“Fear of the Lord"
October 29, 2021 at 2:26 a.m.
Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary time
Happy Halloween! I’ve never been one for spooky Halloween decorations, scary or suspenseful movies or haunted houses or hayrides. I’m more of pumpkin spice latte and apple cider donuts kind of person during Halloween! I just don’t like being scared or not knowing or understanding what’s going on around me. Pretty ironic that the second line of the first reading this week is “Fear the Lord, your God”. Um, I know it’s Halloween, but why are we told to fear the Lord?!
This phrase has been on my heart for many years now. During my mission year in Bolivia, at Pentecost Mass, a small basket was passed around the congregation with slips of paper with the gifts of the Holy Spirit written on them as part of our prayer. At the end of Mass, everyone was excited and chatting about the gift of the Spirit on their paper, and my paper read “Temor de Dios”, translating to “Fear of God”. The seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord, and the last one, at least for me, was a little hard to understand. After talking with the religious sisters I lived with, the best definition of the gift I got (in my far-from-perfect Spanish) was that to fear the Lord was to respect the Lord. However, over the years, I learned there was so much more to it.
When we think of the word fear, we think of a negative emotion, definitely not something we desire or want to receive as a Gift! This fear isn’t so much a fear of punishment, although the idea of spending eternity separated from God and his love doesn’t exactly sound appealing. Another helpful way to think about it is like a child’s fear of offending their dad; they love and respect their dad so much, and know that there’s nothing they can do to make him love them less, but they still don’t want to disappoint him and don’t want there to be a tension in their relationship. God loves us so much and wants the absolute best for us. This fear, respect and awe can lead us to a deeper love and relationship with God. Putting it that way, doesn’t this gift sound pretty amazing!?[[In-content Ad]]We can use this new understanding of this Gift of the Holy Spirit to help us follow the “first of all the commandments”, which Jesus reminds us in this week’s Gospel, is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” Mark 12:30. Although we may not always know exactly how to do that, the gift of the Fear of the Lord can direct our minds and hearts to a deeper respect, love and relationship with God.
Hearing to Fear the Lord and to Love to Lord in the course of one Sunday’s readings can be a little confusing, but also pretty genius on the part of the Church for putting them together. I’m going to go ponder that some more, over a pumpkin plice latte and some of my kid’s Halloween candy!
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Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary time
Happy Halloween! I’ve never been one for spooky Halloween decorations, scary or suspenseful movies or haunted houses or hayrides. I’m more of pumpkin spice latte and apple cider donuts kind of person during Halloween! I just don’t like being scared or not knowing or understanding what’s going on around me. Pretty ironic that the second line of the first reading this week is “Fear the Lord, your God”. Um, I know it’s Halloween, but why are we told to fear the Lord?!
This phrase has been on my heart for many years now. During my mission year in Bolivia, at Pentecost Mass, a small basket was passed around the congregation with slips of paper with the gifts of the Holy Spirit written on them as part of our prayer. At the end of Mass, everyone was excited and chatting about the gift of the Spirit on their paper, and my paper read “Temor de Dios”, translating to “Fear of God”. The seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord, and the last one, at least for me, was a little hard to understand. After talking with the religious sisters I lived with, the best definition of the gift I got (in my far-from-perfect Spanish) was that to fear the Lord was to respect the Lord. However, over the years, I learned there was so much more to it.
When we think of the word fear, we think of a negative emotion, definitely not something we desire or want to receive as a Gift! This fear isn’t so much a fear of punishment, although the idea of spending eternity separated from God and his love doesn’t exactly sound appealing. Another helpful way to think about it is like a child’s fear of offending their dad; they love and respect their dad so much, and know that there’s nothing they can do to make him love them less, but they still don’t want to disappoint him and don’t want there to be a tension in their relationship. God loves us so much and wants the absolute best for us. This fear, respect and awe can lead us to a deeper love and relationship with God. Putting it that way, doesn’t this gift sound pretty amazing!?[[In-content Ad]]We can use this new understanding of this Gift of the Holy Spirit to help us follow the “first of all the commandments”, which Jesus reminds us in this week’s Gospel, is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” Mark 12:30. Although we may not always know exactly how to do that, the gift of the Fear of the Lord can direct our minds and hearts to a deeper respect, love and relationship with God.
Hearing to Fear the Lord and to Love to Lord in the course of one Sunday’s readings can be a little confusing, but also pretty genius on the part of the Church for putting them together. I’m going to go ponder that some more, over a pumpkin plice latte and some of my kid’s Halloween candy!