Do Not Fear

finitude in awareness is anxiety when i become aware of my finitude i become afraid right now what's the answer existentialism which tilt knew very well said get used to it that's the way it is right what's the answer of the bible be not [Music] afraid welcome back to the word on fire show i'm brandon vot the senior content director here at word on fire catholic ministries today we're going to look back and discuss the most searched bible verse of 2020 and i'm guessing it's not what you expect we're also going to look at how jesus helps us respond to our fears and how to conquer some of the fears many of us share moving into the new year in 2021 with a lot of chaos confusion and lack of clarity with the covid virus and many other problems we're struggling with before we get there bishop baron good to see you and uh welcome to this second video here in the new year of 2021. hey brandon good to see you as always i sent you this uh website result survey of a youversion bible app study so youversion is the most popular bible app in the world i think they're on i don't know 100 million phones around the world and they track all sorts of analytics of what bible verses people are reading what they're searching what they're highlighting notably they saw an increase by 80 percent in 2020 with nearly 600 million uh worldwide users views i think it is um so first of all before we get into the most popular verses it seems like more people are searching the bible than ever before at least online what do you make of that is that i'm assuming an exciting discovery for catholics like us yeah i'm glad to hear that and you know again the internet makes this stuff accessible in a way it wasn't before so i'm delighted to hear that actually and if it took in some ways the crisis of 2020 to bring people back to the scripture well okay it's often gone that way in history hasn't it uh during times of difficulty people turn to the word of god so you know three cheers for the internet and for social media in that way i think in most years the most popular verse on you version is either john 3 16 for god so loved the world gave his only begotten son or i think we did an episode last year covering last year's most popular verse which was the one from jeremiah where it says you know god's got plans for you to prosper and succeed and all that but this year there was an unexpected contender the number one most read bible verse on you virgin in 2020 was isaiah 41 10. i'm going to read it for you so do not fear for i am with you do not be dismayed for i am your god i will strengthen you and help you i will uphold you with my righteous right hand that verse was not only the most searched verse of 2020 but the most read and the most bookmarked people wanted to come back to it again and again what do you think about that verse being number one are you surprised no i mean 2020 was a terrible year wasn't it and stirred up a lot of our anxieties you know the psychologists in the 20th century talked about existential anxiety so i might be afraid of something right in front of me there's a particular threat but then underneath all the particular threats and often precipitated by a number of particular threats there's this deep level fear this existential anxiety which is born of our finitude and a year like 2020 when i mean let's face it i mean hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens are dying from this disease all of us are locked in we can't see each other that's going to stir up some deep level fears and you could argue brandon that the bible is a response to fear you know perfect love and that's what god is cast out not hate says the bible but fear and so in some ways that's the primordial struggle between fear and love so i'm not surprised a that 2020 kicked up that fear and that b people turn to the bible to find an answer precisely to this spiritual problem so those first few words of the isaiah verse do not fear for us catholics they obviously call to mind the great pope saint john paul ii who made that one of his major themes and commendations of his papacy can you talk about what these words meant for john paul and why do you think he considered them so important we know what's amazing about john paul there is you could say well yeah i mean any christian will claim a phrase like you know do not be afraid and you know is that's a nice pious thing to say but when you remember that young carl voitiwa endured first the horrific oppression of the nazis so his home town of krakow is is overwhelmed the country is held captive people being murdered right and left the auschwitz concentration camp is about a 35-minute drive from where john paul ii lived at the time then when the nazis are are finished we then have the communists come with maybe a slightly less oppressive form of dictatorship murderous regime john paul ii as a young man experienced the very worst of humanity and that's not an exaggeration the 20th century arguably the worst on record in terms of destructiveness moral collapse and john paul ii lived in poland which is right where the the pincer movement of these two deeply dysfunctional ideologies nazism from the west communism from the east met and so here's someone coming of age in that maelstrom and yet when he comes of age and he's elected pope he can say do not be afraid i mean anyone in the 20th century had a right to say be afraid it would have been carl voitiwa right like look everybody do take the route of jean-paul sartre or of albert camus or of you know the existentialists and yeah life is is absurd and it's of course we're