Natural Fear
Fear in the ordinary sense is the trepidation our weak humanity feels when it is afraid of suffering something it does not want to happen.
We are afraid, or made afraid, because of a guilty conscience, the rights of someone more powerful, an attack from one who is stronger, sickness, encountering a wild beast, suffering evil in any form.
This kind of fear is not taught: it happens because we are weak. We do not have to learn what we should fear: objects of fear bring their own terror with them.
Fear of the Lord
Come, my children, listen to me, I shall teach you the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord has then to be learned because it can be taught. It does not lie in terror, but in something that can be taught. It does not arise from the fearfulness of our nature; it has to be acquired by obedience to the commandments, by holiness of life and by knowledge of the truth.
For us the fear of God consists wholly in love, and perfect love of God brings our fear of him to its perfection. Our love for God is entrusted with its own responsibility: to observe his counsels, to obey his laws, to trust his promises.
These ways of learning the Fear of the Lord are found in the law, in the prophets, in the gospels, in the writings of the apostles, in the different good works by which we fulfill the commandments.
Blessed are those who walk these ways in the fear of the Lord.
He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.
Those who fear the Lord do their best to please him.
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