"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

If we only knew the precious treasure hidden in infirmities, we would receive them with the same joy with which we receive the greatest benefits, and we would bear them without ever complaining or showing signs of weariness.--St. Vincent de Paul

Scripture text: (ROM 8:31B-39)
Brothers and sisters:
If God is for us, who can be against us?
He did not spare his own Son
but handed him over for us all,
how will he not also give us everything else along with him?
Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones?
It is God who acquits us.
Who will condemn?
It is Christ Jesus who died, rather, was raised,
who also is at the right hand of God,
who indeed intercedes for us.
What will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
As it is written:

For your sake we are being slain all the day;
we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly
through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor present things, nor future things,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord

In today’s gospel at Mass we all can admire Jesus' resolve to accomplish the mission his Father in Heaven had entrusted him with.

“Some Pharisees came to Jesus and gave him this warning, «Leave this place and go on your way, for Herod wants to kill you». Jesus said to them, «Go and give that fox my answer: ‘I drive out demons and heal today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my course!’. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and for a little longer, for it would not be fitting for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:31-35)

Nothing would stop him!

With this attitude, the Lord set out giving guidance on how the messengers of the Gospel should react when they confront persecutions of all kinds, both now and through the centuries to come: not to be afraid of any temporal power. St. Augustine says that, in troubled times, the shepherds are not to abandon their flock: neither those who will suffer martyrdom nor those who will survive.

In this broken world, we can be so shaken by the events, the words, and hurt that we can sometimes feel. Some of it directed towards us, some of it directed from us. The moment that Adam and Eve took a bite out of the forbidden fruit, their action became the symbolic marking that we will never be perfect, that we will never live in a perfect world. It is very easy to look at the darkness and see what is lacking, but I want to encourage every one of you who is reading this and offer you one take away idea:

God is bigger than all of this!

More importantly, God wants to remind us that it is going to be all right because He is the one who is ultimately in charge. Jesus did not die on the cross for the perfect world; He died for a broken one.