Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: fear

  • The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Journeying from Fear to Faith

    The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Journeying from Fear to Faith

    Today’s readings

    Getting ready for Mass today, I thought about my Dad. Not just because it’s Father’s Day, although that’s certainly part of it. But partly because of today’s Gospel. The story we have here today speaks about a journey, and I’ll say more about that in a minute. My Dad was great for journeys: he loved to drive and take the family to Wisconsin or to Disney, or wherever we needed to go. He’d have us up early in the morning so that we’d miss rush hour traffic, and we’d be on our way.

    Today, Jesus and his disciples set out on a significant journey. The reading we have today is at the end of chapter four, in which Jesus has been standing next to the sea, teaching the people by means of parables. He has told them the parable of the sower who went out to sow seeds, the parable of the mustard seed, and the lamp placed on the lamp stand. He is explaining the kingdom of God to them, but they don’t quite get it. Even the disciples have to have it explained to them. When he’s done the best that he can with them, he is ready to move on. There are other people that need to hear the Good News, others who need to know Jesus’ power and authority.

    And so he sets out on the journey, and the reading says that the disciples take him with them in the boat “just as he was.” That’s a curious detail, I think. But it makes me remember those trips with my dad. It’s time to get going, no time to change clothes or freshen up, just get in the car – or in this case, the boat – and let’s get started on the journey. But the journey isn’t always without its problems. On vacation trips we may run into traffic, or if in the air, perhaps turbulence. On the sea, the disciples experienced the raging waves of a fearsome storm. So they wake Jesus up, because apparently these storms don’t really affect him, and he rebukes the storm, and then rebukes the disciples for their little faith.

    We’re all on a journey. That journey, like that of the disciples, is from fear to faith. We very rarely have time to think about it; we just have to get in the boat and get moving, just as we are. The journey is not always smooth: storms arise, and when they do, it often seems like our God is sleeping, seeming not to care that we are about to perish. I’m not going to fill in the blanks for you – you can all do that well enough. You’ve been on many journeys in your life, and sometimes the ride has been bumpy. But if we stay on the journey, we definitely get to experience this One whom “even wind and sea obey.” Even when our God seems to be sleeping, he is never unaware of our situation, and his love for us is never on pause.

    The thing is, sometimes the storm doesn’t seem to stop so quickly as it does in today’s Gospel reading. Would that Jesus would stand up in the boat of our uncertainty and yell out: “Quiet! Be still!” But maybe he is. Maybe the “Be still” is directed at us and not at the storm. There was a contemporary Christian song a few years ago now, that had this wonderful line in it: “Sometimes he calms the storm, and other times he calms his child.” That song has given me peace in many situations. Because as frightening as the storms of our lives can be, they are no match for the grace of God. Even if God allows the storm to rage in our lives, if he is with us, calming us, we have nothing to fear. And maybe that is the occasion when we make progress on that journey from fear to faith.

    So as we leave this holy place today, we are on a journey to the most holy place, our true home in heaven. Along the way, we will have other destinations, and as we travel, we know that Jesus will be with us through it all. He may calm the storms that arise, or he may calm his children, whichever is most appropriate. And we know that the journey from fear to faith will lead us back one day to the place we really belong, at the banquet table in the kingdom of everlasting life. May all of our life’s journeys end up in that same, great place!

  • The Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    The Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Today’s Gospel story is a fitting one, I think, for this celebration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  The evangelist tells us that Mary’s heart was filled with wonder.  There are a few stories in the Gospels that end with that wonderful line: “and his mother kept all these things in her heart.”  I think the moms here can understand the sentiment of these lines.  I think any mother is amazed at the things their children learn to do, but Mary’s wonderment goes beyond even that: she is amazed at the coming of age of Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  She knew her child would be special, and when you read these stories you can just imagine how astounded she is at times.  Her heart was filled with wonder.

    At other places in the Gospel, I imagine her heart is filled with fear.  She began to see, I am sure, that the wonderful things her son was doing were not universally appreciated.  She must have known that the authorities were displeased and were plotting against him.  She probably worried that he would be in danger, which of course he was.  Her heart was filled with fear.

