In the three fourths of a century that I have lived, I have seen fear rob people of their life in so many different areas.
The generation who lived during the Great Depression of the 1920s often became hoarders because they feared that if they didn’t save certain things they would run out of them and not be able to take care of a problem for which the items were made. My parents had about 20 boxes of bandages that would no longer stick to anything when I went through their belongings after their deaths in the 1990s.
A standup comedian friend of mine was drafted into the Viet Nam war in the 1960s and assigned as a corpsman on the front lines to help wounded soldiers get to a triage center. He returned haunted by the sights of many soldiers who lost limbs or their lives and became afraid of being on stage because he no longer found life experiences about which he could make a joke and a living in that area.
In the last three years, a former financial client and friend of mine lost her husband to brain cancer and now she also has a form of brain cancer for which there is no cure. Two of her three grown children have special needs and she is afraid that her passing will put their life in straits due to bad decisions and people taking advantage of them.
Of the people mentioned above, one was Catholic, one a Protestant, one Jewish and one with no religious affiliation. The first three did not practice their faiths. And, yet, all of them prayed or pray to God to help them in their dilemmas. Why? My best guess based on personally knowing them, they did not find or have not found anyone on earth that could console their fears. And so God was or is their last hope.
In our first reading this weekend from Genesis, God tells Abram to leave his homeland and go elsewhere to be the blessing God will make him to be to everyone who meets him. Leaving all he has known, he trusts in God rather than into the fear of the unknown. His faith saved him and he is a model to us today of how we need to trust and rise up in adversarial times.
St. Paul’s second letter to Saint Timothy in the second reading, writes about facing into hardship for the sake of the Gospel messages because God’s grace will support him to be the holy person he has been called to be rather than give into fear. By our Baptism, we too can expect difficult times as we try to balance our oneness with Christ against a world that sends mixed messages of how we should live our lives in wealth, fame and power. God’s manifest grace gives us the strength to rise and live in fidelity to the Gospel.
Jesus, in St. Matthew’s Gospel, illustrates God’s power of assuring for us by His Transfiguration that He along with His Father and the Holy Spirit indeed has all the answers we need to overcome our fears. But to prove that, we need rise up and be the disciples who represent God on the front lines to those in need who have fear for whatever causes pain in their lives.
Lent is a time for us to work on those items which cause us discomfort in our relationship with God in fulfilling the purpose for which we are created. Let us take this week to seek a change in our hearts that will give us strength to overcome any fear(s) we may have that makes us less than whole. As Jesus said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.”
Reading 1: Genesis 12: 1-4a
Reading 2: Second Timothy 1: 8b-10
Gospel: Matthew 17: 1-9
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