Remind me to get and read a good biography of Mother Angelica then next time I have a spare moment…
As you probably know, Mother Angelica died of a stroke on Easter Sunday. She was the founder of EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) and one of the most well known and influential Catholic TV personalities since Venerable Fulton Sheen, with the difference that while he was known primarily for his own show and writings, she was known for the network she built which (God willing) will endure for many years to come.
If you’ve been on facebook at all since then, and your friend list contains more than two catholics, you’ve probably seen this quote, or a variation of it.
“I am not afraid to fail,… I’m scared to death of dying and having the Lord say to me, “Angelica, this is what you might have done had you trusted more.”
Mother Angelica.
This quote caught my eye and I have been turning it over in my head for several days, because it rings true with me. Fear has been a close companion of mine for my entire adult life. In fact, much of my military career, especially my attempts at being Special Forces, has been about trying to conquer fear: fear of heights, fear of tiredness, fear of hunger, fear of humiliation, fear of discomfort, etc
But deeper than all those fears, the strongest fear in my life has always been the fear of failure. I have always been terrified of trying it and not making it, not having what it takes. This causes me to be hesitant in my decisions. When faced with a choice am very prone to “paralysis by analysis.” I want to analyze all of the facts, relevant or otherwise. I want to have all of the facts (most of the time that simply isn’t possible). I want time to figure out all possible contingencies, and that time is almost never granted. Even if all the time in the world were granted, I still would not be able to foresee and account for every possibility.
A key to success in the military, in Special Forces, and even in life, is to develop the ability to say, “—– it! We’ll do it live!” That is, an early step in the path from Hebrews 2:15 to 1 John 4:18 is learning not to fear the wrong things. We do this by learning to fear the right things.
So I learned to overcome the baser fears like fear of getting shot or blown up, fear of heights, fear of physical discomfort etc. by pitting them against the deeper fear of failure. I learned to overcome the fear of failure by recognizing that real failure more often involves not trying than not succeeding. Eventually I realized that the only failure that matters in the end is failing to please God.
Of course, the truth is that no one can ever quite succeed in perfectly pleasing God in all things. We fail, we stumble, we fall. This is where the parable of the talents comes in, in which the only person who was condemned was the one who, through fear of failure, did nothing with the gift he had been given.
This quote of Mother Angelica is the distilled essence of that parable. The servant was afraid of the wrong thing, failure, not afraid of the right thing, which was displeasing his Master. Failing on an investment would not have displeased His Master as much as not making an investment at all. Or as Mother Teresa would say: 
“God does not call us to be successful. He calls us to be faithful.”
This is the next step, to move from fear of success or failure in worldly terms, to fear of success or failure in spiritual terms. Or as Jesus would say:
“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28.
But even this is not perfect, and I do not think Mother Angelica would disagree. It is not perfect because it is not quite all the way to that perfect love which casts out all fear. The next step is full and unbounded trust in Jesus and His Will. It is the ability to look at and see our own littleness and weakness, and then to marvel at the fact that God can make whatever He wills out of that nothingness if we let Him. When we can recognize even our failures as part of His plan and not mope over them, but instead rejoice in His mercy through them, then we are well on His way to that level of trust.
A few months ago Kathleen and I began setting a service project in motion. We wanted to get together some of our Bible study friends and cook a meal at a local homeless shelter. Shortly after getting all of the pieces together and setting a tentative date, we found that I was going to be going to North Carolina for some National Guard training, leaving Kathleen solo to get the whole project moving along.
She did really well. She made all her coordinations early, she notified everyone involved well ahead of time, she had her menu and ingredients lined up. It was a masterpiece of prior planning…
And it all fell apart. The person she was coordinating with went on vacation. I was out of state. Most of our volunteers couldn’t make it. Her babysitting option had to be changed. Worst of all, no one took the meat out of the freezer, so at 7:00 the night prior the 30Lbs of ground chicken she had been planning on cooking were still 30 degrees below zero.
Now, those who know Kathleen know that she hates that sort of thing. That is why she plans so hard, so that all of those things won’t happen. But she laughed (over the phone, since I was only able to help via long distance) and she trusted and she winged it. It worked out. She drove Evie up to stay with her parents the night before. She and our friend Jenn went out hunting good deals on bulk ingredients the night before instead of going to see a movie as they had originally planned. Enough people showed up. They even found that they had extra ingredients and made two more pans than she had been planning on, and almost all of it was eaten.
There was enough. It was not the flawless execution she had been hoping for. It came limping in with a bit of duct tape here and there, so to speak, but it was (I firmly believe) the success God was looking for. The people were fed, and the credit went to Him, not to our prior planning.
Was it stressful? Kathleen informs me that yes, it was, but it wasn’t too terribly stressful. She plans on doing it again, and while she will take some lessons learned from what went wrong last time, she isn’t going to let the stress and the falling apart of plans stop her from trying to serve God. Of course she still wants to perform competently to have things come out well, but the real goal is to be faithful to God and let the outcome rest in His hands.
It is a step on the road to 1 John 4:18.