    Toward the end of the Gospel, her heart is certainly filled with sorrow.  As she stood at the foot of the cross, her son, the love of her life, is put to death.  The Stabat Mater hymn calls that well to mind: “At the cross her station keeping, stood the mournful mother weeping, close to Jesus at the last.”  The prophet Simeon had foretold her sorrow when she and Joseph presented Jesus in the temple.  Her heart was filled with sorrow.

    At the end of the Gospel, her heart must have been filled with joy.  Jesus’ death was not the end of the story.  Not only did his life not end at the grave, now the power of the grave is smashed to oblivion by the power of the resurrection.  In those first hours after his resurrection, she shared the joy of the other women and the disciples.  Her heart was filled with joy.

    And as the community went forward in the book of Acts to preach the Good News and to make the Gospel known to every corner of the world, Mary’s heart was filled with love.  That love that she had for her son, that love that she received from God, she now shared as the first of the disciples.  Her place in the community was an honored one, but one that she took up with great passion.  Her heart was filled with love.

    For us, perhaps, the best news is that, through it all, her heart was always filled with faith.  That faith allowed her to respond to God’s call through the angel Gabriel with fiat: “let it be done to me according to your word.”  Because of Mary’s faith, the unfolding of God’s plan for the salvation of every person came to fruition.  We are here this morning, to some extent because of her faith, that faith that allowed her to experience the wonder, sustained her through fear and sorrow, and brought life to the joy and love she experienced.  She kept all these things in her heart, that heart that was always filled with faith.

  • Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    St. James today encourages us to consider it all joy when we experience trial.  I don’t know about you, but that’s not the emotion I usually find in frustrating or fearful circumstances.  And considering that the people to whom James was writing were probably being persecuted, they probably weren’t overjoyed at their trials either.  But the spiritual principle is that when one’s faith is tested, ones learns perseverance, and learns to trust in God.

    But that presupposes that we will remain faithful in the midst of trial.  The minute we stop looking to our Lord for help in times of difficulty, perseverance and trust in God go right down the tubes.  The Pharisees in the Gospel had not yet learned faithfulness.  They kept their eyes on the minutiae of the Law instead of on God, and so they lost sight of faith and everything that was of true importance.  They were fearful; they wanted a sign, but they would never get a sign because they were always looking in places other than God.

    Faithfulness is a difficult thing.  When we are tested, it’s so easy to want to throw in the towel and leave behind everything we believe in.  I have been there myself, but thankfully I still had prayer and people praying for me.  I think we’re all in that place at some time or another in our lives.  It’s easy to be faithful when there are no trials, but faith in times of trial produces the perseverance and lively faith that gets us through life.  And we definitely should consider that all joy.

  • The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    The rather obvious and certainly oft-repeated application of today’s Gospel reading lies in the very literal interpretation of the word “talent,” at least as it appears in English.  That interpretation goes like this: we have been given many talents, and it’s up to us to use them wisely for the benefit of the kingdom of God.  Woe to the one who ignores his gifts and buries them out of fear.  And that’s a wonderful message.  I could go there, particularly on the heels of our time, talent and treasure campaign.  But it’s wrong – that’s not what Jesus meant, and I think we have to dig just a little bit deeper.

    The word we have translated “talent” here does not mean what we think it means.  When our English ears hear that word, we think gifts, we think of abilities, of things we can do.  But that’s not what it means in the original Greek.  “Talent” here does not mean gifts; a talent was a unit of money.  It was actually rather a large sum of money, equal to something like one thousand days’ wages, or what a poor person could have lived on for fifteen or twenty years.  So think about it, even the servant who only received one talent actually received quite a bit – he received what the average person would earn in a little over three years!  That’s a lot of money for anyone.

    The next thing we have to look at is who it was that was receiving such a large sum of cash.  On first glance, seeing what it is they have been given, we might think these are senior advisers to the master, people who would have been in charge of his estate and his business transactions.  But that’s not what it says.  It says he called in his “servants” – so we are talking here about slaves, slaves – not business advisers.  And so these slaves are getting ten talents, five talents, and one talent – all of them are getting a considerable amount of money!

    If we think of the master as God, and accept the talents simply as money, I think God comes off sounding rather harsh.  The poor servants differed in their ability; that’s pointed out in the story and certainly the master would have known that.  So why would God be so horribly harsh when a simple slave with limited capabilities does nothing with his gifts?  It makes us bristle, I think, to imagine God treating someone like that so poorly.

