Tag: <span>Fear</span>

April 30, 2021April 16, 2021

The Path

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Jesus pronounces consoling words in today’s gospel.

He is preparing a place for us; there are many mansions in His Father’s house. There is no shortage, whereby we need to compete for a place.

Those of us who are realistic about the path of salvation know that it is a narrow one, and difficult to follow, per Jesus’ own words (cf. Mt. 7:14). Many, perhaps per Jesus’ words the majority, do not find it. Thomas seems a little anxious about this today in the gospel: “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”

But then Jesus gives us one of His most consoling utterances in the whole Gospel, because it is made in the context of a discussion of the path of salvation: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

We all know that we can gravely sin and thereby choose eternal condemnation and suffering. This can seem terrifyingly possible at times. But is immensely consoling to know too that as long as we cling actively to Jesus, who is the Way, He will not allow us to go astray or make choices for our own condemnation.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus about your greatest fears regarding eternal life, both for you and for your loved ones. Then, give these fears completely to Jesus, and tell Him you trust Him to keep you on the path that you want to be on.

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January 6, 2021December 30, 2020

Strength Against Fear

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

“There is no fear in love.”

This simple line from today’s first reading at first seems like a nice, pious thought–but then, we realize it sets before us an apparently unachievable goal. One of today’s most common names for fear is anxiety–and which of us does not feel anxiety? Must we somehow immunize ourselves against what can often be a daily, involuntary emotion in order to achieve love?

What if we were in a small boat on violent waves, like the disciples in today’s gospel? Could anyone blame us for feeling a bit panicky? Yet, Jesus says, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!”

Two considerations may be helpful here. First of all, there is a chasm of difference between the sensation and emotion of anxiety, and living by anxiety. True, for those of us habituated to allowing anxiety to lead us as a rule, they can be one and the same. But if we look at the lives of the saints, we see that sometimes they feel fear, but they do not allow it to direct their judgement and their decisions. And neither should we, since we have given our lives to God and trust in His Providence to rule and guide us.

Our Lady is our best example, next to Christ Himself, of how to handle the sentiment of anxiety. When the angel Gabriel came to visit her at the Annunciation, she felt deeply troubled. She could not immediately understand the implications of what the angel was asking of her, even though she tried–and this left her disconcerted. From the description in the Gospel, it is safe to say that she was experiencing anxiety.

But Mary did not allow this sentiment to rule her–rather, she based her judgement and decisions on faith and trust in God. She explicitly went back to the root of her identity in the midst of her disorientation, stating, “I am the handmaid of the Lord.” And as such she was able to fulfill the will of the Father: “May it be done unto me according to your word.”

Contrast this mode of reacting to Gabriel’s message with that of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, in Lk. 1:5-25–narrated in the Gospel immediately before Mary’s encounter with the angel. Zechariah essentially says, “Why should I believe you?” His anxiety leads him to seek a sure footing before he is willing to accept God’s message in faith. At this moment, Zechariah was a man who let himself be led by his anxiety. Gabriel didn’t seem to take kindly to it: “I am Gabriel, who stand before God. I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. But now you will be speechless and unable to talk until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time.”

The second consideration: When we habitually form our judgement independently from our feelings of anxiety (and sometimes this means waiting until a strong feeling of anxiety subsides), very gradually, over a long period of time, the feelings themselves lessen in strength, no longer rushing in so aggressively. They are almost like a bully who, realizing he is not getting any fun out of a particular victim, begins to leave the victim alone.

Feelings of anxiety never fully leave us. Consider even Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: Sweating blood, so overwrought was He by the stress caused by the burden of our sin loaded upon Him, and the prospect of His impending death. But again, like Mary, He decided independently of that anxiety: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”

When it comes to our judgements and our decisions, what St. John tells us stands: “There is no fear in love.”

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to help you remain in control of the impulses of your passions and emotions. Ask Him for the supernatural gift of trust, whereby your certainty of His loving, providential care governs all your decisions.

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September 23, 2020September 7, 2020

Stress and Love

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

I have lost my job. My girlfriend just broke up with me. I have finals this week. I have a killer deadline at work. My romantic life is going well but is highly perplexing. This year I actually lost money, paying out more to provide for my family than the money I earned. My teenage children are running with the wrong crowd. I have an exciting new business opportunity. I’m really worried that my presentation at work won’t be up to snuff with the executives. I can’t keep all my family’s schedules straight. I am late, late, LATE!

Realities like these make up the stuff of our lives. Sometimes the words of the first reading sound really enticing, on every level: “Give me neither poverty nor riches;
provide me only with the food I need.” Perhaps we would like to have just enough, but not too much, guaranteed for life, so that we wouldn’t have to run around like chickens with our heads cut off. Maybe then we would have time for God. Maybe then there would be room in our hearts for Him.

