To become aware of our limits is to open the doors to our fragilities and limits. We are not fixed or perfect creatures. There are things in us that are missing or in need, physical, psychological, existential, vital limits, things that we have not reached and that can even frustrate us.
Overlooking this reality generates crises because not accepting limits makes us demanding with others and with reality. We demand what reality cannot give us.
In a world in which almost everything has to be successful or resonant, the invitation is to accept your limits and those of your brothers and sisters with benevolence.
Some new insights could help families to cope with their crises in a fruitful way and learn from their differences and limits:
Accepting your own fragility opens you to the vulnerability of your brother or sister with respect. If you are aware of your weaknesses, of what hurts you, of what is not going well, you will take special notice of the limits that you perceive in the other person. You may seek conversations that help to generate a connection and not provoke a pushback or a rejection, you will be encouraged to look at your sibling’s limits with acceptance.
Your capacity to forgive will grow. If you discover in your limits and sins that they are an occasion for Jesus to show his saving power and mercy, this experience of God will also flow in you approaching your brother’s limit and sin, with the desire to forgive him and not to expect him to always act perfectly towards you.
The limit makes you wiser and more prudent, there are things that you know from experience that you can no longer do. In life we become aware of our limits, knowing that there are limits that lead us to be more cautious without pretending to do everything, but only what we have to do.
May this awareness of the limit also help you to go to God with humility, asking “Lord, continue to work in me, healing me, curing me, and above all making me more humble, more simple towards the frailties and weaknesses of my brothers and sisters”.
Bettina Raed
Vice International Director
Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network