Do Not Be Afraid

The famous words from Jesus to Peter, “Do not be Afraid,” come directly after Peter declares he is a sinful man. Just prior, Jesus told Peter to drop his net in the water, where he caught nothing. You can tell this by the exchange Peter showed how proud he was by placating Jesus in his request.  It wasn’t until Peter acquiesced, perhaps motivated by proving Jesus wrong. After all, he was the fisherman, and Jesus was not. To Peter’s surprise, the second drop of the net was so great it tore the nets.

When Peter realized what had just happened, he declared his sinfulness. In the short exchange, Peter went from being prideful to being fearful. Jesus did not say, “I told you so,” but rather, “Be not afraid.”  He then told Peter he would be catching men instead of fish. Peter then left his nets and followed Jesus.

Jesus bestowed his grace upon Peter, and then he realized how proud he had become. Acknowledging our pride is the first step of any conversion. A similar thing happened to Paul; our second reading reveals how wrong he was in persecuting Christians. He tells the Corinthians about his experience of Jesus’ grace and that he was a sinful man, too.  Paul tells his listeners that after Jesus appeared to him, he was not fit to be called an apostle because of his previous violent deeds.  

These two prominent saints had something in common: they were moved by grace to convert from their former lives to a future they would never have expected. However, the key to their transformation was accepting grace, working with it, and having the courage to preach the Gospel.  

Although Peter and Paul are extraordinary figures in salvation history, their path to following Jesus is not the exception but the rule. All conversions, whether big or small, start with accepting grace to combat our pride. Those who do not believe in God have some reason not to. The reason is so compelling to them that it becomes their truth. How often is pride shown when the modernist devoid of God has the audacity to say, “It is my truth.” No person is the source of truth; only God can be called truth.  The creature exhibits sinful pride by not giving God what is due to him.

Faithful Christians are not immune to being prideful. They can tell you a definition of pride without much trouble. They may say a person is proud because they are boastful or arrogant. True, that can manifest pride, but it is much more than those restricted definitions. What is rarely or never taught in religious education is what pride is.

Pride started at the beginning of creation when the angels rebelled against God and why Adam and Eve were cut off from original grace. The tendency has continued to this day. In its simplest sense, Pride is to think that all we accomplish is by our doing. It actively rejoices in personal abundance without identifying that all good is a gift from God. It might include financial, intellectual, or other prowess we have taken as our own. It is, of course, the opposite of humility. Remember the Beatitudes; Jesus tells us who will be in the Kingdom of Heaven, all those without pride.  

Pride is a struggle (even though they may not think it is a struggle) for practicing Christians. By living by God’s law and decrees, they are the opposite of those who do not believe but fool themselves that they are without sin. There is a propensity to fall into the trap that once we believe and try to live a good life, there is no need for an ongoing conversion. This is pride because we are not the source of truth and goodness and are not without sin.

By actively working with God’s grace to become more holy, we will uncover how wrong we were about many things we previously held as true. Perhaps it might be our perceived righteous indignation against another who hurt us or our misconception of how wrong we were about the Church’s moral teachings.

If we have the courage to do so, we open ourselves to vulnerability.  What will surface is we have been wrong in thinking the way we do for many years. Our pride has worked well during that time to keep our way of life from the light of God and his truth. So, we will put off conversion for as long as possible. Conversion can be scary, something even a faithful person is reticent to do because it upsets the way they have coped with life for some time.

Ongoing conversion is necessary to become holy and worthy of heaven, no matter how difficult the task may seem. Without it, we can never grow in holiness, which is the opposite of what we should be doing as Christians. We will never do it alone. God’s grace will always be present to help us on our way.

Jesus told Peter not to be afraid. He tells us the same, but first, working with his grace, we must curb and work at changing our prideful lives, as Peter and Paul did.