afraid all the time that he of all people could say do not be afraid witnesses to his christian faith because finally it's only christianity which proclaims god's own journey into the heart of what frightens us the most it's only that that gives us the capacity to say do not be afraid even in the face of the worst suffering so that makes john paul a very intriguing figure in the 20th century when you read the old testament you'll see reiterate it again and again don't be afraid have no fear don't worry don't be anxious and then at the sort of the pivotal hinge between the old covenant the new covenant when the angel gabriel comes to mary he tells her do not be afraid and then we see jesus picking up that thread throughout the rest of the new testament talk about why why this is so central to salvation history why do you think god keeps having to remind his people don't be afraid don't be afraid don't be afraid well i'll go back to um to the protestant theologian paul tillich whom i studied when i was doing my doctoral work quite a bit tillich who came of age in the first world war so he was a um a chaplain during world war one he endured the worst of that horrific war so the overture of the great uh demonic opera that was much of the 20th century was the first world war right it was a weekend's work in world war one to kill 50 or 60 000 people paul tillich was there as a chaplain trying to proclaim the christian gospel in that setting he reflects on presiding over a mass burial of you know thousands of these young men who've been killed so tilik who went through all of that and then try to make sense of christianity in the wake of it but one of his one-liners and i come back to it a lot tillich said finitude in awareness is anxiety interesting line those three beats finitude in awareness is anxiety in other words to be finite and to know it is to be afraid right so tilik says for example there are four great equalities or marks of finitude time space causality and substance i'll just say something i know that sounds very abstract they're not though as a finite person i live in time you live in time we all do does that produce anxiety yes because where's time going well this is going in one direction right i'm not getting any younger as we say i'm getting older time is always moving forward toward what and he would have been following heidegger here zion zumtota as heidegger said being toward death because we exist in time we're heading toward death and there's nothing we can do to stop it right therefore to live in time is to live in anxiety secondly tilik says we live in space we're spatial beings we live in a particular place does that produce anxiety yes and now i can witness to this having moved out to california a few years ago uh what did i experience here well that terrible thomas fire as this fire was kept just was sweeping across the california hillsides until it came right to my house and twice i was chased out of my space right which was threatened by these flames just a few weeks after that a great rainstorm came and this mudslide swept 25 people in montecito 10 minutes from my house to their deaths space is always threatened it's always in danger talk to anyone who's been through an earthquake what that's like when what you take to be terra firma right the reliable earth suddenly shakes to be spatial is to be afraid thirdly tillich says to be finite is to be caused now we talk a lot brandon about the argument from contingency right that means things exist but don't have to exist therefore they've been brought into being by something extrinsic to themselves well that's a very objective abstract way to talk about it but tilik says what does it feel like to be contingent the fact that my being well it was contingent upon my parents it's contingent right now upon the room i'm in here and it's temperature it's contingent upon the food that i ate just a few hours ago if food was taken away i die it's contingent upon the drink that i can take in it's contingent upon the oxygen in the in the atmosphere the point is to live as a caused thing is to live in fear because any of those things could be taken away and indeed one day they will be taken away right when the health of my body uh deteriorates finally tilik says as a finite being i'm a substance i'm not the sheer act of being itself that's what god is i'm a substance i'm a thing i'm a particular thing which means as aristotle knew i can undergo substantial change that means i can be eliminated i can be i can be destroyed right like any substance the camera i'm speaking to you're on the screen in front of me here i knock that with a hammer i can destroy it any substance can be destroyed a planet will be destroyed someday when the sun envelops it etc time space causality substance finitude in awareness is anxiety when i become aware of my finitude i become afraid right now what's the answer existentialism which tillich knew very well said get used to it that's the way it is right what's the answer of the bible be not afraid how come because the bible orders us beyond our finitude to a reality namely god who transcends these limitations now mind you how do we name god well he's not in time he's eternal he's outside of time god's not in space god is ubiquitous we say he's omnipresent god is not contingent upon causes outside of himself and god is not a substance god is the sheer act of being itself now see what's interesting brandon what tillick has done here i think it's very clever he's taken the classical philosophical language we use about god and he's shown the spiritual power