“There is only one religion, the religion of love. There is only one language, the language of the heart. There is only one race, the race of humanity. There is only one God, and He is omnipresent.” With this striking words, Sathya Sai Baba, a highly revered Indian spiritual leader and world teacher, invites people to turn to God and to lead more purposeful and moral lives. Hundreds of pilgrims make their way to the tiny hamlet in southern India where Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram (spiritual headquarters) is located. They seek peace, harmony, comfort, righteous living. If he tries to catalyze people for God through the power of love, there are many other gurus of religion who use fear and coercion to keep their flock.
In our Christian tradition, fear is also used as a means to promote faith and move the faithful to an obedient following of the doctrines defended. At times, through forceful indoctrination with no room left for the inquisitive spirit. But, more often, through unconscious attitudes that lead to fear and subservience. At present, as I visit different parishes for ministry, I still often hear remarks of parents to their children such as: Huwag kang maingay! Magagalit ang Diyos. (Don’t be noisy! God will get mad at you!); Upo ka nang maayos! Parurusahan ka ng Diyos! (Sit properly or God will punish you!); Kung hindi ka magsisimba, pupunta ka sa impyerno! (If you don’t go to church, you will go to hell!). These expressions, along with many others, are certainly well-intentioned but constitute a wrong message and create fear instead of love. To subjugate children through fear will not lead to form a personal morality and belief system, but rather will alienate people, reducing religion to an empty formality or a heavy burden one has to carry for the sake of pleasing God.
Pope Francis has often emphasized this danger of replacing love with fear. He reminded even the ministers of the Sacrament of Reconciliation not to make the confessional a “torture chamber but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy.” The mission of the Church is to touch peoples’ lives with the love and the mercy of God, truly believing in the power of God’s love which is far above and beyond our faults and failings. Faith, lived as a relationship with God, demands a communion which is founded on love, therefore, healing our wounds, renewing our spirits and bringing us to be family with God.
I do not advocate milder ethics or easier virtues nor do I want to change the Gospel. But I do believe that only a fearless love can allow us to make a journey of faith where we feel liberated and, therefore, become capable of extending to others the invitation to make that experience which has been for us life-giving. Pope Francis, recently, in Assisi, spent a good portion of his time with the physically and intellectually disabled, taking the time to carefully greet each of them, kissing them on their foreheads. Those scenes capture the hearts of countless people throughout the world – believers and non-believers alike. Indeed, God is love and only a fearless love can draw us to God and bring us to mirror, in the world, the eternal love that God continues to nurture for all. With American rock/pop musician Melissa Etheridge, I feel like singing: “I want a fearless love, I won’t settle for anything less.”