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“Be Not Afraid” Sub-Pages:
Quotes – Praying It – Basking In It – Digging Deeper – Making It Real

God is Good!

God is always good even when we don’t understand His plans and His ways.

We are on the Winning Side:

Even though it doesn’t always feel like it, partly because despair is a tool of the enemy, and partly because we can’t really see or understand God’s plan most of the time, good is stronger than evil and will always win in the end because God is good!

Our Lord says a very striking thing in the Gospel of Matthew. When He is asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, He responds, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

The virtue of hope calls for us to persevere in our tasks with faithfulness, but to entrust the rest to God. He is the one responsible for the “big picture” and expects us to cooperate in our own small way, with love and humility. It’s quite liberating to realize that God doesn’t want us to take ourselves too seriously! In Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that:

…we are only instruments in the Lord’s hands; and this knowledge frees us from the presumption of thinking that we alone are personally responsible for building a better world. In all humility we will do what we can, and in all humility we will entrust the rest to the Lord.

Fear not him who can kill the body:

Pope Benedict offered this commentary in an Angelus talk in 2008 (Source) on the parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30):

“The mistaken attitude is that of fear,” the Bishop of Rome stated. “The servant who fears his master and fears his return, hides the coin in the ground and it does not produce any fruit. This happens, for example, to those who, having received baptism, Communion, and confirmation bury such gifts beneath prejudices, a false image of God that paralyzes faith and works, so as to betray the Lord’s expectations.”

“But,” Benedict XVI continued, “the parable puts greater emphasis on the good fruits born by the disciples who, happy at the gift received, did not hide it with fear and jealously, but made it fruitful, sharing it, participating in it. Indeed, what Christ gives us is multiplied when we give it away! It is a treasure that is made to be spent, invested, shared with all, as the Apostle Paul, that great administrator of Jesus’ talents, has taught us.”

Be Not Afraid!

– St. John Paul the Great

*The quote from St. Teresa of Avila at the top of this page was found in Sermon in a Sentence, Volume 4 (Ignatius Press)