Evil is a destruction of something real whether physical (physical evil) or spiritual (moral evil) and where this destruction is the direct result of our human willfulness and malicious intent, we sin for by this course of action we give evil it's place in our time and in our world and by so doing transgress the law of God which is truth. By thus are we given to sin where the wages of sin is eternal condemnation which is an everlasting death.
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THERE ARE PEOPLE in our world today who believe not in evil and they are right to do so. For evil hath no power upon those souls where evil is consistently uninvited and forever made unwelcome.
However, where they disbelieve also in the good which is the sheer truth, this disbelief not only undoes for them their prior denial of evil's own power, it also unhinges for them God's own reality which is the singular basis for which the one divine order present in heaven is universally founded upon the earth as a common moral order.
We believe not in evil for evil is not a choice to be believed in by our reason and subscribed to by our will. Evil is primarily a consequence of our disbelief in God and secondarily a consequence of our surrender to our inclination to sin.
Those who believe in evil either misunderstand what evil truly is or are themselves victims of either the vanity of the vainglorious world or the greater malice of other people who have succumbed to sin and have thus, made a welcome place for evil in their hearts.
Those who misunderstand evil and those who are victims to the vanity of the vainglorious world sin by obstinacy to the truth but those who knowingly and wilfully lead others into sin by their own evil are damned already.
Recall to your heart the words of our Blessed Savior:
"WHOEVER causes one of these little ones who believe (in me) to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."
Mark 9: 42
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Those who are ignorant of the real nature of evil are not yet in sin unless they obstinately reject the needful truth that comes as a light to deliver them out of their captivity to the darkness.
There is evil in our world but it is not to be believed in, it is to be endured. Evil therefore, is not a proper impetus for right action. For if evil were our constant motive for right action, in our resisting evil, we will soon find ourselves bound by the very bonds we are trying to sunder. For we resist the very course that our LORD had intended to temper our human acts with divine virtue.
If we were impatient and choose not to passively endure the evil which is the consequence of our own sinful acts or the collective burden of the brokenness of our being human, then how else can we love our enemies? For evil itself is our enemy and where evil is our enemy, sin becomes a thing of contempt and where sin is rejected, God's grace abounds so much so that as evil brings the pain of consequence, we are given the strength with which evil is to be withstood and the peace that serve as a constant reminder of the enduring good and in so reminding us of the enduring good, God's peace awakens in us by sure degrees of wisdom those truly human freedoms that arise to create for our will that other, correct choice, the good one.
For all things turn to good for those who love the LORD and revere Him with a holy fear.
Lastly, recall to your heart the words of our Blessed Savior:
- "IF YOUR HAND causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.
- And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
- And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'
- Everyone will be salted with fire.
- Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another."
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I am of the conviction that "to cut off" in the words of our Savior means to absolutely deny evil's power over our bodies by our soul's unyielding denial of evil's reality as a choice.
We must remember that evil is a consequence of sin, sin which is either the erroneous choice between the apparent good over the actual good borne out of ignorance to the truth or the intentional malicious choice to deny the actual good and it's truth to either the service of the self or to the service of others through the instrumentality of the self.
Truly human choices are paths that lead to two distinct realities, one actually true or a real good, the other apparently true or an imagined good that is actually sinful and therefore, leads to the undoing of something real, into the unleashing of something evil.
To cut off evil means to deny the primordial lie that evil ever was a choice and therefore, expose sin for what it truly is, a false choice.
Those who cut off evil do not consider evil as an impetus for right action, only the good. They do not focus on evil things, past, present or future - in time or in eternity - as if it was a reality with which to react with for they know that this will only mire them in endless cycles of mindless reaction after reaction from consequence after needless consequence, exhausting their sense of hope, profoundly taxing their faith and severely straining their love of the good for the sake of the one Good.
Our Lord the Christ said, "everyone will be salted with fire", to mean that all of who have presently rejected the reality of evil over us must nevertheless endure all the evil that befalls us for in that way we remain salty and keep our mutual peace, one with another.
Sancta Sanctis!
Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.
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