Homily

August 18, 2024 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

St Peter the Apostle Church Saturday 3:30 pm

Proverbs 9: 1-6 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 5: 15-20 + John 6: 51-58

After a while with this Gospel, you might begin to get the idea that this quarrelsome group chasing Jesus around are really more interested in having an argument rather than a conversation. A conversation might lead them to some answers. But no, they want to know how. Any of us with even a little faith know that understanding how God works is the final test of our ability to live with ambiguity and mystery. People who cannot live without knowing the how and the why God words are not long in a relationship with God.

Jesus knows that the language he is using with them is going to offend and upset them. It’s a challenge to let go and rethink what they thought they knew about God. Only then can God do something new, and that’s exactly what’s happening here – something new. Even some of his disciples push back. Next weekend we will hear their grumbling. This whole chapter is about believing without knowing how.

There is a shift in this sixth chapter with these verses. Now John introduces the Eucharist. His description of the Last Supper has more to do with washing feet than bread and wine. So, it is here in these verses that John gives us the institution of the Eucharist. No longer are we told that eternal life comes from believing in Jesus. Now we are told that feeding on his flesh and drinking is blood is what gives us eternal life. John’s use of the word “flesh” is very important. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all use the word “body” when they record the Last Supper words of Jesus. What is important to know is that there is no word for “Body” in the language of Jesus. “Flesh” is what he meant and said.

When he speaks of this Bread that came down from heaven, there is almost an echo of the Incarnation again and the entrance of the Word into the world as “the Word became flesh.” This is the same flesh given to us as the living bread that came down from heaven.

When that quarrelsome group objects to eating flesh and drinking blood, Jesus never backs down. He never explains it away. He means what he says, and he waits for the believer to accept. With that said, Jesus move on to speak of what happens to the one who will eat and drink. They will abide in him, because belief in him is impossible without a close, personal relationship with the Son of Man who is in heaven. This “abiding” proposes an almost unheard-of intimacy – a kind of living another person’s life and it is his life, divine life that is without end.

At the beginning of this section it is about believing without knowing how. Now, it is about believing without seeing. The Body of Christ is his flesh. It is his flesh given for the life of the world. His Blood poured out takes us through the whole mystery from that moment when the word was made flesh in the womb of a young virgin in Nazareth until his death and his blood is poured out. For this reason, it is the Body of Christ – the anointed risen one we receive. Abiding in him then is an invitation to enter into all of his life with its joy and sorrow, its laughter and pain, and ultimately even to enter into his death through our own suffering and death. If we stay with him through it all. If we believe and abide, we will rise from everything, even death itself. If you can believe without seeing when someone says “The Body of Christ” and placed the Bread of Life, his very flesh, into your hands, then say Amen

August 15, 2024 at St Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Revelation 11:19a, 12:1-6a, 10ab + Psalm 45 + 1 Corinthians 15:20-27 + Luke 1:39-56

I do not think that the church nor our society has ever been quite ready for Mary of Nazareth and all that she implies for the rest of us human beings. We easily and too often imagine her as the pinnacle of beauty and holiness with crowns and halos hanging over her. I blame that on artists who are failure as theologians. We hardly ever depict her with a skin tone that is anything but white forgetting that she was what we might call today, an Arab or a Palestinian. She was a Jewish woman who did not look like us.

Luke tells us more than anyone about Mary, but it primarily from the infancy stories. At the Annunciation, Mary spoke in the name of all humanity and gave her “yes” to God’s desire to dwell among us. After that, she got down the day-in and day-out business of preparing for what would happen. She sought out Elizabeth, and elder whose experience came closest to her own. When Luke tells that us about that visit, he has Mary singing a song of praise based upon Hebrew scriptures that is a preview of what her son will preach. If the words of that song are taken out of the context of the liturgy or the New Testament, they subversive and on the edge of being communistic in the unwelcome sense of that word.

This woman has no pretensions. She does not see herself as any kind of Queen. She calls herself a slave. Her song is not about her, but is a proclamation of faith, a kind of Creed that praises God in the simplest terms. The song of the mother of God is Luke’s gift to us. Mary’s song urges us to recognize God’s activity in the everydayness of our world. She points to where we can find God working among us and warns us about the possibilities of losing our way. Her Creed leads us to seek God in times and places where the lowly are cherished and the hungry filled.

