Dominica 5 post Pentecosten
Evening, 18 June 2016 /
Church of St John the Evangelist
And be not
afraid of their fear, and be not troubled:
but sanctify
the Lord Christ in your hearts (1 Peter 3:15).
[The bishop’s statement is read; a
moment of silence is observed.]
As we did last week, beginning with today’s collect will aid
our prayer:
Oh God, who
have prepared unseen things for those that love you, pour forth into our hearts
the sense of your love: in order that, loving you in all things and above all
things, we may attain those promises of yours which far exceed all our desires.[1]
When events manifesting profound evil
occur, our desires extend rather urgently to thoughts of peace, serenity,
justice, and mercy. As for our reflection at the moment, three thoughts might
be helpful to us. First, evil is all around. Both wisdom and common sense teach
us that evil is an ever-present
mystery; we see its effects daily, and terrible events happen on this planet by
the hour. True, certain events stand out for their brashness and brutality.—Nevertheless,
the Catholic must always bear in mind that he lives with the mystery of evil
each and every day, even if (thanks be to God!) it does not always affect him
in ways that are clear and direct. This is important for us to acknowledge,
because there are many who would prefer not to see evil because it is
uncomfortable.
To that point, and secondly, evil is a
mystery. Since the seventeenth century, thinkers began more and more to refer,
not to the mystery of evil, but to the problem
of evil. The distinction may at first seem false, but the implications are
rather broad. If we refer to evil as a problem, then implicitly we will be
looking for a solution. You can see, however, that this becomes an
insurmountable task: how could a merely human way of thinking or acting
possibly respond in an adequate, satisfying way to evil? On the other hand, if
we refer to evil as a mystery, already we have put evil in its proper
perspective by situating it alongside other mysteries. And when we do this, in
a certain sense, we rob evil of its power, or at very least of its ultimate
victory. Evil is a painful mystery, but it is not the only mystery. God’s
loving Providence, for instance, is much more powerful mystery.
Thirdly, evil is personal. Many
people often speak of evil in very general, vague ways. We sometimes refer to
evil like we do the weather: it is an impersonal, abstract force floating
through the world, sometimes affecting us sometimes not. But if we are
attentive, we understand that there is a malign intelligence at the root of
evil and therefore it is intensely personal. Indeed, there is not a what behind evil, but a who—and he has many names which I will
not repeat here. Suffice it to say, he is the enemy of our souls, and he is not
very selective about the means he employs to do us harm.
And yet in the face of all this, are
we powerless? Must we say and do nothing? When confronted with evil, the
Catholic Christian does not need to settle for spiritual confusion and
paralysis. In fact, there is some one
thing that can be said—that one thing is
Jesus Christ. He is the final, decisive, and only remedy to the mystery of evil.
Our God came among us in the flesh to vanquish evil and to instruct us in how
to avoid it.
Classically, our theological
tradition has always understood evil to be the privatio boni, a privation of the good. That means evil is an
unsubstantial ghost: it has no being of its own, but is some absent or mistaken
good; or like a parasite it attaches and corrupts. To sin and thereby commit a
moral evil is what happens when the human being makes a mistake and chooses
what is not truly good. Formation in the moral life, then, is about informing
the mind to know what is truly good
and then training the will to choose it.
Dear friends, June is the month of
the Sacred Heart (everyday is caught up in the Sacred Heart) and therein lies
our answer precisely: our reply to evil
is conversion to the grace of the Heart of Christ. Human life flourishes
only when it is turned toward God in truth. As our collect reminds us, loving
God in omnibus et super omnia is what
human happiness demands—loving him above every ideology, every comfort, every
fear, every temptation to despair or bitterness: to love him above our very
selves—this is precisely what is at stake in our times, as it has been in every
time, and it is the only reply that can be made to evil. Yes, we fight evil
with love: but it must be a love that is fixed on the Cross of Christ and upon
all the good which God reveals, in his Church and in the natural law written
into creation.
If all this is true, then St Peter’s
words from our epistle are timely: “And be not afraid of their fear, and be not
troubled: but sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts.” Or, as another
translation puts it, “Do not be afraid or disturbed at their threats; enthrone
Christ as Lord in your hearts.”[2] We have nothing at all to
fear, if we are intent on making of our hearts a throne for the Heart of Jesus;
the Heart of Jesus in all things and above all things.
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