Week Three: Day 3 – Embracing Limitations

Jesus in one of his parables speaks of the farmer who plants the seed – and it grows, he knows not how. The hiddenness of growth I think is an aspect also of growing into and forming a Rule of Life. One of the aspects that I have learned of that hiddenness is embracing limitations. Embracing what might be seen as weaknesses and seeing them as perhaps the alternative side of one’s graces and gifts, with various limitations that come about through age or with health problems, with perhaps the fleeting of memory, or the vigor of being able to work at the pace that one might have in the past or even to take part in the life of the Christian community. I think there is a hiddenness of grace that reflects in all of our relationships – with one another, with ourselves, and with God. Embracing the frailty of our human nature is a way of giving thanks to God. Forming ourselves in a Rule that is full of gratitude, expresses and embraces all the aspects of the mystery that we are before God as a particular image and likeness of God, which no other is.

It is also a way of us preparing for the new life, the new life that we begin to experience even now this side of the grave. A life in which we have interdependence one with another, a dependence on God that is an intimate one, one that is able to relax into the fullness of each day and each experience, without making judgments about them, but rather seeing all as gift and treasure as we are remade in Christ’s image.

– Br. Jonathan Maury

Question to Journal
What frailties or weaknesses in yourself might you befriend?