DO NOT BE AFRAID

There are many people in the world who are living in fear and suffering.

I remember when I met a migrant worker who became part of our HIV health program. She was still young, had a lovely smile and very friendly. She lived in a slum and depressing area, in a very small room and it was actually collapsing. She was trying to work even though she was weak. She earned a little bit of money for about 30-50 baht a day from peeling prawns. 

She lived alone. Her friends abandoned her. She was rejected even by her own family. We went to visit her every day. We supported he and assisted her to the hospital. We took care of her. 

When she was dying, she asked us to stay for a while with her. She was in great pain. She said that she was afraid to close her eyes. She was afraid to fall asleep. She was afraid that she might not wake up again. She was afraid to face death.

We comforted her. We encouraged her and told her “do not be afraid… and have courage.” She smiled to us, held our hands and closed her eyes. She died peacefully on that night.

She was just one of the thousands of migrants who are afraid in many ways. Like them, I have also my own fears - I am afraid to fail… I am afraid of death… I am afraid of losing someone I loved… I am afraid of being rejected. 

As humans, we all have many fears. We all have sufferings. We all have to embrace it. We all have to face it with courage.

This is the experience of the Zachariah and Elizabeth in our Gospel today. They were childless. In Jewish tradition, one should try to have many children as possible - "to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” It’s hard for us to understand what being childless meant in those days. It would be considered “cursed” by God. It must be a painful experience for them to take as a married couple. 

Zechariah and Elizabeth served the Lord faithfully. Yet, for some reasons, they had been denied with this blessing. I imagine they were confused. Perhaps they wondered what they did wrong. They felt somehow incomplete. They were afraid. They suffered.

God had given them a surprise! The angel Gabriel said, “Do not be afraid, Zachariah” and told him that his wife Elizabeth would bear you a son, John the Baptist, who was "filled with the holy spirit" and destined to be “the prophet to prepare the way of the Lord.” Later during the Annunciation, Mary also heard these reassuring words from the angel - "Do not be afraid". 

They are the same words that addressed to Jeremiah in our first reading today. He was very fearful to speak in behalf of the Lord. God assured him saying, “do not be afraid for I am with you always” so he went and followed God with courage. They are consoling words that give strength to the weak, give courage to the fearful, and give peace and joy to the suffering. 

As we prepare ourselves for the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus tomorrow, we are invited to listen to these words again and again. Jesus said these words many times in the Bible. He is saying these words to us now, he is whispering it to our hearts -- Do not be afraid. 

Do not be afraid to extend a helping hand. Do not be afraid to reach out to those who are living in fear, to those who are suffering, to those who are dying. Many of them are rejected, abandoned and unloved. They are just here around us. There are right here in Ranong.

May our hearts become like Jesus’ heart, a fearless heart, an open heart.

New Year Resolution with Pope Francis

I just want to share with you the homily of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. As we make our new year’s resolution, let us start with Mary and the crib.

The year opens in the name of the Mother.  Mother of God is the most important title of Our Lady.  But we might ask why we say Mother of God, and not Mother of Jesus.  In the past some wanted to be content simply with the latter, but the Church has declared that Mary is the Mother of God.  We should be grateful, because these words contain a magnificent truth about God and about ourselves.  From the moment that our Lord became incarnate in Mary, and for all time, he took on our humanity.  There is no longer God without man; the flesh Jesus took from his Mother is our own, now and for all eternity.  To call Mary the Mother of God reminds us of this: God is close to humanity, even as a child is close to the mother who bears him in her womb.

The word mother (mater) is related to the word matter.  In his Mother, the God of heaven, the infinite God, made himself small, he became matter, not only to be with us but also to be like us.  This is the miracle, the great novelty!  Man is no longer alone; no more an orphan, but forever a child.  The year opens with this novelty.  And we proclaim it by saying: Mother of God!  Ours is the joy of knowing that our solitude has ended.  It is the beauty of knowing that we are beloved children, of knowing that this childhood of ours can never be taken away from us.  It is to see a reflection of ourselves in the frail and infant God resting in his mother’s arms, and to realize that humanity is precious and sacred to the Lord.  Henceforth, to serve human life is to serve God.  All life, from life in the mother’s womb to that of the elderly, the suffering and the sick, and to that of the troublesome and even repellent, is to be welcomed, loved and helped.

