RELIGION: Great evil is born of small things that go unchecked.

By Canon Gerry Conroy

The world we are living in just now is a pretty worrying place. The news is filled with the war in Ukraine and the suffering that the people are undergoing. In some way it seems on the other side of Europe, but it is close enough for us to understand the fear of the people there, especially when you hear about the shelling of the largest nuclear plant in Europe. You realise that there are people who do not really care and who are only concerned about what they want, what is good for them. It makes you ask what is wrong with some people; what is going on in their heads? Are they really crazy, or is it that old truth we so often overlook that great evil is born of small things that go unchecked. I was struck how the temptations all started with a small act of self-concern, how Christ was first tempted to use his power for himself; something simple and without any real significance other than to provide food for himself when he was hungry. That surely wasn’t any great misuse of his divine power, he was simply thinking of himself in a way that harmed no one else. Why not? But it is from such small seeds that larger dangers grow. The second temptation ramps up the anti; Abandoning God and bowing before the power in the world would certainly be a way to avoid the suffering of the cross, and the world would be free of evil and Christ could get things back to the way they should have been. Was not that what was really important? How bad could a denial of God be? Is God’s way truly the only way? So many questions, so little certainty, which brings us to the third temptation which goes to the heart of faith and our response to God: it focuses in on the uncertainty of faith, the need for trust that is part of faith. We all want certainty; even in faith we want certainty. The humanity of Jesus would surely want that certainty also. But why is trust so necessary to human life? Perhaps because it opens the door to self-giving, to that essential part of human nature that is fulfilled only when we entrust ourselves to someone else in love, something we cannot really do when there is only certainty of knowledge, when the mystery of the other has gone. All of Christ’s temptations teach us something about our own experience of living with faith in this modern world. The temptations all put a choice before Christ, a choice for himself and his personal interests, or a choice for the will of his Father, even at a cost to himself. Most of the time our choices seem of little importance, they are simply about ourselves and our personal concerns. On Ash Wednesday we humbled ourselves and had ashes sprinkled on our heads just as the earth is thrown on our coffins at our burial, to remind us that we are subject to death; that is our human lot; that is all we can look forward to – of ourselves. But there is something more for us because of Christ’s death and resurrection. We do not look only to this life; we look to eternal life; something we do not find in ourselves but only in God, something we cannot find when we are so taken up by our own interests that we fail to see God and his love. Until we see that, we will never be able to entrust ourselves to him and his will for us. It will be fear that will dominate our lives and we will never know the joy of the hope that is ours. The temptation of the devil is to immure us in petty self-centred details and blind us to the consequences of our selfish concerns, but gradually piece by piece greater evil is unleashed in our lives and in our world. Great evil starts with a small seed, a small act of selfishness. That is the battle we take on with our Lenten penances

Canon Conroy is parish priest of St Patrick’s, Dumbarton