Ideas in Passing from Joan Chittester

This morning we shared and discussed these words of wisdom from Sr. Joan.  They so fit today's readings from Jonah and 2 Cor!  Thanks Larry for sending these to us and Tom for bring this to us in prayer.

The glories of weakness

“In my weakness is my strength,” Paul writes (2 Cor. 12:10). I never understood that passage nor did I like it until, struck with polio as a young woman, I began little by little to realize that if I ever walked again, it would not be thanks to me, it would be thanks to everyone around me who formed the human chain that kept me human. When I could not move, they carried me. When I could not work, they found functions for me that justified my existence. When I could not find a reason for going on, they liked me enough to give me back a sense of human connectedness. When I could not cure myself, they cured me of the clay of my limits and turned them into life again. They taught me the glories of weakness.

When I most wanted to be strong and like no other time in life found myself defined by my weaknesses, I began to understand the great questions of life. If I do not need other people, what is their own purpose in life, what is their claim on my own gifts when they need me as I have needed them? The moment I come to realize that it is precisely the gifts which I do not myself embody that make me claimant to the gifts of others—and they of mine—marks the moment of my spiritual beginning. Suddenly, creature-hood becomes gift and power and the beginning of unlimited personal growth.