Come Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds and help us to see, hear, smell, speak, move, and act as divine-love-imbued disciples of Jesus! Brothers & Sisters, about eight years ago I learned a beautiful little prayer from a Jesuit priest that is the title of this little article: Jesus, my blessed weakness. Recently the Lord has worked a wonder in revealing a new reality about this prayer that I would like to share with you. It’s my hope and prayer that this little prayer can help you experience God’s love for you in any of your weakness.
First, the heart of the prayer is the incarnation: the mystery of the Son of God, by the Holy Spirit, becoming incarnate of the Virgin Mary—so that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.” (Heb 4:15) Jesus totally understands our weaknesses and indeed wants us to come to Him, to count on Him in our weakness! In temptation, difficulty, fear, sadness…whatever affliction of our fallen human nature that weighs upon us, when we say Jesus My Blessed Weakness we are acknowledging that Jesus knows and understands our weakness and loves us right in the middle of it! And so, our weakness becomes blessed by Jesus when we invite Him into it with us!
What the Lord has recently revealed to me about this prayer is that, when I pray it, it brings God the Father joy. God tells us in Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty warrior, he will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you in His love. He will sing joyfully because of you.” I have recently become convinced (a true gift from God!) that when I call out to God in whatever situation of weakness that I may be in, God the Father is delighted in the movement of trust. Calling out Jesus My Blessed Weakness, I sense the Father’s delight. He rejoices when His children ask for His help and trust Him to provide it…and in Jesus, the Father has shown His rich love for us. And Jesus tells us, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (Jn 14:9) In encountering Jesus, we encounter the Father, and the Spirit. In our weakness, God is ready to hold us up. In our joy, God is ready to sing and rejoice with us. Our God is an awesome God!
—God bless you, Fr. Patrick