+ “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
It is not difficult to agree with Saint Paul in the Epistle of this Holy Mass that “the days are evil.” Bad times come for those of us in the twenty-first century just as they did for the Ephesians of the first—with, perhaps, the difference that the social and technological development of the intervening two millennia, whilst bringing many blessings, has also substantially augmented man’s scope for evildoing. Saint Paul could most probably understand our ‘culture of death’ even if its scope would take his breath away—in some cultures innocent human life was as disposable then as it has become again now—but he could never have imagined the lethal capacity of modern warfare, the widespread morally corrosive effects of immediate and unlimited access to no matter what content through information technology, etc.
What Saint Paul would make of the creeping cancerous apostasy of syncretism that is spreading rapidly and is most worryingly found at all levels in the Church is probably known from some of the choicer phrases of his epistles! Its extent and its promotion by Apostles who are his successors would shock him to the core. “The days are evil,” he would affirm. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time…do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
Yes, the days are evil. They may become even more so on many fronts, and we may not be able to prevent that. But that is not our ultimate concern and worrying incessantly about evils that may or may not arrive simply gives them all the more power to terrorise us. The threat of arrest and execution did not silence Saint Paul! (He wrote this epistle whilst in prison.)
Our task—as the Word of God proclaimed anew this morning by the Church in her Sacred Liturgy makes clear—is to move forward, carefully, prudently, seizing and making use of the opportunities that present themselves, intelligently and ingeniously, to do God’s will in the concrete situations that confront us. For whilst the times may be evil, we are called within these evil times to practice and to bear witness to all that is true, beautiful and good—to all that is of God.
There can be a tendency in some strands of Catholic spirituality to side-step our duty to bear such witness, supposedly leaving the future entirely in the hands of God’s Providence as if all we need to do is sit back and watch. “Everything that happens is according to God’s Providence,” the saying goes—and so we do nothing whilst the doers of evil and the perpetrators of falsehood thrive. This, however, is nothing less than a modern resurgence of the heresy of quietism—that spiritual self-annihilation that leaves one with the capacity and will of a baptised amoeba! No. In these times we must advance with care and prudence, intelligently tackling what we can when we can in order that the evil that confronts us is refuted, rebuked and rebutted: for if we do not confront it, who shall?
This is not to say that we must fall into the opposite error of activism. We must act to combat evil, certainly, and in times of downright war a great deal of activity may well be required of us. But our activity must be wise, taking care that we understand what God’s will in fact is, what witness we are called to give in given circumstances. Our actions must make God and His saving Truth and love and mercy present anew amidst the actual evils that threaten us, and not merely be a series of egocentric frenetic flourishes that are ends in themselves. There is a time to pray and think and contemplate, and yes there is also a time to act. Let us recall that Our Lord Himself spent many years in hidden preparation for His public ministry.
When we are young and seeking the Lord’s will for our life we must be prepared to say “yes” to the Lord’s call—otherwise we shall have no Catholic families worthy of the name in the future, we shall have no priests to minister God’s grace and no monks or nuns to bear witness to the primacy of God even in this world and to intercede for it and for those in the thick of the battle against evil. When later we are living out our particular vocation, we must put the gifts we have been given by Almighty God to use in His service, indeed in His defence! That is our baptismal duty—a duty augmented and specified by the reception of the Sacraments of Holy Matrimony or Holy Orders and enhanced in a particularly graced way by the profession of monastic or religious vows. When we are older, or laid low by illness, we have yet another weapon with which to combat evil: the loving offering of our suffering for Christ and His Church—and this is a spiritual weapon that the forces of evil simply cannot match!
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” This, and nothing less, is our task. For the wisdom and understanding necessary to know and do the Lord’s will in these evil days, that the Truth of Almighty God may reign anew in the world, let us beg Him as we approach His altar here this morning. +
It is not difficult to agree with Saint Paul in the Epistle of this Holy Mass that “the days are evil.” Bad times come for those of us in the twenty-first century just as they did for the Ephesians of the first—with, perhaps, the difference that the social and technological development of the intervening two millennia, whilst bringing many blessings, has also substantially augmented man’s scope for evildoing. Saint Paul could most probably understand our ‘culture of death’ even if its scope would take his breath away—in some cultures innocent human life was as disposable then as it has become again now—but he could never have imagined the lethal capacity of modern warfare, the widespread morally corrosive effects of immediate and unlimited access to no matter what content through information technology, etc.
What Saint Paul would make of the creeping cancerous apostasy of syncretism that is spreading rapidly and is most worryingly found at all levels in the Church is probably known from some of the choicer phrases of his epistles! Its extent and its promotion by Apostles who are his successors would shock him to the core. “The days are evil,” he would affirm. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time…do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
Yes, the days are evil. They may become even more so on many fronts, and we may not be able to prevent that. But that is not our ultimate concern and worrying incessantly about evils that may or may not arrive simply gives them all the more power to terrorise us. The threat of arrest and execution did not silence Saint Paul! (He wrote this epistle whilst in prison.)
Our task—as the Word of God proclaimed anew this morning by the Church in her Sacred Liturgy makes clear—is to move forward, carefully, prudently, seizing and making use of the opportunities that present themselves, intelligently and ingeniously, to do God’s will in the concrete situations that confront us. For whilst the times may be evil, we are called within these evil times to practice and to bear witness to all that is true, beautiful and good—to all that is of God.
There can be a tendency in some strands of Catholic spirituality to side-step our duty to bear such witness, supposedly leaving the future entirely in the hands of God’s Providence as if all we need to do is sit back and watch. “Everything that happens is according to God’s Providence,” the saying goes—and so we do nothing whilst the doers of evil and the perpetrators of falsehood thrive. This, however, is nothing less than a modern resurgence of the heresy of quietism—that spiritual self-annihilation that leaves one with the capacity and will of a baptised amoeba! No. In these times we must advance with care and prudence, intelligently tackling what we can when we can in order that the evil that confronts us is refuted, rebuked and rebutted: for if we do not confront it, who shall?
This is not to say that we must fall into the opposite error of activism. We must act to combat evil, certainly, and in times of downright war a great deal of activity may well be required of us. But our activity must be wise, taking care that we understand what God’s will in fact is, what witness we are called to give in given circumstances. Our actions must make God and His saving Truth and love and mercy present anew amidst the actual evils that threaten us, and not merely be a series of egocentric frenetic flourishes that are ends in themselves. There is a time to pray and think and contemplate, and yes there is also a time to act. Let us recall that Our Lord Himself spent many years in hidden preparation for His public ministry.
When we are young and seeking the Lord’s will for our life we must be prepared to say “yes” to the Lord’s call—otherwise we shall have no Catholic families worthy of the name in the future, we shall have no priests to minister God’s grace and no monks or nuns to bear witness to the primacy of God even in this world and to intercede for it and for those in the thick of the battle against evil. When later we are living out our particular vocation, we must put the gifts we have been given by Almighty God to use in His service, indeed in His defence! That is our baptismal duty—a duty augmented and specified by the reception of the Sacraments of Holy Matrimony or Holy Orders and enhanced in a particularly graced way by the profession of monastic or religious vows. When we are older, or laid low by illness, we have yet another weapon with which to combat evil: the loving offering of our suffering for Christ and His Church—and this is a spiritual weapon that the forces of evil simply cannot match!
“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” This, and nothing less, is our task. For the wisdom and understanding necessary to know and do the Lord’s will in these evil days, that the Truth of Almighty God may reign anew in the world, let us beg Him as we approach His altar here this morning. +
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