2 faces of fear: A fear that paralyzes and a fear that awakens.

In the Bible fear is ambivalent. On the one hand, the book of Psalms says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom[1], on the other hand, in the gospels the word most often repeated by Jesus is: “Do not be afraid! »

A text articulates these two understandings, it is that of the calmed storm. The disciples are in the storm while Jesus sleeps in the boat. They wake him up and Jesus calms the waves and the wind. The text is found by the following verses: “ Jesus said to them, “Why are you so afraid? You don’t have faith yet? “And they were greatly afraid, and said among themselves, Who then is he, that even the wind and the sea should obey him?[2] ? “” In this story, the disciples moved from the evil fear of the storm which is the opposite of faith, to the good fear of God which is the fruit of faith.

So there is bad and good fear.

A fear that paralyzes and a fear that awakens.

The fear that paralyzes is the one that makes us shrink into ourselves. This is the fear that Jesus speaks of in the Sermon on the Mount when he said to his disciples: “ Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat? What will we drink? Or: What shall we wear? For this is what the pagans are looking for… Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.[3] » Faced with this fear, the Gospel does not place security, but the quest for the Kingdom of God. The opposite of this fear is courage, and true courage consists of looking our fragility in the face, taking responsibility for it and loving it. It is the courage of trust that calls us to keep our hearts open in the face of all the threats and illnesses of our world.

The fear that awakens is not the fear of others, but the fear for others, for our world and our children. The philosopher Hans Jonas spoke of a heuristic of fear, the expression meaning that we can allow discovery. It is awareness of the threats weighing on our world that must make us change our behavior. The philosopher thinks that, even if it is not the noblest of motives, only fear can lead us to change our way of life.

These two understandings of fear are intertwined in what happens to us. It is up to us not to let ourselves be paralyzed by the threat of the epidemic, but to fight evil. And at the same time, it is also up to us to listen to what it says about our world and to seriously consider the changes it calls for in our common life.

[1] Ps 111.10, Pr 1.7.

[2] Mark 4.40-41.

[3] Mt 7:31-33.