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Some years ago, Michael Buckley, a Jesuit theologian of exceptional insight, delivered a homily at the first mass of a young man who had just been ordained. His approach was paradoxical. Instead of asking the young man: “Are you strong enough to be a priest?” he asked him: “Are you weak enough to be a priest?”
Ron Rolheiser, OMI
BESET BY WEAKNESS
That’s a curious reversal that needs to be understood: The “weakness” to which he is challenging this young man (and the rest of us) is not the weakness of moral failure or sin, but the weakness that Scripture attributes to Jesus when it says that he was “beset by weakness” in every way, except sin.
How was Jesus weak and how are we meant to be weak?
Jesus was weak in that his sensitivity and love prevented him from protecting himself against pain. Because he loved deeply he felt things deeply, both joy and pain. Sensitive people suffer more than others because their sensitivity leaves them vulnerable and unable to seal themselves off against pain – their own, that of their loved ones, and that of the world. Sensitivity leaves you open to pain.
When we are insensitive we sleep well, even when others are suffering and we may have contributed to that; when we are insensitive we have less fear, especially of hurting others; and when we are insensitive we are, from many points of view, stronger because we are more able to insulate ourselves against pain and humiliation. In the arena of athletics, we admire the player who can absorb a hard hit without apparent effect. To be hard and tough is admirable. That isn’t as true in the arena of the soul.
John of the Cross, the great doctor of mysticism, uses the question – How vulnerable and weak are we? – as an important criterion to judge whether or not we are on the right path in following Christ.
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