Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Deliver Us From Evil

Recent movies made, show that humans can no longer live on the earth as they once did: nuclear war, technology, climate change. The earth that we know will no longer be  living space with which we are accustomed. We will be controlled by machines,  robots with alone be ridding us of trash, and earth people will be going to other planets to live so begins  a seminary rector article in With Bible.

According to a  survey that was made in 2016  of the 14,900 nuclear weapons 93 % are possessed by Russia and the United States. France,  China,  England, Pakistan,  India and Israel each of them, it is surmised,  possess from 80 to 300 and North Korea would have under 15. Pope Francis reminds us in the first chapter of Laudatio Si that  the earth "is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us." And  yet we have enough nuclear  fire power to destroy the world   a number of times over.

Nuclear power plants likewise are  dangerous. He mentions the Chernobyl  Fukushima and the Three Mile Island accidents. At  present we have 442 nuclear power plants. The  spent fuel will take 10 thousand of years  before declared safe. They are not safe and or not economical and are not friendly to our environment.

We pray to be delivered from evil Matt. 6:13 scripture scholars  remind us this is not subjecive  evil but human evil that will harm all of us. At the time of Jesus people thought that the devil was the cause of much of sickness, Evil  brings about division and death, People doubted the dignity of those who were sick and were treated as sinners. and where isolated from the community. Jesus worked against this to reunite  people to the community.

We no longer believe this to be the case but the devil has found in recent times a better way to bring about division and death  with more efficient methods: wars, development of munitions, military installations,  corruption,  lies, violence, conflict,  destruction of the environment. 

He conculdes  the article with the mention of a Paris Foreign Mission who died recently at the age of 78. He spent the last 16 years in the seminary as a teacher  and friend to students. He asked the students in his talks do you bring to prayer the things you read in the newspapers? Regretfully many Christians separate the religious life from the daily life and privatize and individualize  what they hear and see. They do not see Jesus suffering  in what is happening in the world. When we are indifferent to the suffering of our brothers and sisters we are indifferent to God.

He remember on a trip to the Holy Land  in a room where the Lord's prayer was commemorated he heard the missioner crying. He asked  him the reason for the tears and he replied: "Why is it that we all recognize God as our Father  but can't do it together. When will that day come?"

May we be delivered  from the indifference  to the suffering of our brothers  and sisters. Deliver us from the exploitation and the destruction of the creation you have given us only in search of profits and mammon.

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