We have some friends that will be coming into the Catholic Church this Easter. We are their sponsors and the husband is actually a cradle Catholic that did not go through confirmation. So he has some history with the Church which my husband, who is also a cradle Catholic, felt compelled to discuss with him.
He explained to his friend that in this process of coming back to the Church, his friend might feel great terror.
Unbeknownst to me, when we decided to become church goers and he decided he wanted to go back to being a practicing Catholic, my husband felt terror upon being back at Church.
I asked him if it was because he was afraid of being assimilated and losing his identity. He said,
"There was no thought in it. I felt absolute fear and wanted to get out."
This made me think. What was going on? My husband experienced pure fear that initiated the flight response. Purely a primal reaction. I assumed his anxiety had to do with worrying about losing his identity. I certainly had those thoughts. But that wasn't the case for my husband. It was just pure unadulterated fear.
It was fear of God.
As a Catholic, I understand why he experienced this. I've come to learn of the Real Presence. I've taken it as act of faith but also as an act of reason. I have many reasons to believe in the Real Presence. I can look through the Bible -especially John Chapter 6, and I can look at the writings of the Early Church Fathers. They clearly in no uncertain terms believed in the Real Presence. These same men died for the faith. They were even closer to the events of Christ's life, death and resurrection. These same men compiled the Bible and discerned which were inspired and which were not. So on one hand, I'm a Christian because of faith but I'm also a Christian because there's plenty of circumstancial and forensic evidence that Jesus walked the earth, did lots of miracles, died on the cross and rose from the dead. If I believe anything historical, I'd say the eyewitness testimony in the Bible is better than many other historical accounts of great events in human history. And I trust that the Bible is true because of the Church that it came out of was given the authority to carry on the gospel. This same entity says Christ is present in the Eucharist. And there are also Eucharist miracles to bolster their claims.
But sometimes, it can still be hard to grasp what one can't see with one's eyes. The Real Presence is one of those. When we go into a Catholic Church, the Real Presence is there. God is physically present. I've witnessed people picking up on this instinctually. I myself picked up on this during the consecration of the Eucharist at my sister-in-law's wedding. Even my non-believing mother picks up on this. She has said on several occasion when she was traveling, she'd walk into a Catholic Church as a tourist and feel moved to tears. She didn't know why exactly. She thought it had to do with her Italian heritage but even in Brazil, she felt this. It doesn't quite add up.
Being in the presence of God can bring about different reactions and they're not always positive. Sometimes they're negative. The fact that my husband felt absolute fear makes complete sense to me. It wasn't the cliche feel good warm fuzzy feeling. It was terror. Fear of God is considered a gift of the Holy Spirit. It's a gift because it can become dangerous to treat God as just a mirror of ourselves. I've been guilty of this approach to Jesus. Some people like to make out like Jesus is a close friend and treat Him rather casually.
Here Fr. Barron explains the dangers of "domesticating" Jesus in an excerpt from the first episode of Catholicism and why fear of God is a natural and healthy response. Enjoy and thanks for stopping by.
He explained to his friend that in this process of coming back to the Church, his friend might feel great terror.
Unbeknownst to me, when we decided to become church goers and he decided he wanted to go back to being a practicing Catholic, my husband felt terror upon being back at Church.
I asked him if it was because he was afraid of being assimilated and losing his identity. He said,
"There was no thought in it. I felt absolute fear and wanted to get out."
This made me think. What was going on? My husband experienced pure fear that initiated the flight response. Purely a primal reaction. I assumed his anxiety had to do with worrying about losing his identity. I certainly had those thoughts. But that wasn't the case for my husband. It was just pure unadulterated fear.
It was fear of God.
As a Catholic, I understand why he experienced this. I've come to learn of the Real Presence. I've taken it as act of faith but also as an act of reason. I have many reasons to believe in the Real Presence. I can look through the Bible -especially John Chapter 6, and I can look at the writings of the Early Church Fathers. They clearly in no uncertain terms believed in the Real Presence. These same men died for the faith. They were even closer to the events of Christ's life, death and resurrection. These same men compiled the Bible and discerned which were inspired and which were not. So on one hand, I'm a Christian because of faith but I'm also a Christian because there's plenty of circumstancial and forensic evidence that Jesus walked the earth, did lots of miracles, died on the cross and rose from the dead. If I believe anything historical, I'd say the eyewitness testimony in the Bible is better than many other historical accounts of great events in human history. And I trust that the Bible is true because of the Church that it came out of was given the authority to carry on the gospel. This same entity says Christ is present in the Eucharist. And there are also Eucharist miracles to bolster their claims.
But sometimes, it can still be hard to grasp what one can't see with one's eyes. The Real Presence is one of those. When we go into a Catholic Church, the Real Presence is there. God is physically present. I've witnessed people picking up on this instinctually. I myself picked up on this during the consecration of the Eucharist at my sister-in-law's wedding. Even my non-believing mother picks up on this. She has said on several occasion when she was traveling, she'd walk into a Catholic Church as a tourist and feel moved to tears. She didn't know why exactly. She thought it had to do with her Italian heritage but even in Brazil, she felt this. It doesn't quite add up.
Being in the presence of God can bring about different reactions and they're not always positive. Sometimes they're negative. The fact that my husband felt absolute fear makes complete sense to me. It wasn't the cliche feel good warm fuzzy feeling. It was terror. Fear of God is considered a gift of the Holy Spirit. It's a gift because it can become dangerous to treat God as just a mirror of ourselves. I've been guilty of this approach to Jesus. Some people like to make out like Jesus is a close friend and treat Him rather casually.
Here Fr. Barron explains the dangers of "domesticating" Jesus in an excerpt from the first episode of Catholicism and why fear of God is a natural and healthy response. Enjoy and thanks for stopping by.
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