus was rendered powerless and unable to minister to them. Jesus had not come to force the issue, either with His own people or with us. He had come to show people the truth and to point them – and us – in the way of honesty and integrity. Inevitably this will expose the duplicity and hypocrisy in people’s behavior and attitudes.
St. Paul was able to grasp the paradox of all this and allow Christ to help him see a true reflection of himself in the mirror of his personal experience. This enabled him to recognize that he could cope with his weaknesses because they were a reminder of how dependent he was on Christ’s saving power. And so he was able to provide us with the ultimate paradox: “It is whem I am weak that I am strong.â€
You and I do not need to discredit others in an attempt to reassure ourselves that we are not so bad after all. Rather, we are called to allow Christ to be our Way, our Truth and our Life. Only then can we imitate St. Paul and not allow our weaknesses and failings to become sources of discouragement but rather allow Christ to turn them to good. If ever the Church needed to reveal to the world the importance of humility, it is now. Jesus humbly accepted the limitations of His human condition and triumphed through the humility and horror of His passion and death. Here surely was the ultimate proof of St. Paul’s paradox on weaknesses: we even speak of the ultimate triumph of the cross. The afflictions besetting the Church in many parts of the world may seem like a disaster, but if they help us to be a more humble Church – a Church in which we readily accept our mistakes and learn to apologize for past and present hurts; a Church in which we recognize that we do not have all the answers but can hear the prophetic voice of God in unexpected places – then the Lord may surprise us by showing us once again that it is when we are weak that we are strong.