Chapter 8. The Gift of Holy Fear

The seven gifts have an order among themselves. They form a hierarchy of which wisdom is the highest, and the lowest, because the first, is holy fear. But that which is lowest comes first in the order of our sanctification. Initium sapientice timor Domini. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of our conversion, while wisdom is its maturity. It is the first step in the ladder which reaches to heaven.

We will begin, then, with holy fear. Now of fear there are four kinds.

(1) The first is the fear of man and of the world.1 This fear worketh death. It is the fear of those who are 'pleasers of men;' they fear their blame or their ridicule or their power; they are afraid of losing their favour, their praise, or their good will. That is, they are pleasers of men rather than of God. S. Paul says, ' If I yet please men I should not be a servant of Christ.'2

(2) The second kind of fear is the servile fear of death, judgment, and hell. By this fear some are restrained from many sins. They neither hate sin nor love God; and they would commit any sin if fear of hell did not keep them in bondage.

(3) The third kind is the imperfect or initial fear, which is from a mixed motive, partly from fear of pain, partly from the

1 S. Thomae, Sum. Theol. 2. 2, q. 19, &c. » Gal. i. 10.

love of God. It is a fear springing from faith, and therefore is a grace from the Holy Ghost; but it has in it a mixture of the servile fear of sinners with the fear of the children of God. It is of this fear that S. John says, ' Perfect charity casteth out fear.'3

(4) The fourth kind is the filial fear which springs chiefly from the love of God.4 It is purified by love, which casts out the servile fear. This fear in its divine perfection was in the deified Soul of our Saviour. It consists in a consciousness of the sanctity, the majesty, and the power of God, and in a reverence, dependence, and submission of will. Such it was in the life and death of the Son of God. It per vaded His life of obedience; it was made perfect in His agony in the Garden, and in His Passion upon the Cross. This fear is the gift of the Holy Ghost. But in us there will always be a fear of falling into rfin, and

3 1 S. John iv. 18.

4 S. Thorn®, Sum. Tlieol. 2. 2, q. 19, 8.

of losing God in eternity, which to the Son of God was impossible. Filial fear there fore springs from the grace of charity, for what we love we fear to lose. The effects or operations of the gift of holy fear are chiefly these:

1. First, a consciousness of our own sinfulness and danger of falling from God. (1) The Second Council of Orange5 said that we have nothing of our own except peccatum et mendacium, sin and falsehood. It teaches that this is all we have of our own; that we have our nature and every thing that is good in it from God, but that our weak and perverse will has made it sinful and false. That is our work. The inner life of man, excepting penitents and Saints, is a world of disorder, wildness, and confusion. The ceaseless multiplication of actions, words, thoughts, de sires, deliberate and indeliberate; the incessant activity of what S. James calls

• Conoil. Araus. II. can. 22, A.D. 529. 'Nemo habet de suo, nisi mendacium et peccatum.' rotam nativitatis nostrce,6 'the wheel of nature;' the perpetual motion of our in ward life, which never rests while we are awake, and, so far as we know, never ceases even while we sleep; — all this is a motive of fear to any one who has the light of the Holy Ghost in his conscience. It was this that made S. Philip continually say, ' Lord, keep Thy hand upon my head; for if Thou shouldst let me go, I should break out and do Thee all manner of evil.' (2) And this fills us with a fear of our unprofitableness. If when men have done all they are still seroi inutiles, unprofitable servants,7 what are we, who have done so little and neglected so much 1 What waste of time and grace and visitations and warn ings and calls and inspirations and im pulses; what squandering even of our natural powers of intellect and will and energy there is in every one; what capa cities stifled, what powers lost, and what moral force wasted. If the barren fig-tree • S. James iii. 6. T S. Luke xvii. 10.

with all its leaves was fruitless, what are we? (3) But no one can be conscious of the weakness, wilfulness, waywardness, of all creatures in the sight of their Creator with out a sense of fear. We exist by a volition of God. We depend upon the continuity of that will as a ray of light depends on the sun; we live and move and are in Him by a constant support and concourse of His almighty power with the life He has given us; and yet we dare to sin against Him, to sin in Him, to forget Him, to live as if our being were our own, and as if we had native rights before Him, and even against Him. He is ' I am Who am,' and we are who are not; and yet we are proud, full of self-sufficiencies, self-consciousness, and unconsciousness that be fore Him we are sin and nothing.

2. And next, this consciousness awakens a great fear of sin, as it is both within us and around us. We are conscious that we are daily and often swerving from God, and moving in a deviation from our o eternal end; that we are a deformity in the presence of Him to whose image we were created; and that sin is a leprosy which corrupts the soul, and a palsy which loosens and frustrates its powers, so that we do not the good that we would. We know that unless we keep a strong hand on ourselves we decline from God; that we are like a jarred machine which cannot do its work. We never pass a day without fear lest a cloud should rise up between us and God, and often the darkness settles upon us. All this we know to be passing within us; and round about us are the world and its allurements, Satan and his angels, and the fiery darts of the evil one, which fall thick and suddenly upon us. None have more cause to fear than those who are fearless in such a world and in such a war fare, for none are more in danger than those who think they are safe. * He that thinketh himself to stand let him take heed lest he fall.'8

• 1 Cor. x. 12.

3. Lastly, the gifts of holy fear work in us a watch and a control over ourselves. (1) First, in the use of the world — for use it we may, and till we go out of it use it we must. But we must 'use it as not abusing it,'9 keeping ourselves ' unspotted from this world.'10 We must use the world, its possessions, its employments, its powers, for the manifold duties we owe to ourselves, to God, and to others. And in so using it we need not love it, nor be entangled by it. "We may be dead to it, and crucified to it, and it may be crucified to us,11 so that neither its mire shall be upon our feet nor the smell of its fires upon our raiment. But for this there must be a watchful guard over the heart, and a firm control over the will. (2) This gift or fear will not only keep us from unlawful things, it will also keep us safe in all our contacts with lawful things. The two rules S. Paul has given will guide us in this most inti-

• 1 Cor. vii. 31. " Gal. ii. 20.

»• S. Jarnes i. 27.

mate and highest part of our spiritual life. He says, * All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient;12 that is, they will not help my salvation; they will not further my sanctification; they will not be good or safe for those about me who look to me for guidance in difficulty, and for strength in their temptations. Again he says, ' All things are lawful to me, but all things edify not.'13 I might do this or enjoy that, but would it make me wiser, better, stronger, nearer to God, and farther from my many imperfections? I will freely forego them, lest, lawful as they are, they may be a hindrance to me. And further, even though safe for me, they may not be safe for others. And my example in using my liberty, which is safe to me, may lead others to use their liberty, which they can not do without risk at least. (3) This fear also closes the windows and the inlets by-which the world and sin gain entrance to the heart. Mora intrat per fenestras.1* - 1 Cor. vi. 12. u Ibid. 23. » Jer. ix. 21.

1. There is a grace of fear as well as a gift. Every supernatural motive arising 15 Rom. vii. 17.¹

from the light of faith, and every fear aris ing from the grace of hope, hasan operation of the Holy Ghost working with it and by it. This it is that shows us the fearfulness and deadliness of the mere worldly fear, because it works not conversion to God, but aversion from Him. Most men have, at some time, been assailed by this fear, and by the grace of fear they have overcome it. Next they enter into a servile fear of death, and eternity after death, which begins to restrain and to purify their life, but for a selfish end. Then they pass onward to the initial fear of sons. The servile spirit is growing less, the filial spirit growing more; but it is not yet the gift of holy fear. Nevertheless, if they are prompt in accusing themselves of sins — mortal, if they should ever be; venial, as they certainly will often be — if they come before their Divine Master in the Sacrament of Penance with their soiled face and stained hands and spotted hearts, accusing themselves honestly and humbly, confessing also with shame their sins of omission, their want of zeal and gratitude and love, and laying open the deep of temper and pride and wilfulness that is in them, — if they will do this often in confession, daily in self-examination, then, little by little, this fear will be elevated and purified; it will become less terrible but more constraining; for as they love more they will have less cause to fear.

2. This, then, is the gift of fear, which is made perfect in eternity; for though the fear of sinning and of falling will be over, the consciousness of our own nothingness before God will be eternal; and the worship of reverence, and dependence, and submission will ascend for ever before the Throne where they cast their crowns, saying, « Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty j just and true are Thy ways, 0 King of ages. Who shall not fear Thee, 0 Lord, and magnify Thy Name T For Thou only art holy.'16 This will be 16 Apoc. xv. 3, 4.

the fear of filial love when all wills are one eternally with the supreme will in all its judgments. They will bless God for ever, because He has redeemed them from sin and death; and they will know the depth of the mystery of heaven, and therefore of hell; of the Beatific Vision, and therefore of the loss of God for ever.

Restrain me, 0 Lord, by Thy holy fear, in all my actions, words, and thoughts,. Penetrate my soul with the sense of Thy sanctity, and of the sinfulness of sin, that I may never offend against Thee even by a deliberate thought. Shelter me from all approaches of evil, that I may guard my senses and keep my heart with all diligence. 0 God my Sanctifier, dwell in me, and cast out of me whatsoever is contrary to Thy holiness and truth, for the merits of Jesus my Lord.

Jesus, have mercy on me.

Holy Mary, pray for me.

Footnotes

1. Death is come up through our windows.' The eyes and the ears of the unwary stand open, as in a deserted house, inviting the wandering spirits of evil to enter in and dwell there. This outward guard strength ens the internal control over the perpetual acts of thought, imagination, desire, passion, will. It represses all deliberate welcome and morose dwelling on forbidden things, much more all consent and intention. It checks the first rising of intellectual and moral faults. It resists the first involuntary activities and associations of the mind and the adhesions of the will which make temptations into faults, and the suggestions of the evil one to be our own. S. Paul has taught us with the boldness of faith, which goes always with holy fear, that when we are thus assailed we may say, ' It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.'15 ↩