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‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’

Something wicked this way comes.

As I read the news and watch what’s going on in our country today, I can’t help but think of this Ray Bradbury tale about a carnival that brings evil into the towns that host it.

Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in the book, for one look at the news tells us that, indeed, we are in a wicked age.

Let’s look at just a few examples:

  • A young woman was doused with acid on her driveway in New York, rendering her scarred and nearly blind.
  • A seven-year-old boy was shot and killed in an apparent road rage incident in North Carolina.
  • Stanford University has been accused of using aborted babies’ fingers in research.
  • Planned Parenthood continues to indoctrinate school-aged children with its sex ed classes. Meanwhile, its president admits its founder Margaret Sanger’s racism, though she would never admit to targeting minorities and blacks with the strategic positioning of PP clinics. To Planned Parenthood, killing tiny preborn babies is simply “healthcare.” And, let’s not forget, a lucrative moneymaker.
  • Headlines vilify a police officer who shot and killed a young girl armed with a knife who was attacking someone. Though this officer was protecting others at the scene, some people—including an NBA player—feel the need to make the girl a martyr. This basketball player tweeted the words “You’re next” along with an image of one of the officers at the scene of this shooting. Inciting violence? Absolutely. Was he sanctioned? Of course not.

The disturbing headlines go on and on. Something wicked has indeed come our way.

It’s no surprise that evil is showing its ugly head nearly everywhere these days. When so many people are embracing it, evil doesn’t need to hide in the dark.

We know there has been evil since the beginning of time, but now it seems as if many are not even bothered by it. That is why we must fight hard against it.

How do we do this?

First, we need to learn to recognize wickedness, for it is easily disguised. It’s disguised as fun. It’s disguised as jokes. It’s disguised as personal “choices.” It’s disguised as people masquerading as Catholics. And it’s disguised as “woke.”

Once we recognize wickedness, we must speak up and do something proactive to counter it.

Taking action is difficult, but doing nothing is even harder.

As C.S. Lewis said: “There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.”

We have turned from God for too long, and like an octopus with tentacles that suction to prey, evil has spread its tentacles over our society and is holding it hostage.

But God and our faith free us, for nothing is too big for Him to handle. Nothing is too difficult for Him to change.

In Him, we have hope.

So as we begin—or continue—this fight, let us look to God, to Mary, to the saints, and to the Church doctors for guidance. Let us allow God to use us to eradicate the evil in this world. Let us pray, learn, stand up, speak out, and teach.

And let us take hope in the words of Psalm 52:

Why do you glory in what is evil, you who are mighty by the mercy of God? All day long you are thinking up intrigues; your tongue is like a sharpened razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, lying rather than saying what is right. You love all the words that create confusion, you deceitful tongue. God too will strike you down forever, he will lay hold of you and pluck you from your tent, uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous will see and they will fear; but they will laugh at him: “Behold the man! He did not take God as his refuge, but he trusted in the abundance of his wealth, and grew powerful through his wickedness.” But I, like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God, I trust in God’s mercy forever and ever.

Trust in God. He will never abandon us. And wickedness will not win.

 

 

 

 

 

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About the author

Susan Ciancio

Susan Ciancio is the editor of Celebrate Life Magazine and executive editor for the Culture of Life Studies Program.