The words in today’s Gospel passage probably resonate less with us: “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic.” Whatever our vocation, it involves taking care in some way, directly or indirectly, of others, which by definition means being prepared and provisioned. This is the very definition of responsibility.

And certainly, there is nothing wrong with having a job and earning money, with doing the things we need to do to manage the realities of our lives, as part of our vocation.

Perhaps the error does not lie in the sort of things we do. Perhaps the error does not lie in how much we have or do not have. Perhaps, for many of us, the error does not lie in attachment to riches and luxuries.

Perhaps what keeps us from living Gospel detachment from earthly realities, rather, is our attachment to fear. Fear is the unfortunate fruit of Adam and Eve’s desire to be “like gods.” And in our lives, it points directly to the sin of pride. Unfortunately, when we adopt the role of God in our lives, with that comes God’s responsibility: That is, the final, buck-stops-here responsibility to provide for ourselves and those we love.

If our attitude is more like that of the new Eve, the Blessed Virgin Mary, we recognize in a real, practical, palpable way that we live entirely dependent on God’s role as Lord and Provider. We may still do the same sorts of things in our lives, but we relax. Even though I could lose my job if this presentation comes out badly, even though I may missing something crucial on my family’s schedule, even though I feel unable to make my relations with my spouse go smoothly, even though the eternal salvation of my children is not guaranteed (!), It’s all good. It’s all OK. The buck simply doesn’t stop with me.

We perceive the terrible effect of our human race’s definitive “no” to God with original sin, in the immense difficulty we find in letting go of our absolute sense of responsibility. Ironically, though, letting go of this is critical to carry out, even imperfectly, our true responsibility: The responsibility to love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves. Fear chokes our ability to love.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Examine your life with Jesus. Try to put your finger on the areas where you act as if the buck stopped with you, and where the fear you so carefully strive to conceal is controlling you. Talk to Him about what guarantees He will give to you if you place those really risky areas in your life in His hands and stop worrying about them. If you do this, will you let Him down? Or will He, rather, take care of you?

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August 25, 2020August 25, 2020

Skimmer Bugs

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Too often in our spiritual life, we live the life of skimmer bugs, scooting around on the top of the water held together tenuously by molecular cohesion. We find ourselves disturbed by every ripple and wave, and focused only on what can be seen on the surface.

To put a dramatic but accurate point on it, this is the realm of Satan, the “world” dominated by the “prince of this world” of whom Jesus speaks (cf. Jn. 12:31, Jn. 16:11). Satan’s most effective tools dwell here–such as his technique of both dazzling and terrifying through appearances.

Both the first reading and Gospel passage from today caution against different manifestations of an excessively surface-focused, or superficial, attitude. St. Paul warns against the terror that can come from expectation of apocalyptic cataclysm, based on false signs or utterances. And the Gospel warns against efforts to appear good or holy, all the while neglecting the attitudes of the heart.

A different kind of superficiality can afflict us as well: The tendency to focus solely on exterior habits of virtue, while neglecting the deep transformation of our hearts. We think that by practicing this or that aspect of self-discipline or asceticism, the habit itself will work the transformation from the outside in. Then, as we inevitably stumble and fall, or fail to remain consistent in these habits, we become discouraged and consider our spiritual life a lost cause.

This discouragement, which comes from too superficial a notion of holiness, is another arrow in the devil’s quiver that he uses to take advantage of a soul with too much focus on the external surface of things.

Of course, working on our habits of virtue and working against habits of vice is critical for a healthy spiritual life, but this effort should be the flowering of a transformation that works from the inside out. And how does the transformation begin from the inside? Through the formation of the greatest habit of all: Real time dedicated daily to God in prayer, and frequent reception of the sacraments.

False outside-in transformation becomes real inside-out transformation by the very fact that we give God this time, even if our prayer time is filled with involuntary distractions, even if we do not sense any immediate fruit from our prayer. It is not magic. It is something far more powerful, beautiful, and mysterious than magic. Magic is impersonal. What occurs in our hearts, imperceptibly and almost in spite of ourselves, is the action of the protagonist of our spiritual lives, the Person of God Himself, God the Holy Spirit.

When we build our efforts to become better people on this solid bedrock, we little by little defeat superficiality in our lives, with its terrors and bedazzlements; little by little, we plunge deep into the heart of God. Little by little, we are less shaken by the absurd atrocities that occur in the world at the political level, by “wars and rumors of wars” (cf. Mt. 24:6).

And we come to the deep conviction that God, the Lord of our hearts and of all of history, has not only the story arc of the universe, but also that of our own spiritual growth well in hand. And we fall in love with Him.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Talk with Jesus about the things in your own life and in the broader world that frighten and perturb you. Ask Him if, despite surface appearances, He has them well in hand, and to help you to come to trust this, deeply and practically. Ask Him to transform you so that that things that most move His heart become those that move yours, instead of the superficial realities in life that at times seem so potent.

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