Go Forth Without Fear

Lament & Hope · Jan 13, 2025 · 2m

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Rev’d Jon Swales 2025, after reading the words of Father Zosima in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (Book Two, Chapter Three: )

Do not be afraid.

Bid farewell to fear.

There is no shadow so deep

that love cannot reach it,

no sin so vast

it could exhaust the boundless

mercy of God.

Repentance is

but a turning,

a quiet yielding to the truth

that grace flows unending,

even to the farthest places of the heart.

Imagine this:

more rejoicing in heaven

over one who returns,

broken and bare,

than over those who never strayed.

Do not carry the

weight of bitterness…