The Sufficiency of God’s Grace — The verse for the week contains Jesus’ word of comfort to the Apostle Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” No Christian enjoys suffering, hardship, persecution, the struggle with sin, stumbling in temptation, a bad conscience that doubts God’s forgiveness, or the experience of our own frailties and weaknesses. Yet Jesus says to us the same thing He said to Paul: “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” The paradox of the Christian life is that it is only through the experience of our human weaknesses and limitations as sinners that we truly come to know the power and comfort of God’s grace in Christ. Without the experience of the Law condemning us, our conscience accusing us, and the sufferings and struggles of our lives weighing us down, we would never be in the proper position to receive the free, unconditional and totally unmerited mercy of God that Jesus gives to us in the Gospel. That God loves and forgives us for Jesus’ sake precisely because we are weak and infirm without Him is the heart of the Gospel and the center of our faith. That God loves and forgives us freely for Jesus’ sake as sinners is precisely the power by which we live our lives each day as Christians. Without weakness, struggle, and suffering we would not understand and know the fullness of God’s love for us in Christ which is the source of a joyful life that is lived in the absolute freedom of Jesus’ forgiveness and unending mercy. No wonder, then, that St. Paul goes on to confess: “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

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