Pints With Aquinas - God Doesn't Want You To Be AFRAID | Mthr Natalia

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

Mother talks about people who act out of fear in the Bible, and Christs response to them. She talks about why we shouldn't be afraid, and how we can get over fear. 🤝 💸 Support the Channel: https://mattfradd.locals.com 🎧 Mother's Podcast: https://whatgodisnot.com/ 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/matt 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd  

Glory to Jesus Christ. I'm Mother Natalia, a Byzantine Catholic nun from Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, and this is Pines with Aquinas. Last week in our church we had the feast of the procession of the cross. We have this feast every year on August 1st. And I was praying on that day with the gospel from St. John, the 19th chapter, leading up to the crucifixion. When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him. The Jews answered him, we have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself

the Son of God. When Pilate heard these words, he was even more afraid. He entered the Praetorium again and said to Jesus, Where are you from? But Jesus gave no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?" Jesus answered him, you would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me to you has

the greater sin. Upon this Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, if you release this man you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king sets himself against Caesar." As I was praying with this passage, I was struck by just the role that fear plays in Pilate's decisions here. Because there's this fear in him, I think a righteous fear, as he realizes who Jesus could be and what's at stake here. But then it's outweighed by this greater fear that

comes when the Jews basically threaten him and say, we'll let people know that you're not Caesar's friend if you don't if you don't crucify this man. So Pilate is torn between a fear of God and a fear of man. a fear of God and a fear of man. And so I was reflecting on how we see this theme throughout all of the gospels. I think most especially we see it with the Pharisees as how many times in the gospels, you know,

we read that they answered a question a certain way out of fear of the people. And you know, the only one obviously who doesn't do this is Jesus. Jesus is never acting out of fear. But we see this with the Pharisees. We see this with St. Fotina, the woman at the well, who goes to the well at the hottest hour of the day out of fear of encountering other people.

We see this in the disciples who flee, who flee from suffering, afraid of suffering. But then we also have, we have coming up this week another feast on August 6th in our calendar, we celebrate the feast of the transfiguration. And in Matthew's account of the transfiguration, it says that after the disciples, they see the glory of the Lord, and they fall to the ground in awe, or some translations will say, in fear. And in Matthew's account, it says, Jesus came and touched them, saying, rise and have no fear.

We see something similar in the sixth chapter of John when Jesus is walking on the sea. And it says, they were frightened, but he said to them, it is I. Do not be afraid. It is I. Do not be afraid. It is I. The Greek words here for it is I, I apologize for my terrible pronunciation, but the Greek words are ego e mi.

These are the same Greek words that would be used for the I am who I am. And these are the same words that are used in the 18th chapter of St. John when Jesus is arrested in Gethsemane and when he says, when they say that they're looking for Jesus of Nazareth, he uses these same words, ego-e-mi, I am, it is I. But in the 18th chapter of John, in response to these words, the soldiers draw back and fall to the ground. So Jesus uses these words to comfort his disciples, it is I, do not be afraid. And then he uses these same words and it instills fear in the guards in the soldiers And I guess

That brings up the point that I desire to make the the question that I think we need to be asking ourselves Is what are you afraid of? Do you have a righteous fear of God? And I'm going to talk about that in a second. Or are you afraid of people? Because we shouldn't fear an encounter with the Lord, because in an encounter with him, he says, it is I do not be afraid. I think the only thing that we should fear is loss of relationship with him.

of relationship with him. You know, we should have a good fear of hell, not because of the punishment of hell, but a fear of ever not being with him, of not being with the one that we love. You know, as Saint John says in his first epistle, perfect love casts out fear. So as I was praying with all of this, I was examining the places in my life that I act out of fear, the ways in which I'm codependent in my relationships, that I'm afraid that acting certain ways, doing certain things, saying certain things

will cause me to not be liked, that I'll be misunderstood. You know, a fear that I'm going to lose a friend. The fear that people won't think I'm holy. The fear that you won't like this Pints with Aquinas episode. And I think it's really helpful to look at those places of fear and to ask this question, what are you afraid of? Which of Pilate's fears are we falling into? So I want to go back to that verse from the first letter of St. John, that perfect love

casts out fear. It's a verse that I often pray with because I'm really torn there because God is love and it's His perfect love that casts out fear. As our love becomes perfected, we become less afraid because we only love because he first loves us. But we also read that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And so I'm always kind of like, how do I reconcile these two things? We say that perfect love casts out fear, but then we're also like, but a little bit of fear is good.

