Stay Awake!

Fear makes men believe the worst. There is more than a kernel of truth in this ancient maxim. Obsessive fears can transform benign and even beneficial objects into symbols of deadly terror. Persons who live in constant fear of the possibility of sickness are capable of translating an ordinary itch into a symptom of some terrible disease. We call them hypochondriacs. There are technical names for others who fear such things as being alone, water, high altitudes, closed-in areas, crowds, etc. The excessive fears themselves are called “phobias,” and one who is beset with an accumulation of these obsessions is said to be suffering from “phobiaphobia.” In today’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus depicts a series of future events so fearful as to cause one to wonder if His purpose is not to afflict us with phobias concerning the end of our lives and the end of the world.

Jesus tells us to expect “trials of every sort.” He speaks of a time when “the sun…