'‘The fear of the Lord is holy, remaining for ever and ever!"
The fear of God is of three kinds, all three good, just, sanctifying and proceeding from the Holy Spirit, but not equal in beauty nor in moral value. The first is the fear of the chastisement God inflicts on the sinner, the second the fear of the sin that offends God, the third is no other than an enlightened, profound, and practical conviction of the infinite and divine Majesty, and of the inefifable reverence that is His due.
The first fear diminishes as the second grows. The second in its progress closely follows that of love; and as St. John teaches, where love is perfect it destroys the earlier fear, not perhaps in its essential elements, here below, but in its exercise. As to the third, it not only believes, as the second does, but in one sense is charity itself, for it sees and feels that its object surpasses it on every side, in every way, and that infinitely. It is in this sense that fear dwells in Paradise, and there only is perfected.
~Msgr. Gay
He need not fear anything, nor be ashamed of anything, who bears the sign of the cross on his brow.
~ St. Augustine.
The fear of God is of three kinds, all three good, just, sanctifying and proceeding from the Holy Spirit, but not equal in beauty nor in moral value. The first is the fear of the chastisement God inflicts on the sinner, the second the fear of the sin that offends God, the third is no other than an enlightened, profound, and practical conviction of the infinite and divine Majesty, and of the inefifable reverence that is His due.
The first fear diminishes as the second grows. The second in its progress closely follows that of love; and as St. John teaches, where love is perfect it destroys the earlier fear, not perhaps in its essential elements, here below, but in its exercise. As to the third, it not only believes, as the second does, but in one sense is charity itself, for it sees and feels that its object surpasses it on every side, in every way, and that infinitely. It is in this sense that fear dwells in Paradise, and there only is perfected.
~Msgr. Gay
He need not fear anything, nor be ashamed of anything, who bears the sign of the cross on his brow.
~ St. Augustine.
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