NO FEAR!
God
knows how often I have been mortally afraid in my life. I was afraid
once when traversing a treacherous portion of a climb we had when I was
young, restless, adventurous and impulsive. A guest who planed in from
the States convinced me he was an experienced climber. He was geared to
the hilt! But when he saw what we were supposed to get through, he
started shaking. Unknown to my young team in their teens, I was also
shaking. I was afraid, too, for my life when I organized the community
where I lived to fight a menacing social issue that targeted young and
innocent lives. Everything was going well until I received a note that
told me to stop everything if I wanted to continue
celebrating Masses.
Blessed Joseph Kowalski was a young Salesian priest in Krakow, Poland.
As a young man, he probably had a premonition about his coming martyr’s
death. He entertained thoughts about suffering for the Lord and he did
so valiantly one day in 1941. He was killed mercilessly when he refused
to trample on his rosary beads. St. John Paul II beatified him in Krakow
in 1999.
“There is no fear in love,” writes John the Evangelist. To be fearless,
in this sense, means to have courage, and that courage is born, not of
wistful thinking or of a lack of awareness of what danger lurks behind,
but of an intimacy with God that one knows of deeply and personally.
Life is a call to courage. It is a call to the heights of sanctity,
understood as intimacy with God. The good psalmist understood it when he
prayed: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where shall come my
help. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.”
Blessed Joseph Kowalski and all the holy martyrs were lovers first of
God before being courageous martyrs. In their life and in their death,
they proved beyond doubt that “God is love, and whoever remains in love
remains in God and God in him.” Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: What are you afraid of? How do you face moments of fear?
Dear
Lord, teach me how to be brave and courageous, to meet every difficulty
and especially the unknown, relying on the victory that You have won
for me.
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