of it you say well oh yeah god's eternal okay i guess so what well the so what is because i i can't save myself i'm a temporal reality and listen i can't reach out to you because you're a temporal reality too i can't reach out to anybody in this world because they're all in time as i am what's the bible say only in god will my soul be at rest see so when i orient my life not to my own ego or anything in the world now walk through the last three i won't belabor it space nothing in space is going to solve the anxiety that comes from being spatial only when i'm ordered to god nothing in this world is going to solve my problem of being caused because they've all been caused too they're in the same boat i am only in god is my soul at rest the point is the point is if finitude in awareness is anxiety and it is the only solution to that is to order my life to that which transcends all these things namely to god and that's why brandon from the heart of the bible comes again and again don't be afraid don't be afraid don't be afraid the voice of god right carl voitiwa heard that voice as a young kid which is why he was able to endure look at the threats he faced that's why he was able to endure them so sorry for that long-winded sermon but i think that's why the category of fear and the overcoming of fear is such an important one let's talk about the relationship between fear and love you alluded to that verse earlier from first john 4 18. you'll hear it at weddings fairly often that there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear how does this work where does fear come from it comes from focusing in on my own finitude right what's love love is overcoming the incarvato sensei move and mind you tilik was deeply indebted to augustine that was his favorite theologian and the more i'm in curvatus in may i'm caved in on myself the more afraid i'm going to be love is always this um extroverted move it's the move outside and the trajectory of love is in the direction of god who is love see which is why perfect love god casts out all fear see and if that's right brandon it's interesting is fear at the root of all sin and i think you would say yes even prior to pride see because what does fear do i'm afraid and so i i cling defensively i'm afraid and so i lash out at you see we're all sinners right analyze your sin in terms of fear it can be very illuminating why am i why am i doing these things that i know are bad i know they're self-destructive i think if you are honest and you look deeply enough you're going to find at the bottom of your sin something like fear well perfect love i live my life now in god cast out that fear and so i can live i can live now in imitation of the divine love i don't have to live curvature sensei but i can live now with this openness of heart and mind and so on i think that's how it works but boy what a fundamental spiritual dynamic that is you've said often in your preaching bishop that what each of us most ultimately fears is death and i think especially in light of the covid crisis this has become more poignant and pressing for a lot of people most of us know somebody who's either contracted covet or maybe even died as a result of it whenever we think of our own deaths it's harrowing when we think of the deaths of others we're equally afraid talk about how we can overcome this fear of death well we can never really in this life utterly overcome it because think again of tillix categories time space causality substance why they're so fear inducing ultimately has to do with death doesn't it because i'm in time i'm moving toward death because i live in space i can be threatened to the point of death because i'm caused those causes can be taken away and i'll die because i'm a substance i can undergo substantial change see so all of them are related to ultimately the fear of death so as long as i'm in this finite space i can't just obliterate i can't eliminate that fear what i can do though is place it within a wider context so i'm not just stuck in this world but i'm living now in god so when paul says it's no longer i who live but christ who lives in me well the old eye right the eye is the sinful self caught in time space causality and substance and therefore clinging in fear but when i've i've displaced my heart if you want onto christ it's christ now living in me i can handle the fear it doesn't go away but i found something that's more fundamental that's more enduring think of people you know i'm voiting was a good example but you know some of these wonderful witnesses who spent decades in prison and in solitary confinement unable to accomplish any of their goals and so on unable to attain the goods they wanted but yet they they they endured how do you explain that but they were able to relocate the center so it was outside of the fearful finite self and it was on to christ they found the interior castle they found the inner wine cellar of john john of the cross they found that place where no storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock i'm clinging it's that displacement of your life onto god that's at the heart of the spiritual life it's why we pray every day isn't it brandon you know i do my holy hour in the morning um look i'm in time space causality and substance i mean i'm i'm surrounded on all sides by my finitude therefore by fear but in prayer i'm trying to find this new center you know i'm trying to find the christ who lives within me that gives me courage despite my finitude let's close with this bishop as we move into the new year there's still a lot of unknowns regarding kovid