The Evil One

Jesus said to his disciples: “Hear the parable of the sower. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom without understanding it, and the Evil One comes and steals away what was sown in his heart. 

The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away. 

The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word, and it bears no fruit. 

But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.” (Matthew 13:18-23)

Matthew states “the Evil One comes and steals away what was sown in his heart.”  Who is the Evil One?  The Devil who seems able to erase what God has “sown?”  No, much more likely that part of us that struggles to do good gives into temptation not offered by any devil or demon, but that which we freely choose among all the options available to us.  

We all have the capacity to sin and hurt, even destroy.  There is no Devil seducing us to do wrong.  We choose to do so on our own.  We all have shadow sides made darker by “worldly anxiety and the lure of riches.” “The Devil made me do it!” is our pathetic attempt to shift blame off ourselves.

Of course, my opinion conflicts with Pope Francis’ characterizations.  For example, Pope Francis has said: “In our lives, in the life of each one of us, we have many temptations.  Many. The devil pushes us to be unfaithful to the Lord. Sometimes he pushes hard…[T]he whole of the Lord’s creation will be faced with this choice between God and evil, between God and the prince of this word.” (from November 18, 2013 Morning Meditation published in Pope Francis’ Rebuking the Devil, 2019)

Whether there is a real devil or not, the point is we must always respond to and resist temptation to do evil.  Just as important, we need to define evil because the line between good and evil can be hard to find like a line drawn in the sand covered by blowing winds or erased by the tide.  A line carved into rock is far better, and our Church has a sculptor we call Jesus.

Deacon David Pierce