Do Not Let Your Hearts be Afraid

Complete freedom from fear is one of those things we owe wholly to Our Lord.  To be afraid is to do him a double injury.  First, it is to forget him, to forget that he is with us, that he loves us, and is himself almighty, and second it is to fail to bend to his will.  If we shape our will to his, as everything that happens is either willed or allowed by him, we shall find joy in whatever happens, and shall never be disturbed or afraid.

So then, we should have the faith that banishes all fear.  Beside us, face to face with us, within us, we have Our Lord Jesus, our God, whose love for us is infinite, who is himself almighty, who has told us to seek for the kingdom of God and that everything else will be given us.  In that blessed and omnipotent company, we must go straight along the path of the greatest perfection, certain that nothing will happen to us that we cannot use as a source of the greatest good for his glory and the sanctification of ourselves and others, and that everything happens is either willed or permitted by him, and that therefore, far from lying under the shadow of fear, we have only to say, "Whatever happens - God be praised!" praying that he will arrange everything not in accordance with our ideas, but for his greater glory.  We should never forget the two axioms:  "Jesus is with me" and "Whatever happens, happens by the will of God."

Blessed Charles de Foucauld

-Charles de Foucauld (1916), contemplative and mystic, lived among the Tuareg people of Algeria.  Beatified in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Call of the Shepherd

The shepherd is everything to his flock; their life, their sustenance, and their care is entirely in his hands, and if the shepherd is good, they will have nothing to fear under his protection, and they will want for nothing.  

Jesus is preeminently the Good Shepherd: he not only loves, feeds, and guards his sheep, but he also gives them life at the cost of his own...  It is by means of the grace, faith, and charity, which the Good Shepherd acquired for us by his death, that we arrive at such intimacy with our God - so deep that it makes us share in his own divine life.

A close relationship of loving knowledge is here established between the Good Shepherd and his sheep - one so intimate that the Shepherd knows his sheep one by one and can call them by name; and they recognize his voice and follow him with docility.  Each soul can say: "Jesus knows me and loves me, not in a general abstract way, but in a concrete aspect of my needs, of my desires, and of my life; for him to know me and to love me is to do me good, to encompass me more and more with his grace, and to sanctify me.  Precisely because he loves me, Jesus calls me by name:  he calls me when in prayer he opens to me new horizons of the spiritual life, or when he enables me to know my faults and weaknesses better; he calls me when he reprimands me or purifies me by aridity, as well as when he consoles and encourages me by filling me with new fervor; he calls me when he makes me feel the need of greater generosity, and when he asks me for sacrifices or gives me joys, and still more, when he awakens in me a deeper love for him.  Hearing his call, my attitude should be that of a loving little sheep who recognizes the voice of its Shepherd and follows him always.  

Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

-Father Gabriel (1952) was a Belgian Carmelite priest, teacher, and spiritual director.

Our Good Shepherd

What does amaze me is that God should be so affected when we stray.  He knows quite well that we are nothing, and suffers no real loss when we break away from him.  Yet he shows profound grief at our separation and makes every effort to win us back.  Nor is that mere fantasy; it is the teaching of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ himself.

Would you care to know what the Savior of the world feels every time you lose the grace of God?  He is distressed to the very depths of his soul; he is troubled as a poor shepherd who has lost one of his sheep, or a poor woman who mislays one of the ten gold coins that are all her worldly wealth.  The Son of God uses these two comparisons to make us understand his own sorrow at losing us.

Imagine the desolation of the poor shepherd whose sheep has gone astray.  The entire countryside resounds with the cries of the unfortunate man; neglecting the rest of his flock, he runs through woods and over hills, combing thickets and undergrowth, lamenting and shouting at the top of his voice.  He cannot bring himself to give up until he has found his lost sheep and brought it back to the fold.  That is how the Son of God acted.  When disobedient humanity had escaped from the creator's guidance, the Son of God came down to earth and spared neither toil nor trouble to restore us to the position from which we had fallen.  He still does the same thing daily for those who have strayed from him through sin.  He follows their trail, so to speak, calling them again and again until he succeeds in getting them back on the road to salvation.  And indeed, if he had not taken such care of us, our fate as you know would have been sealed after the first mortal sin.  We could never have recovered from it.  It is he who must make all the advances, who must offer us his grace, pursue us and beg us to take pity on ourselves; otherwise we should never think of asking him for mercy.

God's ardor in pursuing us is no doubt born of his very great mercy.  But the gentleness with which he exercises that zeal shows an even more wonderful kindness.  Despite his intense desire to win us back he never uses force, but only the gentlest of ways.  I find no sinner in the entire Gospel story who was induced to repent by anything other than gentleness and kindness.

Saint Claude la Colombiere

-Saint Claude (1682) was a French Jesuit priest and the spiritual director of Saint Margaret May Alacoque.