    So I think this raises a few questions for us.  Who is the master?  What do the talents represent?  Why would the master entrust such a large sum of money to common slaves?  Who are the slaves?  And what on earth was that third slave thinking when he buried such a wonderful gift in the sand?

    Well, first off, let’s suppose the master is God here – God the Father.  This isn’t supposed to be a perfect allegory, so let’s just bracket the harshness of the parable. And I think it’s our first reading that gives us a clue as to what’s really going on here.  That first reading speaks of the worthy wife whose value is far beyond that of fine pearls.  What, or rather who, could be that valuable?  Our theology teaches us that the husband in the first reading is Christ, the bridegroom, and the worthy wife is the Church.  So we are the ones called to be worthy, to be industrious, to take care of the poor and to fear the Lord.  Hold on to that thought for a bit.

    Now the talents, they’re not abilities or gifts, and they aren’t simply money.  The Gospel parable says the Master called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them.  What we have translated “entrusted” here means, in the original Greek, something more like “handed over.”  In just the same way, God the Father “handed over” his only Son to us, for the salvation of the whole world.  What could possibly be worth more than that?

    Now the slaves of course are the disciples, they’re you and me, people of every time and place who Christ has come to save.  We are slaves to sin, and we need a redeemer.  Some are more open to redemption and to the work of Christ and the call of the Gospel.  They might get five talents or ten, or however many God chooses to give them.  These go forth into the world, pouring out those riches of Christ into a world that desperately needs salvation, healing and hope.  As that message goes forth, proclaimed and lived by disciples ready to embrace it, they are able to earn five more, or ten more, to double or even triple what they were given for the sake of the kingdom.

    But some are not as open to Christ’s life and work and Gospel.  There’s too much at stake.  They worry about what might happen if our world totally embraced Jesus’ teaching.  They can’t get past what discipleship might personally cost them.  And in Matthew’s Gospel, this is the cardinal sin, because in at least a dozen places, Jesus says “do not be afraid” in one form or another.  That was Jesus’ message in Matthew’s Gospel, and so this third servant, who was afraid of what the Master might be like, buried his treasure out of fear.  And the parable points out that that fear wasn’t even reasonable, since he dealt so wonderfully with the other two servants, rewarding their work by calling them to share in his joy.

    So today’s Gospel is a summary of the whole Gospel of Matthew that we’ve been reading with the Church this year.  We are told that the greatest gift is Christ, that we are called to live the Gospel, that we must take up the task before us without being afraid, that we are called to go out and invest Christ’s presence into a world that always needs to be renewed.  As we come here on this second-to-last Sunday of the Church year, we are brought to this little summary so that we might look back and see how we’ve done that this year.  Have we treasured Christ as the greatest of all that we have been given?  Have we taken on the mission without being afraid, knowing that the gift we have been given in Christ can make up for anything that we ourselves may lack?  Have we accepted that wonderful gift and invested it in the world, proclaiming the Gospel by the way that we live, challenging the corner of the world in which we live to take it up also, so that we might bring back another five or ten or a million talents?

    Or have we been afraid, thinking that the Master is demanding beyond reason, afraid to make a mistake, afraid of what living the Gospel would mean for us, afraid of what it might cost us?  Because if we have lived this way, we have failed the mission.  Everything we have will be taken from us.  There will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

    Here at the end of this Church year, we can renew our commitment, make a new year’s resolution, if you will, to live the Gospel and proclaim the kingdom in the year ahead.  It doesn’t have to be huge.  It doesn’t cost us anything, because everything that we need has been given to us.  Maybe proclaiming the Gospel means doing some kind of service for us.  Reaching out at a homeless shelter or at a soup kitchen or our own food pantry.  Maybe we’ll help teach a religious education class, or sing in the choir, or become a lector.  Maybe we’ll make an effort every day to put prayer in the course of our work day, and try to be people of integrity in our business lives.  Maybe we’ll read the Scriptures each day before we go to bed, even just a few verses, so that the Lord can change our lives and our hearts.  Throughout this Church year, we have received the greatest gift we’ll ever get – Jesus Christ the Lord himself.  Soon it will be time for us to bring back the gift with interest, taking a world of watching people with us. The Psalmist sings of our reward today: “For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be, and favored.”  Come, share your Master’s joy!

  • Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Fear is a bad thing.  Fear destroys discipleship.  In the case of the gospel story today, fear kept the disciples from understanding.  As well we know, Jesus was speaking to them about his passion and death, and they didn’t get it.  They didn’t get it because that was not their idea of what should happen to the messiah.  They were looking for a king who would bring Israel back to political greatness, not someone who was going to suffer and die.  So they didn’t understand it, but worse yet, they were afraid to ask Jesus what he meant.

    Why were they afraid?  Maybe it was because they had invested themselves totally in Jesus, and they couldn’t bear to think of what people might think of them if they had spent all this time following a man who clearly was not the messiah they were looking for.  That would explain why Judas made the deal for thirty pieces of silver, and ultimately why he took his own life.

    Or were they afraid to find out that if Jesus was to accept suffering and death, they would have to do the same?  Certainly that was true for most of them; they had to actually give their lives for what they believed.  Whatever the case, they didn’t want clarification or understanding right now.  They could not deal with the truth.

    It’s hard to blame them for that, because I strongly suspect that all of us avoid the truth at one time or another in our lives.  We think about something that is confronting us, and think: “I don’t want to know…”  But we disciples can’t avoid the truth.  It catches up with us someday, some way.  Fear merely keeps us from confronting that truth with our God, the God who was willing to take the cross for us and is therefore with us in all our sorrows and joys.

    The Christian disciple should never be afraid of the truth.  What we need to fear is what the world would be like if the truth were never spoken.

  • Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It’s time to get going, to set out on the journey.  That’s the message of our Gospel today, and I think it’s a timely one, coming as it does as some of us are preparing for, or maybe even returning from, our summer vacations.  I have fond memories of taking vacations in the summer with my family when I was growing up.  Dad loved to drive even long distances, so he’d be up and ready to go at like five in the morning!  We had packed the car the night before, and got started early to avoid any rush hour traffic.  Even though I’m not really a morning person, I used to look forward to those early-departure journeys.  I think it’s just fun to be going somewhere else, no matter what time of the day it is.

    The point of a journey is often to set out and begin something new, to reach out to new horizons.  Jesus was always doing that in John’s Gospel.  The reading we have today is at the end of chapter four, in which Jesus has been standing next to the sea, teaching the people by means of parables.  He has told them the parable of the sower who went out to sow seeds, the parable of the mustard seed, and the lamp placed on the lamp stand.  He is explaining the kingdom of God to them, but they don’t quite get it.  Even the disciples have to have it explained to them.  When he’s done the best that he can with them, he is ready to move on.  There are other people that need to hear the Good News, others who need to know Jesus’ power and authority.

    And so he sets out on the journey, and the reading says that the disciples take him with them in the boat “just as he was.”  That’s a curious detail, I think.  But it makes me remember those trips with my dad.  It’s time to get going, no time to change clothes or freshen up, just get in the car – or in this case, the boat – and let’s get started on the journey.  But the journey isn’t always without its problems.  On vacation trips we may run into traffic, or if in the air, perhaps turbulence.  On the sea, the disciples experienced the raging waves of a fearsome storm.  So they wake Jesus up, because apparently these storms don’t really affect him, and he rebukes the storm, and then rebukes the disciples for their little faith.

    We’re all on a journey.  That journey, like that of the disciples, is from fear to faith.  We very rarely have time to thing about it; we just have to get in the boat and get moving, just as we are.  The journey is not always smooth: storms arise, and when they do, it often seems like our God is sleeping, seeming not to care that we are about to perish.  I’m not going to fill in the blanks for you – you can all do that well enough.  You’ve been on many journeys in your life, and sometimes the ride has been bumpy.  But if we stay on the journey, we definitely get to experience this One whom “even wind and sea obey.”  Even when our God seems to be sleeping, he is never unaware of our situation, and his love for us is never on pause.

    The thing is, sometimes the storm doesn’t seem to stop so quickly as it does in today’s Gospel reading.  Would that Jesus would stand up in the boat of our uncertainty and yell out: “Quiet! Be still!”  But maybe he is.  Maybe the “Be still” is directed at us and not at the storm.  There is a contemporary Christian song which I like that has a wonderful line in it: “Sometimes he calms the storm, and other times he calms his child.”  That song has given me peace in many situations.  Because as frightening as the storms of our lives can be, they are no match for the grace of God.  Even if God allows the storm to rage in our lives, if he is with us, calming us, we have nothing to fear.  And maybe that is the occasion when we make progress on that journey from fear to faith.

