Lent and the reality of evil

As lent begins, we are reminded of our mortality and the inevitability of death. Lent is that special time of year when we are encouraged to reflect on our lives, their meaning and direction. We’re so busy all year long, that there is seldom time to step back and think about what we believe and how that belief is directing our lives. When things are going well, we tend to credit ourselves and the effort we’ve made to achieve a modicum of success and security. When things go badly and we strugglr to understand why bad things happen, we are more likely to turn to God for answers.
This special liturgical season provides an important reminder about the very nature of life and our existence. It begins with the Ash Wednesday reminder that eventually we will all suffer the same fate in death. But lent ends in the hope of eternal life, as promised by Jesus in His own resurrection. In between, scripture reminds us that Jesus Himself came to reveal the Truth of life that leads to love, happiness and eternal life. The first of these truths is revealed in the gospel from the first Sunday in Lent when Jesus goes out into the desert and is tempted by Satan. He confronts evil and resists the temptations set before Him. The lesson here is that evil exists, it is not a figment of some ancient imagination or superstitious cult. During the first week of lent we hear Jesus teaching us how to pray by giving us the Our Father which concludes with, “… and deliver us from evil. Amen.”
I believe it was Pope Leo XIII who warned that Satan’s greatest accomplishment is in making people believe he does not exist. His encyclical, Rerum Novarum, written in 1891, expressed grave concern for the poor and for workers who were being exploited by unscrupulous governments and employers. He called on government to protect the rights of workers but also defended personal property rights and freedom of action to individuals and families, asserting that it was NOT the government’s job to care for children, and that private property should be regarded as sacred. He was speaking out against totalitarianism, communism, and the evils that were likely to result from the godless governments emerging in Russia and China. He foresaw the prospect of evil penetrating capitalism as well if unbridled power combined with greed. Before dying Pope Leo left us this prayer to St. Michael the Archangel:
“St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.” When people stop believing in the reality of evil, they let down their guard and are more easily deceived by perversions of the truth. Over the past 100 years, Western society has increasingly shed its belief in the existence of evil and replaced it by a more secular world view in which religion is considered archaic and no longer relevant. In this state of mind we are less likely to form our conscience, and more likely to rationalize things that gradually lead us away from God and toward a greater belief in ourselves as the center of our existence. As we gradually distance ourselves from God, there is the potential for a crescendo of evil to permeate our lives without our being aware. We slowly become blinded by our secular worldview and eventually lose sight of the very truth of our existence. We begin to think we are entitled to absolute freedom, to unlimited access to life’s pleasures and rewards, and we no longer see anything wrong with the avoidance of inconveniences that interfere with our immediate comfort and pleasure. In this mode, children can be seen as inconveniences to be avoided and perhaps even the sick and the poor. If they cannot be avoided, we may even rationalize eliminating them.
This scenario may sound like a giant leap, or rather, a ‘descent’ into the darkness of evil and sin, but look around at the world. We’ve not only rationalized the right to destroy unborn children, many European nations have legalized assisted suicide as have three States in our own country. In China where the one-child policy has resulted in a lop-sided ratio of men to woman (in some provinces 7 to 1), sex crimes and human trafficking have increased by 30% in just the last 8 years. What else can that be called but evil?
It may be easy to criticize those who uphold abortion rights, but each of us is subject to temptation and deceptions about the truth of life. How easy it is to allow pride to make us haughty or intolerant of others. How simple it is allow greed to stifle our generosity, or to take advantage of others when opportune. Or how effortless it becomes to avoid speaking the truth in order to keep the peace and to avoid unpleasant discussions.
Lent is the time of year we are called to revisit our beliefs and reinforce our convictions about the truth of life and the direction of our own lives. In the gospel from the first Monday in lent, Jesus reveals what will happen at the end of our lives when we face God. In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus explains that we are all called to care for one another, feeding the poor, visiting the sick and the imprisoned and so on. When we do this for our brothers and sisters, we do it for Christ Himself and we will be rewarded in heaven. But if we focus instead on ourselves, we may spend eternity alone and separated from God and from everyone else as well, or perhaps with those who are most like us.
Take the opportunity this lent to examine your beliefs and form a moral conscience based not on what’s convenient for you, but what God Himself has taught us about truth. Failure to form your conscience can have disastrous results because your words and actions are the product of your beliefs. Without a well-formed conscience, informed by the Truth about life, as revealed by God, you may be inclined to create your own truths that center around yourself and your selfish desires. This is not the path to eternal life, and it will not serve you well in your human relationships either. Thank God for His revelation about the path to eternal life because this is also the path to human happiness and fulfillment. It is also the path to life-giving love