fear

Today, almost every Roman Rite Christian who gathered together at Mass heard the same Gospel story, where a crowd was hungry and all but Jesus guessed they would go unfed.

However, a small segment of Roman Catholics heard (or, at least, read along in a missal) a different Gospel passage. To them was directed a story about a pharisee and a tax collector, the first confident before God in his righteousness, the latter anxious about the punishment he feared he deserved.

It is obviously funny, a phenomenon like this, that in our age of Church history, when a small segment of Latins have sequestered themselves behind an old version of the Mass with an old version of the lectionary, God is able to deliver a warning uniquely tailored to them, that through their own outdated books he can directly admonish their pharisaism.

But the whole Church needs to hear this Gospel often, so perhaps the neo-pharisees are more blessed than we.

I think we ought love more one of our Faith’s great contradictions: the contradiction concerning fear.

The Lord says,

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

and his disciple John says,

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

In our age of Church history, we settle easily into this fearlessness, proper to ones who know themselves to be chosen by God and who are committed to serving Him. This fearlessness is holy and good.

Other things, though, are said about fear, and it seems to me that these other things are not truly heard, for if they were, then the Church would act much differently than it does.

Mary, Mother of Jesus, said,

his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

And Paul said,

So do not become proud, but fear.

and, from Jesus Himself,

But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!

In the parable from today’s Gospel to the Trads, the pharisee is a genuinely holy man and he, tragically, allows himself to exult about it. He, one of the finest athletes on the field, has made a stellar play and he sees the goal line and, having assumed that there is no way anyone could catch up to him, he decides to start his celebration ten yards early. He is like the character from an early 2000s film who, having already won Male Model of the Year three times and thinking it a foregone conclusion that he would win it a fourth, makes the long walk up to the stage and begins his acceptance speech. Like these other men, the only reward the pharisee ends up receiving for his good work is the heavy burden of public humiliation.

The pharisee thought that all the good he had done was enough, but in his confidence, he allowed himself to forget just how demanding his master is. He allowed himself to forget his fear. For his forgetfulness, he was punished.

On the other hand, the tax collector’s life until the point we see had likely been a net negative for world blessedness. He was under no illusion that he had sufficiently served the Lord. He was terrified of the judgment awaiting him. Terror, with a little luck, leads to desperation, and the desperate man will run hard wherever he is told.

Judge our fruit. In size, our haul is much closer to the tax collector’s than to the pharisee’s. We run some expensive hospitals. We run some humble facilities for the homeless. We help some refugees not go hungry. We have a school system with high tuitions and underpaid teachers. Okay. And? Do you think this is enough? Over a billion Catholic Christians: how blind can you be to think that what we do is enough?

Completely, utterly blind must be the answer, because we show no signs of mobilization. We show no signs of desperate crunch for the Kingdom; we see no Hail Mary moonshot ideas to try out in the short time we have left. Contentment, disgusting contentment with mediocrity and stagnation: this is all I see in the Church of God.

I have nothing to show. You all might think, deep down, that you do enough. I think you are mistaken, but maybe you’re right and you’ll be fine. I am not, as it is, fine. I have been given much, and I have nothing to show, and I need something. I am desperate.

Lord, have mercy on me. Your Church is not desperate, but I am desperate. I beg you: send me brothers and sisters who fear you, who also have nothing and who are similarly desperate. Please bring us together with haste; please let us work in your field so that when our few remaining days end, we might have something, anything, to present to you.

I am afraid, yet I fear not, for I know you will not leave me and will hear my prayer.