The Holy Hieromartyr Eutyches.
2 Corinthians 12:10-19; Mark 4:10-23.
Read 2 Corinthians 12:10-19
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
These words, spoken to St. Paul by Christ himself, challenge all of us who are trying to live the Christian life. To speak of power made perfect in weakness is not an easy teaching to grasp, or to live.
Often we feel our weakness is something to hide, rather than something to boast about. So why should we embrace what looks, by every ordinary measure, like foolishness?
Because to reject the paradox of power perfected in weakness is to reject the cross itself. “For the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:18, 25). What the world calls shameful we receive as God’s very glory. The crucified Christ pours life upon the earth; his empty tomb reveals death slain by death.
St. Basil the Great sees this pattern in Paul’s own life:
Not in the amount of money, not in the pride of power, not in the height of glory is victory gained, but the Lord freely gives his help to those who seek him through excessive affliction. Such was Paul, who made his afflictions his boast. Therefore he was able to say, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” … Do you see where affliction leads you? To hope that does not disappoint. (Homily 20 on Psalm 59)
Affliction is not the end but the road to a hope that holds. Walking it asks trust — that God knows what our lives require better than we do. St. John Chrysostom puts it plainly:
So we ought to yield to the Creator of our nature, and with joy and great relish accept those things that he has decided on and have an eye not to the appearance of events but to the decisions of the Lord. After all, he who knows better than we what is for our benefit also knows what steps must be taken for our salvation. (Homilies on Genesis 30.16)
To have “an eye not to the appearance of events but to the decisions of the Lord” is to see with the eyes of faith. It frees us from worldly power and lets us rely on “God who raises the dead” (2 Cor 1:9). No one willingly chooses weakness; this path makes no sense to the world. But for those being saved it is the path on which the kingdom of God is inaugurated — and we who belong to that kingdom show in word and deed that Christ, who gave himself for the life of the world, is forever victorious.