Need help interpreting the CCC

[MonicaC]

Hello Everyone,

My husband and I are studying the CCC, we had a question that I am hoping someone out there can help us with, on paragraphs 268 and 273 it talks about our weaknesses. We were wondering if anyone can tell us what it is meant by our weaknesses, and what are they.

Thank you

Monica

 

[allhers]

Monica, refer to the bottom of the page, see where the footnotes refer you to the Bible? it says Gen1:1
John1:3 Matthew6:9 2Cor12:9 1Cor1:18 (read those, that ought to help you in your search).

 

[MonicaC]

Hello allhers,

We did do that and still didn’t find an adequate answer to what our weaknesses our. Now we might be missing something that is quite obvious to others, so I was hoping someone might be able to help us out here.

Thanks
Monica

 

[adnauseum]

I think your question is great. I don’t think the answer jumps out at most people, certainly not at me.

It seems to me the sections are saying God’s power is mysterious because our faith is [strangely] made perfect in its weakness.

Huh?

I take a clue from where it says Mary is the model of such faith in weakness. She emptied herself to become a complete servant to God, accepting without question what He set out as her vocation. And at the moment when she submitted with such vulnerability, He filled her with graces, practical abilities, insights, wisdom, and power to carry on.

My vocation is to be a married man, father to my children. After many years, I look back at how young and utterly unprepared I was to raise children. If you have kids, you know what I mean. After a certain point, you realize you’re just physically and mentally too weak to handle it. And then you sort of succumb to it all, and suddenly you find that those little precious gifts turn the tables and teach you to be a grown up.

That’s how I envision the Power of God through the lens of my personal weakness.

One of the saints once said - I think Frances De Sales - that if you look at a human being, the way he is made up, it’s a wonder he can walk. We’re far more dependent on grace than we can imagine. Even atheists. But through faith, we receive the gift of understanding who is the Power in the world, and why He gives us all these things we don’t deserve. And we ought to marvel at how He does it, how grand He must be.

 

[I_A]

CCC:

**268 **Of all the divine attributes, only God’s omnipotence is named in the Creed: to confess this power has great bearing on our lives. We believe that his might is universal, for God who created everything also rules everything and can do everything. God’s power is loving, for he is our Father, and mysterious, for only faith can discern it when it “is made perfect in weakness”.103

…

**273 **Only faith can embrace the mysterious ways of God’s almighty power. This faith glories in its weaknesses in order to draw to itself Christ’s power.113 The Virgin Mary is the supreme model of this faith, for she believed that “nothing will be impossible with God”, and was able to magnify the Lord: "For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name."114

I’m probably wrong, but I think its talking about faith in acknowledging our powerlessness or what power we have is given to us from God. It may have something to do with the translation.

 

[RyanL]

Please listen to Peter Kreeft’s free audio on Christ’s Concept of Happiness vs The World’s. By the end of it, the weakness part should make much more sense. And no, it doesn’t necessarily have to do with our weakness. It’s more along the lines of this…

When was Christ at His most powerful? When he was broken, dehydrated, and dying, nailed to a cross, without the power to wipe the sweat from His brow. In utter weakness, he was perfected in His power. Such is the wisdom of God.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Pug]

A thought that often ocurs to me when hearing about weakness in the context of faith is about St. Teresa of Avila. She had terrible headaches, yet look at what God did through her (weak instrument that she was)! God’s power shines forth when great things happen through humans who get tired or ill or grumpy or whatever. Clearly it is his strength, not ours, so faith is increased.

A pastor can deliver a homily after a night with a sick call and no sleep and blurry eyes, and still the Holy Spirit uses it to stir up a heart to love for God. St. Paul could get locked up in jail and still the word spread anyway. Stuff like this.