Gospel according to Saint Matthew 10,26-33
Jesus said to his apostles: «Do not be afraid. There is nothing covered that will not be uncovered, and nothing hidden that will not be made known. What I am telling you in the dark, you must speak in the light. What you hear in private, proclaim from the housetops.

»Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but have no power to kill the soul. Rather be afraid of him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. For only a few cents you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. As for you, every hair of your head has been counted.

»So do not be afraid: you are worth much more than many sparrows. Whoever acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Whoever rejects me before others I will reject before my Father in heaven».

The colors of fear

Luis CASASUS President of the Idente Missionaries

Rome, June 25, 2023 | XII Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jer 20:10-13; Rom 5:12-15; Mt 10:26-33

I remember that some time ago, a kind neighbor of about 50 years of age had a severe health problem, both respiratory and cardiac. According to what he said to me, the doctor told him: Either you stop smoking today, or you say goodbye to your family. He was really scared. I don’t know if he was very intelligent, but his sensitivity helped him. Fear pushed him to give up tobacco immediately and definitively, to which he had a powerful addiction, and I have news that he died peacefully at the age of 91.

Today the Gospel invites us to meditate on fear, which is certainly one of the most powerful forces in life. Although fear’s primary function is to protect us, it can also become a serious obstacle to the spiritual life.

It is interesting to remember that it is classically said that the four basic emotions are: fear, anger, sorrow and joy. All four are present in our days. Suppose a person is seriously ill in the hospital. You would expect him to experience anxiety and fear the worst. He is also likely to be angry at the apparent lack of sensitivity on the part of the health care staff, who do not seem to understand his difficulties as a patient. But, at the same time, that sick person will be especially cheerful with small gestures of attention, such as a visit from friends, an attentive way of listening on the part of the doctors or the news of a probable improvement. However, the stay in the hospital will surely be accompanied by sorrow because of the distance from many friends or the difficulty in moving or going to the bathroom.

Yes, our existence is full of emotions of various colors and we must remember that this is inevitable and can have an effect on the way we love, which is much more than an emotion.

Let us see what we should do with fear if we truly believe that Christ is Master for our life.

He tells us when we have to let ourselves be carried away by fear and when we have to ignore it. As in the case of my smoker friend, fear is truly useful if it leads me to put ALL my efforts into achieving a worthy goal or making important changes in my life. However, it can be paralyzing and capable of making us miss the best opportunities to serve or to give a testimony that would be precious.

First of all, let us note that Jesus refers to the fear of death of soul and body. This is not a simple example. In fact, we can say that in reality the fear of death is “the king of terrors”. This is already expressed in the Old Testament. We read in the book of Job (18):

The lamp of a wicked man is snuffed out (…) disaster is ready for him when he falls. It eats away parts of his skin; death’s firstborn devours his limbs. He is torn from the security of his tent and marched off to the king of terrors.

Our Father and Founder also expressed this idea in his book Transfigurations, when he said: Man fears death because it humiliates his ambition.

We die when we lose something we consider substantial in our life, as when a friend disappears, or our fame is damaged. We can die to sin, as the Gospel tells us; or we can die to ourselves; faith, without works, dies (James 2: 26). There are many forms of death, some fruitful, as that of the grain that dies into the ground and others regrettable, but today Jesus instructs us so that we are not stopped by the fear of those who can harm or end our life or our fame. He is the best example, for in his life and that of the first disciples we see how this courage is contagious, just as, unfortunately, the fear of those of us who are mediocre in our spiritual and apostolic life is contagious.

Finally, let us remember that he encourages us to FEAR the evil one, the one who is capable of making us die completely (Christ says “destroy body and soul”), that is, to deprive us of eternal life from now on. It is the call to ascetic diligence, to the refusal to enter into dialogue with the passions, whether disguised or not, and their manipulation by the devil.

But we know that, unfortunately, most people, believers or not, do NOT fear the devil. The mechanism for doing so is simple (and the opposite of the scientific method): ignore him, or simply not consider the possibility of its existence.

—ooOoo—

But Christ does not speak to us today only of fear. He begins and ends his discourse by asking us to proclaim what he has said to us in the darkness, what he has whispered in our ear. Nothing less than sharing with our neighbor what we have learned in intimate prayer, what Father, Son and Holy Spirit communicate to us with their three voices, with the Inspiration we continually receive.

