Content With Weakness

I actually started reading a book about a false prophecy movement (a sociological case study of an old doomsday mini-cult called When Prophecy Fails) before I knew that I would spend my Lent thinking on prophecy and grace in all their forms.

I noticed a pattern that seemed a little alarming before the pattern fully cleared.  It took a lot of training not to dismiss those worrying theories, but trust that the true pattern would emerge.

When Prophecy Fails is full of people who, whether they're seeing their lives clearly or not, feel like the Weak.  The Lost.  The Oppressed.  The ones with no power but an "angel of Satan" sabotaging their goals.  To become a respected professor, a true prophet, a mother, spend time with their children, or even just hold down a job.

It's weakness that leads to false prophets.  It's the act of a desperate soul.  Not just desperate for money, although I'm sure those exist too.  But those who manage to convince themselves, as I believe many of the people in the book did, that their thoughts aren't their own.  That they are Messengers of great importance and requiring great personal sacrifice.

But it's the act of a soul desperate not to feel weak anymore.

Look at the saints, the visionaries most of all.  They feel all the weaker for their role.  I'm haunted by St. Bernadette's deathbed conviction that she was bound for hell, an unworthy attempt at a good life.

A false prophet is a soul desperate not to feel so weak anymore.  A true prophet is a soul willing to be weak.  And not just "for the mission"; not as a noble sacrifice everyone knows about.  Willing to feel truly weak, not "weakened and attacked" but weak in themselves.

Few things take more courage.  But the true prophets are the last ones to realize that.