Hey, everybody. This is Father John Ricardo with Acts 29. And in the middle of all the craziness

and the uncertainty that's going on right now, it seems from our perspective as a team that it's

worth using these days to reflect in a more deliberate way on the scriptures every day, which

for many of us now is the only spiritual food that we're receiving. And so we're going to do a special podcast series simply entitled,

Be Not Afraid, God's Word in Uncertain Times.

And we'll try to post something every day, usually reflecting on the scriptures,

so that we can listen in on what God is trying to say to us in these days.

There's a deep, nagging fear inside of me that I have to measure up, have to be perfect,

that I have to earn everything that I get,

that I'm not lovable unless I'm the best altogether without

defects or fault.

I don't know if that strikes you as being particularly odd or not, but it probably brings a fair

amount of comfort to other people, because my experience as a priest is that most of us live

with, if it's not precisely this,

it's some sort of related nagging fear. And this came to mind in a special way as I was

praying just with the opening prayer from Mass this morning was reinforced by another line

in the responsorial Psalm and then really driven home by the gospel that we

have today, John chapter 3. So the line in the opening prayer is simply this. As we recall year by year,

the mysteries by which through the restoration of its original dignity, human nature has received the hope of rising again. We earnestly

beseech your mercy, Lord. I don't know about you, but for me, that took me immediately to

Romans 8 and to this extraordinary passage from St. Paul where he talks about how creation is

groaning, longing to be restored to its original

...