The apparent victory of evil

WE have to be ready for this. Evil, though it surely will

not have the last word, will always have a degree of victory over us

in our life here on earth. Let’s not be too idealistic that we can

wipe it out completely in our lifetime, or even the whole life of the

world, the entire span of time.

            Not even Christ, our savior, in all his divine power could

completely end it here on earth. Evil in all its forms will continue

to hound us until the end of time. In fact, it continues to mutate

into more subtle and more dangerous forms as we ourselves have also

learned how to combat it with better means.

            That is why Christ had to go through his passion and

death, because in spite of all the good that he said and did, evil

simply continues to rage. What Christ did was to show us how to handle

this lifelong predicament of ours.

            And that is simply to learn to suffer and eventually to

die with the same attitude, with the same spirit with which Christ

suffered and died on the cross. It is only by doing so that we can

aspire to share in his resurrection, the final victory over evil.

            It therefore is wrong to think that the ideal state to aim

at in this life is never to have anything to do with evil, whether it

is our personal weakness, temptations, sins, or those of the others,

or evil in general that is proliferating around us.

            That would make us fall into an anomaly called

perfectionism that can lend itself into various forms, like

Puritanism, conservatism, idealism and many other isms that do not

correspond to the objective reality of our human condition here on

earth. What we have to do is meditate very closely on the passion and

death of Christ, and try our best to live out the precious lesson

taught there.

            Yes, we have to do everything to follow the teachings of

Christ on how to be in the truth, how to be charitable, how to

ceaselessly preach the truth to everyone, how to do a lot of good, how

to avoid sin and temptation, etc. But it cannot be denied that at the

end of the day, evil would still have some hold and dominion over us.

            That is why St. Paul said: “All people, whether Jews or

Gentiles, are under the power of sin. As the Scriptures say, ‘No one

is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise. No one is seeking

God…” (Rom 3,9-11)

            St. Paul himself, for all his zeal for God, said: “I see

another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and

holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells in me.” (Rom 7,23)

            So, let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that we are

sinless or rid of any stain of evil, whether of our own making or that

of another. We just have to learn how to accept this reality of our

human condition and unite ourselves to Christ in his passion and death

so we too can share in his resurrection.

            Whatever personal responsibility we may have in evil in

all its forms, we should just ask for mercy which Christ is offering

us readily and in abundance. And we should just move on, doing our

best to follow God’s will as revealed in full by Christ.

            Let’s remember that when we find ourselves in the very

pangs of evil and tempted to fall into despair, let’s make Christ’s

words on the cross as our own: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” “It

is consummated.” “Father, into your hand I commend my spirit.”

            And let’s just move on, believing with strong faith, that

God will take care of everything.