The gift of fear, the prayer of awe, have their social purpose, too.  They will help to restore a world living more and more on the surface of life: you must pray, and pray this prayer of awe, to give back the dimension of depth to life on earth…..those who try to escape from the terrifying reality of God by seeking refuge in the externals of religion: it is only one stage better than trying to forget reality by the endless pursuit of pleasure.  Pray the prayer of awe, and living in docility to the Spirit’s gift of loving reverence, and then you will worship in spirit and in truth and help to restore to the world to the wholeness of the life of worship: you will help to teach a world proud and uncaring in its belief in its own maturity and self-sufficiency that there is no real life, and therefore no real happiness, except in poverty of spirit, except in the infinite life of God: and you will teach all this by being yourself a child, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. –Father Gerald Vann ‘The Divine Pity’