Fr. Roger J. Landry
Edify Video Series
January 4, 2022
This is a transcript of the video:
I am often asked what I think is the biggest challenge — or crisis — facing the Church in the United States.
“Faith” is always an appropriate answer: since God is always faithful, what we need is to trust in him, bank on his promises, receive the help he gives, and respond with all our heart.
Over the last several years, however, when prompted about what the Church in our country needs most, I have been responding, “Courage!” While there is no doubt a widespread crisis of faith, I think a more urgent issue is that, as a group, there’s a softness and timidity before the challenges and crosses we face.
When Jews, for example, face anti-Semitism and Muslims confront Islamophobia, they respond vigorously and marshal the public to get involved. We Catholics, however, despite our greater numbers, largely let the bigots get away with it. Anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice because we tolerate it, because we don’t have the resolve to stand united against the cultural bullies.
The lack of courage also happens with too many of us with regard to sharing our faith. Before the legion of elites forcing their values revolution on everyone else, many Catholics, instead of witnessing to Jesus, witnessing to the faith, have entered a witness protection program.
This faint-heartedness also exists with regard to facing conspicuous problems inside the Church: clergy who violate their sacred promises, Catholic politicians who betray God and their faith to win elections, faithful who require fraternal correction with regard to practices that everyone knows are immoral.
At a personal level, many of us are also wimpish in the fight against sin and the effort to love and grow in holiness.
Our fears ultimately go straight back to the Fall and impact so many areas of our life.
As toddlers, many of us fear monsters and the dark, thunder and lightning, strangers, doctors, dentists, dogs.
As we grow, other fears take their place. We’re phobic about public speaking. We fear betrayal, humiliation, rejection, and irrelevance. We’re scared of getting fired, of financial collapse, poverty and misery. We fear something terrible happening to someone we love.
We fear losing control, becoming debilitated, or losing our mind. We ultimately fear suffering, death, the possibility that hell is real and that, in our weakness, we might indirectly choose it.
These fears and others devour our souls and psyches. Saint John Paul II believed that fears and phobias are among the chief problems of the modern age. That’s why he began his papacy thunderously telling us, “Be not afraid!”
These words “Be Not Afraid!” appear 104 times in the Old Testament, 44 times in the New. They’re among the Bible’s most common messages.
Jesus tells us, for example, not to be afraid of his call (Lk 5:10), of drowning at sea (Mt 8:26), of wars and insurrections (Lk 21:9), the death of loved ones (Lk 8:50), or those who can only kill the body without harming the soul (Mt 10:28).
To believe in Him, to trust in His accompaniment, he suggests, is to be filled with courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to do what we ought despite our fear — because of the strength that we receive from God.
So how do we as Catholics grow in courage? The courage we need as human beings, as disciples of Jesus, and those summoned to live, defend and spread our faith?
The first is through our prayer. The more we turn to God, the more we recognize in every circumstance that He who triumphed over both sin and death is with us, strengthening us.
The second is through Confession. When our souls are right with God, we’re able to live every aspect of human life, even death, without the anxieties that flow from sin.
The third is through cooperation with the Holy Spirit, especially the Gift of Fortitude. On Holy Thursday, the apostles left the Upper Room and cowardly betrayed the Lord. 53 days later, filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, they left that same room and boldly announced the Gospel, even when the same Sanhedrin that had Jesus crucified was trying to intimidate them. With the Spirit’s help, they recognized that if savage execution couldn’t keep Jesus in the tomb, they had nothing to fear. This Gift of Fortitude is what makes martyrs strong and what will make us strong.
The fourth is practice. When we pray for courage, God always responds by giving us His grace, but He also gives us opportunities to exercise our moral muscles, so that we might learn how to do what we ought, despite human fears. We develop virtues through virtuous acts, and God gives us plenty of opportunities to exercise courage.
Because lack of courage is one of the biggest crises facing the Church today, God, in response, will give the Church, and each of us, the help we need if we ask for it. Let’s seize it. And by the way we witness to God in the midst of a world eaten alive by anxiety, let us encourage others to come to that same source of courage.
Be not afraid! God is with us always.
I’m Father Roger Landry for EDIFY.