March 25, 2024

2018 Brisbane Holy Week Mission, Failure: Conference by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX

39 minutes

Our goal is to develop a supernatural outlook on failure. When we do this, “the flaws which inevitably attend a created order which has known original sin no longer have the power to daunt utterly: they are judged materially no longer. When supernatural values are substituted for earthly values, a complete reversal takes place and the things which menaced before are now so many evidences of God’s loving providence.”
First principle: Failure is necessary for our self-knowledge. We are incomplete without failure. We have to die before we can live; we have to be weak in order to be strong; we have to be crucified before we can rise up.
Second principle: Our failures teach us God’s love for us.
Our failure is always a failure “of a kind that can be explained by love, and which will therefore not destroy but perfect … without failure, the soul’s experience of love is incomplete.” We do not properly understand the depth of God’s love for us until we have been lifted up by Him in the midst of our failure, instead of being ‘lifted up’ by impurity, drink, power, success, or any of the other artificial stimulants of the world.
Third principle: Christ failed in order to show us how to fail.
Christ came to redeem a race of mortals in a state of rebellion against God and suffering all the consequences of that rebellion. Our Lord had to choose a means of redemption that would not only satisfy the justice of God, but would also indicate for us the way to overcome the rebellion within us and around us. He had to be our model as well as our redeemer. This is why He chose to redeem us through failure.

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By Fr Paul Robinson

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March 25, 2024

2018 Brisbane Holy Week Mission, Failure: Conference by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX

39 minutes

Our goal is to develop a supernatural outlook on failure. When we do this, “the flaws which inevitably attend a created order which has known original sin no longer have the power to daunt utterly: they are judged materially no longer. When supernatural values are substituted for earthly values, a complete reversal takes place and the things which menaced before are now so many evidences of God’s loving providence.”
First principle: Failure is necessary for our self-knowledge. We are incomplete without failure. We have to die before we can live; we have to be weak in order to be strong; we have to be crucified before we can rise up.
Second principle: Our failures teach us God’s love for us.
Our failure is always a failure “of a kind that can be explained by love, and which will therefore not destroy but perfect … without failure, the soul’s experience of love is incomplete.” We do not properly understand the depth of God’s love for us until we have been lifted up by Him in the midst of our failure, instead of being ‘lifted up’ by impurity, drink, power, success, or any of the other artificial stimulants of the world.
Third principle: Christ failed in order to show us how to fail.
Christ came to redeem a race of mortals in a state of rebellion against God and suffering all the consequences of that rebellion. Our Lord had to choose a means of redemption that would not only satisfy the justice of God, but would also indicate for us the way to overcome the rebellion within us and around us. He had to be our model as well as our redeemer. This is why He chose to redeem us through failure.

...more