Br. Guy Consolmagno writes that humility is essential to his life as an astronomer. “After all, in the face of this overwhelming universe—God’s creation—who could be proud? But even daily, I work in the company of many brilliant scientists; no ego could survive that. Likewise, within the company of saints, we soon learn to recognize that our own accomplishments are nothing to brag about. Another essential part of being an astronomer is the ability to say, “I don’t know.” It’s a great human temptation to pretend otherwise and act as though we have everything under control, but that’s never true. Worse, you’ll never try to learn more if you don’t admit what you don’t know. Truth is like an island. The more we know, the bigger the island, but the bigger the island, the longer the shoreline—the boundary where we encounter the vast ocean of what we don’t know. The more we know, the more we realize how ignorant we are. The same is true in our spiritual life. The better a person we are, the more we are aware of our shortcomings. So when St. Paul says that he “will boast of the things that show my weakness,” it is, in truth, a boast. He is good enough to recognize his weaknesses. Of course, when it comes to boasting, today’s Gospel reminds us of another advantage of bragging about our weaknesses: no thief will ever break in and steal them from us!