Give the Devil His Due

Give the Devil his due—an old saying, maybe Shakespeare.

Don’t ignore an evil adversary.

Don’t underestimate someone who’s trying to harm you.

Don’t think he’ll always fail just because he’s evil.

Acknowledge that he’s very good at what he does.

If we take that saying most literally, it applies to the Devil himself.

Satan, Beelzebul, the Ruler of the World.

But is he even real?

Surveys show that about half of Americans don’t believe in the Devil.

And about a third of Catholics don’t.

Jesus talks about him as if he is a real person—an individual creature.

In today’s Gospel Jesus warns his apostles of the coming evil

—His Passion and death.

He says, The ruler of the world is coming.

But he has no power over me. 

Elsewhere he speaks of the Devil saying:

I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky.

If I drive out demons by Beelzebul

By whom do your own people drive them out? 

The enemy who sows [the weeds] is the devil.

Now the ruler of this world will be driven out.

You belong to your father the devil ... a murderer ... the father of lies.

We could view those statements as just 

A figurative personification of evil.

Surely the Devil’s not a physical being 

With cape, tail, horns and pitchfork.

But that doesn’t mean we can dismiss him.

Even if we have trouble seeing him as an individual spiritual being.

Even if we suspect he’s just a stand-in for the concept of evil.

We all know that evil is out there—everywhere.

We feel it, we see it, we hear about it.

Ranging from seemingly minor failures of kindness

All the way to murder and genocide and torture.

Of course, evil acts ultimately come from within us, and people like us.

But where does that evil originate?  

What’s the source?  

Who’s transmitting it?

Who planted the idea that we should kill one another in the name of God?

An idea that began long before the Jews stoned Paul,

And still persists to this day.

We want to avoid adding any contribution of our own to the world’s evil.

We want to realize that peace that Jesus left us.
We want to show the Father and the world, as Jesus did,

That we love God and do as he commands.

As we struggle to stay on course toward those goals,

It does help to have a more concrete image of the force that opposes us.

To name it and personify it.

To acknowledge what we’re up against.

To consider our adversary to be just as Jesus presented him.

To give the Devil his due.

Tuesday 5th Week of Easter

Jn 14:27-31   Read this Scripture @usccb.org