The Catholic Standard and Times

Pray away your fear

By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent

It’s your worst nightmare: the phone call in the middle of the night announcing that a beloved family member has suffered a catastrophic accident.

You’re stunned, almost in a state of shock, as you get dressed and rush out the front door. Nothing cogent registers in your mind — like what important papers you might want to bring, or money, or identification. You’re too numb to think, to feel. You try to pray the Our Father and can’t remember the words.

“God help me,” is all you can say.

Fear is the most paralyzing of all human emotions, particularly in the case of natural disasters — a violent storm, a plane crash, a sudden injury.

It is in those moments that we want to cry the loudest to God but are so confused and disoriented we can’t string together a simple Hail Mary.

Spiritual masters such as Father J. P. de Caussade, S.J., give comforting advice for times like those: When fear is so overwhelming we are incapable of a single act of prayer, “be content with the earnest wish to perform it for, in good as in evil, the desire with God is equivalent to the deed.”

Father de Caussade quotes the great French prelate and orator, Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, who said, “In God’s sight, desire is what the voice and spoken word is in man.”

These desires of our heart “speak to and solicit Him far more eloquently than any words or even any interior act,” Father de Caussade writes. “A cry retained in the depths of the soul is worth as much as a cry raised to heaven.”

After the initial shock wears off, and we regain our senses, then is the time for vigilance.

Satan wages his most fearsome attacks against us when we are in our weakest moments. He will do everything in his power to blow our fear out of proportion, and use it to torment us and keep us in a state of constant agitation, which can wear us down physically and spiritually, says Father de Caussade: “You must make every effort to live in a state of peace,” even while expecting Satan to “make every effort to prevent you from attaining that wished for peace.”

That is because the devil knows that interior agitation deprives the soul of its ability to listen and obey the voice of the divine Spirit.

“A sick and agitated mind is in the same case as a fever-weakened body that can perform no serious work until healed of the complaint,” Father de Caussade writes.

Serious situations, such as the total devastation caused by the recent hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, require us to keep our wits about us.

That is the time when we want to stay close to the Lord, and rely on His help to keep our spirits calm and capable of enduring whatever hardships are required before our situation returns to normal.

Satan, on the other hand, will try to inspire fearful thoughts about the future — ideas and imaginings that cause us trouble, disquietude and even discouragement.

If that is the kind of fear that is filling our heads in the days after a tumultuous event in our lives, we need to take charge right away.

First, Father de Caussade recommends that we allow those kinds of thoughts to pass, by “despising them and letting them fall like a stone into the sea.”

He tells us: “You must resist them by concentrating your attention upon contrary reflections.”

If a mother is separated from her child as a result of the hurricane evacuation, she may be plagued with thoughts of never seeing her child again. But she can counter those fears by focusing on the many relief organizations that are working around the clock to reunite parents and children.

Without becoming impatient with ourselves, Father de Caussade recommends that we turn to God with an immediate interior act of trust and love: “Jesus, I trust in you.”

Another step we can take is to be careful not to cling to our fears: “Take care never to harbor voluntarily in your heart any thought calculated to grieve, disquiet or dishearten it. From one point of view, such thoughts are more dangerous than impure temptations.”

Father de Caussade reprimanded one religioius sister in a letter he wrote to her about clinging to her fears, which was causing her spiritual setbacks.

“You concentrate upon them too much, instead of ignoring them and casting yourself upon God in utter self-abandonment … ,” he said. “You constantly stop to examine your doubts and fears, instead of disregarding them in order to cast yourself blindly into God’s hands.”

Drop those thoughts like a stone, without looking back at them, and immediately replace them with prayer.

Father Paul O’Sullivan, O.P. in his book, “The Wonders of the Holy Name,” tells us that even in our worst moments, simply praying the name “Jesus” can be a powerful antidote to fear.

“The Holy Name of Jesus gradually fills our souls with a peace and a joy we never had before,” he writes. “The name of Jesus gives us such strength that our sufferings became light and easy to bear.”

We’re also advised to remind ourselves at such times that nothing happens without God’s permission, and that God only acts for our good. No matter how bad or devastating the news might be, if we accept it for what it is — God’s will — it will eventually be turned to our benefit.

“Happy the man who can draw profit from it for the next life,” Father de Caussade writes. “God-wrought calamities, if rightly viewed, are worth more than all worldly prosperity. For they are over in a moment [and] their fruits are eternal.”

He quotes the Fathers of the Church when he reminds us: “Such is the goodness of the sovereign Father of men that even His wrath springs from His mercy, since He afflicts us only to rescue us from sin and to save our souls. …’ Let it be our custom to see everything from the great standpoint of faith.”

Dom Lorenzo Scupoli echoes that sentiment in his classic work, “The Spiritual Combat,” imploring Christians to pray through their fear in times of trouble, the way Jesus did in the Garden.

“If at time you are in such confusion of mind that you seem totally incapable of calming yourself, have immediate recourse to prayer. And persevere in it in imitation of Christ, Our Lord, who prayed three times in the Garden to show mankind that only in conversation with God can afflicted souls find haven and refuge, Scupoli writes.

“Let us pray without ceasing that repose may replace the chaos in our hearts,” he says, “and that a humble submissiveness to God’s will may bring our soul to its former tranquility.”
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Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615