QUOTATION: Fear is the Biggest Obstacle

The most daunting obstacle that stands between us and a culture of life is the fear in our hearts. This fear leads us to doubt whether we really should risk everything and sacrifice all.

--Fr. Frank Pavone, Abolishing Abortion

QUOTATION: Sin

There is only one thing to be feared and that is sin. Everything else is beside the point.

--St. John Chrysostom

QUOTATION: Overcoming Existential Fear

When a child has to walk through the woods in the dark, he feels frightened however convincingly he has been shown that there is no reason at all to be frightened. As soon as he is alone in the darkness, and thus has the experience of utter loneliness, fear arises, the fear peculiar to man, which is not fear of anything in particular but simply fear in itself. Fear of a particular thing is basically harmless; it can be removed by taking away the thing concerned. For example, if someone is afraid of a vicious dog, the matter can be swiftly settled by putting the dog on a chain. Here we come up against something much deeper, namely, the fact that where man falls into extreme loneliness he is not afraid of anything definite that could be explained away; on the contrary, he experiences the fear of loneliness, the uneasiness and vulnerability of his own nature, something that cannot be overcome by rational means. Let us take another example. If someone has to keep watch alone in a room with a dead person, he will always feel his position to be somehow or other eerie, even if  he is unwilling to admit it to himself and is capable of explaining to himself rationally the groundlessness of his fear. He knows perfectly well in his own mind that the corpse can do him no harm and that his position might be more dangerous if the person concerned were still alive. What arises here is a completely different kind of fear, not fear of anything in particular, but, in being alone with death, the eerieness of loneliness in itself, the exposed nature of existence. How then, we must ask, can such fear be overcome if proof of its groundlessness has no effect? Well, the child will lose his fear the moment there is a hand there to take him and lead him and a voice to talk to him; at the moment therefore at which he experiences the fellowship of a loving human being. Similarly, he who is alone with the corpse will feel the bout of fear recede when there is a human being with him, when he experiences the nearness of a "you". This conquest of fear reveals at the same time once again the nature of the fear; that it is the fear of loneliness, the anxiety of a being that can only live with a fellow being. The fear peculiar to man cannot be overcome by reason but only by the presence of someone who loves him.

--Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Introduction to Christianity, 1968

QUOTATION: Fear

The only ones who are afraid are those who think they are alone, who trust in themselves and have no loving charity. They are afraid of every little thing because they are alone, deprived of me. For it is I who give complete security to the soul who possesses me in love.

--God to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue

QUOTATION: Salvation

Our Lord finds it necessary to warn us not to fear because there are three false fears that keep us away from God: 1) We want to be saved, but not from our sins. 2) We want to be saved, but not at too great a cost. 3) We want to be saved in our way, not his.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul, 1949

QUOTATION: Fear of Men

If you fear men beyond measure, you will never do anything great for God.

--St. Ignatius Loyola

QUOTATION: Love of God is Salvation

He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement.

-- St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: To Avoid Relapse

A soul that always walks by the single way of the fear of punishment, and from this single motive avoids sin, is always in great danger of making a relapse before long into sin; but he that attaches himself to God by love is sure not to lose him as long as he loves him.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ

QUOTATION: Fear of Men

We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another.

--G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Contemplating Hell

Let us speak of hell.The greatest saints have been helped by this consideration, and they have found in it motives for loving Our Lord more. Love produces sanctity, but sometimes it has need of being helped by fear. There are times when it is necessary.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Fear of the Lord

Not only are we missing something when fear is absent from religion, but (far worse) we are sinning grievously. For the absence of the fear of God is arrogance and pride. How dare sinners sashay up to God as a chum without first falling down in repentance and fear and calling on the Blood of Christ to save us?

--Dr. Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Anxiety

Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ.

-- C.S. Lewis

QUOTATION: Fear and Devils

The servant of God ought to fear nothing and to give himself but little concern even as to the devils themselves; for every time they fail to terrify us they lose strength, and the soul masters them more easily. If the Lord is powerful and they are His slaves, what harm can they do to those who are servants of so great a King and Lord?

--St. Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Love of God and Salvation

He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori