I'm back!

So, I've been asked to be a team member on an ACTS Retreat for the first time in many years.  I've decided to center my reflections this Lent on the readings during the Sunday Mass at the end of the retreat.

So I'm back!

The readings are for Sunday, July 8, 2018.

Today's: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

I struggle with Paul.

I caught myself making one of my snide comments about how, "No seriously, how he is considered an apostle?" comments in class just this week.  He's said a lot of things that...well, that remind me he spent most of his life as a Pharisee.  And that helps me take him with a grain of salt.

I struggle with Saint Faustina and her painful penance.  I wince and am grateful to God on her behalf that he made her so subservient to her superiors in the religious order and her confessor that when she came up with ideas like chaining her feet together in Mass they could tell her to cut that out and she would immediately listen.

I struggle with the idea that pain can be a way to improve faith.

I've always been tripped up by this one.  And during Ash Wednesday Mass at school today, I made a gameful try at being grateful for the ridiculous icy coldness of the church as Paul is grateful for his suffering in this reading.  I struggled briefly.  Then I failed.

Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults,
hardships, persecutions, and constraints,
for the sake of Christ;
for when I am weak, then I am strong.

I have never known how to be grateful for suffering.  I can see "when I am weak, then I am strong."  I can see how we never know what will be required of us.  I can see that sometimes people are more approachable vulnerable than strong.  I can see that broken heroes make heroics seem more possible for those around us.  I can see how failure and loss can shape us into better instruments of grace.

I don't know how saints have turned that pain into making themselves stronger.  I cannot see it.

But then refrains like, "My grace is sufficient" have always felt like expressions of faith rather than comfort to me.

Rather than, "I know I got this, God will take me in the palm of His Hand," I think of admonitions like this as "Even in the darker times of my life, I love You, God.  I want Your grace in my life, even if it doesn't rescue me from this present trouble."

It's an opportunity to love God even so.

But I don't think that's how Saint Paul or Saint Faustina saw pain for God.  I don't think that's what they hear when they hear "My grace is sufficient for you."

I was low-grade miserable in Mass, and it dampened my ability to pay attention, leading to a less profound religious experience.  Probably.  I'm not omniscient.

I struggle to hear what this verse is saying to the likes of Paul and Faustina.  I need to keep trying this time.