As we celebrate her Assumption in body and soul, Mary’s canticle tells us where we will find our own salvation. It is where ever the lowly are cherished and the hungry filled. She proclaims that we will find our salvation accepting and sharing God’s own mercy. The more we are able to do that, the more we will sing with her, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” This feast invites us to make her song our own, because we have become God’s lowly servants and begun to realize God’s favor to us. The meaning this feast then, is simply that ordinary people like you and me are created with the capacity to share divine life, and that is what the Church is teaching through this proclamation.

St Peter the Apostle Saturday 3:30 pm

August 11, 2024 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

First Kings 19: 4-8 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 4: 30 – 5: 2 + John 6: 41-51

From the very first verses of John’s Gospel we get the point, the theme, the purpose that flows like a river through the whole of his Gospel. It is the Incarnation, that coming down of the Son of God to give us a share in God’s life. That is what John proclaims over and over again with different signs and stories. It is all about abundant and eternal life. How do we get that? From the Son of God who comes down from heaven.

To understand the message of this sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, it is absolutely necessary to know how people ate at the time Jesus was among us. It was quite different from how we eat with forks and spoons to get the food to our mouth. For us, bread may be served, but it is like a side dish or a dinner roll. Folks on a diet often do without it. For Jesus and the people of his time, there were no utensils. They ate with their hands, and bread was used to bring the food from the dish to the mouth. It was dipped or was used like a scoop. We can catch on to that from the description of the last supper when Jesus speaks about the one who will dip into the bowl with him. Bread was not an extra. It was how someone accessed the food that was put in front of them. No bread, no food. Bread was how they got they main course.

It is easy for us to get confused about the “main course” these days. Everything about our culture would suggest that the “main course” of life is power, comfort, and wealth. These things seduce us into thinking that the main course is defined by those material things. That is not what Jesus has taught us. Over and over he teaches us that the main course is a life of abundance for all eternity. Remember the sign that started this sixth chapter – the feeding of thousands with a lot left over. It is a sign of abundance, and the people did not have to do a thing to get it. They just had to be there and listen to him. My friends, we receive life because we are here to listen again, and that life is, so to speak, the main course. We receive that life from the bread. The bread is Jesus Christ. That is how we get to the main course. In his conversation with those people gathered around, he reminded them that the bread their ancestors ate was temporary. They died. It did not give them life. Jesus comes with something better. “I am the Bread of Life” he says to them. “Whoever eats this bread will life forever.” This eternal life, abundant life, is offered to each of us who believe. It all comes to us through the Incarnation – through the One who came down like the bread which came down from heaven. The bread of Jesus Christ brings us to that abundant and eternal life, and that is all we need. It’s time to enjoy the feast.

Saturday 3:30 pm Saint Peter the Apostle in Naples, FL

August 4, 2024 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Exodus 16, 2-4, 12-15 + Psalm 78 + Ephesians 4: 17, 20-24 + John 6: 24-35

The crowd has failed to understand the sign they were given earlier on the other side of the lake. Their faith is just not up to it. They fail to understand that the serving of that food, blessed, broken, and shared meant something more than just relieving their immediate and physical hunger. The dialogue in this Gospel tries to lead them to clarification and some understanding. 

They are in need, and they know that. They have a vague inkling of what that need is, but they don’t know the source that might fulfill that need. They are running all over the place, back and forth around and across that lake. They need to see their dreams and hopes fulfilled. They are hungry and they want to be fed, to be satisfied. With the little faith they have, they think a powerful, messiah/king is what they need to satisfy their longing. In some ways, they want the old days when with Moses they were fed every day. Yet, they were forgetting how in those old days the infidelity of their ancestors led to one disaster after another. Failing to remember, they thought Moses produced that food in the desert. So, Jesus reminds them that God sent that food. It came down from heaven, says Jesus.

With that said John’s theology kicks in and our ears ought to perk up remembering what came down from heaven, or perhaps, who came down from heaven. Suddenly, this is not so much about food, or for that matter about need. This is about the Incarnation of Jesus Christ – this is about his identity, and he makes that clear in the final verses of today’s Gospel when he declares who he is. Jesus knows what the true bread from heaven is. It is not the manna in the desert or the multiplied food from the day before.

