The Art of Being Fearless

Fearless.
The very word evokes strength, courage, honor, and resilience.
Conditioned by film producers, we tend to think that being brave means having no fear.
The truth is that courageous people have fears too.
The difference between the fearful and the valiant is that the person bound by fear fails to manage, and overcome his fears, whereas the brave man does.

As one psychologist put it, “It’s not a stretch to say that people who truly have no fear are either sociopaths or have severe brain damage.
For the rest of us, being ‘fearless’ means knowing how to leverage fear.”2

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, there are four fundamental types of fear: instinctual (natural), servile, filial, and worldly.3

Worldly fear is unlike the first three fears because it is entirely evil.

Worldly fear is concerned with losing something or experiencing a punishment, and this fear convinces the person to turn against God.
When faced with the choice between following God wholeheartedly and keeping or obtaining worldly goods, the person bound by worldly fear will compromise his morals.
A person bound by worldly fear trusts in the world, its goods, its benefits, and makes these things his end and goal.
When these things fail him, he becomes fearful, despairing, and sad.

Worldly fear is the beginning of despair and causes a sense of hopelessness, whereas hope is the beginning of being daring.

Despair proceeds from fear, just as fortitude, holy perseverance, proceeds from hope.9

In other words, if we are to be daring conquerors of evil for Christ and in Christ, and boldly share His life-changing, soul-saving Gospel, we must conquer our fear of the devil, resist his threats, and boldly exercise hope in God that He will aid us in our efforts.

Timidity (an inordinate fear of any evil) is opposed to courage, fortitude, and perseverance.
St. Paul exhorted his spiritual protégé, Timothy, that the Holy Spirit that lived within this young disciple was no cowardly Spirit (see 2 Tm 1:7).
In other words, the Holy Spirit is not afraid of evil, and doesn’t fear the loss of worldly benefits, but rather lives in us and helps us resist its threats as we strive to overcome the world.
Indeed, “Whatever is born of God overcomes the world” (see 1 Jn 5:4).

One of the chief reasons why worldly fear is so insidious is that it removes us from the reality that we are sons of God the Father in Jesus Christ.
It gradually conditions us to believe that we are alone, abandoned, and have no help.
By living in fear, we are no longer capable of living in right relationship with reality.
We live in an unreal world of imaginary fears that are not rooted in God’s truth.

Living in the fear of the future, also called forecasting by psychologists, can have debilitating effects and harmful consequences for your health, your freedom, your mental wellness, your relationships, and your self-confidence.
Forecasting binds us in timidity and restrains us from living in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

St. Thomas tells us,

“It belongs to a brave man to expose himself to danger or death for the sake of the good. But to die to escape poverty, lust, or that which is disagreeable is cowardice.”10

He continues,

“It is natural for a man to shrink from detriment to his own body and loss of worldly goods, but to forsake justice on that account is contrary to reason.”
In other words, to sin is far worse than to suffer.

Test yourself.
Where do you lack hope, perseverance, and courage?
Do you lack perseverance in your marriage?
Do you lack real hope in your occupation or your spiritual endeavors?
Have you lost the courage to be a bold example of Christ’s love?
Determine the areas of your life where you lack hope and sense that discouragement and despair are taking over.
It is precisely in those areas that the devil is instilling fear and attempting to rob you of the courage and fortitude needed to take the prudential risks that will enable you to forge, or reforge, relationships that will build the Kingdom of God.

Excerpt from InterFEARence, Devin Schadt
2 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/smashing-the-brainblocks/201511/7-things-you-need-know-about-fear
3 Summa Theologiae: The Gift of Fear (Secunda Secundae partis, Q.19)
9 Summa Theologiae: Fear (Secunda Secundae partis, Q.125)
10 To die to escape poverty, or lust or anything disagreeable means to seek a false way out of the difficult situation. St. Thomas is referring to the physical escape of situation by means of committing suicide, or possible the spiritual escape by avoid the confrontation of evil with holding fast to the good.