http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings/032220.cfm
I quote:
The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
He guides me in right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil;
for you are at my side With your rod and your staff that give me courage.
unquote
Encouragement that all will be well resonates with all during troubled periods, when life appears to conspire against us.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” ...
“He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said....
'Thou shalt not be overcome.” ~ Julian of Norwich
My university years in London were enriched by an evening job cleaning the offices of a Scottish friend of my dad. During WW11 Archie MacKenzie had served with a Royal Marines demolition unit tasked to sink German warships operating out of Northern French ports. Positioned to the port's outer limits by submarine, under cover of night to the inner port by canoe. The team succeeded attaching limpet mines to the hulls of the warships leading to their foundering on the seabed. Most of Archie's team members were killed, or captured to be executed. Archie succeeded in escaping back to the UK via a French fishing boat that by chance had been exiting the port on its daily working voyage. Archie would be transferred to the India/Tibet frontier to serve as a liaison officer, where he was befriended by Buddhist monks helping him understand the human being's relationship with the divine mystery.
Archie's life long question why was his life saved would encourage him to understand that his choice to follow the advice of an overpowering inner whisper, to swim towards the passing fishing boat that rescued him, enabled him to survive.
Our Father invites us to listen to His Word alive in our life, known to us as The Saviour, asking us to do all that He asks of us, that we may be saved from our fears.
Isaiah 43:1 “Don't fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine.”
Our Father encourages us not to fear or worry.
"Fear not" is used over eighty times throughout Holy Scripture.
Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so.
Our anxiety is not imposed on us by force from outside.
We impose it on our world and upon one another from within ourselves.
~ Thomas Merton
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