WHAT IS FEAR?

-a painful emotion excited by a sense of impending danger.

-an apprehension or dread of something about to happen .

Three types:

FILIAL FEAR: a child has for a devoted father; also called reverence or respect.

SERVILE FEAR: a slave has for a tyrannical master.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FEAR: born of a faulty conception of the universe and arising without a rational, outward threat.

When a person ceases to render to God any of his filial fear or reverence which is proper to his nature as a creature, then he develops an unhealthy fears, which stem from misdirected love.

"A man fears because something that he loves is in danger." (St. Augustine)

If a man's love is misplaced and rooted in his money, he will be filled with fear - either of losing it or of being approached by someone requesting a donation. If a man loves himself in an egoistical way, imagining himself to be better than he is, he will fear criticism, for it might rob him of his self-complacency.

If a person has an inordinate love of sensual pleasure, he will fear the day when his body grows old so that he can no longer enjoy these pleasures; that is why some aging people lie about their ages in their talk, their manners and their dress.

A love that is too much directed toward self makes its possessor jealous - he fears that he may be dispossessed, not of what he loves, but of what he possesses of the loved one's attention. Such self-loving people also fear the loss of human respect in the community at large: they hurry and worry in order that others shall be impressed with their importance.

Fear of those with guilty conscience: the fear of deserved punishment and fear of having hurt love, which is, in this case, GOD.

Widespread type of fear is one that springs from a repressed consciousness of guilt.

The moral conscience cannot operate in the hidings of the mind: the subconscious cannot repent. The sin must be brought up inot the daylight recognition and admitted to our consciousness, as our own responsibility.

Recognition is never enough. We need the redemptive power of God whose mercy is without limit if we are willing to receive it. Whatever troubles us have to be laid into the hands of God. To know ourselves better is to recognize our dependence and reliance in God, otherwise, everything is futile. There is no way we be free of this fear unless we put our trust in the Most High God. Once we experience his Divine Love and opt for his guiding hands, fear vanishes: the released soul then has the ecstatic joy of being let out of prison into the light and sunshine.

The freed conscience is restored to the liberty of the children of God.

(On Being Human, Fulton Sheen)