June 20, 2025 // Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: 2 Corinthians 11:18, 21-30
Reflect on the Word //
I recently experienced an invasion of grace in the Sacrament of Confession. A flash of courage helped me tell the priest something that I had been too ashamed to admit. I had tried to make this Confession a few times before, and finally, on that day, in that moment, I uttered my sin out loud.
My shame left me almost immediately. The feeling of freedom and joy stayed with me and I found myself wishing I could share with the world what God had done for me.
I have been set free, I wanted to shout, my sins are forgiven!
But of course, we can’t brag about our sins, these weaknesses we can barely admit in the quiet of the confessional. Who wants to boast about that?
In today’s First Reading, Paul tells the Corinthians that while many boast to show their strength, he will boast of something else. “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness,” he writes (2 Corinthians 11:30).
What I wanted to do after my liberating Confession was exactly what Paul wrote about. He saw that the Lord was present in all of his weakness, and that anything good in him came from the Lord. There was beauty in admitting my weakness because God’s strength and healing were undeniable in that moment. He gave me beauty for ashes; here in my weakness, He found me.
The Lord wants us to boast in Him, not because we are proud of our sins but because we are grateful for His saving grace and everlasting mercy and love. The Lord does for us the thing we cannot do for ourselves, and in our weakness He makes Himself undeniably present.
Relate to the Lord // How has the Lord made Himself known in your weakness?
Rachel Balducci is a writer and speaker and co-host of the Gist on CatholicTV. She has a Masters degree from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia and teaches at Augusta University and is working on her doctorate in Religion at the University of Georgia. She and her husband Paul have five sons and one daughter and are part of an intentional Christian community in Augusta, Georgia. Find out more about her here.
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