Be not Afraid

Be not afraid. Nolite timere. Christianity is fairly the religion of fearlessness, the religion of hope. (Don't take that to any heretical simplicity.) The injunction peppers the Gospels, and its theme is sung throughout the Psalms. "...Since He is at my right hand, I shall stand firm. And so, my heart rejoices; my soul is glad; even my body shall rest in safety, for He will not leave my soul among the dead, nor let His beloved to know decay." This, of course, is prefiguring the suffering servant Jesus Christ, but I think that one of the benefits of reciting the Psalms is that they resound in the soul of the Christian, which then may be led in the same direction as the psalmists. Reading the Psalms is like reading the diary of someone you love very much.

An hour ago, I was sitting on the floor (in a leotard and gauzy skirt, no less), with ten girls and one overbearing teacher confusedly cross-examining me, attempting to find something of which I was despairingly fearful. But I am not afraid- not in the way they mean, the wailing and screaming sort of terror. I get worried (often- as you probably know); I get very sad; I am relieved to say that I have no dearth of the more positive and joyful emotions at times- and I am, more often than not, something of an emotional wreck. But I have no hopeless fear. This examination culminated in a discussion of how I was going to be a horrible, insensitive, and unfeeling doctor someday, because I must be [stoically] passionless. If my respect for the group still extended beyond what is due to any men, I might be more bothered.

Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria, Alleluia, quia surrexit Dominus vere, Alleluia.