We proclaim this Gospel to and in a world that is running all over the place frantic to satisfy its needs and its dreams, angry sometimes when it does not work or we just can’t seem to find it or keep it. For that matter, some of us may, from time to time, forget what we learn here and start thinking that someone or something is going to give us what we need or what we want out of life.

Just look at us. Most of us have all the bread we can eat and even more than we should, and we are still hungry and deep down still feel unsatisfied. Many end up chasing after this and that all through their lives because that need is always there no matter how much we eat, where we live, or work, or how much we have. It is never enough because the source of what we need has been right here all the time, and our faith is just not up it. It came down from heaven.

God gives us in Jesus Christ the bread that lasts forever. To think or to want more is evidence of weak faith and, like the crowd in this Gospel, a failure to understand the sign we are given.  That sign is not some “thing.” It is someone. It is the great treasure of the Holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.  It is the only reason for the Incarnation, for Jesus to leave the glory of heaven, stand among us and lead us home. This is the wonderful and mysterious way that God reaches out to gather in all of us searching and longing, hungry and homeless.

My friends, knowing what you want out of life is half the battle, if you want the right things. Here it is. We don’t have to go anywhere else or need anyone else.

Saturday 3:30 pm St Peter the Apostle in Naples, FL

July 28, 2024 at St Peter the Apostle in Naples, FL

2 Kings 4: 42-44 + Psalm 145 + Ephesians 4: 1-6 + John 6: 1-15

Every time we pick up any of the four Gospels, we must remember that the Gospels are Theology. They are not history. So, this weekend we begin a series of readings from the Sixth Chapter of John’s Gospel, and we will stay with it until September. For six weeks we are being called to dig deep into John’s theology on the Bread of Life. And so, it begins with a story about food and an incident reported in all four Gospels. In fact, it is so important that Mark and Matthew write about this twice.

John’s Gospel has no miracles. He never uses the word. His Gospel is arranged around a series of signs each of which responds to a human need. Miracle stories are provided as acts that show the of power of Jesus, a power that establishes the kingdom of God against Satan’s power. This action we have today is not about power. It is a sign given to teach us something about Jesus and about the community or the church he is forming through his ministry.

There is concern here about a human need, hunger. There is a sense of hospitality as he has them sit down in the grass, not in the dirt or on the rocks, but in a soft, cool, and comfortable place. The memory of a Shepherd who leads his flock to green pastures is called to mind as well as the memory of Israel being fed in the desert. It all points to the future and the hospitality of the Kingdom to come suggesting that God will treat us as honored guests at the banquet of eternal life.

In John’s Gospel, it is Jesus who raises the question about how the people are to be fed not the disciples. There is no doubt in his mind that they must be fed. The concern is where it will come from. With that, a little mini-hero of the story emerges, a small boy with no name. He has what is needed. It may not look like much, but in the hands of Jesus Christ it becomes way more than enough. With that the theology unfolds both by word and by deed. The words are unmistakable: he takes, he gives thanks, breaks, and distributes. It is a eucharistic message, a eucharistic sign, and in John’s Gospel, it is Jesus who feeds. He does not have someone else do it. Jesus Christ is the one who feeds us, and as the Gospel continues, he will soon declare himself to be the food, “I Am the Bread of Life.”

We should go home today with some thought about that little boy because that detail draws us into this mystery. Like him, what we have to offer may not ever seem like much and hardly enough in the face of this world’s needs. On the human side of things, it is impossible. On the divine side of things, there is no limit to what God can do with what we have. In fact, it is really beyond our imagination.

There is hunger in this world, and God still wants to satisfy human needs. There is hostility everywhere that spoils hospitality as though the Kingdom of God were for the privileged. The theology of this Gospel says otherwise. The hungry and the homeless will be treated with respect and welcomed with a kind of hospitality we should expect in the Kingdom of God. Those who have followed Jesus gather up the fragments left over for one reason, to continue the work of Jesus as a sign that the Kingdom of God has come and we are welcome to live in it if we take up the work of Jesus seeing and responding to people’s needs with gentle, sincere, loving hospitality in our church in our country, and in our hearts. This is when we shall know the Kingdom of God is at hand. John wants us to know that, and he gives us the signs.

