We pray with our children before bed each night. John was getting a bit distracted during the Hail Mary, so I thought I would try something new. I thought, what could be better for a little boy than praying to St. Michael the Archangel? I enthusiastically asked John if he knew who Saint Michael was, and I told him with great animation that he fights the devil with a sword!
I began the prayer, and it was when I got to the part about the snares of the devil that I realized I had opened up a huge can of worms.
“What the devil, Mommy?”
“Well, John, he is a bad guy.”
“And what he do?”
This was the point at which my pulse started to race and I began to seriously doubt my ability to parent. How could I possibly tell my two and a half year old son about Satan? How could I tell him that there are forces of evil in this world that exist for the sole purposes of tricking him, lying to him, taking away his dignity, and robbing him of an eternity spent with our Loving God? How could I?
I experienced the struggle I think every parent feels at some point, and which I had never understood until I became a parent myself. I felt the desire to protect him from all pain and sadness, to fashion for him a world in which his most difficult decision would be what he wants for snack or which train he likes the best. At the same time, I knew that it was not and is not my job to shield him from suffering and pain, but to teach him how to fight it. Because if I don’t teach him, what will happen?
I’ll tell you what will happen, his high school religion teacher will shock him with the truth that Satan exists. There is evil in the world. There is right and there is wrong, and it is a daily fight to choose right. At least, that’s what I do with my students. Young people, all people, today do not recognize the existence of evil in this world, and the effects that will surface if they are not consciously battling against it.
What are those effects? The first is what Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has called the “Dictatorship of Relativism”. In a world in which we do not recognize moral evil, the moral good becomes distorted. When there is no evil, then everything must be good, relative of course to the individual. When we do not recognize evil, we can put up no fight because we can recognize no enemy. If we put up no fight, then evil wins.
The second effect is a result of the first, and that is the loss of true love. Saint Thomas Aquinas defined love as willing the good of another. However, when we live under the dictatorship of relativism, there is no specific and true good that we can will at all. What is good is now based on relativism, based on feeling. When love becomes based on feeling, it loses all of it’s power. True, sacrificial love has been lost in our world. I am almost afraid that my students will injure their necks as they jerk their heads towards me with wide eyes an mouths open in shock when I tell them that love is not a feeling.
And what is love? Love is sacrifice. Love is putting what is good for another person first, despite how we or they may feel. I cannot believe I am about to say this, but maybe Madonna was a little bit correct when she sang, “Love is a battlefield”. In loving someone, we battle for their soul. We fight for a victory of beauty, goodness, and truth in their life.
Spiritual warfare is real, it goes on in our lives each day. This battle, though, is not fought with weapons. It is not fought on a battlefield, and it is not meant to result any casualties. No, it is fought with words of kindness, with compassion, understanding, and love as our weapons. We are strengthened by prayer and the sacraments. It’s purpose is to bring life, and not death. Victory in this battle means we live lives of selfless love. It is ultimately meant to end in eternal joy as a communion of saints with our Lord in Heaven, and that is something worth fighting for.
So, what did I tell John when he asked what the devil does? I said, “John, the devil didn’t see how much God loves him. The devil wants you to do bad things and be sad. But, God loves you so much, and God wants you to do good things and be happy.”
I waited as he seemed to process what I said. He looked at me with a smile and said, “And I will be good!”
I teared up a bit, tucked him in, and thanked God for my son. The next day, though, when John said he would be like Saint Michael with a sword, he followed by hitting his little brother.
I guess it won’t be easy, but I know it will be worth it.