To Whom Shall We Go

Those who follow the world, on the contrary, urge each other to continue in their evil ways without scruple, calling to one another day after day, "Let us eat and drink, sing and dance and enjoy ourselves.  God is good; he has not made us to damn us.  He does not forbid us to amuse ourselves.  We shall not be damned for so little.  We are not to be scrupulous.  No, you will not die."

Dear brothers and sisters, remember that our loving Saviour has his eyes on you at this moment, and he says to each of you individually, "See how almost everyone deserts me on the royal road of the cross.  Pagans in their blindness ridicule my cross as foolishness; obstinate Jews are repelled by it as by an object of horror; heretics pull it down and break it to pieces as something contemptible.  

"Even my own people - and I say this with tears in my eyes and grief in my heart - my own children whom I have brought up and instructed in my ways, my members whom I have quickened with my own spirit, have turned their backs on me and forsaken me by becoming enemies of my cross.  'Will you also go away?'  Will you also desert me by running away from my cross like the worldlings, who thus become so many antichrists?  Will you also follow the world; despise the poverty of my cross, in order to seek after wealth; shun the sufferings of my cross, to look for enjoyment; avoid humiliations of my cross in order to chase after the honors of the world?  'There are many who pretend they are friends of mine and protest that they love me, but in their hearts they hate me.  I have many friends of my table, but very few of my cross.'"

Saint Louis de Montfort

-Saint Louis de Montfort (1716) was a great French missionary preacher especially renowned for fostering devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Wound of Thomas

So you, too, come up, Thomas.  Come forth from your cave of sorrows.  Put your finger here and see my hands.  Extend your hand and place it in my side.  And do not think that your blind suffering is more clairvoyant than my grace...

But since you are so wounded and the open torment of your heart has opened up to the abyss of your very self, put out your hand to me and, with it, feel the pulse of another Heart:  through this new experience your soul will surrender and heave up the dark gall which it has long collected.  I must overpower you.  I cannot spare exacting from you your melancholy - your most-loved possession.  Give it to me, even if it costs you your soul and your inner self thinks it must die.  Give me this idol, this cold stony clot in your breast, and in its place I will give you a new heart of flesh that will beat to the pulse of my own Heart.  Give me this self of yours, which lives on its not being able to live, which is sick because it cannot die.  Let it perish, and you will finally begin to live.  You are enamored of the sad puzzle of your incomprehensible ego.  But you have already been seen through and comprehended, for look:  if your heart accuses you, I am nevertheless greater than this your heart, and I know everything.  Dare to make the leap into the Light!  Do not take the world to be more found than God!  Do not think that I cannot make short work of you!  Your city is besieged, your provisions are exhausted:  you must capitulate.  What could be simpler and sweeter than opening the door to love?  What could be easier than falling to one's knee and saying:  "My Lord and my God!"?

Father Hans Urs von Balthasar

-Father Balthasar (1988) was an eminent Swiss Catholic theologian who wrote prodigiously.  

What We Must Do

"I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28: 20).  This assurance, dear brothers and sisters, has accompanied the Church for two thousand years.  From it we must gain a new impetus in Christian Living, making it the force which inspires our journey of faith.  Conscious of the Risen Lord's presence among us, we ask ourselves today the same question put to Peter in Jerusalem immediately after his Pentecost speech:  "What must we do?"  (Acts 2: 37)

We put the question with trusting optimism, but without underestimating the problems we face.  We are certainly not seduced by the naive expectation that, faced with the great challenges of our time, we shall find some magic formula.  No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which he gives us:  I am with you!

It is not therefore a matter of inventing a "new program."  The program already exists:  it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever.  Ultimately, it has its center in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem.  This is a program which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication.

Pope John Paul II

-Pope John Paul II (2005) reigned from 1978 until 2005.

The Glory of Jesus

When Christ decided to give sight to a man blind from birth, he placed mud on the man's eyes, an action that was much more suited to blinding those who see than to giving sight to the blind who could not see.  So, too, the passion and death of Christ was more likely to destroy the faith of those who believed that he was the only-begotten Son of God, as was clear in the case of the apostles and disciples, than to commend faith to non-believers.  And yet as he says:  "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself (Jn 12: 32).  After the cross, after my suffering, after my disgraceful, shameful, repulsive death of the cross, I shall turn the world to faith in me, so that the world will believe that I am the Son of God, the true Messiah."

We see with utter clarity that this is what has happened.  Christ came into this world to do battle against Satan, to do away with idolatry, and to turn the world to faith and piety and the worship of the true God.  He could have accomplished this by using the weapons of his might and coming as he will come to judge, in glory and majesty, just as he manifested himself in his transfiguration.  Who would not then have believed in Christ?  But in order that his victory might be more glorious, he willed to fight Satan in our weak flesh.  It is as if an unarmed man, right hand bound, were to fight with his left hand alone against a powerful army; if he emerged victorious, his victory would be regarded as all the more glorious.  So Christ conquered Satan with the right hand of his divinity bound and using against him only the left hand of his weak humanity.

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi

-Saint Lawrence of Brindisi (1619) was minister general of the Capuchins.  He is a Doctor of the Church.