Spiritual Reflection
Richard Hart, Capuchin
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
We live in an age of fear and anxiety. Slavish fear can easily pervade our lives. Fear for the safety of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will they be killed or maimed? Fear of our teetering economy and a recession. Fear of high gas prices which have a ripple effect on other products like groceries. Fear people have of what will happen to them now that their homes have been destroyed by a flood or damaged by floods. Fear refugees have of leaving their country with only the possessions they are able to carry, and living in squalid conditions in another country. Fear of living in an underground Church like in China and elsewhere. Fear instilled by the Sunnis and Shiites toward one another, as well as the Palestinians and Israelis. Exploiting racial fears, and foreclosures on mortgaged homes. Some of us have a fear of death, punishment, heights, loneliness, failure, rejection, cancer, terrorism, just to a mention a few more.
A Cherokee Indian youth’s rite of passage consists in his father taking him into the forest, blindfolding him and leaving him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until dawn. The boy is naturally terrified hearing all kinds of noises. Wild beasts are surely around him. Maybe some human might harm him. The wind blew so hard it shook the stump, but he sat there motionless. This harrowing experience, however, was the only way he could become a man. Finally, the sun rises and he is able to remove the blindfold, only to find that his father was next to him protecting him throughout the night.
God will protect us also and be with us. Jesus assured us, “I am with you always until the end of the world.” Often our fears do not materialize. Jesus says to us as he said to the Apostles who were tossed about by the waves and wind, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid.” Notice what happens when Jesus gets into the boat. The winds and waves die down. The more fully we realize Jesus is with us when the winds of adversity and waves of trials and sorrows overwhelm us, the more we will overcome our fears. The expression “Fear not,” is repeated 365 times in the Scriptures. St. John tells us, “Perfect love casts out all fear.”