Common fears

01The visit

Questions after dark

He opens with a compliment: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.”⁴ Jesus answers with something baffling about being born again, and Nicodemus pushes right back: “How can a man be born when he is old?”⁵

Notice what Jesus doesn’t do. He doesn’t shame him for sneaking over. He doesn’t demand a decision. He just keeps talking.

If you’re reading this quietly, without telling anyone, you’re in good company. Here are the fears people bring most often, and what the Church actually says about them.

Fear number one, the big one: if I start asking questions, will somebody pressure me?

02Fear one

“Will I be pressured?”

The Church’s answer is firm: “nobody is to be forced to embrace the faith against his will.” Faith that’s forced isn’t faith; it has to be free.¹

Jesus invited people, all the time, “but never coerced them.”¹ And nobody may ever be forced to act against their convictions about religion.⁶

Fear number two goes deeper. Do I have to check my brain at the door?

03Fear two

“Will I have to stop thinking?”

No. Believing is a gift from God, and it’s also “an authentically human act,” not against your freedom or your reason.²

Faith and reason can never really fight.⁷ Sure, some things are hard to get your head around, and the Catechism admits it, then quotes St. John Henry Newman: “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.” Questions are allowed.⁸

Fear number three is quieter. What if my faith is just too small?

04Fear three

“What if my faith is too small?”

A desperate dad once brought his sick son to Jesus.⁹ When Jesus brought up faith, the father burst into tears, said he believed, and then begged: “Help my unbelief.”¹⁰

Half faith, half doubt, out loud, in front of everybody. Jesus didn’t turn him away. He healed the kid.

The faith you need to start “is not a perfect and mature faith, but a beginning that is called to develop.”¹¹ And the Catechism is honest: faith often walks in the dark and gets tested.¹²

And the last fear, maybe the loneliest. Will I have to do this alone?

05Fear four

“Will I be alone?”

“No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone.” You’d be one link in a very long chain of people holding hands.¹³

Some fears are practical. What will my family think? What will my friends say? Will I fit in at a parish? Take your time. You can bring every one of those to a priest or a Catholic friend.

So what happened to the guy who came at night? John tells us. Twice.

06The ending

The man who came by night

Later, when the leaders want Jesus condemned without a trial, Nicodemus speaks up, in public: “Does our law judge a man unless it first hears from him personally?”¹⁴

And after the crucifixion, when most of the disciples have scattered, Nicodemus shows up with myrrh and aloes, “about a hundred Roman pounds,” to bury him.¹⁵

He started in the dark, with questions. He ended in broad daylight, arms full of spices for the man he’d questioned. Nobody rushed him. Nobody’s rushing you.