Last Sunday after Pentecost 20.11.11 Love casts out fear
Today we have a rather alarming Gospel passage. All about destruction and upheaval, and what will happen to us if we are not right with God at the time of Judgment.
There are many things we could be afraid about if we allow ourselves to think about them. There are many things that can go wrong.
We could suffer at the hands of other people: war, terrorism, crime...
At the hands of Nature: earthquakes, floods, fires...asteroids
And, most formidable of all, directly at God’s hands: fire from heaven, plagues, threats we have never encountered before.
So, to be sure, a lot of things can go wrong
But then comes the reassuring word: Do not be afraid. Constantly we are told this throughout the Bible. Our Lord Himself says it often: Courage, It is I. Why did you doubt, you men of little faith? Be not afraid...
How can we be so calm when there is so much evil that can happen to us?
One way to avoid fear is just not to think about these things. To be ‘philosophical’. If an earthquake gets me, bad luck. Gotta go some time. If your number is up, it is up. That sort of statement. So much for human and natural causes of evil.
And as to divine punishment, well nobody still thinks that God punishes (they say).
There is a much better way to overcome fear. Instead of hiding from God, trying to keep Him at bay, we can develop love for Him. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4,18). If we have enough love for God we can deal with anything - the fear of dying, of harm, of the unknown, of the future...
When we love Him enough we also trust in Him, that He would not abandon us; that He would help us through whatever difficulty arises, even death itself.
As to the threatened disasters, these will happen only if we do not turn to God, so we do turn to Him and these things need not happen.
Or, if they still do happen, we will be given grace to cope, and come through triumphant.
We become familiar with God; no longer seeing Him as remote. He becomes part of our ordinary life; we communicate with Him on a constant basis. We are at ease with Him, not in a complacent way, but in a serious, realistic way, based on humility and really trying to get things right.
The reason God says such things as in today’s Gospel is to motivate us to true relationship with Him.
He is saying, If you are separate from Me you will have great trouble. But if united you will have joy.
The two alternatives are so different that it must claim our attention.
We have to be aware of the negative as an extra incentive to seek the positive. It is better to focus on the joyful, but not to the point that we deny there is a negative side, trying to sweep it under the carpet.
Fear can be an initial motivation in religious life but we should not stay at that level. Our faith is meant to mature to a higher level, based on love.
If we could increase our holiness and win others over we can rewrite the script for the future.
We are not just passive objects tossed around by fate, but we can actively form the events of the future.
May God bring us to full union with Him and to a world which can welcome His coming without fear.
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