“Fear nothing and no one, for I am your Father” (Interior Word).
As Sacred Scripture tells us, our Father wants us, in the certainty of His love, to travel our way through time. There are so many terrible things in this world, so many things that frighten us. Jesus Himself tells us: “In the world you will have sufferings, but take heart: I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
It is not a matter of being invulnerable or insensitive to everything; it is not a matter of living in a kind of stoic indifference, which nothing and no one can disturb. On the contrary, our Father wants us, in everything that happens, to seek His presence and to overcome adverse situations in Him.
From God’s perspective, even those things that He allows to happen, however painful they may be, will make sense. When such circumstances befall us, our Father will know how to use them in such a way that they serve us and through them we can grow in faith.
If we counteract our fears with trust in the Father, we take away from them their power to try to subdue us. Then fear can no longer increase or achieve its goal. Rather, the Father strengthens our soul with the virtue of fortitude and gives it the gift bearing the same name.
The key that the Father offers us in today’s words for adverse situations is this: “For I am your Father”.
Our Heavenly Father makes us see the naturality of his loving Providence. It is precisely this naturality that must penetrate our hearts, together with deep gratitude. In principle, in order to trust Him, no other argumentation is necessary than that of “I am your Father”, for His love is the reason for our existence. Since the fall into sin, we have lost this naturalness of knowing that we are sheltered in God’s love, and now we are called to recover it, even in the midst of a world that has turned away from the Lord. And this will become our merit!
“Fear nothing and no one, for I am your Father”.