The Blessings of Frailty
Last week, Pope Francis issued from his hospital room in Rome an Angelus message, which he would normally deliver on Sunday from St. Peter. He referred to his illness and the limitations which it has placed upon him. He said the following words, so appropriate for all of us during this season of Lent into which we have just entered: “I feel in my heart, the ‘blessing’ that is hidden within frailty, because it is precisely in these moments that we learn even more to trust in the Lord; at the same time, I thank God for giving me the opportunity to share in body and spirit the condition of so many sick and suffering people.”
Ash Wednesday reminded us in a very vivid manner of “the blessing of frailty” which we all share in our human condition. As the priest placed the blessed ashes on our forehead in the form of a cross, one of the formulas he may have used was “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.” We all live under the illusion of immortality. While we acknowledge that someday we are going to die, we live in a manner that many times denies this reality. We think we are going to live forever. God created us from the dust to which we shall return, and we have no control over that. Lent is a good time to remind ourselves of the reality of our human frailty and of our innate tendency to deny it. To openly recognize it is a great blessing since it helps us to put things in proper perspective, especially in regard to our relationship to God.
The season of Lent should enable us to face ourselves and recognize our frailty. It should help us to embrace our frailty by letting it turn us more to God and away from ourselves. Whatever practice of prayer, almsgiving or sacrifice we have taken up should help us to recognize the fragility and frailty which are part of each and every one of us. They should not cause us to be discouraged but to recognize that it is God who will take this frailty from us as we enter more into His life. That is why the other formula for the imposition of ashes on our foreheads is so significant: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
The only one who heals our frail human nature is Christ. He took our frailty to Himself when He became one of us. He was born under the poorest of conditions in Bethlehem. He experienced the temptation of the devil. He was scorned and rejected by so many who could not accept Him. He felt real pain, physically and emotionally, and cried real tears as part of the frailty of human life. He did all of this in order to give us life through His Cross and Resurrection, which we celebrate during this Lenten season and in the coming Easter season.
Christ not only accepted frailty, He transformed it and conquered it. Christ did not make frailty go away from us in our weak human nature. However, by His accepting of it, He transformed and conquered it so that it does not have the ultimate power over us in regard to the meaning of life. Because of Christ’s acceptance of the Cross, He is there with us whenever we experience frailty with our lives. We are not alone. He is with us and calls us by name just as He did to the disciples and apostles who could not recognize Him after His Resurrection, even though they were looking directly at Him. Christ gives us life each and every day because He gives us the fullness of the life of His Father. We will ultimately face the final frailty of life in death when we are returned to the dust from which God made us. However, it is Christ’s Resurrection that will raise us to the fullness of life, body and soul, where every tear, sorrow and frailty will be taken away. This will only happen if we turn away from sin and are faithful to the Gospel.
This year, we celebrate Lent during the Jubilee Year of Hope. Pope Francis has given us this year, reminding us, in the words of St. Paul, that “hope does not disappoint.” As we face our fragility, frailty and human imperfections, we can be tempted to be disappointed in our limitations. However, hope reminds us that these limitations are overcome by Christ, who took them to Himself in order that we might have life. Frailty is indeed a blessing because it reminds us that we are dependent upon God, and in Him we will never be disappointed. May this season of Lent strengthen us in our hope so that we move forward with our eyes fixed on the Lord, who alone raises us to life.
Most Reverend Gerald M. Barbarito
