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Fear is a natural part of life. But there is also, and today above all, a more profound form of fear of an existential type that sometimes overflows into anxiety. It is born from a sense of emptiness that is linked to a culture that is permeated by a widespread theoretical and practical nihilism. In the face of the ample and diversified panorama of human fears, the word of God is clear: He who 'fears' the Lord is 'not afraid.' The fear of God, which the Scriptures define as the 'beginning of true wisdom,' coincides with faith in God, with the sacred respect for his authority over life and the world. Being 'without the fear of God' is equivalent to putting ourselves in his place, feeling ourselves to be masters of good and evil, of life and death. But he who fears God feels interiorly the security of a child in the arms of his mother: He who fears God is calm even in the midst of storms, because God, as Jesus has revealed to us, is a Father who is full of mercy and goodness.
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