The final petition of the Lord’s Prayer asks the Father to “deliver us from evil.” It is interesting how the next line that the celebrant prays is: “Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil.” The work of the evil one is to try to divide us from the Lord and from one another, and so it is indeed fitting that we are praying to be delivered from evil at this point of the Mass. We have just prayed together to our Father, asking Him to give us our daily bread, to forgive us our trespasses, to not allow us to be led into temptation, and to deliver us from evil. In just a few moments, we will be receiving Holy Communion, a word which signifies union with the Lord and one another, strengthened by the Sacrament of Unity, the Eucharist.
On the night after the Last Supper, when Jesus was praying to the Father, He stressed His deepest desire for unity in His Church:
“I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
(Jn 17:20–23)
The Church often refers to this passage when reflecting on the divisions that exist within Christianity, with the various denominations believing a worshipping in a variety of ways. And while in a general sense we can say that this division has the fingerprints of the evil one, I think for the purposes of our reflection, we want to consider how we within the Church are divided through the influence of the evil one and our own weaknesses. In my article three weeks ago, I referenced Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus says that “a house divided against itself will not stand.” (Mt. 12:25) Unfortunately, when I typed out that line a few weeks ago I forgot a very important word – NOT. Thanks to the careful attention of one of the readers of the column, I was made aware of my mistake, for which I apologize. Back to the point – it would be helpful for us at this point of the Mass to pray with earnestness to the Lord to deliver us from the evils within ourselves and among the members of our congregation that seek to keep us divided.
In particular, I think it can be good to be attentive to anything within us that may be causing us distress (which we also pray to be kept free from in this prayer) as it relates to our experience at this Mass. Perhaps you notice somebody who you do not think is dressed all that appropriately. We can stew on the thought of how disrespectful they are being, and we can find ourselves getting agitated as the Mass goes on. There may be cause for concern, and I am not doing to poke that hornet’s nest now, but notice how quickly we can allow something that offends us to be turned into something not from God. We start making judgments about the other person, thinking what we would tell them if we had the chance, or what we are going to tell the pastor so that he can tell them. We get caught in that cycle and our hearts are far from the unity Christ desires for us. Other examples abound, such as somebody who is always a half sentence behind or ahead in the prayers, somebody whose singing is not the best, the homily we heard that we did not agree with, the unacceptable temperature of the church, etc. It might even be a situation not present at Mass, but which is weighing heavily on us as we try to pray at Mass.
Let us be mindful of those things and ask the Lord for His grace to deliver us from the evil of judgment and lack of charity that we sometimes are stuck in during Mass. This is not to dismiss the need for conversion that might be present in ourselves or in others, but it does mean asking the Lord to free us from any of the shackles that are clearly not from the Lord so that we can better realize His desire for us to all be one.
My challenge for this week is a brief one: spend some time thinking about someone that really gets under your skin. Instead of gossiping about them to family, friends, or co-workers, talk about them to the Lord. Tell Him what bothers you about them, pray for their conversion, but just as importantly, pray for your conversion, that you might not be handcuffed by the division in your heart that exists toward them. Then bring that person to prayer by once again praying the Lord’s Prayer.
Father Alford