The two types of fear, Part One: good fear

There is a lot of fear and anxiety in the world today.   We fear the effects of terror, hate, climate change, and gun violence.  We worry about our family and loved ones, our jobs, our health, and our finances.  We worry about our country.   As Christians, we are not immune to these types of fear and worries.

I wish to discuss the topic of fear in the Christian life.   There are two types of fear, one good and one bad.  In today’s post, we will discuss the good type of fear, and in the next, the not-so-nice one.

Now usually in life we like to start with the bad news, and end with the good.  It may seem that we are not doing that here.  However, we are in a sense.   The bad news is that we don’t have enough of the good fear.  We need to get some back.   The good news is that we have too much of the bad fear.  We need to ask for God’s help to reduce it.

What is good fear?   Good fear is what the Bible refers to often as “fear of the Lord.”

Ecclesiastes 12:13- Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man.

Proverbs 9:10- The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Psalms 25:14- The secret of the LORD [is] with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.

Psalms 33:8 - Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

Psalms 34:9- O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for [there is] no want to them that fear him.

Luke 1:50 - And his mercy [is] on them that fear him from generation to generation.

There are more quotes using this phrase in Bible, but you get the point.  We are to fear the Lord.  To me, it is the start of the whole spiritual life.  What exactly, though, is “fear of the Lord?”   It probably is a little of what you think it is, and a little of what you do not.

There are four types of fear of the Lord, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas.  There is a worldly fear of the punishment of the Lord, in which we fear God's punishment.  There is servile fear of the Lord, in which a person fears going to hell, but has or is given the desire to change to avoid that fate, or is at least aware that he can.   There is initial fear of the Lord, which is fear of offending him because he is good and holy.  Finally, there is filial fear of the Lord, which is fear not so much of offending God directly, but fear for us doing something to offend him.   This final type of fear, of the Lord, filial, is the one that is given by the Holy Spirit as a gift. (See my previous blog post on this gift of the Holy Spirit)

http://jimscatholicblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-7-gifts-of-holy-spirit-fear-of-lord.html

Pope Francis has this to say about fear of the Lord. “This is the fear of God: abandonment into the goodness of Our Father who loves us so. … This is what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts: He makes us feel like children in the arms of our Daddy … with the wonder and joy of a child who sees himself served and loved by his Father.”

So fear is not necessarily being afraid of God, but being in awe of who he is and not wanting to do anything to offend him.

Fear of the Lord has the following positive effects in us, according to a talk I heard given one time:

1) It allows us to see the grandeur, majesty, sanctity and purity of God, and therefore, dispose to us to have a reverence toward him. 

2) It gives us a horror of sin, and sorrow for having committed sin.

3) It gives us a desire to avoid sin, and the near occasions of it.

4) It gives us a perfect detachment from all created things.

5) It gives us a lofty degree of humility.

6) It gives us an appreciation of the spiritual life of grace.

This is the good, and holy fear we are all called to cultivate in our life.   If we have fear, this is the type to have.   When this type of fear increases in us, the bad type (which we will discuss in the next post) decreases.

Joseph most faithful, pray for us.

The devil, Part Three: how to beat him

Let us return one final time to the Gospel reading from this past Sunday, and this time, we will examine how Our Lord responded to the devil.  We read Luke 4 1:13

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.
The devil said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread."

Jesus answered him,
"It is written, One does not live on bread alone."

Then he took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.
The devil said to him,
"I shall give to you all this power and glory;
for it has been handed over to me,
and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me."

Jesus said to him in reply,
"It is written:
You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve."

Then he led him to Jerusalem,
made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and:
With their hands they will support you,

lest you dash your foot against a stone."

Jesus said to him in reply,
"It also says,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."
When the devil had finished every temptation,
he departed from him for a time.

I think we can learn a lesson from each of Jesus’ replies in how to fight the devil.

