‘Fear is useless; what is needed is trust’ |
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Written by MOST REVEREND LEONARD P. BLAIR, Bishop of Toledo
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Friday, 03 April 2009 01:00 |
This coming Holy Week we are going to celebrate the drama of our salvation that once took place in time, and that now continues sacramentally until the end of time.
Familiarity with the story can blind us to the overwhelming and decisive reality of these great events for the world and in our own individual lives. The Paschal Mystery (the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ) is not just past history or a myth. It is not a morality play with some lessons for everyday life. The Paschal Mystery remains what it has always been — an invitation to conquer sin and death by uniting ourselves through faith to Jesus Christ crucified and risen.
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| Bishop Leonard P. Blair |
The Passion reads like a catalog of human horrors. Jesus experiences betrayal, total abandonment by His own, malicious distortions of His words and works, false accusations, the perversion of justice, beatings, spitting, scourging, mockery, stripping and one of the most cruel forms of execution ever devised — crucifixion. And He says, "Come follow Me!" Only faith can make so great a leap as to follow a crucified God.
The human heart recoils at the prospect of enduring even a small part of the cross. We all yearn for a quiet and peaceful life, free of illness, material want, danger, turmoil and misfortune. This is normal. It is good. It is our yearning for the way God created us to be before sin and death entered the world. Original sin, however, and the multiplication of sin, have brought us a long way from Paradise.
In the Paschal Mystery, the Most Holy Trinity is fully revealed as a God of total self-giving love. The Father gives His Son for us. The Son gives His all for us. And the Holy Spirit is the gift that unites us to the divine love. Self-sacrificing love unto death, even death on the cross, is the only path to redemption, to resurrection and life. It is the only way out of human misery, the only answer to the longings of the human heart.
On one occasion in the Gospel (Mk 5:35ff), when a little girl had died, Jesus said to the distraught family, "Do not be afraid, just have faith." Another translation reads: "Fear is useless; what is needed is trust." Faith alone can overcome the great fear we all have of making a leap into self-sacrifice, into self-surrender, of making a leap of trust to the cross as the only means of resurrection.
As the Paschal Mystery is celebrated in this year of our Lord 2009, fear looms large over much of our country and the world.
There is grave economic fear. Our hearts — and our help as neighbor to neighbor — go out to families and individuals who are struggling with job losses, foreclosures and serious setbacks to their hopes and plans.
It is sometimes a great test of faith for people who are hurting to hear our Lord’s words: "Do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear? ... Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. But seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides." (Mt 6:31-33)
Over my 33 years as a priest, my own faith has been strengthened more than once by the example of people who, in very dire circumstances, took Jesus at His word. When all seemed hopeless for them at a given moment, help came from the most unexpected places, as if by chance. Yet to a person who has complete trust in God, nothing is by chance, but is part of a loving providence whose door is opened by the one who "asks, seeks and knocks" with faith. (cf. Mt 7:7)
The economy is not the only reason for fear in today’s world.
On Holy Thursday we will commemorate the Last Supper. Listen again to what Jesus tells the apostles and their successors in the church: "In the world you will have suffering, you will have trouble. ... If the world persecuted Me, it will also persecute you ... If they have followed My teaching, they will follow yours. The reason the world hates you is because you do not belong to the world ..." (cf. Jn 15-16)
As Christian teaching about human life and sexuality come under increasing attack, we can expect an ever more powerful and concerted effort to intimidate, silence and even dismantle the Catholic Church in the United States. Religious freedom, conscience clauses, respect for churches to organize themselves according to their beliefs — all these things are currently being called into question. One has only to look at the recent legislative attempt in Connecticut to impose a ìrestructuringî of Catholic parishes in civil law. As a state senator there said: "The real purpose of this bill is payback to the bishops and pastors of the Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut for opposing gay marriage."
In the two millennia since the Last Supper, Christ’s Body — His church — has experienced all that He suffered: betrayal, abandonment, malicious distortions, false accusations, the perversion of justice, beatings, spitting, scourging, mockery, stripping and crucifixion. We are a church of saints and sinners, and sometimes the greatest trials come from betrayal and abandonment within, and not outside the church, just as they did for Jesus.
Yet the church continues, however imperfectly sometimes in its members, to embrace the self-sacrificing love and self-surrender of the cross, with its eyes fixed on the triumphant and Risen Lord. His words of warning on Holy Thursday already reflect the Easter victory. Having spoken of the troubles apostles can expect as His followers, Jesus explains, "I have told you all this so that you may not fall away ... Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid ... Take courage, for I have conquered the world."
"Fear is useless; what is needed is trust." May our celebration this year of the Paschal Mystery deepen our courage and resolve not to fall away, not to be intimidated or afraid. In every circumstance let us put all our trust in God Who provides for all our spiritual and material needs.
God bless you during Holy Week and grant you a Happy Easter.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 04 June 2009 09:17 |
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