 It's a comedian by the name of Brian Regan, who does this piece where he's talking about, and we've all met people like that, maybe we're like this sometimes, but the one who always wants to top whatever you say, you know, so if you do something, they want to top it, they want to make it a little better. And so he says that, like, you never go to a dinner party and you never say that you, you know, I had to go to the dentist and I had to get two wisdom teeth pulled, because there's always somebody else that says, two, I got four. You know, so you never talk about two wisdom teeth, it's because there's always somebody else who has four. So that's, it's that person that always is, is trying to up it. Mine was better. Mine was, and so the kind of the end of his stick is, is that he would love to be a man who walked on the moon, because there's really nothing that tops that. So you're at dinner party and the guy goes, well, I was in France last week, and I was in Europe, and I was in Australia, and I was all this kind of thing. And the guy's like, well, I walked on the moon. I mean, how do you top something like that? You know, you walked on the moon. And in this sense of, I get this when I'm reading Paul, when he's talking about boasting, it's like all of these things that he's done, and it's been bad, and it's worse. And this is a good perspective for us, because we read this in the light of our own story, you know, sometimes they just get so frustrated, I have to go somewhere and do something. It's like, I got stuck on their tarmac for two hours. Can you imagine being stuck in a plane for two hours? At the hands of the Jews, I received 40 lashes minus one five times. The finance meeting went an extra 30 minutes, and John is just driving me crazy. She keeps on bringing this. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Oh, he went to Colorado. Oh, it's just so difficult. I have to have the 630 a.m. mass. Why can't we have mass at noon? Three times I was shipwrecked. Okay, Paul, you walked on the moon. I mean, give me a break, huh? But there's just, there's this sense of reading this provides us a thing perspective. What is the Lord saying? And how do we deal with difficulties and how do we deal with struggles? I mean, we think that the Jenny in our youth group is driving us crazy or this person's driving us crazy and Paul's talking about dangers against robbers and dangers against gentiles and dangers in the city and dangers in the wilderness and dangers in this and dangers in that. I thought New York City was bad. I mean, this is tough, huh? They settle down, settle down. And then Paul goes on to say, huh? Now, if I really must boast, all this stuff was really, I mean, but if I'm really gonna boast, huh? I'm gonna boast of the things that show my weakness. Or you had to go there. I mean, this was a great story and you had to go there. I'm gonna boast of these things that show my weakness because there's a part of us that really thinks we're supposed to be perfect. We're really, I mean, okay, we find, we hear Ralph's beautiful talk. That's, but really there's a part of us that that really thinks we're supposed to be perfect. I mean, the world is just kind of consumed with this. And I was thinking about this, this, this struggle that we have for perfection or this, this weight that's placed upon us for perfection with the exception of baseball. I mean, imagine if all the world was like baseball, all right? Ted Williams, one of the greatest history, the batters in history, I think may be the best. He finished in the Hall of Fame with the 347 batting average. Imagine if everything was like that. I come home from school out of fifth grade. It's like, mom, dad, I got 38% where to go, David. You know, that's great. You're doing great. I mean, think about that. I would have been the valedictorian of my school, huh? 40% was like, way to go, you're one of the best, huh? But baseball, we're okay with that. Baseball, one strike, I'll give you another, two, another, third, you're out. But don't worry, you get to get back up a little bit later. Imagine if the whole world played by the rules of baseball. Go ahead and walk. Well, in fact, a walk is good. Not only is stealing legal, it's celebrated. I mean, all this pressure that we have with the time, it's like, when does this have to be done? It has to be done. It has to get this done. Baseball, we're done when we're done. Turn off the clock. It doesn't matter. This game will be finished when it's finished. And the other thing about baseball, it's all about weakness. I mean, you've got the pitcher and you've got the batter, and they're trying to, the batter, a good batter, knows his weaknesses. Bryce Harper is a sucker for a highball. And if you want to strike out Bryce pitch it high, because there's just this weakness that he has that he's, so it's this battle that takes place between the pitcher who has strengths and weaknesses and the batter who has strength and weakness and be able to manipulate that weakness and yet knowing our weakness so as to be able to turn it into a strength. If I was the king of the world, we would all play our life by baseball rules. And everybody would be happier because we know that we can't be perfect. I boast. And I boast of the things that show my weakness. Paul doesn't just boast about his weakness. He says, I boast about the things that show my weakness. It's not just that I have weak, but I want everybody to see it. It's not just I boast of my weakness. I boast of the things that show my weakness. I mean, we spent so much of our time trying to hide that. And when I was here at the university, when I hired people, I always hired people to my weakness, huh, so as to be able to kind of raise that up and kind of hide those parts of me in making up for that. And Paul says that I boast of the things that show my weakness. Why? Because it's only at that point that we recognize our need for God, that we recognize that without the Lord, I am totally unable to be faithful or to serve or be a minister, to be a brother or to be a friar. It's impossible for me to live this life to be a basic disciple is impossible without God. And what weakness, and not only the weakness, but allowing them to see that allows the people to rejoice in what God is doing in me, that when they see I'm weak and that I need God, and I'm radically in need of God, and I would be lost without him, that if they're able to see that, then they can make that connection that Dave needs God, huh? That Dave is honest enough to be able to stand before us and say that and speak of his weakness and boast of that and celebrate that. But the question we have to ask ourselves, brothers, are we willing to allow people to see that because that's really what the brothers and sisters that we serve need, is they need a priest, a brother, a deacon that is able to show and to be able to celebrate that weakness because that's their story, huh? And what they themselves are struggling with their own spiritual life is their weakness and their brokenness. And if they look at us and they have this perception that we've got