The good sometimes do wrong. Let us face it. And when they do wrong it is not the same as the evil who do wrong. Evil is an exception in the life of the good; it cuts across the long road of their life as a tangent. But with the evil, good is an exception. A master pianist may hit a wrong note, but everyone still knows him to be a good pianist. A beginner may hit a right note, but everyone knows that he/she is not a good player.

As a result the inner workings of the mind are quite different in the good doing wrong and the evil doing evil. In the latter, a hardening process sets in. Conscience first shouts; then, after repeated chokings it becomes so weak it can only whisper; finally, its voice is stifled altogether. Since such people willed to have no moral law except of their own making, God leaves them alone. It is terrible for the soul when God pursues it and drives it to perfection; but it is more terrible still when He leaves the soul to its own conceits.

The psychological effect is entirely different when those who truly love God do wrong. The difference between them and others is like to that between a waif who steals and a devoted son who steals. The first does not feel the rupture of a relationship; the second does. The latter has hurt one whom he/she really loves. Furthermore, the waif does not feel the urge to restore the broken buds of love, but the ordinary good boy/girl does. There is a mysterious magnet operating in the case of the good. As the steel filings fly to the attraction of the magnet, leaving the dirt behind, so the good are pulled back again to God, but only after having shaken the dust of evil from their lives.

Picture two men married to two old shrews. One man was married before to a beautiful, wise, devoted wife who died. The other never married before. Which of the two suffers the more? Obviously, the man who once knew love and happiness. So, it is with doing evil. He/She who has known the inner peace of soul that comes from union with God undergoes greater agony and torture in his/her sin than the one who never was ushered into such treasures. The rich who become poor suffer more than the poor who never were rich. The soul which offends God Whom he/she loves suffers more than the soul who willed not to have God in his/her life.

This does not mean that the evil do not experience an agony. In the good, the effect of doing evil is moral and leads to repentance. In the evil, the effect is physical and psychological. It shows less in the soul and more in the mind and the body. The moral effect is sorrow, contrition, repentance, which leads to a restoration of fellowship with God and therefore peace. The physical or psychological effect is anxiety, fear, worry, psychoses and neuroses. The good take to the knees when they do wrong; the evil, if they have enough money, betake themselves to a couch. The good want their sins forgiven; the evil want them explained away. The good recover peace of soul; the evil have to be satisfied with peace of mind.

The explanation of this phenomenon is that the good have another principle of action in them than the evil. The evil are guided solely by the thought either of the satisfaction of the flesh or the spirit and that this world is all. But the good have another principle in them, entirely above nature, which is called grace and by it they are united to God. This principle of grace is always rising up against their sin and generally triumphs over it with the slightest cooperation of the will. A man/woman refrains from adultery because of the love he/she has for his/her wife/husband. This principal of love militates against his/her carnal desires and if he/she falls, pulls him/her back again to fidelity. So with God's grace. As Saint Paul wrote to the pagan Romans: "I don't understand my own actions because instead of doing what I want to do I do what I hate. Now if I don't want to do the very thing that I actually do, then I agree with the Law that it is, in fact, good." - Romans 7:15-16 - 

That is the point. The very regret one has is an admission that the law of God is right. A child told by his/her parents not to stick his/her finger in the fire does so. But he/she immediately discovers that their law was worthy of all honour.

There are two ways of knowing how good God is. One is never to lose Him, the other is to lose Him and find Him again.

There are two great evils in the world: sin and suffering. Sin is mortal, suffering is physical and the latter is a result of the former. What happens to the body as pain, and to nature in the form of cyclones, earthquakes and floods, is ultimately an echo, a repercussion and effect of what has already happened in the moral universe. When the big wheel in a machine is cracked, all the little wheels get out of order. As we eliminate sin, we eliminate suffering; as we love God, we cease to hate others. And thus we engage in fewer wars.

The more morality and decency and virtue there are in the world, the more peace there will be in the world. War are consequences of a moral rebellion. The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible boldly affirm that war is the result of egotism and selfishness. When civilization is made up of millions of men and women who are at war with themselves, it is not long until communities, classes, states and nations will be at war with one another. Every world war is a turbulent ocean made up of the confluent streams of millions of little wars inside the minds and hearts of unhappy people. War is the final logic of self-will.

War is not necessary but it does become an inseparable ailment of any world that abandons the supremacy of the spirit. Nietzsche, after proclaiming the death of God in the nineteenth century, prophesied that the twentieth century would be a century of wars. There is a possible connection between the importance given to politics and the frequency of wars. In any era of history where politics is the major interest, war is the major consequence. This does not mean that one ought to subscribe to the dictum of Karl von Clausewitz that war is the persecution of politics by other means. It does not mean, however, that since politics stresses expediency and pragmatism on a great scale that essential for peace, war becomes a greater possibility. When the people are interested in the raising of a family, the cultivation of virtues and the salvation of their souls, they act as a balance wheel against the power-motive of politics. But when both the state and the people give supremacy to politics, the stabilizing influence of society is lost, and with it come civil strife and discord and war.

There is much truth in the thesis of Pitirim Sorokin that as civilization in the modern sense of the term advances, there is an increase of war. There have always been more wars than peace. From 1496 B.C. to A.D. 1861 or in 3,358 years there were only 227 years of peace and 3,130 years of war; this makes 13 years of war for every year of peace. Within the last three centuries there have been 286 wars in Europe.

From 1500 B.C. to A.D. 1860 there were 8,000 treaties of peace which were supposed to remain in force forever. The average length of these treatise was two years. It is likely that there was never a single year when the world did not have a war at least in one country or the other. Two other analyses have revealed that since the year 1100, England has spent half of its history fighting wars, France nearly half, and Russia three quarters.

It is not a very sweet pill for our civilized world to swallow, to realize that the false prophets of the last century who predicted an evolution of man into god and the necessary progress of humanity to a point where there would be no more war or disease or death, were wrong and we are now living in a century of war. It behooves us all to admit that there is an evil tendency in our human nature, and that this tendency when uncontrolled by morality and grace will devolve more rapidly than it will evolve. It is our views of the human condition that have been wrong, by denying the possibility of sin and guilt, we have denied the very existence of perversity within us which makes war. Not all will submit to this moral regeneration through self- discipline but those few who will, will be the leaven in the mass of the world.

It is not our politics and our economics which have to be stopped. The remaking of the world depends on the remaking of the individual. The return of the individual to God is the condition of more peaceful times. Amen!

BY  VENERABLE  FULTON  J.  SHEEN     

- WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -