Open Wide the Doors for Christ: The Supernatural Response to Fear
Crucified One by the experience of living under two of the most oppressive tyrannies in history. Blessed John Paul preached a message he lived and asked nothing of us that he did not first require of himself. His rallying call to defeat the existential despair of our era roused us all to a battle in which he placed himself at the front line.
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ne thing we owe completely to our Lord is never to be afraid of anything.” Countless friends of Christ down to our present age have echoed this daring message of Blessed Charles de Foucauld. People like Bl. Charles, St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Edith Stein and the host of others raised to the altar by Blessed John Paul are the living icons of the message he sought to convey in his pontificate. Perhaps more than any other century, ours needed his message of hope in the face of despair, of courage in the wake of previously unimaginable evil. Accordingly, Blessed John Paul traveled to nearly every continent on the globe exhorting the faithful to "be not afraid!"
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ho better to preach a message of courage than a man formed in his priesthood in the crucible of one of the darkest times in human history? Who could have been a more fitting example of hopeful defiance of fear than a man carved into the priestly image of the
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lessed John Paul’s message did not end with his exhortation against fear. “Be not afraid!” was followed by the Gospel antidote to fear, “Open wide the doors for Christ.” Humans have a primal need not to be overcome by the tyranny of fear. However, mankind can overcome his fear either by becoming a tyrant himself or, paradoxically, by entrusting himself to the One Who conquers all evil, surrendering his instinct to conquer fear by force.
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ontemporary man tends to react to the despair of his age by retreating inside himself. His futile cringing against the darkness only results in it overtaking him, enveloping him in the Hell of his own egoism. The Christian response to the shadows of doubt and dread in our world stands in bold contrast. Where the natural response is retreat, the Christian is called to go on the offensive. We are called to defy our natural reaction in the face of uncertainty and danger and assume a supernatural one. This is never possible on a purely human
level. It is only made possible by man being open to the tremendous grace continually offered by the Savior. In other words, closing one’s self off is counterproductive, and the only real solution to fear is to “open wide the doors for Christ” in a life rooted in prayer.
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lessed John Paul spent himself as priest and pope in a constant effort to radically open himself to the grace of Christ. From the moment he embraced his vocation as alteri Christi, he began to live profoundly the call to be another sacrificial victim in union with Christ. Blessed John Paul entered seminary knowing the risks involved. He began studying for the priesthood in a country where priests were being murdered every day. His profound life of prayer was the conduit for the strength he needed. Prayer threw open the doors of his soul, thus initiating a lifelong pattern of response to the seemingly impossible. This he demonstrated perhaps most dramatically at the end of his life, when, in the words of George Wiegel, he was a "soul dragging a body", he nonetheless continued to pour himself out as a libation for his flock. When his vocation seemed to ask too much, he gave all the more. Where the human response dictated fear, he called on Christ and answered with the supernatural courage that would become his hallmark.