it all together all the time and we're always perfect, how do we relate to that? How do they come to us? Why is it that in years past in Ireland, if a person really had a problem, an addiction, a struggle, a brokenness, that they go to the monasteries, why? Because they knew in the monasteries that's where they would find the alcoholic, the person who understood their weakness and understood their difficulties. A great movie, Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood. There's that story between the line between the priest and Clint Eastwood and just this sense of him trying to present himself as a young priest who had everything together and Clint Eastwood, who's in his 80s and this priest is 23 years old and he's calling him son, which there's something beautiful about that. But Clint Eastwood says, why should I listen to you? You're 23 years old. You've never gone through any struggles, huh? The people need to know that we can relate to them, that their story is our story, that we boast of our weakness. There's a great article I'm sure most of you have read and it was written to priests but it says, are you weak enough to be a priest? Are you weak enough to be a disciple of Jesus? Because how we deal with our struggles and how we deal with our difficulties and how we deal with our weakness will in fact be one of the greatest markers of the effectiveness of our priesthood and of our ministry as deacons. Because the reality is, fundamentally, we are weak. It's not to say that we can't grow in perfection and grow in grace and all that, but I am fundamentally weak and my ability to be able to wrestle with that and struggle with that and live with that and get up out of that is going to determine what kind of a disciple of Jesus I'm going to be. How am I going to deal with falling and failing and doing that miserably and doing that in front of people where they can see that? If I'm not able to get back up, I mean, again, that's one of the beauties of baseball is that you get another shot at it. You get back, imagine if somebody struck out and that's like, I can't deal with this. I struck out. I could never bat again. They're not going to be a hall of fame or I mean, what do all of the saints have in common with the exception of Mary? Because she always throws the curve. But what does all they all were sinners, huh? They were all sinners. The common denominator between all of them. They fell. They got back up. They celebrated their weakness. They boast. Are we weak enough? It's not about being strong. It's how are we going to deal with our failures? And here's the paradox is, is that that's the person Jesus came from. It's for the sick that Jesus came. It's a brokenness. It's our sinfulness. It's our mess that unlocks this shower of mercy. I mean, I desire this mercy. How do I get this mercy to fall upon me? I recognize my brokenness and my weakness and my sinfulness and I use that as the key that unlocks this door of mercy. And it's the only thing that's going to do it. If I think I'm going to go before the Lord and say, Lord, I am so strong. I'm so amazing. Bless me with your mercy. Not that I really need it because I have this. But Lord, I'm radically weak. I cannot do this without you. I mean, that's what Paul is saying when he says I boast of my weakness and show and I boast of the things that show that so that so that we're able to see this weakness and we as community, the nature of Trinity is community that we as community come together. We see our weaknesses. We recognize it. We admit it. And then we pick each other up. And we walk the journey together. I remember an occasion I had when I was in Africa. Bishop asks me, he says, Father David, a priest friend of mine is sick. We pray with him. I said, of course. So we went and we began praying with this man. And what I think he had was ALS. I think that's what was going on. By the time I met him, he was no longer able to walk. He was being paralyzed from the limbs in. And I think that's what was going on. So we start praying with this priest and it becomes pretty evident to me fairly quickly that the Lord wasn't going to heal him, heal him. But like good Charismatics, we just kept on praying. And if you're never sure what's going on, just pray louder because then that really gets God's attention. It's like just pray louder and pray longer. And again, what I talked about yesterday, I just didn't see the Father doing anything here. So I said to the Bishop, I said, Bishop, maybe I could pray with him by myself. It's like, Oh, that's a great idea. Father wants to pray. So everybody leaves the Father pray with him alone. That's great. So I begin to talk to this priest. He begins to share with me what's taken place in his life over the last 18 months since he was first began sick. He says to me, Dave, I used to offer confessions on Saturday. Maybe two, three people came. He said, since I've been sick, I could hear confessions every day for five hours, and the lines are still there. He said, people said that I'm more compassionate than I used to be, that I'm more empathetic, that I'm more patient. People say that I preach better than I used to. We used to have Mass, and it was maybe the church was maybe half full, two thirds full. Now when we have Mass, there's people standing and there's people outside of the church. There's not enough room in the church for people to come. I found myself praying, Jesus, don't heal him. In his weakness, he's becoming strong. In his brokenness, he's being purified. He's becoming a saint. I mean, isn't that our desire is that ultimately, he said that people speak of him loving differently, loving better, loving more. Isn't that our goal? And yet, we want to get rid of it. We don't want to deal with the brokenness and the weakness and the mass. But the reality is, is to the degree that we can embrace that, I'm changed. I'm purified. I'm made holy. And to the degree that that's happening in me as the father, it happens in the children. It happens in the brothers and sisters that they see that. If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. I mean, what are we doing here? Is that we celebrate God's radical weakness and emptiness when we celebrate this Eucharist. And as John spoke on Monday or Tuesday, the show bread, the face bread, that this can be seen, that if we understand that God is emptying himself, this canosis that's taking place and he's making himself weak and he looks like bread and we can do, after the Eucharist is consecrated, we can do anything with that piece of bread. There's this weakness that should a person want, they could do it. They could step on that. They could do whatever because of its weakness. And yet, we who believe and we who know find that in this weakness is the greatest strength. The weak Catholics, we Christians, we come every day and celebrate his weakness because of that. I'm made strong. What if we made our prayer for the next week? Lord, in front of the entire world, in front of the parish, in front of the bishop, in front of my brother priests, show them my weakness so that he may be strong. Amen.