Anxiety

Is being afraid all the time a failure of trust?

Not in the Church’s account, which answers fear with an invitation, not a charge: Christ “invites us to filial trust in the providence of our heavenly Father”, and Peter adds, “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.” CCC 322 And the trust it means is not a feeling anyone has to produce. Hope relies “not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit”; CCC 1817 it “keeps man from discouragement” and “sustains him during times of abandonment”. CCC 1818

Where fear shapes what a person does, it lessens blame rather than adding to it: responsibility for an action “can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors”. CCC 1735

Francis speaks of anxiety as something that works against a person, not as a charge laid against them. To young people he wrote that it is “one temptation that can hold us back”, since it can make us “give up whenever we do not see instant results”, and that “no one has the right to rob you of hope”. Christus Vivit 142 He counts “a sense of anxiety, sometimes violent, that distracts and debilitates” among the dangers of today’s culture, Gaudete Et Exsultate 111 and the help he names is prayer: “When we feel overwhelmed, we can always cling to the anchor of prayer, which puts us back in God’s hands and the source of our peace.” Gaudete Et Exsultate 114 “The true God, who loves you, wants you to be happy.” Christus Vivit 145

Rembrandt van Rijn, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; stolen 1990.

Mk 4:38

322

Christ invites us to filial trust in the providence of our heavenly Father (cf Mt 6:26-34), and St. Peter the apostle repeats: "Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you" (I Pt 5:7; cf. Ps 55:23).

1817

Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." Heb 10:23. "The Holy Spirit . . . he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life." Titus 3:6-7.

1818

The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men's activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.

1735

Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.

Christus Vivit Mar 25, 2019
Gaudete Et Exsultate Mar 19, 2018

From the Catechism

From the Magisterium