“If you’re doing God’s work, how is it that you feel discouraged? The more difficult things become, the happier you should be, just as Peter and John, after they had been flogged: ‘As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonour for the sake of the name’. (Acts 5: 41) When you are successful, give thanks to God. When you fail, likewise give thanks to God, for it is when you fail that he tests you to see if you are working for him or for your own glory.  In fact to be joyful and courageous during times of failure is much more difficult than being joyful in times of good fortune: you can count the number of heroes of the first kind on the fingers of one hand.” (Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan “The Roots of Hope” published New City 1996 536 & 537.)

In the little book of daily sayings about the ordained priesthood, one can identify a period of three or four days, around Saturday 27th February, when the theme has been the presence of God’s Love manifested more prominently in failures or mistakes, than in success, and in all this, I was once again struck by the Vietnamese Cardinal, who wrote his little sayings in his prison cell – you may remember him from a previous blog, dated 27th November 2009. In the opening quoation, he throws out a challenge: that those who are joyful and courageous in times of failure, can be counted on the fingers of one hand; they are so few. A challenge is a challenge, and although it is probably impossible for me, I like a challenge! Why should some people not ‘buck the trend’ and actually learn how to be joyful when they have failed? In our attempts to ‘rise to the challenge’ – to be joyous and courageous in times of failure – we may find encouragement in the text of ‘The Word of Life’ (March 2010) where it is written:

“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” (Mt. 17:20).

The last phrase is not put there for nothing – it must have meaning! But, to understand its full meaning may be difficult.  However, on the website you can find the whole ‘Word of Life’ text for this month, commenting on this short phrase, and the commentary is very helpful, with a short story at the end.

Our times of failure are actually much more helpful in bringing us to the knowledge of God, than our times of success. Without God’s help, we cannot reverse our natural tendency to attribute our successes to ourselves – instead of to God, alone. When we forget the divine dimension, we damage ourselves; God teaches us, continually, to love Him, and sooner or later, there will be a ‘fall’ into something that makes us feel distressed or sad; often our own behaviour is the cause – the thing that saddens us most. Here, it is God who is gently talking to us – teaching us – and taking us by the hand and leading us back to him. Consider those feelings of sadness and distress that we experience: underneath they describe Jesus, who felt sad and distressed, himself, when alive on this earth – nowhere more so than when nailed to the Cross. Now, in our lives, he is feeling sad and distressed in you and me. Our problem is that we often do not, or cannot, see him in this distress and we fail to welcome him. A priest recently told a group of us that when he was working as a painter and decorator, before he was ordained, he fell from a ladder and seriously damaged his back. It meant having major surgery, with ‘plates’ put in to ‘steady up’ and strengthen everything. At first, he complained to God for allowing this to happen.  Only later did he come to realise that it was the very best thing that had ever happened to him. It made him stop and think – about where he was and where he was going. St. Paul said something that throws some light on this:

 ”When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words of wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified”. (2 Cor. 2: 1-2).

I wonder what Paul meant? What practical examples of Jesus Christ – ‘Crucified’ – did he make the centre of his conversation? We don’t know. But, there is an invitation, one that is hard to follow up – to be courageous and joyful in whatever the trial is: our mistake, our sin, our accident or our misfortune. What Paul, Jesus and Cardinal Francis Xavier are teaching us is that we must not get ‘bogged down’ in the suffering, but by ‘embracing Jesus’ in that suffering, we can climb out of any self-pity, false pride or self-condemnation-without-hope, and live to the full whatever God is asking of us in that present moment. It may mean living a ‘divine comedy’ when you are feeling ‘rotten’ but nonetheless, continue to act well. The power of God will take over within you, sooner or later, and you will be taken up by Him into another way of living – another way of being – a life filled with His grace. There is nothing like a challenge and perhaps, by learning from these examples, more than a few can be among those who are joyful and courageous in times of failure.