Homily: 33rd Sunday in OT - "Blessed are those who fear the Lord"

This week in RCIA, with our adults preparing for initiation into the Catholic Church, we were discussing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, gifts given to every Christian at their Baptism, which help us to be faithful to all that Jesus calls us to.  Traditionally, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are numbered seven: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord.

Our psalm today mentioned one of the Spirit’s seven-fold gifts. “Blessed are those who fear the Lord.”  Fear of the Lord enables us to live a blessed life.  The book of Proverbs says that “the fear of the Lord” is the beginning of all wisdom; it helps us to live with our priorities straight.

Fear of the Lord, is completely different from fear of spiders or fear of difficult tasks.    

365 times in the bible we find the phrase, “do not be afraid”.  Almost as if saying it once for every day of the year.  When life becomes difficult, when carrying the Christian cross seems daunting, Jesus urges us to a sort of fearlessness, or rather, combating our fear by turning to God, trusting in Him, that he is with us.  “Do not be afraid” is Jesus’ most repeated phrase.  So do not be afraid when life gets difficult, God is with you.  Do not be afraid of the difficult tasks to which God is calling you. 

Founding Father and third President, Thomas Jefferson, spoke about fear: "When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When governments fear the people, there is liberty.”  Our politicians could probably do with a little more fear of the people, to remember that it is never wrong to hold our politicians accountable for their negligence of duty.

The biblical greek word  theosebeia, fear of the Lord, though it sounds a bit troubling, is in fact a very good and holy thing. 

Sometimes, fear of the Lord, refers to the reverence God’s people are to have for Him.  We are to revere Him at all times. To revere his Holy Name is to treat his name with respect.  To revere the Lord’s Day is to come to Church for worship.  To revere his Temple is to respect the church building as a house of prayer.  To revere his presence is to genuflect when we enter or exit the Church.  We revere his commands by keeping them always in mind.  In this sense, we cannot revere the Lord too much.

Fear of the Lord also refers to the sense of awe and wonder we are to have for God and for his works.  We visit the grand canyon and niagra falls or study the solar system or witness a child’s birth with a sense of awe at God’s beauty and power and order.  When we read through Scripture we are struck with a sense of awe at what God has done for our salvation; when we reflect on Jesus’ suffering and death, we are struck with awe, even a sense of unworthiness, at the depths of his love.

From the book of Proverbs this morning we read a description of a God-fearing woman. The God-fearing wife “brings good and not evil to her husband, she extends her hands to the poor.”  She recognizes physical beauty is fleeting, so she focuses on the beauty of her soul.  Our culture has it backwards, doesn’t it?  There is an obsession about physical beauty.  But watch MTV for 5 minutes, and you realize there is a monumental difference between physical beauty and moral beauty.  The moral ugliness on television is a good indicator that our culture has been poisoned.

Yet, the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.  She becomes a blessing to others because she considers the state of her soul throughout all of her earthly endeavors and relationships.  That goes for men too.

And that’s what “Fear of the Lord” boils down to: considering the state of one’s soul before God.  Most likely, we have so many Catholics we do not go to Mass or Confession because they do not consider the state of their soul before God. They do not have the fear of Lord as they should.  Jesus himself says, “I will show you the one whom you should fear…Fear him who…has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. (Lk 12:5)”

Recently, Pope Francis has stressed the Mercy of God.  Yet, some people, especially in the media, have perverted what the Pope has said, and therefore pervert the Christian message. They equate mercy with doing away with all of the Church’s teaching that we find difficult.  They claim that since God is all-merciful, it doesn’t really matter if we follow the commandments or not; they claim we’re free to redefine Church doctrine to fit more modern sensibilities, like those found on MTV.

To some the two ideas of “Fear of the Lord” on one hand, and “God’s mercy” on the other, are irreconcilable, so they do away with one, depending on their fancy.  In previous centuries, we had rigorist groups like the Jansenists, who lost sight of the power of God’s mercy and love for the sinner.   They required sacramental confession every time you were going to receive the Eucharist, because they claimed most people probably committed mortal sin throughout the week. 

In our own time, we have the other extreme, perverting God’s mercy to mean Divine Permissiveness—treating the commandments more as guidelines that can be bent, shaped, reinterpreted or simply ignored without any danger to immortal soul.

Neither extreme is healthy or accurate.  Rather, fear of the Lord is what enables the sinner to admit his need for God who is merciful.  But God does have expectations of us.

As we heard in the Gospel, when God gives us talents, gifts, we must make use of them in a wise and prudent manner.  Jesus calls the servant “wicked and lazy” who fails to make use of the opportunities God gives him. 

We would like to be counted among the faithful servants in the Lord’s parable today. Yet, we’re honest, aren’t we all a little like that lazy servant.  God has blessed us with so much, yet, we squander, we waste, we hoard for ourselves, cling selfishly to things because of our unhealthy fears. 

In baptism, God has blessed us with this beautiful Gift, fear of the Lord.  It helps us to use the things of this world temperately, lest we use them in ways displeasing to God.  It helps us to keep in mind the great dignity that we are called to as Christians, to keep our hearts pure and holy and pleasing to the lord in all things.  it helps us to be a blessing to others, and build up the Church, and find joy in a life with God at the center for the glory of God and salvation of souls.