especially when it's going to ramp down how long it's going to last the effects it's having religiously with our churches economically with businesses health-wise with our friends and loved ones as a pastor as a bishop what would you like to say to the people of god many of whom are are very fearful of what this new year of 2021 will bring yeah first of all you're right we don't know what it's going to bring who who guessed 2020 you know when that year started this last year we had a bishop's retreat in early january you know and i mean i i wasn't thinking at all about this rather difficult year that was coming we had the limit a visit with the pope and we all were you know kind of a good happy mood about that no one saw 2020 coming what's 2021 i don't know i don't know i live in time and that's part of the the dilemma of it is i i can't see the future i i row into the future as in a rowboat as to say facing backward i'm not facing for i don't know where i'm going as i row the boat that's how we all have to live you know having said that what do you do you stay close to the fire you stay ordered to the basics of the spiritual life that means prayer to spend a lot of time it means the mass it means the sacraments it means being rooted in christ it means cooperating with the graces that come to you cooperating with these great theological gifts that we call faith hope and love right to live in faith means what i walk by faith not by sight it means i i don't see everything clearly but i have a confidence to live in hope i don't know how it's all going to work out but i hope because i know that god is in charge of the world most importantly love what's love that's what's what god is right so when you love and that could be the simplest thing you are participating in god in fact you have found the place that transcends uh the categories of finitude i don't know if that makes sense that's maybe the most important thing to get the simplest act of love has now transposed your life into a higher setting you have indeed stepped out of the limits of finitude that's cooperating with the most important of the theological virtues [Music] well it's time now for one of our questions from our listeners you can send in any question you have for bishop baron by visiting the website askbishopbarren.com today we got a great question from a young postulant of the ofms he's asking about how jesus's divine and human features interact together here he is hi bishop baron my name is gaspar and i'm a postulant with the ofms here in silver spring maryland my question is when jesus took on a human nature was he also subject to things like doubt or ignorance thank you and god bless yeah thanks for that question and when i was teaching theology that question would come up a lot and it's come up in the great tradition notice something pleased that when the church talks about jesus identity it hardly ever psychologizes about him it it uses metaphysical language so he's the hypostatic or personal union of two natures divine and human coming together in one rational supposit that would be like the the way the church talks about it uh one person divine which lights up or instantiates two natures divine and human okay that's metaphysical language that's the way the church tends to talk about jesus true god true man without mixing mingling or confusion but in the unity of one divine person now notice in none of that have i psychologized about the inner life of jesus like what it's like to be inside that metaphysical arrangement and i think there's something wise about that because we don't really know the other indications in the gospels jesus in his humanity uh you know showing signs of of how he's culturally determined how he's limited in this way and that how he seems to not be aware of some things so i would say whatever is congruent with the human nature and not incompatible with his divine nature we would say yeah he experiences that whatever is is um not congruent with his divinity well we shouldn't affirm that of his humanity but what it's like to experience that from the inside i don't really know and no one really knows and so in a way the church i think is saying to us don't press that question because there isn't really a good answer to it affirm the bracingly objective language of the great tradition about the divinity and humanity of jesus that come together without mixing mingling or confusion in the unity of one divine supposit stay with that that's correct and orthodox what it's like to be in that space i don't know i don't know well thanks to everybody for listening and watching this episode i'm gonna ask you to do something i haven't asked in many many months and that's to leave a review of this show if you go to your favorite podcasting service whether it's apple podcast or google play or somewhere else search the word on fire show leave a review it takes just a couple seconds but it's really beneficial to us because the more reviews the show has the more that these services recommend it to others so maybe you've been listening for years maybe just for a few months but if you like the show please do us a favor take a few seconds leave a review we'd really appreciate it well thanks so much for listening and watching we'll see you next time on the word on fire show [Music] thanks for watching if you enjoyed that video i encourage you to share it and be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 296,574

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Id: GX32w5Uxkwk

Length: 27min 48sec (1668 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021