I suspect there are few people for whom a Godmother has been as significant as my Godmother has been for me. When my parents died (2009 & 2010) I reminded Kay that her role had taken on a new dimension of even greater “parental care”, and perhaps she was aware of this when in a phone conversation a couple of hours ago she quoted the first reading from today’s Mass reminding me of the dangers of fear:
There is no fear in love,
but perfect love drives out fear
because fear has to do with punishment,
and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.
It can seem that fear is an effective motivator. You’ll never find an army general encouraging the troops to love each other. Instead fear of punishment is used as the central motivation. I can relate to this since there were times at school when I did my homework only to avoid the punishment of caning or detention. Too often in our (even recent) history the church has also ignored the power of love and used fear in a misguided attempt to nurture faith.
The greatest motivator of all is love, the love that drives away all fear and enables us to live in perfect love.
It’s easy to see how fear and love work in my life. Love takes me to a larger place; fear draws me back to a narrow place. Love is unitive; fear is divisive – us and them. Love has the soft voice of the heart; fear has a loud “head” voice. Love sees beauty; fear tends to see ugliness. Love opens me up like a flower; fear closes me down. Love trusts; fear is suspicious. Love is of God and part of our spiritual nature; fear belongs to our animal instinct for survival. I will never have perfect love, but the One who does have perfect love, Jesus the Christ, helps me to detect, own and deal with my fears.
Amen Father , You are truly wise , The holy sprit is love cerated for us to be protected , My fear is the world living without prayers , Prayers of love keep the demons away from all souls , our holy Mother Mary is a great nurse, and our Father is a great Doctor, fear did not Baptise me at age 31, fear has not made me a happy married man and father , fear is not my reason to be proud to be part of the Great vine of Catholic living , i do worry that my Maori people and not being Baptised . i have no fear of fear because i don’t no it meaning , i pray for our numbers in New Zealand to improve , Suzanne Aubert will be our first saint – i have no fear in that , New Zealand is a image of heaven above . its not like were living in the middle east – were all the fear in the world has been for thousands of years , same old fights over same old things . really what do New Zealanders really have to fear? losing to Australia in the rugby .. fear is not from Gods love , it come from hell it self. Heaven or Hell . just 2 choices . good or bad – i live like i am already living in heaven – and it works for me – one Blessed day after another – i swear a lot,i am not perfect – but my life is Heaven – i fight with demons every day . its just a part time job . I am in Heaven on Earth, just like Jesus promised . Pray for me Please Father . – with all the Blessing Gods will permits .