Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Christ the Redeemer - Fear of the Lord

Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Gift of Fear of the Lord

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The Gift of Fear of the Lord is the gift of the Holy Spirit that moves our hearts to awe and wonder at God’s awesomeness, and to fear of losing our relationship with our Heavenly Father

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit empower us to deepen our intimacy with God and to participate in His Divine Life. Three of the Gifts enhance our will – our ability to choose what is good even when the choice gets difficult: Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord. These gifts strengthen our ability to choose the ultimate good with the strength of the Holy Spirit.

Fear of God

Roman Catholics count this fear as one of the Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit . In Proverbs | 1:7 and Proverbs | 9:10, the fear of the Lord

Gifts of the Holy Spirit – the Gift of Fear of the Lord

The Gift of Fear of the Lord is the gift of the Holy Spirit that moves our hearts to awe and wonder at God’s awesomeness, and to fear losing our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Many people back away from this Gift because they misunderstand the word “fear.” They ask, “why would God want us to fear Him?”

Saint Thomas Aquinas talks about this confusion – so it’s not just a problem for us “modern” Catholics. He talks about three different kinds of fear:

    • Worldly Fear is simple emotional fear – the fear of having some good thing taken away from us. On one level, worldly fear is healthy and good. God gave us fear to warn us against things that can keep us from the good that He intends for us. Part of worldly fear is born out of a desire for self-preservation. A more mature servile fear is born out of a realization that goodness comes from God and that evil in the world can try to take that form us. But worldly fear can be warped by sin and become selfish. People who become obsessed with created goods – the greedy, the lustful, the prideful – often live in fear due to their selfishness. This kind of fear can be enslaving.
    • Servile Fear is the fear that a servant has toward his master. This is the kind of fear most people imagine when we say “fear of the Lord.” It’s mainly the fear of being punished. This is not the kind of fear that God ultimately wants for us. However, it can play a role in our salvation. Fear of the punishment of Hell is called imperfect contrition, but it is contrition. In other words, fear of Hell can make us sorry for our sins and draw us closer to God. The Gift of Fear is, at least initially, a reverent fear of the divine justice. It’s very often a necessary beginning – the “beginning of wisdom.” But it’s not where God wants to leave us.
    • Filial Fear is the fear that we have of losing the most important good – our relationships. This is primarily the kind of fear that the Holy Spirit moves within us through the Gift of Fear of the Lord. My favorite analogies for filial fear are. The fear a bride and groom often have at the time of their wedding when they look at the one they love and think to themselves, “I hope I don’t screw this up.” The fear that a new parent has while holding his first baby in his arms and thinks to himself, “I hope I can do this.”

    Fear of the Lord as filial fear is the realization of how precious our relationship with God is and the fear of losing it.

    Living Faith in Your Mission (Participating in the Divine Life of Jesus)

    A living faith is an adventure. At least it should be if we’re truly engaged. Think about the lives of the biblical disciples of Jesus – the 12 apostles and the numbers of other people who followed Him. These people didn’t sit around talking about how great Jesus is. They …

    What does this mean in practical terms?

    • The Gift of Fear of the Lord calls us to be sorry for our sins – not just because we deserve punishment for them but because they represent a failure to love God. Sin means we have messed up the relationship and are in danger of losing it because sin means rejecting God’s love.
    • Fear of the Lord moves us to contemplate how precious God’s love is for us. This leads naturally to deeper and more meaningful prayer.
    • Fear of the Lord inspires us to true humility. We realize that we really don’t deserve the relationship that God offers us – a relationship of adoption and of friendship. We recognize our debt to Jesus for making it possible for us to have any relationship with God at all – even one of a servant – and how much more he has given to us by making us sons and daughters of God.
    • Fear of the Lord inspires us to hunger for souls the same way Jesus does. We see how many people aren’t aware of the preciousness of our relationship with God. That makes us sad, and it motivates us to help them see the great gift. We are motivated to evangelize.

    The Gift of Fear of the Lord is active in all of us, but it is especially strong in some Christians. Dominican saint St. Vincent Ferrer was a great proponent of Fear of the Lord. There are two common human responses to great catastrophes. After the “911” attacks on the World Trade Center and the pentagon, many Americans responded by drawing closer together, helping each other, and turning to God. After World War II, the response in America and much of Europe was quite the opposite. Many took an “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” approach to life. They rejected God and morality. This was the beginning of the “modernist” movement that would eventually go on to become our current culture of moral relativism, secularism and vial atheism. St. Vincent Ferrer preached in this second atmosphere after the Bubonic Plague. Morality turned lax as people lost hope and took the “tomorrow we die” attitude. St. Vincent preached about the Fear of the Lord. People needed to hear about divine justice. Their hearts were not open to filial love. So St. Vincent took a hard line against moral laxity – not out of a sense of legalism but out of a true concern for the souls of people who disregarded God. His preaching brought many people back to Church where they rediscovered hope and love. St. Vincent was motivated by his own Gift of Fear of the Lord to keep others from being lost in hopelessness and moral depravity. He instilled Holy Fear in others to draw them out of their stupor and bring them back into God’s presence.

    Your Challenge

    Your challenge is to examine your own life and see how the Gift of Fear of the Lord is active. Do you feel compunction (sorrow) for your sins? Are you struck with wonder and awe when you think about God? Are you struck with your own unworthiness of the great gift of his love and grace? Are you motivated to lead others to the love of God so they don’t lose out eternally on a relationship with Him? Let us know how Fear of the Lord is present in your life?


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    Don’t let fear keep you from living the Gifts of the Holy Spirit!

    Your Next Action Step

    The key to changing any behavior – including living the adventure of faith – is to systematize your behavior into habit formation. From the Abbey teaches Catholic laity how to develop key spiritual virtues to build a “lay rule of life” that can empower you to grow in your faith in the midst of your daily life. Does this sound like the kind of help you need? Please check out the opportunity below to join us!

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