1)      We do not live on bread alone; in other words, we should not depend on earthly realities.  We cannot fight the devil with “things of the world.”  Food, money, power, and even the love of family and friends are not enough.  Nor is our own will power.  Rather, we need heavenly realities to fight the devil. We need to utilize the Sacraments, above all the Holy Eucharist, the bread from heaven, to fight the devil.   

2)      And him alone shall you serve; in other words, we need to be single-minded to fight the devil.  We must seek to serve God alone.  If we try to serve different masters, we will not be able to fight the devil.  There must be simplicity of focus in our fight against the devil.  We cannot allow ourselves to complicate our lives to the point where we lose track of what is important.  Be simple.  Live simply.   That way, we can be at peace, and be able to commune regularly with God, and be better able to indeed serve Him alone, and be able to defeat the devil.

3)      You shall not put (him) to the test ; in other words, we should not test how much we can get away with.  We should make no room for sin in our lives.  It must be rooted out if we are to defeat the devil.   We need to examine our conscience every day, go to Confession regularly, and have a desire to be holy.  We must despise sin.  This is valid and legitimate hate, and only this can counteract the diabolical hate of the devil for us.

Finally, I have spoken before in this blog often about Saint Joseph.   He can help us fight the devil.  Think of some of his titles:

Light of patriarchs (his light, joined with that of Christ, can cast out the darkness of the devil)

Diligent protector of Christ  (he can protect us from the devil who wishes to harm us)

Joseph most prudent  (the devil definitely does not want us to act prudently, he rather wants us to act rashly and impulsively; Saint Joseph can help us not give in to his temptations)

Joseph most strong (we need to be strong in faith to fight the devil)

Mirror of patience (when times are tough, we need to be patient, and not just give up on things as the devil tries to tempt us to do)

Pillar of families (family life is a big target of the devil, as is the Church and our nation; Joseph can help us remain rock firm)

Terror of demons  the devil has his army of demons; if we cling to Saint Joseph and Christ, we can scare them away from us

If we turn to God with all our hearts, ask for the assistance of Joseph and all the saints, are humble, pray often, and are resolute to live lives of heroic virtue, we will defeat the devil and will forever be separated from him and the awful effects his influence can have in our lives, and on our eternal destinies.

Good Saint Joseph, pray for us.

The devil, Part Two: his tactics

Let us return to the Gospel story from this past Sunday to see how the devil operates.  Pay particularly to the words underlined in the story this time.  After each underlined section, I will make a brief comment.

We read Luke 4 1:13:

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.
The devil said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread."

The devil here is trying to divert Jesus from his mission of turning human hearts into using his power on matter much less important.

Jesus answered him,
"It is written, One does not live on bread alone."
Then he took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.

The devil said to him,
"I shall give to you all this power and glory;
for it has been handed over to me,
and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me."

The devil here is trying to deceive Jesus into thinking that a great reward will be given him if he does something for him.

Jesus said to him in reply,
"It is written:
You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve."

Then he led him to Jerusalem,
made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and:
With their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone."

 

The devil here is trying to discourage Jesus into thinking that he should throw himself down, give up, and he will be OK.

Jesus said to him in reply,
"It also says,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."
When the devil had finished every temptation,
he departed from him for a time.

There are four common tactics the devil likes to use, and they can be easy to remember because they all begin with the letter "d".   We saw three in the Gospel passage above: deception, diversion, and discouragement..  There is also a fourth, division.    I think we can see in our times how the devil uses them all in our own individual lives, in the world, and in the Church.

Warning… sensitive material ahead

Deception   The devil deceives us into thinking bad things are good.  Things that used to be bad are now considered OK or even good; for example, contraception, abortion, pre-marital sex, extramarital affairs, homosexual sex, religions that teach other than the Divinity of Christ, all things society used to frown on are now considered OK.    Words that used to describe those things have been replaced by nice-sounding terms such as “reproductive rights”, “casual sex", and “gay”.  I am convinced the devil is involved in this re-wording.   I think he is also behind the false religions of the world that make deceptive afterlife promises for doing bad things (i.e. marrying 72 virgins if you die for Allah), which motivates many terrorists.  He also deceives many with the allures of riches and power.

