A clear theme running through this week’s readings is fear. But we need to make a distinction between good and bad fear. There is a holy fear: indeed, precisely one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is fear of the Lord. This is a holy reverence towards God (confidence in God as a loving Father should not be confused with disrespect towards him). This fear can also be a sensible fear of hell, as the ultimate danger we rightly want to avoid. And finally, it can be an expression of affection: the tender fear of offending he whom we love.
But there can also be bad fear. This happens when we lose our trust in God, as Adam and Eve hid from the Lord after they had eaten from the forbidden tree. Fear can result from a wrong understanding of God, seeing him erroneously as a strict judge or tyrant and failing to appreciate he is a loving, merciful father. Finally, there can be a fear when one knows one is behaving badly and is afraid of being caught, like a criminal fleeing the police.
The devil constantly provokes these latter types of fear, leading us to fear God and lose our trust in Him. This leads to panic, which in turn leads to bad actions and decisions. We see this in today's readings, when Jeremiah's adversaries falsely accuse him of promoting terror among the Jews of his time, when Jerusalem was being besieged by the Babylonians: "I'd hear the accusation from people: 'Pavor-en-torno, rat him out, let's rat him out!'". This was an exaggerated distortion of Jeremiah's message, when in fact his call to surrender to the Babylonians was the right thing to do and would have prevented much bloodshed and the destruction of the city, which in fact happened because they disregarded Jeremiah's words.
The psalmist, however, encourages trust in the Lord. He is able to suffer mockery, shame and rejection because he trusts in God. What would cause fear in others only leads him to renew his abandonment to God. And in the Gospel, Jesus teaches us holy fear and what St. Josemaría called the "fear of God.holy shamelessness".. Jesus tells us not to fear those who attack him and his disciples. On the contrary, let us lose all fear and be courageous in our witness: "Whosoever shall declare himself for me before men, him will I also declare myself for him before my Father which is in heaven. And if one denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.". However, it is right to fear and keep well away from Satan, as one would sensibly keep away from a vicious beast: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. No; fear him who can bring to perdition soul and body in Gehenna.". Finally, what should give us the most confidence is knowing how much God loves and values us: "Do not be afraid: you are worth more than many sparrows.".
Homily on the readings of the XII Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaA short one-minute reflection for these Sunday readings.
