Reflection Sunday 4 July 2021

2 Corinthians 12:2-10   Mark 6:1-13
 
2 Corinthians 12:9, 10 but God said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
 
St. Paul discovered an amazing secret of the Gospel: that power is made perfect in weakness. Paul realised that when he was weak, he was actually strong because that is when God’s grace flowed out from within him.
 
Jesus’ disciples discovered this secret of the Gospel when Jesus sent them out to preach among the villages. He sent them out with very little: sandals, a staff and authority over unclean spirits. He sent them out in weakness, they were vulnerable and dependent entirely on the hospitality of others. Jesus did not send them out with great power. In their weakness the power of God shone through. If they had been strong in themselves the power of God would not have been seen. It was in their weakness that they experienced God’s strength. It was when they were weak, that they were really strong in God’s power.
 
Why would anyone be content with weakness? We spend our lives trying to be strong and avoiding weakness? We want to be strong, wealthy, healthy, successful! No one wants to be thought of as
weak. We want to be winners not losers.
 
Barney Zwartz of John Mark Ministries says,
“Weakness is at the heart of the Christian message,
(its) a paradoxical and liberating truth…”
 
Irish Catholic priest Daniel O'Leary says, “This is what love does.
It gives away its power. It renders itself destructible.
All this runs against the grain of our
competitive and controlling nature.
​How can weakness be understood as the
​ secret of true love?"
 
Spend some time reflecting on the power that comes through weakness.
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