Category: FEAR

  • Without the love of God within you, you cannot repent. Without the love of God, you would not leave sin because of purity of heart, but merely as the outer proceedings of a formal reconciliation with God, because of fear of His anger and punishment. A person who fears God’s punishment and fears that sin might lead him into hell becomes religious. He calls this piety, that is, the fear of God and His anger. With this fear, he avoids practicing sin, but the sin does not stay away from his heart.

    The heart continues swinging to the right and to the left, and will not settle except with love toward God.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity

  • Delay breeds fear.

    —Jessamyn West

  • As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and bide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • In the case of physical illness, even if doctors tell us it is beyond hope, we do all we can to save the body. But on the other hand, when it comes to the spirit and its maladies, for which recovery is never beyond reach, we plunge into despair as if there is nothing we can do. Focusing on your spirit more than your body will save both; focusing on just the body will cause you to lose both.

    ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
    ON REPENTANCE & DEFEATING DESPAIR
    Letters to Theodore

  • Sin makes man afraid of being exposed and his sin revealed before the others. And he fears the consequences of sin: the punishment inflicted by the society or the law, and he fears God and His judgment.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Fruits of the Spirit

  • Good-heartedness is the prevailing nature in the gentle person, but whenever the situation calls him to act gallantly or bravely, or to witness for the truth, he should not refrain under the pretext of gentleness.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Fruits of the Spirit

  • A person who has no longsuffering falls in anxiety, annoyance and disturbance. He becomes worried and loses his inner peace.

    Such a person will be always anxious, looking at his watch every minute and every moment. He may also be rash and do himself much harm. Such an impatient person may in his rashness take decisions or actions haphazardly, like one who thinks God has not responded to his prayers and so swears never to enter the church, as if protesting against God!

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Fruits of the Spirit

  • In order to have peace and confidence, one can remind himself of God’s protecting power.

    Trust that God exists, and that He works for you. Trust that every problem has a solution, and God has many solutions; for what is impossible with people is possible with God. Even more, all things are possible to him who believes (Mk 9: 23).

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Fruits of the Spirit

  • A spiritual person, on whose heart peace reigns, never fears death.

    Leading a righteous life removes fear of death from one’s heart. Being ready with such righteousness, a person would rather desire death because it will bring him to the communion of Christ, of angels and of saints.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Fruits of the Spirit

  • Some may feel afraid of death, or of a disease leading to it.

    So, when such a person is attacked by a disease, he will be dispirited and will imagine the utmost danger from that disease.

    Some physicians fall in this fear! Also some people fear infection and take unusual means for protection!

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Fruits of the Spirit