Peace be with you.
Friends, the readings for today are really magnificent,
and they are all about something central to the spiritual life,
namely, fear.
Now, what do I mean?
Well, years ago I was on a retreat and the
retreat director said,
“There are two basic questions always to ask.
First, what do you want?
Deep down, what do you want?
Second, what are you afraid of deep down?”
So we want all kinds of things,
but what is it that finally and ultimately you want?
That’s a really clarifying question.
Can I propose it now to everyone listening:
What are you looking for?
When a young kid would come to a Benedictine monastery
—still true to this day in a more formal way—
they’d be asked,
“What do you seek?
What do you want here?”
But the second great clarifying question is,
“What are you afraid of?”
We’re afraid of all sorts of things,
but deep down, ultimately, what are you afraid of?
In a way, answering those two questions will tell you
everything you need to know about yourself spiritually speaking.
So with that in mind, let’s look at
reading number one, which is from
the great prophet Jeremiah.
Is there anybody in the Old Testament
more fascinating than Jeremiah,
who was given this kind of awful assignment?
He’s called to be a prophet, and the message he has
for Israel is this terrible message.
And the Lord tells him, and it turns out to be true,
“No one’s going to listen to you,
and they’re all going to end up hating you.”
Well, that’s exactly what happened with Jeremiah.
So listen to him now.
We hear him speaking:
“I hear the whisperings of many:
‘Terror on every side! Denounce!
let us denounce him!’
All those who were my friends are on the watch
for any misstep of mine.”
Well, here’s the prophet in the midst of his
fear and despair.
“I was called to deliver this message,
I’ve done so, and what’s the result?
Everybody hates me.
Terror on every side. Everybody’s denouncing me.”
Well, a lot of us experience life this way, don’t we?
There are times when it feels like everything’s going wrong.
All of our fears are being realized.
All of our best efforts have met with failure.
But now listen to him as he continues:
“But the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion:
my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.”
In the midst of his fears, and they are profound,
he experiences a deeper peace.
Yes, terror on every side,
every human being is against me.
But in the midst of it, I experience this great peace
because God is my champion.
Notice please, God being his champion does not mean
that the fears go away.
“Oh, since God’s on my side, I won’t have any fear.
No one’s going to denounce me.
I’m going to be a total worldly success.”
No, no, no.
Jeremiah was a failure his whole life long,
and he died a failure.
He died with people denouncing him on every side.
Yet in the midst of it, despite all that,
he felt the peace that comes from knowing
that God is his champion.
Think of Teresa of Avila’s famous image of the interior castle.
Well, the very existence of a castle presupposes trouble.
You wouldn’t build a fortified castle unless there were
enemies out to get you,
unless you were surrounded on every side by danger.
But despite the dangers, in the midst of the dangers,
there’s this castle, this place of safety and peace.
That’s the place, everybody, that the saints find.
Now, with that in mind, let’s turn to the Gospel,
which is giving us a similar dynamic.
Jesus said to the twelve, “Fear no one.”
Extraordinary, huh?
The Lord says, “Fear no one.”
Then he amplifies,
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but cannot kill the soul.”
Now we see, if you want to put it this way,
the metaphysical ground of this dynamic
I’ve been talking about.
Don’t fear those paper tigers
who can only harm the body
but cannot touch the soul.
What’s the soul?
Call it that deepest, central part of us
through which we have contact with God.
So yeah, I’m surrounded by terrors on every side,
I’ve got enemies all around me.
I’ve got failures and fears and anxieties all around me.
But at the level of my soul,
I am connected to that power which is here and now
creating the universe.
In my soul, the depth of who I am,
I’m in touch with that which transcends space and time,
that which lies beyond the vagaries of this world,
that which mocks all those fears that surround me.
Don’t be afraid of those that can only harm the body
but can’t touch this deepest place in me.
See, what are you afraid of?
“I’m afraid of all these enemies around me.
I’m afraid of being a failure.
I’m afraid of not realizing my dreams.
I’m afraid of what they’re all going to say
and think about me.”
Paper tigers.
Don’t be afraid of those who can harm the body.
Indeed, listen to what the Lord says:
not just harm the body but who can “kill the body.”
So okay, I’ve got such enemies.
I have so many persecutors; they’re going to
put me to death.
“Yeah, I know,” says the Lord.
“Don’t be afraid of them.”
Why?
Because they cannot reach to that deepest,
immortal, spiritual dimension of yourself
that we call the soul.