Division  Instead of fostering patience and fortitude to work as a community through issues, the devil instead says, "The Church is corrupt, look at all the scandals; leave her. “  Or to others “Your spouse is bored and flawed, leave him or her. “  Or to others  “Your nation with its materialism and corruption is flawed; leave it, join a sect, fight against it"  When people leave a noble group or cause struggling to persevere, like the Catholic Church, our own families, or our nation,  it is a sign that the devil is successfully fostering division.   He also fosters division within ourselves by trying to incline us to sin to foster disunity between our bodies and souls.

Diversion  The devil likes us to divert our attention away from the real issues to focus on lesser ones.  For example, we see the violence and unrest in the world today. The big issues are a relaxation of our moral standards, a lack of a spiritual life, and a lack of reverence and awareness of the just, yet merciful God.  However, rather than trying to solve this problem, via conversion of ourselves and evangelization of others with the Gospel message, we focus on turning to government laws and social programs to solve our problems.  I think the devil likes this.  He also likes it when in our personal life we get anxious about many things that we should not be as much, like finances or having power and material things, or even health, but fail to pay attention to what matters most, our moral decisions.

Discouragement  He wants us to be discouraged and give up.  He wants us to give up on ourselves, each other, family life, our nation, and the Church.  All the violence in the world, all the scandals in the Church, our children who may have strayed, personal tragedies, and/or our own sins, may be making us sad.  That is exactly what he wants.  He wants us to be anxious.  He wants us to fear raising children in a world such as this, and not even consider starting families.   He loves the fact that our birthrate is so low.  He loves broken homes,  and crumbling churches.

Yes, the devil is at work all over the place.  If you are reading this, you can probably think of other examples of the devil using one or more of the tactics above in your own life, or in the life of the Church or our world.   You are not alone, he strives to afflict all of us, from the most devout believer to the most hardened atheist .   He is the enemy of every man, every woman, and every child.   He truly despises all mankind.

How can we fight him and overcome him?  That will be the topic of the final post of this series.

Joseph, pillar of families, pray for us.

The devil, Part One: he is real

The Gospel reading this past Sunday detailed Our Lord’s stay in the desert where he was tempted by the devil.  We read Luke 4 1:13

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.
The devil said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread."
Jesus answered him,
"It is written, One does not live on bread alone."
Then he took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.
The devil said to him,
"I shall give to you all this power and glory;
for it has been handed over to me,
and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me."
Jesus said to him in reply,
"It is written:
You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve."
Then he led him to Jerusalem,
made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and:
With their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone."
Jesus said to him in reply,
"It also says,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."
When the devil had finished every temptation,
he departed from him for a time.

I believe if you were to ask most Catholics if they believe in the devil, a majority of them would probably say they do not believe there is such a person as the devil, that he is not real.   However, the Church teaches that the devil is indeed real, as we can see in following from the Catechism.

Paragraph 391: Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church's Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil". The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.  Satan used to be good, but he refused, out of pride, to serve God and his creation, man.  His pride became his fall.

Paragraph 392: Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels.  This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God." The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies”   Satan makes his presence known at the beginning of the world, and he will try to influence it to the end.   He hates creation, especially the crown of God’s creation, man.

Paragraph 394: Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.  Jesus fought against the devil, not just in the desert, but throughout the course of his public ministry.   He alluded to his reality on multiple occasions.

Paragraph 395: The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but "we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.   Acknowledging the reality of the devil should not lead us to despair or discouragement, but rather a firm hope in the love and providence of God.   




Acknowledging the existence of the devil awakens us to the sober realities of the spiritual combat that exists in the world today, and exists in each of us.  It can be terrifying to discover all this, but this is still much better than pretending he does not exist.  The devil is trying to take us away from heaven.  The sooner we realize this, and learn how to fight him, the better we chances we have of resisting his call down the dark path to hell.

In the next post, we will discuss how he operates, and in the final post, we will discuss ways to fight him.

Saint Joseph, terror of demons, pray for us.