Strength in weakness

The Roman Catholic Lectionary today takes us to passages from Scripture which help us consider how our brokenness and weakness can be used by God to bring the Word to others. The psalmist praises the understanding of the person who fears separation from the Love and Presence of God. It is such a person who is aware of the truth of the declaration of Jesus in the Gospel from Matthew that people cannot serve two masters. We can be dominated by our passions and desire for material possessions and thereby become deluded into believing that we are self sufficient and not in need to journey toward Life in deep relationship with God. Friar Jude Winkler notes that the text, today, from the second letter to the Corinthians is part of the angry letter of Paul (Ch 10-13) wherein he battles the Gnostic heretics with a testimony of the great revelation he experienced from Jesus and the plan of God, with which he is compliant, that he show his strength through the weakness, suffering, persecution and thorn in the flesh he has known. The grace of God is the sufficient power for Paul and believers today to live according to His Will and be among the cloud of witnesses to the Life in the journey with Jesus. Today the Church commemorates three saints who are two bishops and two martyrs in that cloud of witnesses.