Suffering and the Empowering Grace of the Lord.

This article explores the reason for the positive disposition that Paul apparently exhibited with respect to his weakness and the sufferings that it entailed. He not only boasts of his weaknesses but even delights in them. He even makes a paradoxical declaration, 'When I am weak, then I am strong.' The article argues that the key to unlocking the paradoxical relation of power and weakness in Paul' s existential statement and in understanding the resilience of Paul in the face of the many sufferings that he had to endure is the assurance of the dynamic grace of Christ. Paul is made to understand through the divine response to his prayer, the only recorded oratio recta of the Risen Christ in the whole Pauline literature, that the empowering grace of Christ remains present and operative in times of weakness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]