Below, I transcribed a part of the Word of God from the Liturgy. I will speak a little of myself, but I believe that you are going to see yourself a little in what I write.

Paul is speaking something very important and I need to accept it: God did not choose me because I was wise, or understood, strong or capable, no, much more the contrary, He chose me because I did not have the human wisdom and because I am weak. This is the truth! I need to affirm this, it is true.

I feel disqualified, incapable, limited for that which God asks me. How many times before persons when I need to prepare a homily or a sermon, I do not know what to say. I try to find something in me, but nothing, not one thought, not one word, not one idea, I look in books, biblical commentaries. Many times my preparation consists in putting myself before God asking for his mercy for me and for the people who are going to hear me. Not that I did not study or force myself, I did philosophy and theology. I tried as best I could, I was not negligent, but limitation exists.

But I think more, this is craziness on God’s part. He could have chosen so many understood, wise, well taught and formed people that have eloquence, that have good rhetoric and good diction, at times I speak so tangled that I myself and others could not understand, then I have to repeat. When I hear the recording of some preaching that I did, I find my voice melancholy, choked and I think: this will put someone to sleep. Why was it that He choose me. Why was I called?

Paul is giving me an answer today: It is to confound the wise and learned. And for this God chose the ignorant and the inept, in order that when they speak something important whoever hears will not doubt that it was God who spoke through them.

Yes I am weak and this is the truth. I see how much I am broken of will, how much I am inconsistent. The difficulty that I have of beginning something and going to the end. I begin to read a book and it is too much costly to read all of it. I want to leave halfway through it and find another. Various times I begin to study another language and after the first month I abandon it. I propose penance in Lent, propose to live a life of prayer. . . all inconclusive. The inconclusions of my life are signs of my brokenness, before these challenges.  My legs tremble, before authorities I am called. Before the cameras when I have no escape, I have a stomachache. without doubt this is the sign of brokenness.

Then I remain asking myself, Why did God choose me? He has so many strong, determined, decisive, courageous, better and capable than me. Why did the Lord choose me? And I arrived at this answer that Paul gave me: God chooses weak to confuse the strong. And of new, in order that when I will see some courage in me, when I see determination, vigor, I will not doubt of what is the grace of God acting in me. And Paul concluded giving a true interior motivation for me. In order that whoever is gloried, is gloried in the Lord.

This is true, for every time that I touch my misery, my brokenness, my limitation, and see the things that many times through this pressure I see these things I realized, and, therefore I do not have doubt it was the Lord who did all and, therefore, I have nothing to glorify myself nor in which to be proud. All is the fruit of the Grace of God. There is the beauty that God chose the wean and ignorant, but He does not leave them so, He is capable with his Grace, with His gifts with the presence of His Holy Spirit and the broken to the poor are given account of which they are no longer so broken, The Lord is made strong, but from the strength of the Holy Spirit, he is going to acquire strength, resilence. Also he perceived that he no longer has the wisdom of the world, but touches the Divine Wisdom, in the gift of knowledge of the Holy Spirit he is redressed. In the end of accounts, the brokenness and the ignorance are apparent. I remember the Apostles, as for example, Peter that before the authorities and the doctors his his time he responded with wisdom and boldness.

In the gospel, Jesus speaks to me of a reality that I experienced and many times I experienced in the flesh. Fear! Fear is powerful, it stagnates, erases initiatives, makes one retreat, confuses, impedes growth. In the parable Jesus describes, when the last child received that talent and when he returned to the lord and was asked to account, that which he said make me quite uneasy: “I remained afraid and hid your talent in the mud.”

One draws near to this story, we are going to see that this same fear of the child is mistaken, he had just been overcome by fear, and this is important, because fear overcomes and confuses. When we see the way that the lord treats the other servants that received the talents, this does not affirm that the lord is severe or bad, as this boy thought. But the fear was confusing him and exaggerating things. First, if the lord himself wsa so bad, he would not respect the limits of each one, as he did, giving 5 to one, 2 to the other and 1 for this one. He was attentive to the capacities and limits of each one. If he were cruel, he would have given 5 talents for each one and demanded that they make them 10. But this is not what happened. And afterwards, the joy with which the lord received the other servants and compensated them showed each one of them his kindness.

Fear confused this boy and what he was doing was the he buried in the mud his capacities, that were admired and valued by this lord, so it is that he was not left outside, but fear trapped him.

God speaks to me clearly that I can choose between living with fear or living in confidence. Our guiding my life in fear our living confidently in God who chose the broken and the ignorant and does miracles with them.

The the Lord help us and gives us the grace of always trusting!

Amen!

Fr. Clovis

translated from Portuguese