By Dencio Acop
Fear is one of the most powerful human emotions. It is so powerful that it defines us. It reveals us. Who we really are deep down inside. Fr Mike Warren on Sunday (6.25.23) drove the point home when he said that many of us live life half-dead when we allow fear to run our lives. Reflecting on Matthew 10:26-33, the good presider shared some factual realities he encountered. In one occasion, a person endured the ordeal of listening to the beatings inflicted by a boyfriend upon his girlfriend through the apartment walls as he was too scared to do something. In another occasion, a priest who was supposed to render final anointing on a dying patient in hospital allowed himself to be shooed away by unbelieving relatives. As a consequence, people who know they should have acted in a more courageous way go through life feeling like a coward. They live life half-dead, Fr Mike said.
But life is not meant to be lived in fear. Summarizing the gospel, St Irenaeus proclaimed that ‘the glory of God is man fully alive’. Not half-alive or half-dead. While man may think he is fully alive when everything seems to be going for him, it is actually in the most extreme adversity when it comes to him how it is to be fully alive. It came to soldiers who faced death squarely while serving their country. It came to terminally ill patients who faced the inevitability of death calmly. To parents, grandparents, and surrogates who took care of orphaned, abandoned, neglected, and abused children despite all odds. People who do the right thing even if they lose their careers, people and things they care about, their comforts, and their very lives. Priests, nuns, and religious who forsake the comforts of this life for the glory of heaven. The apostles, all the martyrs, and saints who proclaimed the good news of Christianity through the centuries despite great persecution and even death. All human beings who choose to do the right thing unbeknownst to all but only to God.
What is it that makes us fearless? The message of the gospel referred to may seem like a cliche when imagined in mere theory. But I think it is always original to someone who actually does it in real life and feels all the consequences of standing up to one’s fears. While Christians for instance believe in everlasting life and the glory of heaven, do they have the courage to acknowledge it in actual practice? As Fr Mike said, there was a parishioner who did not have the courage to even admit her faith that she let everyone else around her dictate her life. At the brink of losing our lives in old age and sickness, many of us today frantically profess our faith but never actually lived it. Many want heaven but did not have the courage to live it while on earth and behaved more like they wanted hell all along. Let us at least have the courage to admit and acknowledge who we are and what we’ve done in this life, good or bad. Then find the courage to change even if it’s late. To live in truth. Finally. And that, my friends, is courage away from fear.