Let us now be guided by today’s Gospel.  Only one thing is said about the Mother of God: “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19).  She kept them.  She simply kept; Mary does not speak.  The Gospel does not report a single word of hers in the entire account of Christmas.  Here too, the Mother is one with her Son: Jesus is an “infant”, a child “unable to speak”.  The Word of God, who “long ago spoke in many and various ways” (Heb 1:1), now, in the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), is silent.  The God before whom all fall silent is himself a speechless child.  His Majesty is without words; his mystery of love is revealed in lowliness. This silence and lowliness is the language of his kingship.  His Mother joins her Son and keeps these things in silence.

That silence tells us that, if we would “keep” ourselves, we need silence.  We need to remain silent as we gaze upon the crib.  Pondering the crib, we discover anew that we are loved; we savour the real meaning of life.  As we look on in silence, we let Jesus speak to our heart.  His lowliness lays low our pride; his poverty challenges our outward display; his tender love touches our hardened hearts.  To set aside a moment of silence each day to be with God is to “keep” our soul; it is to “keep” our freedom from being corroded by the banality of consumerism, the blare of commercials, the stream of empty words and the overpowering waves of empty chatter and loud shouting.

The Gospel goes on to say that Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.  What were these things?  They were joys and sorrows.  On the one hand, the birth of Jesus, the love of Joseph, the visit of the shepherds, that radiant night.  But on the other, an uncertain future, homelessness “because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk 2:7), the desolation of rejection, the disappointment of having to give birth to Jesus in a stable.  Hopes and worries, light and darkness: all these things dwelt in the heart of Mary.  What did she do?  Shepondered them, that is to say she dwelt on them, with God, in her heart.  She held nothing back; she locked nothing within out of self-pity or resentment.  Instead, she gave everything over to God.  That is how she “kept” those things.  We “keep” things when we hand them over: by not letting our lives become prey to fear, distress or superstition, by not closing our hearts or trying to forget, but by turning everything into a dialogue with God.  God, who keeps us in his heart, then comes to dwell in our lives.

These, then, are the secrets of the Mother of God: silently treasuring all things and bringing them to God.  And this took place, the Gospel concludes, in her heart.  The heart makes us look to the core of the person, his or her affections and life.  At the beginning of the year, we too, as Christians on our pilgrim way, feel the need to set out anew from the centre, to leave behind the burdens of the past and to start over from the things that really matter.  Today, we have before us the point of departure: the Mother of God.  For Mary is exactly what God wants us to be, what he wants his Church to be: a Mother who is tender and lowly, poor in material goods and rich in love, free of sin and united to Jesus, keeping God in our hearts and our neighbour in our lives.  To set out anew, let us look to our Mother.  In her heart beats the heart of the Church.  Today’s feast tells us that if we want to go forward, we need to turn back: to begin anew from the crib, from the Mother who holds God in her arms.


Devotion to Mary is not spiritual etiquette; it is a requirement of the Christian life.  Looking to the Mother, we are asked to leave behind all sorts of useless baggage and to rediscover what really matters. The gift of the Mother, the gift of every mother and every woman, is most precious for the Church, for she too is mother and woman.  While a man often abstracts, affirms and imposes ideas, a woman, a mother, knows how to “keep”, to put things together in her heart, to give life.  If our faith is not to be reduced merely to an idea or a doctrine, all of us need a mother’s heart, one which knows how to keep the tender love of God and to feel the heartbeat of all around us.  May the Mother, God’s finest human creation, guard and keep this year, and bring the peace of her Son to our hearts and to our world.