Of Dread and Desire

For Thursday, 23 June 2005
Proverb 10:24

What the wicked dreads will come upon him,
but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet Claudius murders his brother, marries the widow, and takes the throne of Denmark. Despite his successful ambitions, Claudius lives in fear - dreading that his deed will be exposed, a growing paranoia, especially once it's clear that Hamlet, the rightful heir, wishes to avenge the crime. Eventually Claudius's worst fears are fulfilled, his own corpse amid the others strewn across the stage by play's end.

As today's proverb reminds us, sin and wrongdoing breed fear, suspicion, and anxiety. When we prove untrustworthy, we come to distrust others. When we are willing to harm others for our own advantage, we fear others will harm us for theirs. When we find our sense of self in seeking and protecting our own good, those who thwart us threaten our very identity.

This fear rooted in sin is well-founded, since it ultimately reflects estrangement from our heavenly Father, from his faithful promises, his love for us, and his gifts to us. Running from the light of God, we plunge ourselves into the darkness and dread of our own shadows. That pathway can only lead to final loss in which our worst fears become eternal reality.

But that is not the only path God offers us. In Christ, every desire of the righteous will be fulfilled, for in him we receive the goal for which we were created - eternal life together in God. As Thomas Aquinas says, "we are moved to believe what God says because we are promised eternal life if we believe" (De Veritate 14.1).

The Gospel does not invite disinterested observers, but appeals to our desires and hopes as creatures made in the image of God: "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints" (Eph 1:18).