The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were to take place in two day’s time. So the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to arrest Jesus by treachery and put him to death. They said, “Not during the festival, for fear that there may be a riot among the people.”  

The title scroll at the beginning of the movie “Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones” reads, “There is unrest in the Galactic Senate. Several thousand solar systems have declared their intentions to leave the Republic. This separatist movement, under the leadership of the mysterious Count Dooku, has made it difficult for the limited number of Jedi Knights to maintain peace and order in the galaxy. Senator Amidala, the former Queen of Naboo, is returning to the Galactic Senate to vote on the critical issue of creating an Army of the Republic to assist the overwhelmed Jedi.” During this session of the movie, Senator Padme Amidala, the symbol of all that is good, comes under constant attack from evil people who try to prevent her from doing the work she desires to do. 

A statement that was true in Jesus’ time, just as true in the modern 21st century, and likewise even in “a galaxy far, far away a long time ago” is that evil cannot tolerate the good. During Jesus’ day, for example, the Gospels are filled with instances in which those who would not listen to Jesus sought ways “to arrest him by treachery.” Only when his time of fulfillment had come, would Jesus allow the evil around him to arrest him and put him to death.
 
Evil is the same in our day. Evil cannot tolerate any good that people try to do. It especially likes to infect a thoroughly good situation, and disrupt it as much as possible. If a school is good, evil can make it bad by motivating people to be too selfish or too proud or the like. If a Church is doing the work of God among its members, evil attempts to tempt the leaders with love of power or to tempt the members with jealousy or to work toward dissension in any way it can. Since the Christian approach to life is good and wholesome, evil wants to destroy it by causing one group of Christians to dislike another, by giving labels to people that end up separating them, setting them apart, causing disagreement and even hatred.

A person who sets out to do good in our world, as Jesus did, as Senator Amidala tried in the Star Wars movie, as every Christian should, can expect evil to be present in some form.         

THOUGHT
 
PRAYER

Good and gracious God, because you created only good, our world is good. But evil is also present trying to disrupt and destroy any good that can be done. Help us recognize the evil that may be present in our personal lives, and with your Son’s help, give us the grace to conquer it. Be with us, we pray. 

Questions, comments? Let me know. Email Fr. Mike

©2007 Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America