4:30 pm Saturday at St William Catholic Church

July 21, 2024 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 23: 1-6 + Psalm 23 + Ephesians 2: 13-18 + Mark 6: 30-34

I read recently that a leader is a person “who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” This Gospel today could invite us to give some prayerful thoughts about leadership using Mark’s description of Jesus as the model. We could well use Mark’s Jesus as the norm for choosing whose leadership we want to follow when it comes to politics or even entertainment for that matter. When I think about it in the context of this Gospel, I begin to believe that our choice of leaders usually says more about us than about them. It ends up being a matter of what we want or need, so we tend to follow someone who will provide that.

The idea of a leader varies from time to time and place to place. The two-fisted gun-slinging defender of the wronged worked in the old west. A man or woman who makes quick decisions with good command of subordinates works in the business world. A military leader can get others to follow them through all kinds of danger.  Today’s Gospel will delight anyone who thinks popularity is the mark of a leader as those people go chasing around all over the place after Jesus.

Whatever model of leadership it is, to be effective, there must followers, and that’s when the real truth about us gets revealed. The leaders we follow these days reveals just who and what we are. Wanting a life of wealth and celebrity finds us falling in line behind those who can make that promise. Needing affirmation, reassurance, and self-respect leads us to follow someone who will constantly be patting us on the head saying all the nice things we need to hear whether they are true or not. Most of the time, Jesus could look over us and sadly observe that way too often we are sheep without a shepherd.

In Christ Jesus, we have a leader who can lead us but not to wealth and deeper into consumerism if that’s what you want, but to more priceless treasures like compassion, mercy, and reconciliation. The only leader who can take us to pastures of peace and deeper into the life for which we were made is the Word Made Flesh – a God who stays with us, seeks us when we are lost, and puts us in touch with the very reason for which we are on this earth. Christ Jesus is the one who knows the way to the Father, has gone the way, and has shown us the way.

July 14, 2024 at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Indianapolis, Indiana

Amos 7: 12-15 + Psalm 85 + Ephesians 1: 3-14 + Mark 6: 7-13

Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union, and a guy from Memphis named Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Sister George McGoey was teaching 8th grade at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parochial School, and I was over there in a desk looking out the window at Public School 84. It was 1956. Finally, after 68 years, I find myself standing here where I so often served Mass for Father Sahm. When I look that way or from side to side, everything looks the same, maybe a little smaller. When I look that way nothing is familiar, and I’m glad about that because change is a consistent sign of life. If this place were exactly the way it was in 1956, something would be terribly wrong. We are not here to preserve the past. Yet, it is important to know where you have come from just in case you find yourself there again which means you’re lost. The Kingdom of God is not behind us.

There is great danger in longing for the past. It is easy to sit back in this grand old place built by some of our parents and think that the job is done. The permanence of buildings like this poses a challenge to us all. The permanence of this building allows us to risk thinking that this it, this is the Church. No it isn’t. This place is the starting line. It was for me, and hope it is the same for you. This is the place where the mission begins. This is the place we come to listen for the voice of God. If you’re here, you are chosen. What we learn from this Gospel today is that Jesus does not invite or ask disciples if they will do something. They are sent, commissioned. What they are to do is not optional or a choice they make. It is about who they are, and what they do because of it.

It is obvious to anyone who learns from the Gospel that God is not interested in the best or the perfect. That group of twelve we just heard about were not really good at anything except ambition, confusion, and a remarkable ability to miss the point of nearly everything they heard. I’ve often suspected that some of them were not particularly good at fishing. If they were, they may not have left it all so easily. Nonetheless, they get sent out with all the power found in the name of Jesus Christ to do what he does. That number Mark deliberately gives us is an important detail. Mark says: “Jesus called the Twelve.” For those to whom Mark is writing at first, that number means everyone. They would think of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and know what it means. Everyone!

If there is a reason behind the long delay for the Kingdom of God to be lived and made real, if there is a reason for people to still experience isolation, loneliness, and feel cast out or abandoned, if there is a reason for lingering racism, sexism, or hostility toward those who are different from us, it is because we have not realized the implication of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. There are no spectators among disciples. Action and mission are their identity. They are never heard to say: “Someone should do something about that.” They know who should do something.

We might also note that the mission we are given is not just spiritual. They preach repentance and they heal. Along with the spiritual, there is a social dimension to the mission we are given. Praying for the poor and homeless is fine, but that’s not all there is. Something must be done about it in order to fulfill the command we are given.

We, the Church, are by our very nature missionary. Even though the Church possesses some permanence made obvious by this grand building, we are, nonetheless, always on pilgrimage moving forward without too much baggage, excited about the promise the future holds for this world entrusted to us when we remember who we are.

St Peter the Apostle Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

July 7, 2024 At St. Peter the Apostle Churches in Naples, FL

Ezekiel 2: 2-5 + Psalm 123 + 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10 + Mark 6: 1-6

They took offence at him and some still do. I was ordained in 1968 by a Bishop who knew that “separate but equal was not.” He integrated the Catholic Schools of the Diocese. He defended priests who were jailed at sit-ins, and who marched over a bridge in Selma. He paid a high price for that. His home was not safe, he was rudely shouted at and picketers marched everywhere he went for months. He was attacked in fake Catholic publications, and I think he died of a broken heart. These days, some take offence at our Holy Father. They twist his words and meaning, they call for his resignation, they defy his authority to lead, to teach, and the call us to holiness.

This whole irrational thinking gets put before us today with an opportunity to grow, to learn, to listen, and to wonder why it is easier to be negative than positive, to look for the flaws and sins of others. That crowd in Nazareth took offense for two reasons. He was a mere worker who fixed doors and windows, built houses and made plows. What could he possibly know about anything other than saws, hammers and wood? Then they took offence because they knew Mary, his mother. It may well have been an insult, a way of calling him illegitimate. 

Whatever, they made a bad choice that day because it’s always easier to be negative than positive, or be destructive rather than creative. Just what was so offensive about Jesus, about Bishop Reed, a kind and gracious gentleman? What is so offensive about a Bishop from Argentina called by the Holy Spirit who suggests that we should not judge and reminds us that the Church should be like the Kingdom of God, a refuge for sinners, and place of hope for the lost.

A young anonymous student, a young poet proposed a way to avoid and rise above those who choose evil rather than good. He said:

I will do more than belong. I will participate.

I will do more than care, I will help

I will do more than believe. I will practice.

I will do more than be fair. I will be kind.

I will do more than live. I will grow.

I will do more than be friendly. I will be a friend.

We are called by our faith to participate in building the Kingdom and help those who show us the way. We are called to practice faith, not just mouth the words, and it means much more than going to Mass. We are reminded that kindness surpasses fairness, and that being a friend is better than just being nice, and that the only way to be alive is to grow.There is nothing kind or friendly in negative and destructive people. There is nothing Godly about them at all. They are hardly even alive because they resist a prophetic call to grow, to change, to listen to the Word of God who was then and still is in our midst. Every one of us in this place is called to be God’s prophet, and the healing, forgiving, merciful Gospel must be preached until the end of time, even to those who are unwilling to listen.

St Peter the Apostle 3:30 pm Saturday

June 30, 2024 at Saint Peter the Apostle and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL

Wisdom 1 13-15, 2: 23-24 + Psalm 30 + 2 Corinthians 8: 7, 9, 13-15 + Mark 5: 21-43

We began this Mass listening to the book of Wisdom. Just in case you had not settled down enough to focus, let me refresh your memory: “God did not make death. God does not rejoice in the destruction of the living.” God is the author of life. Death, ancient wisdom says, is the work of the devil and people who choose the devil’s way. To me, that is just another way of suggesting that we have more to fear from spiritual death than from biological death. 

I’ve run into a lot of people in this life and I’ll bet you have too who are the walking dead. They have no life even though they are breathing, eating, and working. Because, real life is way more than biological life. It is a kind of fullness, a way of being that comes from intimacy with God. In people who are really alive, there is a kind of divine spark. They really know how to live, and I don’t mean “live it up.” We have all found comfort in the face of someone’s death whose life was full, profoundly rich in friendship, in service, love, and compassion.

