Tonight I was impressed by the short reading for Evening Prayer, which I found on Universalis. Allow me to share it with you.
Do not let your love be a pretence, but sincerely prefer good to evil. Love each other as much as brothers should, and have a profound respect for each other. Work for the Lord with untiring effort and with great earnestness of spirit. If you have hope, this will make you cheerful. Do not give up if trials come; and keep on praying. Romans 12:9-12
If only we might keep this message in mind--perhaps memorize it, so we could act on it frequently--what a difference it would make. In this short passage we find the greatest recipe for success ever written. Just a little food for thought.
I think one cannot naturally prefer good to evil, unless one first makes a distinction in one's heart (albeit with instruction in as well as with example of both), and then practices -- one must actually practice choosing good over what has any potential to be or to cause evil. Evil being anything that takes away from love or life. It is a habit formed, that which gives one's capacity for evil the cold shoulder. One starts small, if not also early, and one starts again and again and again, if one means it. And one needs to know the Lord before one can work for Him tirelessly.
And some go their whole lives without knowing Him, even if they go to church "religiously". I received a barbed lash earlier today, it truly ripped out a chunk, when freshly baptized grandson was being spoken of by his other grandmother. "We couldn't get the smell off him (baptismal oil..) -- not even with vinegar! It's musky.. it's like skunk odor, or cat urine.."
Dear God.. ow ow ow. Here the tyke has been anointed by the holiest of oils.. his soul has been claimed for Christ, the Saviour of all ages.. oh God, yes, to the world, this stinks! I did not wash my hand that made the Sign of the Cross on his little forehead..I wanted the stink to persist and persist..what joy it brought..
I'm so sorry, Lord, for her inane remarks. I'll help make You better known, if You'll give me that.
Posted by: C | January 24, 2007 at 10:22 PM
St. Augustine's idea of evil was simply the absence of good--in which case it's really nothing. We tend to make a big deal over nothing. I'm not immune. It seems that the biggest issues that I have to face stem from the times when I was doing nothing rather than something.
I may risk sounding a bit Pelagian but I think that goodness is natural; however, we have chosen to push aside what is natural and gone elsewhere... I won't have the answer to the problem of evil tonight, but it's worth pondering for a long time to come.
Posted by: Deacon DW | January 24, 2007 at 11:31 PM