Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Anchoress

Home
Catholic
"Fear is useless, what is needed is trust."

"Fear is useless, what is needed is trust."

Last updated on: March 10, 2017 at 6:51 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

"Fear is useless, what is needed is trust." 2017-03-10T18:51:11+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Pondering the possibility of America being “remade” under the auspices of a Health Care Non-Vote–Deeming, I found myself thinking of St. Patrick, and the conflict between the English and the Irish; the Irish famine and the longview of God, which we cannot see or understand.

Source

Many in America –a distinct majority, if polls are to be believed– are against the Health Care reforms we call “Obamacare” and they’re angry about the manner in which the Democrat-run Congress is trying to force them into law.

There is talk -and for some it is more than mere talk– of a revolutionary response, to the bill’s passing in its current state and by currently argued (or ignored) measures.

All of this is being perceived by many -on the left and the right, but most particularly on the right- as profoundly negative and worrying. “This cannot be allowed to happen” is what I see in my emails. “Americans will not stand for it,” is what I hear on my radio.

And yet, there is a very good chance that an arrogantly forced-through action making Obamacare the law of the land will happen. Because Americans are basically law-abiding, and because many of them are deplorably uninformed as to history or civics, the Democrats are counting on the American people to (after some initial hesitation and predictable noise) settle down and fall in line with an abundance of new laws. There is every reason to believe that largely-unaware and short-term memory challenged Americans (quickly, ask around you, who remembers the death of the Space Shuttle Columbia?) can be induced to plug in their iPods, download a few amusing apps to their iPhones, and more or less tune out a coup that is being dressed in the dreary robes of policywonk speak.

So for those Americans who are still wide-awake, whose consciences have not yet switched off and retired them into a monosyllabic haze, this is a very anxious, fretful time. People are distressed about the present, concerned about the future and wishful for a way to “go back” rather than forward.

Going back, however, is not an option and it will never happen; the thrust of narrative is always forward.

Then how do we deal with this present moment? How do we rein in our imaginations about the best and worst possibilities in our future, when all around us seems to be only but chaos, confusion and looming catastrophe.

This is where St. Patrick comes in.

The mind of God is unknowable; he works with a slow, centuries-spanning hand. But when we look back at history and events we can always see -if we really look- how sometimes terrible things had to happen, in order for that narrative thrust to be properly propelled.

St. Patrick was Romano-Britain -a Roman citizen of Britain- who was captured by Irish raiders and sold into slavery. After escaping and entering the church, he returned to Ireland as a bishop, and is universally credited with converting Eire to Christianity.

His slavery was a terrible thing that was allowed to happen; it drove him back to Ireland for a larger purpose. Read Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization to understand how the inarguable negative of Patrick’s capture and enslavement became the impetus for an absolute good.

Patrick’s Catholic Ireland eventually suffered much, of course, at the hands of Protestant Britain; the penal codes the British used to subjugate and disempower the Irish Catholic majority was a horrendous bit of legislation, brutally enforced. It kept the Irish ignorant, unschooled, unpropertied, and dependent upon the potato as its basic food supply. When the potato crop suffered a blight, over a million people died of starvation; several million more immigrated, mostly to North America. Their broad backs and their adrenaline-junkie temperaments helped build and safeguard our cities, and today nearly 40 millions Americans can trace some part of their heritage to Ireland. The Irish then, share abundantly, in the story of America’s success and prosperity.

So, the British oppression of Ireland was a bad thing that was allowed to happen; another inarguable negative that laid the framework for an eventual “good”.

I’ve written many times before that sometimes a bad thing must happen, before eventual good things can take place. You have to look for it.

Unfortunately, the “positives” often do not show themselves for lifetimes and generations. Patrick’s mother could not imagine that her son’s enslavement would eventually result in the rescue of the history, art, philosophy and literature of an entire civilization, that his converting the Irish would strengthen them to endure catastrophe, and then launch themselves into the world as the burly shoulders of civil, military and community leadership. The “Apostle of Ireland” could could not have imagined it, himself.

For that matter, the apostles who laid low in an upper room after the crucifixion of their master could not have imagined that 2000 years later, Christianity would be the world-force it is, for better and for worse, and still evolving, still learning, still building within the mystery.

God’s hand moves slowly; his mind is unknowable, but we have been told there is a plan. “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord; plans of fullness, not of harm, to give you a future and a hope.”

Throughout scripture we read “do not be afraid.” We read “only believe.” We read that “faith the size of a mustard seed” is enough to move mountains.

We read “fear is useless; what is needed is trust.”

That does not mean that when we see injustice we do nothing. It does not mean that if we see our government tumbling, we sit back and let it tumble.

But it does mean that we look at what happens around us with a Godly eye -with a genuine and faith-filled trust toward that longview that we cannot see, but which is full of God’s creative intention.

God is all-good. His intention can be nothing else but good.

While we’re fretting, while we’re activating, while we’re gathering, we should also consider that every “good” has its opposite, and so does every “bad.” American notions of liberty has been “the last best hope” for much of the world, but it has also made us self-indulgent, sometimes to excess. American prosperity has bettered the lives of hundreds of millions; it has also fed the human instinct to greed. In the eyes of God, well, all have sinned; none are perfect save Christ, and who knows what His justice is, compared to our understanding?

All of that is worth pondering, and praying about, as we watch what is taking place in our country today. Since we are in the middle of a picture, we cannot see the totality of it; we have a notion of how the picture began and how it might end, but we do not really know; our most outlandish imaginings cannot tell us.

But we do have a clue. Patrick’s enslavement took place in the 4th century; that not-especially unique event in the life of one man has had effect into the 21st. Everything that happens, for good or for evil, reverberates through the centuries, all of it the means of serving not our own finite ends, but God’s eternal ends.

In which case, I am sorry to seem simplistic, but “do not be afraid.” And, “fear is useless; what is needed is trust.”

I think I’ll file this under “Crucible of Faith.”

Previous Post

March 17, 2010

St Patrick's Breastplate & Lent

Next Post

March 17, 2010 AP rehashes old news to help Obamacare -UPDATE

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Rabboni" mean, as Mary Magdalene called Jesus after the resurrection?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Messenger Teacher Savior Shepherd