Why are you afraid?

Good News ReflectionFriday of the First Week of AdventDecember 4, 2009
Today's Readings:Isaiah 29:17-24Ps 27:1, 4, 13-14Matt 9:27-31http://www.usccb.org/nab/120409.shtmlUSCCB Podcast of the Readings:http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/09_12_04.mp3
Why are you afraid?
Today's responsorial Psalm says: "The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom should I fear?"
What are you afraid of right now? What disappointment are you afraid is coming? What's worrying you? What's stealing your joy and seems hopeless?
When we "gaze on the loveliness of the Lord," we realize that there is no reason to be afraid. We realize: God is so wonderful, so caring, so good, so awesomely powerfully concerned about my every need, my every wish, my every prayer, of course there is nothing that will happen to me that is so bad as to produce more harm than good!
When we have fear, we're blind to the wonderfulness of the Lord, and like the two men in today's Gospel reading, we need to be healed.
Faith is what heals us – faith that identifies Jesus as Lord, faith that appreciates the loveliness of the Lord, faith that can see that God is going to make good come from every hardship, no matter how bad it looks.
This is a faith that empowers us to believe that we shall indeed "see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living", and it becomes the source of joy.
This is a faith that is willing to "wait for the Lord with courage," because we know that God is watching over us, and thus we can experience joy even during hardships.
Fear is not of God. It does not belong in a Christian's life. Neither does worry, because worry is caused by fear. If the Lord truly is our Savior, as we claim him to be, then we want to trust him, because we know we can trust him!
Those who are blinded by fear are those who cannot see the Lord, and thus they have valid reason to live in fear. Those of us who know better, however, because we have already seen the Lord do much good, have valid reasons to live in hope and joy, despite all the visible evidence to the contrary.
Are you living in this joy? How visible is it? Do you have more hope than fear, more joy than worry?
Most faith-filled Christians experience temporary blindness from time to time. That's simply because we forget to gaze upon the loveliness of the Lord.
We get distracted by the attractions of this world, losing sight of what is pure and holy and loving and heavenly. We get distracted by our trials and hardships, focusing on the evidence of disaster instead of on the reasons for hope.
Joy comes from remembering to keep our eyes focused on Jesus at all times.
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