evil: purposes: detachment

Re: Evil, Purposes; Detachment
Fr: Excerpt from Bill Donaghy* (2008 Jan 16). “New year’s resolution # 6 – Letting go.” http://missionmoment.blogspot.com/, accessed 2008 Jan 22 (highlight mine)

“Thank God another hand was there that day, when Frodo refused to let the Ring fall. But it was an unexpected hand, a gnarled and withered hand that saved the day. Gollum clutched and grasped at his master and bit the hand of Frodo, causing the Ring to plummet into fire and out of memory.

“How often does it seem that Providence puts these unwelcome hands in our way, gnarled and withered hands that take things away from us, tear at us and tease us. It should be stressed that this is not the Hand of God... directly. He wills only our good and we must believe this, we must trust this. But we must know too that God is a jealous Lover. And He may from time to time unbind and allow the hands of the Devil to act. This is the mysterium iniquitatis, the mystery of evil, and the mystery of Good as well. The puzzling Plan of Providence.

“Does this frighten us? Is this an unsettling thought for us? To consider that God would ever allow us, His children to be burned, to be hurt, to suffer like Job? It takes tremendous faith, and a laser focus on that one thing needful, that pearl of great price. It is, we find in the end, not the pearl that matters, but the Person holding it. All else must fall away. Everything must fall away and we must be stripped, just as Frodo and Samwise on their journey through Mordor, and Abraham through the countless miles to Canaan, and Moses in the wilderness, and Hannah in her tears, and David in his battles, and Anthony in his barren cave, Clare in the cutting of her hair and all the ties that bound her to comfort. Everyone must pass through Mordor, through Calvary. And there, if we are to be free, we must lay down the Precious. Cast it into the fire, let it burn upon the altar of the Cross.”

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*Bill has a Master’s degree in Systematic Theology and teaches theology at Malvern Preparatory School. He was a lay missionary to South America.