    I want to talk about two other journeys today, because they are heavy on my heart.  The first one was the final journey of my dad.  I think of him not just because of our vacation trips together, but of course, because this is Father’s Day.  On the last day of his life, I gave him the last rites, which I had done countless times before and since.  But that was the hardest thing I have ever done as a priest, and also one of the most significant.  When I was done, I went down to the chapel and cried for about half an hour.  Finally, Jesus came to me and gave me some consolation.  He wasn’t going to calm the storm this time, but he did calm me.  He reminded me that dad prepared me for so many journeys in my life, and I just had the incredible honor of preparing him for his most important journey, the journey home.  Dad kept saying that day, “It’s almost time to go.”  And he was right.  This man who got up early for every vacation we ever went on was not going to get a late start on the journey home.

    Today we remember those fathers who have gone home and we honor those fathers who are still with us.  The example of their lived faith helps us all to make our own journey from fear to faith.  Today we pray for God’s blessing on all fathers and on the institution of fatherhood in general.  We are grateful for their heroic witness to faith that places value on God, virtue, and family when our society would sooner ridicule those three.

    The last journey I want to talk about today, is of course, my own personal journey.  This is my last homily here at St. Raphael, and it’s time for me to move on to whatever lies ahead for me.  This one will be a little harder to talk about, so I’m going to begin with a little humor.

    The new priest arrived at his parish, and found a note attached to three envelopes in a little bundle.  The envelopes were numbered one to three.  They were from the priest he was replacing and the note said that if ever things got bad and there was a little storm, he should open an envelope, beginning with the first.  He chuckled a bit, and set them aside, and things went so well that he almost forgot about them.  Until there was a controversy.  Things were getting ugly, and he remembered the envelopes and decided to open the first.  It said, very simply, “Blame me, your predecessor.”  So he did.  He blamed the priest before him, and everyone accepted that, and they moved on.  But eventually there was another controversy, and so he decided to open the second envelope.  It said, “Blame the pastoral council.”  So that’s what he did.  He blamed the pastoral council and things blew over and they moved on.  But, after a little while, there was a third controversy, so in desperation, he opened the last of the envelopes.  This note was a little longer than the others, but the first line really got his attention: “Prepare three envelopes.”

    Well, Father Dennis didn’t leave me three envelopes and I won’t be leaving any for Father Dindo either.  But I did want to take a moment and express my gratitude for three things.  First, I am grateful for the ways you have cared for me.  I know that many of you pray for me and all priests every day, and that is a powerful thing.  But you have also brought me soup when I was sick, you’ve stopped to tell me how a homily touched you, you’ve written me an encouraging note.  Your love for me and your nurturing of my vocation has been so powerful in these first years of my priesthood, and I will always remember that.

    Second, I am grateful for the ways you have cared for my family.  In a very real way, you have been part of my family.  You have been there for me during the illness and death of my dad.  When my family has been here for Mass on occasion, you have been so welcoming of them.  After three years, it seems like we’re just getting to know each other, but in some ways, some very important ways, it seems like we have known each other forever and I love that.  It has been wonderful to be part of your families, and wonderful to have you as part of mine.  Family may move away physically, but spiritually, we will always be part of each other.

    And finally, I am grateful for the ways you have cared for others.  I have enjoyed serving with you on Service Day, raking leaves in the cold but having a great time helping others.  I have enjoyed serving with you on various commissions and committees here at the Church – even though meetings are not my favorite thing! – we have accomplished so much together in Christ’s name.  Whether it was worshipping together for 40 Hours Devotion, or helping out the food pantry with donations on Holy Thursday, or whatever it is that we’ve done together, what we did became so much more by doing it together.  Your willingness to pray and to serve and to witness is what makes St. Raphael such a great parish, and I will always love that.

    So thank you for the great blessings you have been to me these last three years.  We now set out on a new journey.  Me to St. Petronille, and you to welcome Fr. Dindo.  The ride may be smooth, or it may be bumpy.  But however it is, we know that Jesus will be with us through it all.  He may calm the storm, or he may calm his children, whichever is most appropriate.  And we know that the journey from fear to faith will lead us back one day to the place we really belong, at the banquet table in the kingdom of everlasting life.  May all of our life’s journeys end up in that same, great place!

  • Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today's readings

    [display_podcast]

    On March 4th, in 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the thirty-second President of the United States, for the first of four terms.  As he began his presidency, the country was in economic crisis, mired as it was in the depression.  There were all kinds of concerns in the country at that time, with the economy going into some frighteningly uncharted waters.  In his Inaugural Address, he addressed those concerns head-on:

    “This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  That one phrase – “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – became the watch phrase of his presidency and has been quoted in many terrifying situations ever since.

    Sixty years later, in 1993, for the occasion of his fifteenth anniversary of elevation to the Papacy, Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, did a series of interviews with Italian Radio that were collected into the wonderful little book Crossing the Threshold of Hope.  The first interview concerned his acceptance of the papacy in his own life.  His Holiness was asked if he ever hesitated in his acceptance of Jesus Christ and God’s will in his life.  He responded, in part:

    “I state right from the outset: ‘Be not afraid!’ This is the same exhortation that resounded at the beginning of my ministry in the See of Saint Peter.  Christ addressed this invitation many times to those He met. The angel said to Mary: ‘Be not afraid!’  (cf. Lk 1:30). The same was said to Joseph: ‘Be not afraid!’ (cf. Mt 1:20). Christ said the same to the apostles, to Peter, in various circumstances, and especially after His Resurrection. He kept telling them: ‘Be not afraid!’ He sensed, in fact, that they were afraid. They were not sure if who they saw was the same Christ they had known. They were afraid when He was arrested; they were even more afraid after his Resurrection.

    “The words Christ uttered are repeated by the Church. And with the Church, they are repeated by the Pope. I have done so since the first homily I gave in St. Peter's Square: ‘Be not afraid!’ These are not words said into a void. They are profoundly rooted in the Gospel. They are simply the words of Christ Himself.”  And these words – the simple three-word phrase – became the watchwords of his papacy: “Be not afraid!”

    Both of these courageous men echoed the words of the Gospel that had formed them.  Roosevelt had been formed in an Episcopal boarding school whose headmaster preached the duty of Christians to help the less fortunate.  He had lived through polio.  Pope John Paul as Karol Wojtyla had lived through and beyond the Communist control of his country, buoyed as he was by his Catholic faith.  Both of them heard the same words we have in today’s Gospel, words that inspired and encouraged them, and words that they lived by:

    “Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
    Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
    Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
    So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

    These words echo through a world that is, at times, an extremely frightening place.  Even now, our own country faces some very uncertain times, and we are in a place we haven’t been in some time.  Wars rage on in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Relations with many other nations are strained.  Some of our traditional allies have not been able to stay with us.  Prices on everything from oil to milk are skyrocketing.  It’s hard for us to see where our society will be in the near or distant future.

    Then, too, we have worries in our own lives.  So many people are facing the prospect of losing their jobs.  Unemployment is creeping to a level we haven’t seen in some years.  People are in danger of losing their homes.  Then there are the periodic worries that affect us all from time to time: illnesses suffered by ourselves or a loved one, the death of those close to us, raising children in a society that has more opportunities for danger than have been present in the past.

    To all of our worries, both global and personal, the words of FDR, the words of JPII, the words of Jesus himself confront us: BE NOT AFRAID.  The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.  You are worth more than so many sparrows.  Not a hair of your head goes uncounted.  God is in control.  We worry when we can’t see the big picture, or even the light at the end of the tunnel.  But the only words we need to focus on are the words our Savior shouts into the vortex of our whirlwind world today: BE NOT AFRAID.  God is in control, and his power is sufficient for any worry, global or personal.

    I don’t bring you this message casually or even glibly.  I know the pain of many of these situations.  I have seen it on the faces of those I have been with in even just two years of priesthood when times are difficult.  But I continue to firmly believe that God is sufficient for our weakness, as St. Paul often tells us.  The One who can overcome the disaster of sin and death by his own sacrifice on the Cross can certainly help us through the rocky roads our lives sometimes travel through.  So be not afraid.

    Jesus echoes the words that our Psalmist sings today:

    “See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
    you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
    For the LORD hears the poor,
    and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”

    God will not forget us, not even forget a hair on our heads.  We are worth more than many sparrows.  Be not afraid.