Perfect Love casts out fear

And Who, after all, is Perfect Love? "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear."

Romantic though I am, I am no idealist when it comes to matters of fear. I know - Augustine would say 'evil has no reality' (and yes, I know what he really meant and who he was refuting), and the most eloquent of preachers would say that, with Christ's resurrection wiping out the fear of death, what is left to fear? Being pragmatic, and also one with a passion for history, I'm afraid I would have to say that even one glance at, for example, what people suffered in Auschwitz would make it plain that there is a great deal to be feared on this earth. Much is of mankind's own doing, of course, but I've been puzzling, since I first learnt of Adam in early childhood, about how God seemed to need to punish the world, then his own son... and, even when Jesus opened the gates of heaven, God did not take away the punishments of living on earth.

I am very grateful for my religious education - the lot of it. Yet I was 'raised' (not at home, where my mother would bring all concerns, with trust, to the Infant of Prague) on a bizarre combination of ideas about divine love. There was no stress on deification, the parousia, transformation. One received the impression that God, with some regret but with respect for their freedom, sent those not his friends to hell. His friends (and the friendlier one got with God, the more one was 'in for it') he sent dreadful sufferings. After all, suffering on earth would mean God's justice could be satisfied, and one would not need all the worse suffering in purgatory or hell.

(Conservative sorts who dislike my minimising the sufferings of the next life would do well to read Pope Benedict's brilliant work, Eschatology, for a superb perspective.)

In a conversation with a dear friend this week, a very simple but profound reflection he made was one which I am sure could be of value to others. The "God who inflicts suffering" (a god of rage, of punishing, of violence at being insulted) is not the real God. As for ourselves, the 'reality' includes the weakness, sinfulness, and so forth - the discouragement, ennui at prayer or work, whatever our weakness is. But God can only be reached in 'reality.' We need to bring Him ourselves, broken as we may be, and recognise the true God, Perfect Love.

My sermon on 'penance is removal of distractions' I shall save for another day, perhaps for Advent. :) I'm weary at the moment.