“Faith is the remedy for fear. If we have faith, there is little we need fear.”
It sometimes seems that our pilgrimage here on earth takes us through a landscape of fear. We are surrounded by circumstances and situations we do not understand, and ignorance can lead us to live our lives in fear.
We fear for our livelihood. Loss of income may compromise our ability to provide for our families, even to the point of losing our homes. We fear injustice. We see so much of it everyday and do not understand how it can happen. And we fear the persecution that may descend upon us if we uphold our Catholic identity.
It is understandable that our lives seem to be directed by what we fear “may” happen.
The Bandit
Charles Boles was better known as “Black Bart.” He was one of the most notorious, and successful bandits of 19th century California. Between 1875 and 1883 he robbed 29 stagecoaches of the Wells Fargo line. Although he was most active in Northern California and southern Oregon, his activities were known as far away as New York and his name became synonymous with the dangers of the western frontier.
He did not like horses and so he most often stepped out in front of a coach in a remote area, brandishing a shotgun. He presented a very intimidating figure, wearing a long duster coat, a black bowler hat, and a flour sack with eyeholes for a mask.
But in spite of this it is not known that he ever fired a shot, he never took a hostage, never harmed anyone, and was never pursued by a sheriff. The shotgun aside, his most powerful weapon was fear. His sinister appearance was enough to shake the confidence of the most hardened stagecoach crew. Fear paralyzed his victims and allowed him to make off with thousands of dollars each time, this would translate to tens of thousands of dollars in today’s currency.
Fear, anxiety, and worry paralyze us and prevent us from taking action.
Jesus offers us the key to dispel all our fears. “Do not be afraid, have faith.” If fear is born of ignorance, then knowledge can take it away. Faith is a supernatural knowledge that takes away every fear.
Saint Augustine tells us that understanding is the reward of faith. We should not try to understand so that we may believe, we should believe so that we may understand.
We know that God has prepared a place for us in His heavenly home, so we need not fear poverty and death. We have faith that God will bring good out of evil and so our fear of injustice fades away. Knowledge that God will never abandon us gives us the courage to overcome our fear of persecution and stand for Truth.
The knowledge to overcome every fear comes from our faith.
E. Stanley Jones was a Christian missionary in the early twentieth century. He put it this way.
“I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath–these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely–these are my native air. A John Hopkins University doctor says, ‘We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact.’ But I, who am simple of mind, think I know; We are inwardly constructed in nerve and tissue, brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality.”
We are made for faith. We are made to live in a relationship with God that relies on Him and trusts in Him. Fear, anxiety, and worry, deny that faith. With faith, God is always there to help us in our troubles, with worry, we are on our own.
It said that most of the things we worry about, never happen. To put it another way, what may happen may also not happen. From a practical point of view, worry does nothing but increase our stress which shortens our lives.
The Executive
There was once an executive who decided to do all his worrying on Wednesdays. Whenever a situation arose that caused him stress or anxiety, and aggravated his ulcer, he would write it down and put it in a “worry box” and forget about it until the following Wednesday. After a few weeks of this he realized that each week when he opened the box most of the issues that gave him worry had been resolved. It would have been useless to worry about them in the first place.
We do not need to live our lives timidly; fearful over what may happen next. Faith frees us to live our lives boldly and follow Christ courageously. Armed with faith we can put aside our fears and share our courage with others. Neither should we fear that we might fail because our faith tells us the final outcome. At the end of all things the just will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished. In the end, we know that we will win.
Pax Vobiscum
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time