Without Strength? Perfect.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen

One thing I have learned in my life is that to confront my weakness and frailty, or to have my weakness and frailty confronted by another, is a uniquely porous space for grace to enter into the deeper parts of my soul. There can be no more intimate experience of Christ than in our powerlessness, in our humiliation. I welcome this, I hate this. Both are true at once.

In so many ways, I also have come to believe those few words the risen Jesus spoke to St. Paul (2 Cor. 12:9) contain all of his teaching, the whole truth of our existence coram Deo “before God”: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect [teleitai] in weakness [astheneia].” Astheneia comes from a = without + sthénos = strength. And teleitai means “perfect” not in the sense of “without flaw,” but perfect in the sense of something achieving its true end, fulfillment and completion.

In our weakness alone, the power of grace finds its completion. We were created out of nothing, which is metaphysical powerlessness, and we will be re-created by our free surrender to the same creative power, which is spiritual powerlessness. “Let us make man,” “Let it be done to me.”

Yes, divine grace, flowing from the Heart of the strengthless Christ, is perfected only in our complete surrender to the Creator’s re-creating love. Accipite et manducate. And, for those who have tasted it, you know that only before our humiliated God is our own powerless humiliation free of all shame.

Jesus in his Passion revealed all this, revealed that prayer is most powerful when prayed from the bottom of the pit, in the deepest darkness, out of weakness, when we have finally given up. De profundis. It was only when he prayed in trust out of his helplessness that the redemption of the world could finally be wrought by his Father. Easy to say, but…

Pope Francis:

Humility can only take root in the heart through humiliations.
Without them, there is no humility or holiness.
If you are unable to suffer and offer up a few humiliations,
you are not humble and you are not on the path to holiness.
The holiness that God bestows on his Church
comes through the humiliation of his Son.
He is the way.
Humiliation makes you resemble Jesus;
it is an unavoidable aspect of the imitation of Christ.
In turn, he reveals the humility of the Father,
who condescends to journey with his people,
enduring their infidelities and complaints.
Here I am not speaking only about stark situations of martyrdom,
but about the daily humiliations
of those who keep silent to save their families,
who prefer to praise others rather than boast about themselves,
or who choose the less welcome tasks,
at times even choosing to bear an injustice so as to offer it to the Lord.
“If when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval” (1 Pet 2:20).
This does not mean walking around with eyes lowered,
not saying a word and fleeing the company of others.
At times, precisely because someone is free of selfishness,
he or she can dare to disagree gently,
to demand justice
or to defend the weak before the powerful,
even if it may harm his or her reputation.
I am not saying that such humiliation is pleasant,
for that would be masochism,
but that it is a way of imitating Jesus and growing in union with him.
This is incomprehensible on a purely natural level,
and the world mocks any such notion.
Instead, it is a grace to be sought in prayer:
“Lord, when humiliations come,
help me to know that I am following in your footsteps”.