Greetings!
"Fear is useless, what you need is trust."(Mark 5:36).
The Christian message tells us to trust Jesus more, and be not afraid. It is so easy to get caught in fear. The Lord instructs us to be more trusting of His love.
This doesn't mean that we will be entirely free of worry. There is real, objective danger out there. Fear was a constant companion of the saints, but they did not give in to it.
Even Jesus was terrified at times. His agony in the garden reminds us of His vulnerability. However, Jesus, and the all the saints prayed to the Father for peace, joy and strength.
Dorothy Day, who is now being considered for canonization, tells of a time when she and a friend were coming from Mass. Suddenly objects came whizzing past their ears. At first Dorothy thought they were snowballs, but when another one flew past, her friend Judith Gregory cried out, "That was meant for us."
They were throwing hard-boiled eggs. Afraid to turn back, for fear they would be hit in the face; they walked faster. When she arrived home, Dorothy wrote in her diary, "I should have been delighted, as Charles de Foucauld was when he was pelted in the streets of Nazareth, but my feeling was one of fear. I'm glad because it helps me to understand the fear that is eating at the hearts of the people in the world today. No one is safe. We are no longer protected by the oceans separating us from the rest of the world."
The important thing is that Dorothy prayed to be delivered from her fear, just as Jesus did that fateful night in the garden. She prayed specifically for the love that casts out fear. Here again are her words, "I pray to grow in the love of God and man, and to live by this charity... we must love our enemy... not because we fear him, but because God loves him."
People accused Dorothy of being crazy because of her faithfulness to the Gospel. Her logic was strange to them, but it was always obedient to the words of Jesus. When she felt fear she immediately turned to the Lord, and prayed for protection. Then she prayed for the grace to love her assailants. She lacked feelings of love for them, but she prayed for the grace to love them anyway. Her loyalty was to the Lord, not to her feelings. When He asks us to love our enemies, he means it literally, knowing that we cannot do it without supernatural help.
It takes great mental discipline to obey Jesus. Pray for the grace and the will power to manage your fears successfully. Even though the Scriptures tell us that love casts out fear, we don't know how to do it very well. But love and joy are two sides of the same coin. Joy can cast out fear as well. That's why joyful thoughts help to dispel fear. The experience of God's love can be found in a joyful spirit.
God bless you.
by Father John Catoir
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