Do not be afraid
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Mt 10:26-33
The Bible Society’s Lectio Divina is unavailable for this Sunday. We reproduce this meditation with the kind permission of Magnificat:
Jesus instructed the twelve as follows: “Do not be afraid of them therefore. For everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear” (10:26).
The revealed Word of God makes real what it says; it effects what it says. When Jesus says Do not be afraid, he enables his followers to lose their fear. In the Gospel of Matthew, fear is no longer a valid excuse for the non-performance of matters pertaining to the Kingdom (see Mt 1:20; 10:26, 28, 31; 14:5, 27; 17:7; 21:46; 28:8, 10). For every mention of “fear” in Matthew, there is mention of the “Father”.
St Thomas Aquinas: “Jesus says Do not be afraid because we should only fear evil. Do not fear, because if your truth is not well known right away, still it will be well known.” Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis: “In Greek the words for ‘concealed’ and ‘secret’ are associated with the head-covering used by women. The revelation that Jesus mentions points to the manifestation of the Bride of Christ in the Book of Revelation for all to see, admire, and love for all time (Rv 21:9).” St Jerome: “Do not fear the savageness of persecutors and the ferocity of those who blaspheme. For the day of judgment will come, on which both your virtue and their wickedness will be manifested.”
“What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops” (10:27).
St Hilary of Poitiers: “Whatever Jesus has said must be spoken with a freedom of faith and confession by each one. For the knowledge of God must be faithfully announced, and the teaching of the Gospel’s hidden depths must be revealed in the light of the apostolic preaching.” Aquinas: “Mystically, a person preaches upon the housetops who preaches to others after having subjected his body to himself.” St Augustine: “Jesus says in effect that what is spoken in darkness, that is, in fear, we should preach in the confidence of the Truth.”
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell” (10:28).
Augustine: “The precept Christ had enjoined on them he personally carried out, without attempting to evade the hands of those who scourged him, the blows of those who struck him. And so the martyrs suffered, but they would certainly have failed the test without the presence of Jesus.”
“Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing” (10:29).
Jesus himself will fall to the ground like a wounded sparrow: Mt 26:39. Fr Cornelius, a Lapide SJ: “God your Father formed you in his own likeness and endowed you with reason. And he has reformed you by Christ and made you saints and Apostles like unto Christ. That is why he does not allow you to be harmed or killed by persecutors, unless it be to grant you a better, supremely happy life and crown through martyrdom.”
“Why, every hair on your head has been counted” (10:30).
Aquinas: “It is customary that one should number those things that we wish to keep for ourselves.” Jerome: “This shows the immense providence of God towards his people. These words indicate unspeakable affection, because nothing about us escapes God’s notice.” An Orthodox prayer: “You know the cause of the evil things which torment me; even the hairs on my head are numbered by you; therefore I flee to you and beseech you to drive off every evil thing that seeks to destroy my soul.”
“So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows” (10:31).
Aquinas: “Jesus shows the security of the Apostles from the fact that their enemies can do but little, and that which they can do, they can only do with God’s providence.”
A Cistercian chant: “Victorious love shouts to the four winds. You who follow Jesus, do not fear what leads to death, rather fear to yield to fear.”
“So if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven” (10:32).
Leiva-Merikakis: “The literal meaning of the word ‘acknowledgement’ [is] ‘to say the same as.’ … ‘Act out before the world what you are in your heart of hearts,’ Jesus is telling them … An essential aspect of the Christian’s relationship to his Lord is their willingness to take off the mask of conven-tionality before the world and reveal their innermost identity as a permanent disciple of so good and great a Master.”
“But the one who disowns me in the presence of men, I will disown in the presence of my Father in heaven” (10:33).
St John Chrysostom: “It is not by some power within yourself that you make your confession, but by the help of grace from above. Your being forsaken is the fault of you yourself, the forsaken person, not of God. We must confess with our mouths in order that we may be steadily trained to speak boldly. It is only through this more abundant love and determination that we will be raised on high. One who learns this lesson will teach it in boldness to others, prepared to suffer all things easily and with a ready mind. This is why so many have come to have faith in the witness of the Apostles to this Word.”
Lord, drive every trace of fear from my heart, and let me see how your providence shows your care for me in every circumstance of my life.
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