Thorn in the Flesh
One
The Thorn in the Flesh
In II Corinthians, chapter 12, St. Paul gives an incredibly intimate detail about his own spiritual life. Here’s what he says, “In view of the extraordinary nature of these revelations, to stop me from getting too proud I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and stop me from getting too proud! About this thing, I have pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me, but he has said, 'My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness'. So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me…”
So what is this thorn in the flesh? This thorn that comes from Satan, but which God will not take away, even though we beg him to? What is it? And why does it allow God to be strong through our weakness?
Two
What is the thorn in the flesh?
St. Paul never tells us what the thorn in the flesh is. It’s obviously something that really bothers him, something that makes him feel weak and humiliated. It could be some kind of physical illness or pain. More likely though, since this thorn somehow comes from Satan, it’s a kind of spiritual problem or suffering. And Paul tells us that it’s a thorn in the “flesh” and remember, “flesh” is the word the New Testament uses to describe the sinful part of us. So probably, this thorn is some kind of habitual temptation to sin, or maybe even a recurrent fault or vice.
In any case, it’s something that comes from Satan, and it’s something Paul asks God to take away, something he asks for God to heal. But God won’t heal it. God won’t heal Paul’s chronic problem, whether it’s an illness, a temptation, or even a vice.
Why won’t God just take care of Paul’s problem? Why won’t he take care of ours?
Three
Small Issues, Big Issues
We’ve all got thorns in the flesh. We’ve all got these issues that drag us down and it seems like we would be so much holier, so much happier, so much more use to God and our neighbor, if the Lord would just heal us. Haven’t you ever fallen on your knees before God and said, “Dear Lord, please! Please heal me from this lust, from this anger, from this resentment, from this gluttony, from this anxiety! So that I can serve you better.”
But He doesn’t do it. He doesn’t heal us from our issues. He doesn’t remove our thorn in the flesh. And the reason is clear. The reason is that the personal issue that looms largest in our eyes is probably not our biggest problem from God’s perspective.
Lust and anger and resentment and anxiety probably look like our biggest problems to us. But actually, there’s a much bigger problem lurking behind them. It’s the problem of pride. And that’s Our Lord’s primary objective, getting rid of our pride. In which case, it makes sense that He would leave our most embarrassing issues alone for the time being. Because the Lord knows how to draw humility from our struggle with our habitual weakness. Paul even says, “to stop me from getting too proud I was given a thorn in the flesh.”
Four
God will tolerate your lesser faults to counteract your big fault
Pride, self-reliance, and satisfaction in our own strength, that is the great blockage to God and salvation. All the other sins flee from God’s presence, but pride alone has the horrifying audacity to defy God directly, to make us into little independent gods of our own. God has to topple our pride which is really a form of idolatry. He has to topple the idols we make out of ourselves.
And He does this by allowing us to fall, and see how weak we are, how inadequate, and how much we need Him. He topples our pride by making us humble. God needed to keep Paul from getting proud. So He let this thorn in the flesh, from the devil himself, continue to make life difficult and embarrassing. That way, Paul would be aware of his weakness, which is the precondition to God being maximally effective in the soul.
Because God’s power is made perfect in our knowledge of our own weakness, and that’s what our habitual failings can give us.
Five
If God tolerates our failings, so must we
Eventually, God took away Paul’s thorn in the flesh. Now Paul resides in perfect joy and glory. But for a large part of his time on earth, God chose not to take away Paul’s personal issue, whatever it was. So too with us. We can’t get discouraged if God doesn’t heal us, and if our best efforts don’t seem to make our particular weakness improve.
God is at work in our souls, not only despite our recurrent faults but, in a mysterious way, by means of the humility they give rise to. We keep trying to do better, knowing that one day it will happen. Until then, if God is willing to put up patiently with our faults, we should be patient with ourselves and with others.
St. Edith Stein said, “If up to now, a person has been more or less contented with himself, the time for that is over. He will do what he can to change the unpleasant things he finds in himself, but he will discover quite a bit that can’t be called beautiful and yet will be nearly impossible to change. As a result he will slowly become small and humble, increasingly patient and tolerant toward toe specks in his brothers’ eyes now that he has so much trouble with the beam in his own. Eventually, he will be able to look at himself in the unblinking light of the divine presence and learn to entrust himself to the power of the divine mercy.”
Suggested Resolutions:
Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you.
We should always fight habitual sin, but when we feel frustrated that God won’t just take them away, remember that it would only be a path to pride.
When you fall into sin, don’t get discouraged, but use it as a reminder that virtue comes from God’s power and not your own.