Nevertheless, it is a fact that even convinced Christians, who seek Christ in all sincerity, may sometimes lapse into a state of anxiety which palsies their free response to value. How does this happen?

How does it come about that our souls, even though Christian, may be numbed into a kind of spasm in which they are unable to look at anything except a certain evil, the dread of which fascinates us to the point of caring about nothing but our escape from that evil?

How can we so much fall under the domination of that fear that we stoop to considering everything from this one point of view only? What moved St. Peter to deny the Lord, though only a few hours before he had declared he would follow Him everywhere?

What makes us often, even in the face of minor evils, so preoccupied with the desire of avoiding them as to let this obsession hinder us from responding to high values, so afraid of them as to tell a falsehood or to sin gravely against charity? How is it possible that, having received the message of the Gospels and giving credence to it, we should still tremble sometimes before even comparatively puny evils?

The chief reason lies in our habit of submitting to the sovereignty of a self-evident purpose like that of avoiding an obvious evil, which causes us to omit confronting that evil, taken in its actual content, with God.

We no longer consider the question as to what, after all, it would mean to us if we had to endure that calamity, but formally erect its avoidance into an unequivocal and autonomous aim, to the pursuit of which we then completely subordinate ourselves. Thus, the evil in question acquires an enhanced significance which is out of proportion with its real import.

Mostly, it is a significance that exaggerates the real weight of the matter even in the natural context; always so if the object is viewed in a supernatural light. Anxieties of this kind not seldom afflict us with far heavier distress than would the thing we fear itself, were it really to happen.

We overcome fear by confronting evils with God

From this charmed circle one can only escape by concentrating oneself on God, and confronting the evil one apprehends with God; by contemplating it in the light of our eternal destiny, and repeating the words the Lord spoke: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will but as Thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39).