Evil

22nd Week in Ordinary Time - Tuesday (4 September 2018)

Luke 4:31-37

Jesus said, “Be quiet! Come out of him!”

Once a fourteen-year-old disadvantaged boy, living on the streets in Kenya, had somehow obtained a bicycle. It was an old, rusty one, and both wheels needed some alignment. He aligned them himself, more or less. Then he decided that he was going to enhance his treasure--because that was what the cycle meant to him--with gears. The bicycle shop was willing to do the job supposing that a boy with a bicycle would be able to pay for the job. When he went to fetch his bicycle, the bill for the gears was so high that he couldn’t pay it. He was told that if he didn’t find the money within a fortnight his bicycle would be confiscated. That’s when he decided to steal a radio from the school office. He was found out. He hadn’t yet been able to sell the radio, and he produced it from its hiding place. When he handed it over to the priest, he told the priest: “Father, don’t think that I stole that radio!” The priest asked him, “If you didn’t, who did?” He answered, “The bicycle.” He was right. The bicycle had become an obsession, like an evil spirit mastering him.

An obsession, a compulsion, or an addiction can turn into evil in us, as we read in the incident. We can be driven into doing what is wrong if we put "wrong" things at the centre of our lives. All of us have within us some elements that militate against God and His values. The good news is that when we are able to accept the darkness within us, then we are already on the way to salvation. Facing our shadow self and our addictions is almost the heart of modern psychiatry and therapy. Denial is a bigger evil than having many "evils" within us.

And Jesus said to the man possessed by an evil spirit: “Be quiet,” and it went out without hurting him at all. How often we wish it were so simple to drive out those dark elements within us! It takes supernatural effort literally. It takes God to do it. Jesus Christ, the final and complete revelation of God, takes total authority over evil and commands it not to abuse humans. We need to allow him into our lives. Let him take charge of our lives.

Most of us fail to achieve a better and happier life for ourselves, not for lack of desire, but because we hang on to so much to that which is negative in us. There may be certain areas in our lives where we need to turn away from an old life-style with no compromises and no looking back. We may have certain habits that should no longer be accommodated in any way. There should be no accommodation whatever, for example, for self-destructive addictions, for attitudes and behaviours that hurt the people we love, or for a style of living that stifles our spiritual growth. But this can happen only if we are able to surrender our negativities and obsessions to God, the only Good One.

What is holding you back from living more effectively? What prevents you from attaining the happiness you so eagerly desire? Is it laziness, procrastination, addictions or obsesssions, or your tendency to lie to yourself or deny your talents, or your lack of stamina in keeping your resolutions? Are you in the habit of being harsh, demanding, critical, and one-sided in the way you handle other people, especially those you love?

We need divine help, don't we?