“Be faithful to me and be without fear” (Inner Word).
In these difficult times that we are experiencing, both in the world, which often seems to be moving toward the abyss, and in the Church, which is becoming more and more disoriented, these simple words show us the way to follow.
We must remain faithful to our Heavenly Father and therefore to all that He has entrusted to His Church as the treasury of truth. We must resist so many temptations and errors, and this will only be possible if we remain in His Word and cling firmly to it, without allowing ourselves to be blinded by opinions, ideologies and pyrus fires.
This faithfulness must go hand in hand with the fearlessness to defend the truth, whether it is convenient or inconvenient. It will consolidate our fidelity, which is sometimes put to the test. Fearlessness does not mean rushing blindly into unnecessary danger. There were situations in which our Lord Himself found it more convenient to withdraw than to confront openly.
Nevertheless, fearlessness always means keeping the truth of the faith intact and bearing witness to it. Here it is especially necessary to overcome human respect, which can become such a great obstacle that it can even lead us to deny our faith, to weaken or relativize it, to conform to people’s opinions, to avoid confrontation, to avoid “attracting attention,” and so on.
As loving and tender as our Father is with us, He does not want us to become soft and spoiled. As the Apostle Paul teaches us, we must not remain like children who only tolerate milk (cf. 1 Cor 3:2), but we must mature to become true witnesses of the Lord (cf. Eph 4:13). Faithfulness and fearlessness make our faith firm and our whole person deeply rooted in God.
“Be faithful to me and be without fear.”