Holy Weakness

Lent ends today, and so this will be the final post of this series. The last word goes to Sister Mary David. She was raised Christian in Louisiana, and she had a moment of mystical revelation when she was a young woman. By the early 1980s, she was an English professor in Virginia. In 1984, she visited St Cecilia Abbey on the Isle of Wight in England, and knew she had found her home. She left academia to become a nun. Over the years, she became a Prioress there. Today’s quote comes from instructions she wrote for her fellow nuns, as they tried to cope with their awareness of their imperfections. Her words apply to all of us, too, especially on the eve of Good Friday. 

"It's difficult to accept our insufficiency; we become uneasy and even desperate. We think that holiness is to be found beyond weakness and so we want God to demonstrate his love for us by keeping us from weakness in order to make holiness possible. Reflecting on the lives of so many of the saints, and even our Lord who fell through weakness three times [ carrying his cross] and shuddered at the bitter chalice he so desired, we see that's not how God operates. Holiness doesn't lie on the other side of our shortcomings, trials and temptations: it's given in the midst of them. What remains to us is to learn to recognize , accept and abide in weakness, full of faith and confidence in utter surrender to God. It's there that we open ourselves to God's grace and power.”

Our culture values strength and self confidence. However, the Christian path argues that strength derived solely from human powers is at best an over estimation, and at worst a delusion. We humans are all wearing borrowed clothes - every intellectual or physical gift we have comes from God. The truly strong, the Christian faith suggests, are the ones who recognize their own weakness, and ask God for help and guidance. They can achieve extraordinary things - or just ordinary things, done with love and compassion, without a need to take credit or keep score. Only a few people in society can be great, since greatness must be rare for it to be celebrated. But in the Christian estimation, all of us can be filled with the greatness of God, and all it takes is humility.

I hope you found this Lenten series useful. Peace be with you as we enter the most holy days of our Christian year.

-Rev. Stephen Milton, Lawrence Park Community Church, Toronto

Quotation source: Sister Mary David, The Joy of God: Collected Writings, (London, 2019), p.105-6.

Note: if you have missed any the posts, they can now all be found on our website, updated daily:

https://www.lawrenceparkchurch.ca/blog

If you would like to subscribe to this series, please contact stephen@lawrenceparkchurch.ca