Do not be afraid. Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Today’s liturgy is centered on the theme of fear. It tells us what we should fear and what we should not. Above all, Christ wants to free us from the kind of fear that paralyzes us and silences our witness. Following last Sunday’s calling and mission of the Twelve, the Lord is now preparing his apostles for what lies ahead: opposition, rejection, and even persecution.

Jesus insists: “Do not be afraid”. We hear this exhortation three times in the Gospel, and on one occasion we are told what we should fear. We are encouraged not to fear anything that happens as part of Jesus“ mission. We are invited to proclaim Christ without fear. Jesus says: “What I tell you in the dark, say it in the light".

Christians face threats as they live out their faith and carry out their mission. This experience is not new. The prophet Jeremiah, in the first reading, finds himself surrounded by fear and hostility. Betrayed even by his friends, he hears the whispers of his enemies. Yet he declares: “But the Lord is my strong defender”. Fear does not have the final say; confidence does.

Unfortunately, this reality continues to this day. Many Christians still face persecution—even death—because of their faith. One might expect fear to silence them, and yet, time and again, we witness extraordinary courage. Their faithfulness challenges us, and their example strengthens us.

This reminds us of the story of Blanca and the Agony of Jesus in Dialogues of the Carmelites, by Georges Bernanos. She is a young woman overcome by fear who enters a Carmelite convent in search of peace, only to face the terror of the French Revolution, which abolishes religious life and condemns the nuns to death. Blanca initially flees out of fear, but ultimately returns at the moment of her martyrdom, joining her sisters as they serenely sing the Salve Regina and the Veni Creator Spiritus As she climbs onto the scaffold, their voices fade away one by one with each fall of the guillotine, until Blanca herself steps forward to join her voice with theirs and embrace death with solidarity and courage.

The so-called “!Do not be afraid!” still resounds powerfully even in more recent times. At the beginning of his pontificate, Saint John Paul II proclaimed it to the world. He repeated this exhortation three times, inviting people to welcome Christ, throw open the doors to him, and accept his authority.

That invitation to “!”Do not be afraid!” is always true for Christians of every age, because it is always an invitation to trust God more. It is an invitation to remember that we are of immense value in His eyes. Jesus says: “You're worth more than a lot of sparrows”. The remedy for our fears is trust in God and in His providential love.

Jesus also tells us what we should fear: “Fear the one who can condemn both soul and body to Gehenna”. In other words, fear sin. There is a danger far greater than persecution: the perdition of the soul. Unlike external threats, sin acts from within. It does not harm the body, but it corrodes the heart. Today, it often appears in subtle forms: addictions, false ideologies, the allure of materialism, the pursuit of comfort at any cost. These are the silent enemies we must learn to recognize and resist.