Fear. A thought.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.” (1 John 4:18)

What with ISIS in the news, and rioting in Missouri, and instability in the world, and reading about history in general, it's got me thinking of late about WHAT it is that leads to violence and hate.  The only thing that makes sense to me is FEAR.  Fear of another (person/group/nation/religion) leads to the rationalization that what one does is out of self-preservation, and it is therefore justified in their own minds.   We don't hate anyone or anything as much as the person we most fear.

Fear.  It's capable of unsettling our very foundations, as individuals.  It rattles everything we know.  I have been overwhelming blessed in my life.  I know peace, happiness, security, health.  My fears are petty and imaginary for the large part.  Worries, not fear.  But looking around, I wonder.  What would I do, how would I act, if I was truly AFRAID?   And that scares me.  Because I can think that I'm a pretty good person, and that I would NEVER act in such and such a way, but if  I was afraid?  For myself?  For my family?  What would I be capable of doing?  Is there a part of me that I've held back, beyond where I've let God live, that COULD act contrary to Him, if I was afraid?

I'm not afraid of dying.  I am afraid of leaving my children before they are fully raised.  Am I afraid of suffering physically?  Maybe a little, but not to the point where I would not recognize myself if I did, I think.   But I am afraid of abject fear.  That may not make sense at all.  But if  I was met at the door with knife-wielding terrorists, ready to behead my family unless I denied my Lord - if I was faced with the martyrdom of my family as the early Christians were - would I be as secure in my love for Christ as they were?  Would I gladly offer my neck, as they offered their lives?  Or would I crumble and become inert, fear rendering me unrecognizable to myself?  And THAT is what I'm afraid of; that when confronted with abject, total fear, I do not rise to the challenge, that I am not strong enough, that my soul is not strong enough.

So that is Freedom, then.  When love chases fear away, and it no longer has a hold over you.  Not recklessness.  Recklessness isn't courage.  Courage is when love has freed us enough from the grip of fear that we can look at whatever is in front of us with true eyes - God's perspective - and know that it has no hold over us, can't touch what's TRULY important.  Because we have the bigger picture, and know the ultimate reality.  God knows no fear, because He knows all, and knows there is nothing FOR Him to fear.  Our petty brains fear the unknown, fear the loss of temporal things - but the more we tap into Him, the more we do His will - the more we realize that the most important of things (our soul!) is untouchable when we rest in Him.  Courage is the ability to be our best selves in the face of fear, despite fear, because we know the strength of a Savior.

That's what the early Christians knew, what St. Ignatius wrote of as he rejoiced on the way to be torn apart by lions.  That is what Jesus and the angels cry out to us repeatedly in scripture.

 "BE NOT AFRAID!"

Merry and Blessed Christmas!

 

'And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased’ (Lk 2:12-14).


According to the evangelist, the angels ‘said’ this. But Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually song, in which all the glory of the great joy that they proclaim becomes tangibly present. And so, from that moment, the angels’ song of praise has never gone silent. It continues down the centuries in constantly new forms and it resounds ever anew at the celebration of Jesus’ birth. It is only natural that simple believers would then hear the shepherds singing too, and to this day they join in their caroling on the Holy Night, proclaiming in song the great joy that, from then until the end of time, is bestowed on all people."
— Pope Benedict XVI

The True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, circa 388 AD

"Your Lord is seated at the Father’s right hand in heaven. How then is the bread His body? And the chalice, or rather its content, how is it His Blood? These elements are called Sacraments, because in them one thing is perceived by the sense and another thing by the mind. What is seen has a bodily appearance; what the mind perceives produces spiritual fruit. You hear the words, ‘The Body of Christ’, and you answer ‘Amen’."
St. Augustine