Fear of the Lord
Fearing Goodness, Mercy, and Truth
This essay was originally published in Volume 2 of the Clifton Evangelist, a newsletter for Clifton Diocese. I worked for the diocese at the time, and was also the editor of the newsletter. I have revised and added to it here.
Then Job answered the Lord: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:1-6)
Lent is a gift. It took a long time for me to fumble towards that idea, and I acknowledge I still do not fully understand it. As a child, Lent was the time I gave up chocolates; as a teen, I told myself it was more Christian to positively do something than to negatively give something up and then did not do anything. In my later teens and early twenties, I grumbled about abstaining from meat on Fridays. I forgave myself for neglecting to avoid the near occasion of meat. In my late twenties I once gave up coffee and have regretted it ever since.
As a university student with a love of philosophy, I came to learn that fasts are not for their own sake, nor for the sake of suffering. We fast so that we may feast properly. We give things up so that we may break bad habits, the separation helping us become detached from material things. It allows us to use things rightly. So one Lent I gave up watching Youtube, and after Easter I wasted far less time on it than I had prior to Ash Wednesday. My coffee consumption, however, returned to my normal excessive level once that Lent ended. I probably should have given it up this year, but I opted to give up bread instead.
All of that is true, and good, and beautiful, but would fit just as easily into a Stoic’s world view, or a fitness enthusiast’s, or a variety of other religions, philosophies, and self help guides. Giving minor things up, intending to do nice things for people, deprioritizing insignificant things are not exclusive to Christianity. The Church affirms these natural goods, but Lent is ordered primarily towards God. A right relationship with all natural goods flows from a right relationship with God, but it does not work the other way.
God gives Himself to us, freely and superabundantly, out of His Infinite Love. For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). Jesus gives Himself on the Cross, and gives Himself to us in the Eucharist, and gives us the Holy Spirit (John 16:7). God wants to give us this intimacy with him. Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 16:23). God wants to give Himself to us.
God is Love, and God gives the gift of Himself freely. He desires that we accept it freely because there can be no personal relationship otherwise. But we cannot receive a gift if our hands are closed around something else. We cannot receive God if our hearts have been given to another. The Lord cannot come and make His dwelling place in us if we are filled already with honor or wealth, power or pleasure, or whatever idols we have installed in our heart.
The core question, though, is, “Do I want God to take up His place in my heart?”
God is greater, more loving, more beautiful, truer, than I could ever comprehend. It is easy to say, “Lord, make your dwelling in me!” But that is “utter[ing] what I do not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” (Job 42:3) If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit did come and make their dwelling in me as fully as God desires, it would be more joyful, more peaceful, and more terrifying than what I think that would mean.
This is why I like St Anselm’s definition of God so much. God is that which nothing greater can be thought. Whatever one thinks of St Anselm’s ontological proof, that definition denies the temptation to think we have God “figured out.” God is always more; and then more than that; and then more than that, and so on forever.
It is in this context that I think of a gift of the Holy Spirit: Fear of the Lord. I do not fear the Lord because I think He is a tyrant who is capricious, distant, and cruel. I fear the Lord because he is superabundantly good, superabundantly merciful, superabundantly true.
I, a sinner, fear His Goodness, His Mercy, and His Truth.
It may seem strange to think that way. Why would anyone ever fear Goodness, Mercy, or Truth?
The answer comes back to St Anselm’s definition. My understanding of goodness, mercy, and truth is limited and always infinitely less than God. When I fail to acknowledge that, when I think I have Goodness or Truth figured out, then I have, perhaps unwittingly, created a box to contain God. It is a perfectly natural limitation. Goodness and Truth are the limits of our intellect. Why would we reach beyond them? To what would we be groping?
The Holy Spirit gives us Fear of the Lord to push our intellect past that limit. That horizon is our limitation, and SomeOne (SomeThree?) is beyond it. It may be helpful to flip that. Someone (SomeThree?) is pushing through that limit from the other side, beyond our limit of understanding, entering our lives, asking things of us, wanting to be in relationship with us.
For now we see through a glass, darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12, KJV) We chafe at this, wondering why God does not show Himself more clearly. But if I saw the fullness of God’s Goodness, could I bear it? If I saw the fullness of God’s Mercy, could I stand? If I saw the fullness of God’s Truth, could I resist the urge to flee? I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore, I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:6) So declares Job, a righteous man who knew no iniquity! What hope have I to stand proud before the Lord, unless my stiff neck prevented me from bowing? (Exodus 32:9)
Lent is a season which exhorts us to live that Gift of the Holy Spirit, the Fear of the Lord. It calls us to the intimacy God desires and has planned for us, but gently and over time. The pillars of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving enable us to start shedding the limitations we place on God. Go to the Sacrament of Confession and allow the Lord to clear out the space that was always meant for Him. Go to Mass, offer true worship to God, and receive the Real Presence of Christ.
God will expand our hearts so that one day, when we see God face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12), we will not just humble ourselves like Job, but also cry out with St Thomas, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28)