“Fear No One: Defending the Truth of Jesus Christ” – 12th Sunday OT (A) – 6.25.23
“Fear No One: Defending the Truth of Jesus Christ”
By: Fr. David Schmidt
Assumption Church (Regina Coeli Parish) - Bellevue, PA
Mass Readings- https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062523.cfm
In the Gospel today we hear Jesus telling us to “Fear no one.” He says, “do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”
Jesus is encouraging us to boldly and courageously defend the truth of the Catholic faith even in the midst of persecution and vigorous opposition.
It is incredibly difficult to be Catholic today. Everything we believe is so aggressively attacked in our culture, and the temptation is to give into fear, and deny our Catholic faith in the face of persecution.
We might be afraid to courageously defend the truth because we are afraid of losing our jobs or losing our reputations. Or maybe we are afraid of actual physical harm being done to us.
However, what does Jesus tell us? He tells us to not fear those who can kill your body or even your job or reputation. Jesus tells us instead to fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna or hell.
What Jesus means by this is that we are to have a proper fear of the Lord. What I mean by fearing the Lord is by having a holy reverence for Him. It is recognizing the majesty of God. It is being afraid of doing anything that would offend Him.
We should be more worried about what God thinks than what other people think.
This is because God has the power to cast people into hell if that’s what they choose. The most that our persecutors can do to us is kill our body. They don’t have the power to cause us to die a spiritual death.
Just because God has this power to cast into hell, that doesn’t mean He is some evil tyrant who is ready for us to mess up at any moment so He can send us there.
We see the goodness of God in our Gospel passage where it says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
God is our Father who greatly cares about us. He knows the number of hairs on our head. He knows every desire and fear of our heart.
God desires our eternal salvation. He doesn’t want anyone to end up in hell. This is why Jesus is making this statement about not fearing those who can only kill the body but not the soul.
The truth of the Catholic faith is so incredibly important that it is worth defending even to the point of death. It is because our ability to live out the truth is directly related to our salvation.
God is the King of the Universe. He is the one who brought it all into being. He is the Truth. Anything that goes against this Truth goes against God who is Truth. When we reject the one Truth of Jesus Christ, we put our souls on the line.
This is why when we face opposition and persecution in the world today, we must be bold in defending the truth of what we believe as Catholics. If we allow fear to overtake us, then we run the risk of denying our faith, and thus denying God, putting our eternal salvation on the line.
Now, would God forgive us if we gave into fear and denied Christ’s truth, and asked for His mercy? Of course, we have only to look to St. Peter who denied Jesus 3 times, but repented and was forgiven by the Lord. However, even though the Lord is merciful, that doesn’t underscore the seriousness of denying the Truth of our faith.
It is serious because it is a matter of eternal life or eternal death. There is no middle ground for the Lord.
Specifically, what we are seeing in our culture today is a vicious attack on marriage and the family. Everything that we believe about marriage and family, and what it means to be a man and woman is severely criticized, mocked, and rejected by the majority of our world today.
We don’t have time to go through each issue and ideology that is infiltrating our culture today, but I encourage you to check out St. Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body which reveals in a profound way the beautiful teachings of the Church on marriage and the family, and we why believe what we believe as Catholics. It lays out God’s incredible plan for human love and seeks to answer the question, “What does it mean to be human?”
Many people, including most Catholics, have never truly encountered the richness of what we believe and how it reveals the mysteries of the universe, and satisfies those deep desires within our hearts to love and be loved by another. Most people when they encounter the depths of what we truly believe respond by saying, “Where has this been my whole life? Why have I not heard this before?” So I encourage you to check out JPII’s Theology of the Body as again we don’t have time to dive into it today. *(see links at the end)
The point I want to emphasize with this homily is the need to defend the truth of the Catholic faith, especially the truth about what we believe about marriage and family.
We are currently in a fierce battle over these issues. Just the other day one of the children from the Our Lady of Fatima apparition, Sr. Lucia, was declared a venerable by the Church which is the first step on the path to sainthood.
Sr. Lucia once said, “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family.’ Don't be afraid, she added, because whoever works for the sanctity of Marriage and the Family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. Then she concluded: ‘nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head’.”
We must defend the truth. We must not back down from what we believe even in the face of persecution. Even if it means losing your job, your reputation, or even your own life. We are in a battle for the salvation of our souls, and right now it is centering on the issue of marriage and family. We must have a holy reverence and fear of the Lord, where we under no circumstances go against the Truth that He has revealed to us through His Son Jesus. We are to proclaim this truth from the rooftops for all to hear even if that means we will be hated for it.
When we are persecuted and even killed for the faith we share in Christ’s passion in a powerful way. Christ was killed because He proclaimed the Truth. However, it was Christ’s death from the hands of his persecutors that brought his persecutors their salvation. We are to act in the same way. We live in a world that has been greatly deceived, and as we defend the truth, we must also keep in mind that many of the people who believe these ideologies have been greatly deceived by the evil one as the evil one knows how to make what is sinful look like what is good.
When we stand up for the truth and we are persecuted and killed in many different ways, we can offer this persecution as a powerful prayer for those persecuting us as an act of love towards them as we desire their conversion and their salvation.
We too as we are nailed upon our own cross, can cry out to the Father as Jesus did, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”
The most loving thing that we can do for the whole world, especially for those who oppose the Catholic faith, is to uphold the truth and to be willing to die for this truth as we offer up our death for their conversion and salvation. We do this because we believe that this truth will lead us to eternal life and save us from eternal damnation. We believe that this truth leads to our ultimate happiness and fulfillment as human beings. Anything that is outside this Truth of what we believe as Catholics is a lie as it does not lead to true life, but instead leads to death.
In this battle we are in, we don’t fight fire with fire. We fight fire with sacrificial love. We love as Jesus did and we lay down our lives for those who persecute us and kill us for proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ.
So be not afraid. Be courageous. And be willing to proclaim the Truth of Jesus Christ to all the world, knowing that even though they may kill our bodies, they cannot kill our souls. We are to proclaim the Truth in confidence knowing the eternal reward that awaits us in heaven prepared for us by our heavenly Father.
So be bold. Be courageous. And “fear no one.” For God’s victory is at hand.
*WHAT IS THEOLOGY OF THE BODY? | Why God Gave Us Bodies | Christopher West https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvFa7elKtkY
*Why God Gave Us Bodies | The Thesis of Theology of the Body (Dr. Christopher West) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0rcM_f50a0
*Why God Gave Us Bodies (Fr. Mike Schmitz) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9rmXFG10fc
