Our site uses cookies to improve the user experience and we recommend accepting its use to take full advantage of the navigation

Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Download
Gospel text (Mt 9:32-38): A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus, and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.” ...

Is there still the devil?

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, it is strange to hear someone talk about "the devil". Does it still exist? The devil existed, exists now and will never cease to exist! Who are the demons? Where do they come from? They are not anonymous forces, but they are “someone”: persons that, being created by God for the Good, were eternally damned for using their freedom for the Evil.

"Damnation" is an eternal and regretful personal state in which the soul does not find satisfaction in anything, doesn't want anything or anyone, neither admits being wanted. It's a state of self-exclusion from the ability of loving, it's the absolute emptiness, in which the person lives in contradiction with oneself and making one's existence a real failure. Since God is the Good, can He accept that? We have to think it through from the divine perspective: Being infinite Good, God respects the freedom of the damned, allowing them to keep existing the way they have chosen to exist.

—Lord, Our Sovereign King, I don't want more freedom than that of serving You; my only fear is that of offending You and losing You forever.