When we hear the two stories of today’s Gospel, it is tempting to focus on this Synagogue leader who is so different from the other leaders who will have nothing to do with Jesus. Or, to sympathize with that woman who has suffered for so long and spent all that she had. With nothing to lose, she has one last chance. But, there is another option for us to focus on, and that is the crowd that Jesus sends away. Unlike the Jairus or the woman with no name, they are spiritually dead. Their level of faith is insufficient to face the challenge of death. So, they are dismissed. The contrast between Jairus and his wife against the that crowd is important to see. They hold on to the love of God that makes all things possible. That mourning and wailing comes from people who are afraid. They are overcome by the reality of death, and Jesus puts them out. Jesus does not bring the girl back to life. He awakens her. He takes her hand and with tender words draws her into intimacy with God as he calls her “daughter.”

Think about this too. Blood for us in this holy place is very important and very sacred. From that cup of blood, we have real life, not physical life, but spiritual life. A writer I once studied said: “God owns blood.” So, God’s love stopped the flow of blood in that woman and restored the flow of blood in the twelve-year-old girl. We would all do well, to think of this as we approach this altar to receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ.

“Do not be afraid. Have faith” Jesus says to all of us who must face physical death. There is something far worse than that. It is living with fear rather than with faith. As the Book of Wisdom says today, “God formed us to be imperishable, in the image of his own nature.” 

We come into this church sometimes like sleepwalkers and always as sinners. This place holds the promise of life for all of us. If there is any place where folks are equal, where the poverty that so many face each day is banished, and where power means nothing at all, it is here around this altar where we taste the banquet of heaven. We stand here together as witnesses to the power of faith in Jesus Christ. It might be a good thing to make a little noise about that now and then in contrast to that noisy crowd who ridiculed Jesus. Maybe we could make enough noise with our laughter and our joy to wake up the walking dead and make them wonder how it is we can live so full of love, so full of peace, and so full hope.

4:40 pm Saturday at Saint William Parish in Naples, FL

June 23, 2024 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Job 38: 1, 8-11 + Psalm 107 + 2 Corinthians 5: 14017 + Mark 4: 35-41

Through the whole Gospel of Mark, Jesus reveals by action and word the power of God and the will of God to save and gather us together. With today’s passage from the fourth chapter Mark wants us to see the power of God over nature. In the next chapter, we will see God’s power over evil as demons and diseases are cast out, and then over death as Jesus raises a synagogue official’s daughter who dies.

It all begins with a boat scene. There are many of them in Mark’s Gospel. He tells us it is getting dark, and immediately we ought to sense that this is not good. Evil lurks when it is night or dark in the Gospels. Then there is an odd little note at the beginning when Mark tells us that they took him “just as he was.” He was teaching, so this will be a continuation of his teaching. But now, Jesus is alone with his disciples away from the Jewish crowds on one shore and the Gentile crowds on the other. With this story and message then, Jesus is directly ministering to or teaching the church, teaching us just as much as that early church for which Mark is writing. Jesus is calming a storm/devil. This
storm” is not about a meteorological event. There were no storm warnings or alerts. The point of his teaching is faith and fear. They don’t fit together.

So, this story is about a crossing, but not from one side of a lake to the other. It is about crossing from fear to faith. These are code words for Mark, “fear” and “faith.” They are a dynamic challenge for disciples even to this day. Are we going to be afraid, or are we going to have faith? Which is going to be?

As Mark tells is, there is no resolution to this story. “Rebuke” is the verb Mark uses as Jesus speaks. It is the same word used to describe the casting out of evil spirits suggesting that it is an evil spirit that threatens them from continuing their mission.

My friends, we ought to keep this story in mind when the storm/devil disrupts the ordinary lives we often enjoy. It happens all the time, and wise is the disciple who knows how to calm fear with faith, and remember that fear, anxiety, and the unexpected are always the work of the evil one. Disciples of Jesus through the ages have faced persecution, natural disasters, or personal struggles.

The message is simple yet profound telling us that nothing can truly harm those who trust in the Lord. At the same time, it must awaken our drowsy faith in God’s presence. The most repeated demand in the Scriptures is “Do not fear.” Refusing to be afraid disables the evil one always trying to dissuade us from our mission. When we have no fear, the enemy will tremble in fear.