The Face Of Evil
By DEACON ANTHONY BARRASSO
(Editor’s Note: Deacon Barrasso serves in a Maryland parish.)
- + + We don’t think of it often, we ignore it, we are not too concerned about it, yet it is the most dangerous, cancerous, malevolent, heinous reality around us: evil. Television shows and series on a daily basis pump out every form of depravity and profanity which were once prohibited for human consumption. Violence, destruction and lawlessness percolate through the news daily and we accept it like a cup of coffee for breakfast, as if it were the norm.
Seldom do we think of its source until it knocks on our front door and we peek out to take a good look and really see what is happening around us: children being murdered on our streets and in the womb, drug addiction accompanied by death, and where there should be hope, an escalating murder and suicide rate, and corruption everywhere. Some of us do see and quickly shut the door; it’s not our concern. We escape into our comfortable homes or our work world or our fantasy world and sigh a breath of relief or perhaps yawn.
But some of us do see. Fr. Livio Fanzaga said, “Satan has become the prince of this world in a rather democratic way. It is man who sustains the kingdom of darkness, voluntarily handing himself over to sin” (The Deceiver, Roman Catholic Books, p. 8). The adjective democratic means self-governing. Think of what Fr. Fanzaga’s statement implies: Have we “voted” Satan to be our governor, our lawmaker?
The majority, perhaps, will snicker, smile, or raise an eyebrow at such a statement. Isn’t Satan a myth who disappeared with the Middle Ages? Did God really tell us that we would die if we ate the delicious, appealing, mouth-watering fruit found on the tree in the center of the garden? We have eaten and the liar, the deceiver, the murderer is our prince.
Satan does not like to be the center of attraction and he is a master of disguise. Evil paints his face with cosmetic virtue and feigned generosity promising a new vision, Godliness, and even eternal life to those who walk in his darkness. He is a fisher-demon who uses only a hook covered by bait to lure and catch his “fish.” Hidden from the public eye and masquerading as a benefactor, he moves freely about especially where he is ignored, denied, and believed not to exist.
Many elected officials and governments democratically do his bidding. Did you know, according to Sen. Mitch McConnell, that the nation’s largest abortion seller, Planned Parenthood, recently received $80 million from a program created for small businesses? St. John of the Cross said: “If you have no care for yourself, your perdition is more certain than your amendment, especially since the way that leads to eternal life is so narrow.”
If we care for ourselves, our children (those born and in the womb), our neighbors, our society, our nation, our world, and our final judgment, we will embrace and live the Ten Commandments casting out everything that jeopardizes the loss of our souls. If we do not believe that evil exists, that there is a Satan and a Hell, then we are blind and deaf.
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).
Jesus Christ suffered a terrible agony to free us from the face and darkness of evil. He alone is the Way, Truth, and Life. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).
Are we a reflection of light or a shadow of darkness?