Friends
Peace be with you.
Are you generally an optimist or a pessimist? When you’re halfway through that cup of coffee in the morning, is it half full or half empty? Was last Friday a good day because we got some rain in the midst of our drought or a bad day because it was cloudy and rainy and cold? I try to be an optimist but I fear that I can often be more of a pessimist. I get anxiety about personal and ministerial failures and it makes me pessimistic about the future. For example, in past assignments, there has been something that happened around the third year that caused conflict that made the assignment difficult. One time it had to do with trying to get six parishes to work together that caused a lot of anxiety for me and the people in the parishes. A few times, it had to do with conflicts among the staff. In my last assignment, there was a world-wide pandemic that closed my parishes for three months while I was trying to figure out how to welcome two new parishes and an associate pastor to the assignment.
Our second reading for Mass today is one that has brought me much comfort recently and one I hope to turn to if the third year conflict comes about here. In it, St. Paul says to the Philippians and, really, to all of Christianity throughout time “Have no anxiety at all…” In many ways, this is really just another way of saying the most often used phrase in the Bible, “Do not be afraid.” Have no anxiety at all because the evil one works in our anxiety. It is the evil one who wants you to think you are all alone and that you are a failure. It is the evil one who says you are unforgivable and unlovable. It is the evil one who makes God’s mercy seem too hard or living a Christian life not worth it. He works in our anxieties to cause conflict between us and the people we most love and, ultimately, drive out hope. God drives out anxiety. How? Saint Paul says, “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” When we present our needs to God we should just let God answer them as He wants. The trouble is that we often present our needs to God and then keep asking for him to answer our prayers the way we want them to be answered. We don’t just trust that God will answer them in the way that is best for us, that God has our best interest at heart. And, I get it, it’s difficult because we tend to be focused on whatever we ask God for. If we are sick and we want to be healed, we ask God for the healing but then it’s difficult to patiently let God answer it in his time. If we’re trying to figure out how we are called to best use our gifts and talents to build up the kingdom of God, it’s hard not to ask if that’s marriage or seminary or a monastery or dedicated single life, let alone what kind of employment that means for us. Anxiety builds up when we get focused too far into the future and too much on our will being done.
I think that’s why St. Paul suggests that, instead, we should focus on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellen(t), and worthy of praise…” We should find something of God to distract ourselves from the anxiety, something true and honorable and pure and all those things and focus on that. Then we can find peace and trust in the God who can drive out that anxiety and replace it with all that is true and just and pure and gracious and excellent and worthy of praise and optimistically see the God of hope lifting us up to glory.
