With fear and trembling

Believers are sometimes accused of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. There is very little that is rosy about today’s readings.

St. Paul talks about our needing to have “fear and trembling.” Our Lord seems to encourage us to hate our families - and even to hate ourselves – and to renounce all our possessions.

The key to understanding all these things is acknowledging our absolute dependence upon God.

We work out our salvation in fear and trembling because we are not in control of it, we are helpless in the hands of God, totally dependent upon him.

Nothing that we have can save us – not our possessions, not our relationships, and certainly not our abilities. Only God can save us and so we must always be ready, when God may ask us (this should never be of our own volition alone), to be cut off from everything – repeat, everything – in our lives: from everything we have, from everyone who loves us, and from everything within us - even our hopes, our dreams, or our self-assurance.

God alone is our refuge and our strength.