And so how do I reconcile these two things? And I just read this fantastic, this fantastic excerpt from my man, St. Maximus the Confessor, and I'd like to share it with you. Because to a degree, he answers this question for me. So this is from something that he wrote to. It just says a devout Christian, so I don't know the man who's receiving this letter. He says, I have greatly admired your self abasement and have tempered my fear of you with affection, and from both have formed a love based on respect and goodwill. I have combined the two in case fear, stripped of affection, should turn into hatred, or affection, deprived of fear, should turn into over-familiarity.

In this way, love becomes an inward law of tenderness, assimilating everything naturally akin to it, mastering hatred through goodwill and over familiarity through respect. David the Psalmist says, fear of the Lord is pure and endures forever, because he knows that of all things, fear is best able to preserve divine love. Such a fear, he realizes, is very different from the fear of being punished for crimes. This second type of fear is indeed ousted and destroyed by love, as St. John the Evangelist makes clear when he says, Love casts out fear. But the fear David is talking about is a natural expression

of the law of true tenderness and it is through this fear that the saints always keep intact the rule and practice of love both for God and for each other. So I think ultimately the question that we need to ask is, is our fear helping or hindering our love, our love for God and our love for others? Is fear pushing us towards God to rely on Him, to trust more on Him, trust more in Him? Or is fear pushing us to self-reliance? Is it pushing us to close off parts of our heart to the Lord or to others who he's asking us to open our hearts to? And I think that we then have the question of what do we do if it's that latter fear? What do we do if it's the fear that we shouldn't be acting out of, the fear that's debilitating,

the fear that's keeping us from love? And I know this sounds like an oversimplification, but I learned about, on my retreat last year, I think it was last year, I learned about this concept that's practiced in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's this as-if mentality. And what's talked about is if you're striving for a certain virtue and you know you don't have that virtue, if you're striving to overcome a defect, something in you, some defect you wish you didn't have, then act as if you didn't have this defect. And again, it sounds very simple,

but I can't tell you what a difference this has made in my life. As I've been remembering this in praying to prepare for this episode, I've been putting it into practice the past couple of days because I had totally forgotten about it. And it just makes a tremendous and immediate difference. An example of this was I was frustrated with someone, something that someone had done,

and I just was judging them, just straight up very judgmental. And so I thought to myself, how would I act towards this person if I were not judgmental? And then I chose to act in that way, as opposed to the ways that I was just pushed to act by my judgment. And yeah, so I think similarly, ask yourself, what am I afraid of? And if the fear is not helpful, if the fear is not of the Lord, And if the fear is not helpful, if the fear is not of the Lord, that righteous fear, that good fear, if it's not pushing you towards Him, if it's drawing you away from Him, then ask yourself, how would I act if I were not afraid? And then act in that way.

Because that is to act with courage. You know, courage is not the same as fearlessness. Courage is not an absence of fear. Courage is choosing to act in spite of fear. And yeah, I just pray that you and I can be courageous. In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of this day, for the gift of technology, which allows us

when we use it well to draw closer to you and closer to one another. I ask that you grant us an awareness of any movements of fear in our hearts. Help us to know where that fear is coming from and how you wish us to keep our gaze fixed on the face of your son, our bridegroom, that we may always move towards him. That the only fear that we experience be a fear of not having him, of not being in union with you and your Spirit and your Son. Grant us courage. I ask all of this and thank you for these things through the intercession of Saint Thomas Aquinas,

Saint Bartholomew, Saint Maximus the Confessor, the Most Holy Theotokos, and all the saints. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.