Battling fears, worries, sadness

By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
June 5, 2019

IT’S really a matter of faith, of how strong our faith is. With faith, we know that whatever be our condition and situation in life, God is always there and will never abandon us. He is there to help us. He actually takes care of everything.

It’s this faith that springs and strengthens our hope and charity, which is the essence, purpose and fullness of our life. With faith, we can manage to be at peace all the time, to experience joy and awe even in the midst of our unavoidable earthly suffering, and to go on and move on despite whatever.

To battle our fears, worries and sadness, we need to strengthen our faith and live it to the hilt. And let us allow it to educate all our human powers and faculties – our intelligence and will, our emotions and passions, our memory and imagination, etc. Let us take time and learn the relevant skills to achieve this ideal.

Let us remember that we are a composite of body and soul. And since our soul is spiritual, it has its life and origin in the Spirit of God himself. We need to develop our life following the ways that would reinforce the unity of the composite parts of our life in their proper order. We have to realize that our life is mainly spiritual and supernatural, not simply material and natural.

That way, we remove ourselves from being entirely dependent on merely human, earthly and temporal factors. We allow ourselves to be governed by a much powerful agency that can effectively cruise us through our life’s ocean of mysteries. Faith enables us to cope with the reality of our life that includes the spiritual and the supernatural.

With faith we will never feel alone. We will always feel accompanied by God, by his angels and saints, all helping and interceding for us. With faith, we know that everything that happens to us, good or bad, has a reason and a purpose, and all of them working for our own good. (cfr. Rom 8,28)

We really have no reason to fear, nor to wallow in worries, anxieties and sadness. Let’s remember that these unfortunate states are fertile ground for the enemies of our soul, especially the devil, to take advantage of us.

About the only reason to fear, worry and be sad is when we lose our faith, when we lose touch with God. We have to pray and pray so that our doubts and fears would not undermine our faith.

What also helps is to develop a sporting attitude in life, because, to be realistic about it, we will always have frustrations, disappointments, mistakes, failures, sins and defeats in our life. But we just have to learn how to move on, just like a good sportsman.

We should always be cheerful in life, and strive to show it even externally with smiles and happy, warm and encouraging dispositions. Even in our grief and mourning, we should manage to learn how to be serene, knowing that suffering and death have already been redeemed by Christ and are now endowed with redemptive power.

Let’s not waste time and energy by falling into the grips of fears, worries and sadness. When we notice that we are having some languid moments, it can be a sign that our faith is not working, and that we are succumbing to the laws of the flesh and the world, if not, to the tricks of the devil.

We have to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible from that predicament. The ideal to have is to be always cheerful and eager to do things, no matter what the cost involved.