May 21, 2020

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily – Father Peter Gideon

“Do not be afraid.”

Imagine the scene: a busy supermarket on a Saturday morning. In the aisle between the counters there’s a small child crying her heart out. She’s obviously lost and, despite the comforting words of people who bend down to console her, she is very afraid: she finds herself in a noisy world which now seems strange and threatening, with people, like giants, pressing all around her. Suddenly her mother appears and scoops up her little one. At once the tears cease, the fears vanish – for the time being, at any rate.

Fear is one of our most primitive instincts. It’s said that even a baby can experience fear, fear of falling, fear of being dropped, and throughout life, no matter how old we may be, we never manage to shake off all our fears. Each week men and women, young people and children gather in this church. There we all sit, faces usually solemn, impassive and apparently carefree. But behind the solemn faces and the masks there are real people and, doubtless, real fears and anxieties.

It is these real people with their real fears, you and me, that our Lord is addressing in today’s Gospel as three times over he bids us not to be afraid. Perhaps we could discern in that threefold “Do not be afraid” a reference to three kinds of fear that commonly trouble human beings.

First, hidden fears, the fears we cannot or will not or dare not share with others – fears about our health, our sinfulness, our future, our dear ones. And Jesus says, “Do not be afraid… everything now hidden will be made clear” – indeed, it is already fully revealed to our Father in heaven; he knows all, understands all and, through his Son Jesus, urges us not to allow fear to get the better of us.

Second, there is fear of dangers from outside: fear of war, the breakdown of law and order, fear of growing violence. And Jesus says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” We have a Father who cares for us. Think of two tiny sparrows; if one of those tiny creatures falls to the ground, the Father knows all about it. And he knows all about us, too, knows us through and through; and we matter to him; why, the very hairs of our head are numbered.

Finally, there’s fear not unlike that of the little girl lost in the supermarket, fear that we're so small, so insignificant, so unimportant: we feel lost in the immensity of the universe, lost like a speck of dust amidst the billions of people who inhabit the globe, lost as a drop of water is lost in the ocean. We might not dare to say so, but sometimes we find it hard to believe that God, with this vast busy universe to look after, can afford us anything more than a token of divine attention. Jesus says again, “there is no need to be afraid”: as he has told us, our Father knows what befalls tiny sparrows; and then he adds – surely with a gentle smile – “you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows”.

“Do not be afraid”: the words are especially powerful because the one who speaks them is our friend, who really knows us, who loves us and whom we love; he is a friend we can trust. Life without friends would be intolerable and it’s in the light of all that human friendship means that we can cry out in the words of the old hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus”. It's he who brings us new heart today as, over and over again, he urges us not to be afraid. That doesn't mean that all our fears suddenly vanish but rather that they don't paralyse us, they no longer dominate our lives, because, like Jeremiah in today’s first reading, we can say, “the Lord is at my side, a mighty hero”. Each Mass brings not only an assurance that Jesus has proved himself our friend – even to the shedding of his blood – but also a promise that he takes away our final fear, the fear of what awaits us beyond death. He tells us that he will speak up for us before the Father, acknowledge us as his friends and so guarantee us a place in that home where all tears are wiped away and all fears finally disappear.