Daily Meditation for May 13, 2025

“Don’t be afraid.” This urging from a well-meaning mom is like telling her son’s stomach to stop its involuntary growling when he is hungry. Fear can grip or sneak up on us. We tend to resist it as a threat or an enemy. It’s sometimes a force that makes us feel uneasy and even crippled in our judgment, our sense of self. We want fear to go away. What if we befriend it? One of its gifts is its role of protector and defender when we perceive we are facing a threat. It can remind us of our vulnerability as possible threats of harm, even death, emerge from their hiding places. Fear might prompt us to entrust the threatening situation to God to manage and to give us guidance. Fear can serve as the inbreaking of God to lead us to respond with the heart of the Spirit of God.

By Mary Reuter, OSB