Now, remember that question I opened up with?
What are you afraid of?
So let’s say you follow the Lord here and you say,
“Okay, okay, I’m not afraid of these
paper tigers that can only kill my body.”
Listen to what he says now:
“Rather, be afraid of the one
who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”
Okay, now we’re getting to really serious business.
Don’t be afraid of those on the outside.
Terror on every side, yeah I know.
All they can do is harm your body.
But do indeed be afraid of the one who can
kill both body and soul.
In other words, have in you
the fear of the Lord.
See, because your soul, through resistance to God,
can lose the contact with God.
That’s its natural space, of course;
the soul naturally is attuned to God.
But through that sin that we call mortal sin,
a killing sin, it can divorce itself from God.
So be afraid of that one.
Be afraid of the God who can kill
both body and soul.
Do you see how what’s at stake here,
everybody, is a kind of prioritizing of our fears?
What’s most fearsome to you?
“Oh, oh, all these things out in the world
thatcan harm me.”
That’s nothing, nothing
compared to your relationship with God.
If the soul has died,
through sin and through neglect of God
and through hatred of God, if the soul has died,
then you are really in trouble.
Don’t worry about the paper tigers
who can just harm your body.
Now, there’s the principle.
I’m going to give you just a couple of examples,
because where do you see this?
You see this dynamic in the saints.
Think of young Karol Wojtyla,
the kid that grew up to be St. Pope John Paul II.
He experienced the worst of the world.
As a young kid, the Nazis invaded
his home country, indeed his home city,
put to death thousands of people,
killed off the intelligentsia of Poland,
forced him and his seminary classmates underground.
Auschwitz was just a few miles
from where John Paul II was going to school.
Then they were succeeded by the Communists,
who were maybe a slight improvement,
but not that much, over the Nazis.
Another oppressive regime.
Here’s someone who experienced the worst of humanity.
Talk about forces that were able to harm the body,
to kill the body.
Yes, indeed, he knew all about it.
But yet, when he becomes pope,
what does he say?
“Be not afraid.”
He’s echoing Jesus in this Gospel,
who says, “Fear nobody.”
He saw the worst of humanity.
Never accuse John Paul II of being naive
about human wickedness.
No, no, no.
He saw it up close.
But yet he knew, he knew about this
peace that abides at the level of the soul,
and that’s where he lived.
Think of that wonderful saint from the
Cristero period in Mexico,
when there was such a brutal persecution of the Church,
little Jose Sanchez del Rio, fourteen years old.
I often tell his story when I’m doing the
Confirmation Masses because the kids here
are like fourteen, fifteen, same age.
Here’s Jose Sanchez del Rio captured by the
enemies of the Church and
offered every opportunity.
“Hey, we’ll make you famous, we’ll make you rich,
if you just cave in.”
That would’ve been a great propaganda coup for them.
But this young kid, he wasn’t afraid of them.
They tortured him.
They badgered him.
They tortured him psychologically and physically.
He wasn’t afraid of them.
And finally, they killed him.
But he wasn’t afraid of those who can just kill the body.
Rather, he had the fear of the Lord.
He was more afraid of the one who can kill
both body and soul.
In other words, he maintained his
connection to God.
That’s what makes him a saint.
One more example, I was just thinking about him,
because as I record these words,
we had his feast day a little while ago.
The great St. Charles Lwanga, the great saint of Uganda,
young man in the court of the king.
The king makes sexual advances toward him,
he refuses.
The king tells him he has to give up his faith,
he refuses.
And Charles Lwanga, all of twenty-five years old,
is burned alive in a place called Namugongo.
It’s now where a million Catholics descend every year
on his feast day to honor him.
Was he afraid of those who could harm the body?
Mm-mm.
Even kill the body?
Uh-uh, he wasn’t afraid of them.
He was more afraid of the one who could kill
both body and soul.
In other words, he maintained
his connection to God.
I love that detail that as he died
—he’s being burned alive—
as he died, the only thing people heard him say
was a long sigh:
“Oh God.”
In other words, he maintained his connection
at the level of the soul with God
despite the worst persecution of the world.
Terror on every side.
You bet.
From Jeremiah to Charles Lwanga to John Paul II.
But what are you afraid of, finally?
What are you afraid of?
Those that can harm the body?
Or do you have the fear of the Lord?
Do you maintain a contact with the Lord
at the level of your soul?
Finally, everybody, that’s all that matters.
And God bless you.