By Melanie Rigney
June 17, 2011
Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
From all their distress God rescues the just. (Psalms 34:18)
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness how great will the darkness be.” (Matthew 6:19-23)
Piety
Lord, You and I both know my weaknesses all too well. Sometimes I turn them into a little altar of their own. Help me to be mindful of them… and to weed them out.
Study
The middle part of today’s first reading—in which Paul boasts on all he’s done for the Christian community, including lashings, beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, and the like—reminded me of my father. Dad grew up on a ranch in central South Dakota, and he never tired of telling us about how he and his brothers and sisters had to walk miles to school every day, in the heat or rain or blinding snow. We also heard a lot about just how much more mail per hour he could process as a postal clerk (something that did not endear him to his coworkers) and about his stamina when he worked construction. At some point, we kids would roll our eyes in a “here he goes again” and tune him out.
But unlike Paul, my father never boasted of the things that showed his weaknesses. I was thirtysomething before he told me with tears in his eyes how sorry he was that a snowstorm kept him from attending my college graduation. I had to hear from a cousin after Dad’s death about the post-traumatic stress that kept him from sleeping in a bed for months after he returned from World War II.
Why is it we learn more from stories of weakness? Perhaps because while we find stories of valor impressive (until we’ve heard them twenty times), we also find it difficult to relate to them. We know we’re not that good. We know we’re not that strong. But somehow, when we also hear about the struggles of those we admire, it gives us hope that we can overcome our own faults and flaws. It makes their accomplishments all the more inspiring. It gives us the courage to turn that lamp inside… and with God’s help, to clean out the dark corners.
Action
What personal weakness are you turning a blind eye to? Pray for the courage to examine it.
