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Love Casts Out Fear It is not just Vietnam, it is South Africa, it is Nigeria, the Congo, Indonesia, all of Latin America. It is not just the pictures of all the women and children who have been burnt alive in Vietnam, or the men who have been tortured and died. It is not just the headless victims of the war in Colombia. It is not just the words of Cardinal Spellman and Archbishop Hannan. It is the fact that whether we like it or not, we are Americans. It is indeed our country, right or wrong, as the Cardinal said in another context. We are warm and fed and secure (aside from occasional muggings and murders amongst us). We are the nation most powerful, the most armed and we are supplying arms and money to the rest of the world where we are not fighting. We are eating while there is famine in the world. Scripture tells us that the picture of judgment presented to us by Jesus is of Dives sitting and feasting while Lazarus sat hungry at the gate, the dogs, the scavengers of the east, licking his sores. We are Dives. Woe to the rich! We are the rich. The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of war, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, nursing the sick, visiting the prisoner. . . . But we are destroying crops, setting fire to entire villages and to the people in them. We are not performing the works of mercy but the works of war. We cannot repeat this often enough. When the apostles wanted to call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritans, the enemies of the Jews, Jesus said to them, “You know not of what Spirit you are.” When Peter told our Lord not to accept the way of the Cross and His own death, He said, “Get behind me, Satan. For you are not on the side of God but of humans.” Deliver us, O Lord, from the fear of our enemies, which makes cowards of us all Maybe they are terrified, these princes of the church, as we are often terrified at the sight of violence, which is present every now and then in our houses of hospitality, and which is always a threat in the streets of the slums. I have often thought it is a brave thing to do, these Christmas visits of Cardinal Spellman to the American troops all over the world, Europe, Korea, Vietnam. But oh, God, what are all the Americans, so called Christians doing all over the world so far from our own shores? But what words are those he spoke. . . . Calling for victory, total victory? Words are strong and powerful as bombs, as napalm. How much our government counts on these words, pays for these words to exalt our own way of life, to build up fear of the enemy. That is one of the lines in the Psalms, and we are not asking God to deliver us from enemies but from fear of them. Love casts out fear, but we have to get over the fear in order to get close enough to love them. There is plenty to do, for each one of us, working on our own hearts, changing our own attitudes, in our own neighborhoods. If the just one falls seven times daily, we each one of us fall more than that in thought, word, and deed. Prayer and fasting, taking up our own cross daily and following God, doing penance, these are the hard words of the Gospel. As to the Church, where else shall we go, except to the bride of Christ, one flesh with Christ? Though a harlot at times, the Church is our Mother. We should read the book of Hosea, which is a picture of God’s steadfast love not only for the Jews, the chosen people, but for the Church, of which we are every one of us members or potential members. Since there is no time with God, we are all one, all one body, Chinese, Russians, Vietnamese, and God has commanded us to love one another. “A new commandment I give, that you love “Love is indeed a harsh and dreadful thing” Dorothy Day |