Trust God with Everything
Homily on the scripture readings for Sunday, June 21st 2026
Many times we feel stuck, or weak, or trapped in our circumstances in life. We’re not where we want to be in life. Not living where we want to, not having a job we want, perhaps not even knowing for ourselves what we want!
Other times we know exactly what we want — to do, to be, or to accomplish for ourselves or our family or our friends. Yet we find ourselves stuck or held back by a situation or a person that is blocking our way. We try to devise ways around the problem, or plan strategies to overcome the problem, or even just try and muscle ourselves straight through the problem.
When this happens to me I hear God clearly guide me by telling me “Your power is in your prayer.” This is His way of saying that God can do more to solve our problems that we can - that in praying and asking God for help is the best thing we can do. In this way we let the Holy Spirit do the heavy lifting with other people to make our prayer intention come to fruition. We can influence people a little. God can influence them a lot!
Three words of Jesus open our Gospel reading today:
“Fear No one.”
They’re not idle words. They’re not just incidental small talk to His disciples one day as they traveled from town to town. They’re not just simple commentary to you or me. From the lips of God Himself you and I are being instructed to:
“Fear no one.”
Let’s think about this. Why would Jesus as God be telling us this?
Because He wants us to trust in Him for everything we need. To trust in Him in everything that is important to accomplish in our lives. We already have the strength, capability, and graces from God to make it happen. Jesus is with us. The Holy Spirit is within us. We are never left without the power of God around us and within us. Jesus continues by saying:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.
Here Jesus is making the distinction that only Satan can destroy your soul and your body by tempting you to reject the very God who made you, sustains you, loves you, protects you, guides you, and constantly provides for you. Jesus continues speaking, reinforcing this:
“Everyone who acknowledges Me before others I will acknowledge before My heavenly Father. But whoever denies Me before others, I will deny before My heavenly Father."
Believing that Jesus is God in human flesh, now Glorified in His body in Heaven, is to let Jesus guide us in our lives. Living our lives according to the teachings of Jesus is the key to having total peace in this life and eternal happiness in the next.
So why should we have fear? Why should we be anxious?
“Be not afraid”
“Be not afraid” is another phrase that Jesus frequently repeated to people — dozens of times in the Gospels alone. He tells them literally to not be afraid, not be anxious. These were the first three words Pope St. John Paul II spoke from the Vatican balcony when he addressed the crowds of people for the first time as Pope. He knew that God is with every believer every minute of the day, so his first instruction to them was “Be not Afraid.”
In his very first homily as Pope, he teaches us:
“So often today man does not know what is within him, in the depths of his mind and heart. So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt which turns into despair. We ask you therefore, we beg you with humility and trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life.”1
This is another phrase that Jesus uses repeatedly with the disciples is:
“Peace be with you.”
His disciples already knew Him, followed Him, and worked with Him daily. After Jesus’ resurrection He uses this phrase when seeing them again. He uses it to assure the disciples that “all is well”; that “everything is alright”.
Indeed, with His death and resurrection Jesus has conquered sin and death. He reconciles us and all our sins and mistakes to be back in harmony with God. Thus, we need not fear anything. We need not fear anyone. So long as we are living our lives as Jesus asked us to, we have nothing, and no one, to fear.
Trust is the solid ground that supports us in our work of rejecting fear from our lives. If we trust 100% in Jesus and God’s providence for our lives, we simply have no room for fear. If we trust in His teachings in the Gospels and follow the ways He established for us to live by - we are completely safe. And even more than safe we are richly blessed and we prosper in the many ways that God’s grace enables for us.
Faith is the foundation of our Trust in God. Faith is a gift to each of us from God Himself. When we allow faith a place in our hearts and our minds, and nurture it with regular prayer, gratitude toward God for our very lives, and complete confidence in the power of God, we build for ourselves a foundation that will never fail us. Pope St. John Paul II writes this in his encyclical “The Splendor of Truth”:
“It is urgent to rediscover the authentic reality of the Christian faith, which is not simply a set of propositions to be accepted with intellectual assent. Rather, faith is a lived knowledge of Christ, a living remembrance of his commandments, and a truth to be lived out. […] Faith is a decision involving one's whole existence. It is an encounter, a dialogue, a communion of love and of life between the believer and Jesus Christ, who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. It entails an act of trusting abandonment to Christ, which enables us to live as he lived, in profound love of God and of our brothers and sisters.”2
Our Faith in God fuels our Trust in Him. Our Trust in God dispels all our fears of the world and of other people. Without fail, our Trust and Faith in God will see us through everything and anything we may face in this life, and will also grant for us an Eternal Life of perfect Peace, Joy, and Love.
Praise be to God!
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1978/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19781022_inizio-pontificato.html
What a wonderful reminder…I needed these words today!!! 💜🙏💜