Flattening the Curve on Fear
Your Heart, His Home
Special Edition
My elderly Hungarian neighbor, who is quite alone in the world except for her pet parrot, calls me and leaves me a pitiful message: “I want to say goodbye,” she says in her thick accent, “because I think this is really the end of the world.”
My husband and I have been reaching out to her in recent days, assuring her, we have plenty of food, water, and toilet paper, and if she needs to come and stay with us, she can. Growing up in a communist regime, she has an especially sensitive response to any kind of crisis, especially when it involves the government. Her fear is formidable.
Yours might be as well at the moment. Fear about the virus, the economy, your own personal safety and those you love.
But the Church, through Jesus, is an expert in this area. We can lean on her.
For example, Swiss theologian, Hans Urs von Bathlasar assures us in his treatise The Christian and Anxiety, that “human fear has been completely and definitively conquered by the Cross.” And more than that, anxiety, human fear, might even serve God’s purposes. Like suffering, which John Paul II tells us “unleashes love,” maybe fear has a similar vocation. Balthasar writes, “Christ redeemed, subdued, and gave meaning to all human fear.” Did you catch that? Your fear, right now, can have meaning, purpose.
Even Jesus was no stranger to human fear. His agony in the garden was not an act, and nothing he suffered went unused, unredeemed. His fear had to have purpose or the Father would not have allowed it. “The anxiety of good men is a process,” writes Balthasar, “a passage, an episode between light and light . . . the anxiety of the good has as its meaning and purpose to open them up to God in their cry for mercy; it is the banner of God’s grace unfurled over them.” Could it be possible that your fear might be helpful, even a gift? That the very drops of blood Jesus sweat in his agony were somehow the declaration of the Father’s presence, the evidence of his spectacular power and poise?
Maybe becoming “fearless” is not the proper objective, but rather this stressful time is an opportunity to reorder our relationship to fear. Maybe this time is an opportunity to rehabilitate our fear, to take it by the hand and walk it through Gethsemane with Jesus where he can teach it how to pray. Let this cup pass, but if not, your will be done in me, in my neighbor, in the world, oh merciful Lord.
Do not be blind to the banner of God’s grace unfurled above you, Jesus in a new and radical way, staking his claim with joy.
Endless Heavenly Resources
Another example. On writing about the Christian virtue of courage, Fr. John Wickham, SJ, notes that “human life has dangerous limits… Everyone will at times be called upon to act courageously since serious dangers and losses are inescapable. Hence our real question is, what resources are available to us?”
What spiritual resources are available to you? Right now? Prayer, fasting, almsgiving, spending more time in God’s word, streaming the Mass or adoration, helping a neighbor, praying for the leadership of our country, the world and the church, making a phone call to someone who is alone. Make a list and draw from it. Draw from the graces of every sacrament you have ever received. They do not have an expiration date.
If I could take your fear from you, I would. If I can help you to bear up under it in prayer, I will. Toss it my way. Toss it to heaven, let the angels and saints and Our Man of Sorrows help lift it from your shoulders and give it meaning and purpose. Let it open your heart to God in new and surprising, transforming ways.
Lord Jesus, give us strength of soul, to open our hearts to you that you might claim them evermore fully. Take our fear and make it useful to your purposes in building your kingdom of light and truth.
Liz Kelly is the author of seven books, including the award-winning, Jesus Approaches, from which this article has been adapted. Visit her website at LizK.org.