Proclaiming from the housetops what we have heard from Christ does not mean shouting, of course. It is an expression that reminds us that any grace, any gift received personally, is to reach others, with works and words, but above all with meekness and humility of heart. An example contrary to this is that of the father or mother, religious Superior or Superioress, who corrects those who should do it, but mixing in it his or her personal discomfort, his or her conviction of being an “innocent” victim of others.

To proclaim from the housetops means, on the contrary, that I must use all my time, all my talents, all the means at my disposal to transmit the Good News I have received. Today is a good opportunity to understand that this Good News is the redemption, the true forgiveness that we have already received, that is, the company of Christ until the end of time.

It is curious how the name “Society of Jesus” has been interpreted by some only as an allusion to the military term “Company” used in some languages. In reality, the deepest meaning that St. Ignatius gave to this name is to have Christ at our side, or, as our Father Founder would say, the Beatitude we feel in the midst of difficulties and persecutions, knowing that we are not alone, that each of our hairs is counted.

Christ’s promise to the just is subtle and profound. Indeed, persecution always begins with the attack on fame, with the intimate or public justification (criticism, sarcasm, or defamation) of the need to marginalize or eliminate the person in some way. Let us think of what happened to Jesus himself, when his enemies said that he was a glutton, a drunkard and a friend of sinners (Lk 7:34); Caiaphas called him an impostor and a blasphemer. Let us remember what the First Reading tells us today, to underline that what happened to Christ is not new, that all the prophets and also the true founders have suffered something similar: All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine. ‘Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail, and take our vengeance on him’. But the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.

So it is, they will attack our fame and play with our pride. We will be tempted to come to our defense, and to see the attack as a personal problem, when it is really a spiritual conflict. Friends will forget us and enemies will exult. The fundamental thing is that we should not be surprised; all this was foreseen. But what Christ promises, in the first place, is that he will speak very well of us before our Heavenly Father, confirming us as his true children, in spite of our sins.

—ooOoo—

On this Sunday we see united two realities that will always accompany us if we are faithful: the fear of death and being witnesses of the Gospel in the daytime and from the housetops, humbly and courageously.

As the Second Reading explains, Adam’s sin brought death, in the sense of lack of full life, and Jesus’ death gave us the plenitude of life, eternal life. Each of us should reflect today on how authentic Abnegation sums up the whole effort of our prayer, which makes us true missionary disciples.

Let us remember the case of two courageous women, the midwives Shiphrah and Puah, of whom the book of Exodus speaks (1: 13-19), how they used their knowledge of their trade to prevent the death of the Jewish children, telling the king of the Egyptians that the Hebrew women were more vigorous than the Egyptian women and gave birth before they could come to assist them. They lived a true and holy fear of God, not Pharaoh, and were faithful to their vocation to help others. Their names will be remembered forever, but the name of the “Egyptian king” is not even mentioned in Exodus.

Living with the cunning of a serpent and the gentleness of a dove.

This is what we proclaim in the Martyrial Sacra that our father and Founder invites us to live, without fear of losing our life and fame and without cursing our enemies: I promise you, Lord, to live and transmit the Gospel, with the sacrifice of my life and fame, faithful to the greatest testimony of love, to die for you.

I would like to end with a poem by Margaret E. Sangster (1838 – 1912), in which she speaks of the pain of those of us who do not make every effort to proclaim what God has whispered in our ears:

It isn’t the thing you do, dear,

It’s the thing you leave undone

That gives you a bit of a heartache

At the setting of the sun.

The tender word forgotten;

The letter you did not write;

The flowers you did not send, dear,

Are your haunting ghosts at night.

The stone you might have lifted

Out of a brother’s way;

The bit of hearthstone counsel

You were hurried too much to say;

The loving touch of the hand, dear,

The gentle, winning tone

Which you had no time nor thought for

With troubles enough of your own.

Those little acts of kindness

So easily out of mind,

Those chances to be angels

Which we poor mortals find—

They come in night and silence,

Each sad, reproachful wraith,

When hope is faint and flagging

And a chill has fallen on faith.

For life is all too short, dear,

And sorrow is all too great,

To suffer our slow compassion

That tarries until too late;

And it isn’t the thing you do, dear,

It’s the thing you leave undone

Which gives you a bit of a heartache

At the setting of the sun.

_______________________________

 

In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,

Luis CASASUS

President