The Evil Among Us

The other day there was a news story about two 12-year-old girls who tried to stab their 12-year-old friend to death (I can hear my mother saying, “With friends like that, you don’t need enemies.”). They were doing it to please the “Slender Man” – a fictional figure who is depicted in drawings as having no face, and who apparently preys on children and adolescents. The girls believed he was real and that they would be able to go and live in his mansion in the woods.

Maybe it’s just me, but that has Satan’s name written all over it. Satan will kill our children one way or another; if not by abortion, then by other types of murder. Satan’s got mothers killing their unborn babies, mothers dumping their just-born babies into toilets and dumpsters, and now children attempting to kill children. Is the “Slender Man” real? Well, I would say probably not in the sense of a physical being we would call a man. But in the demonic realm…

Fr. Chad Ripperger has suggested that we are entering a time when our younger generations are seeing an increase in graces given to them by God. The flip side of that is that there is an increase of evil that those graces are meant to combat.  I think we will see (and are seeing) more and more of the weird evil things that used to remain hidden; they are slinking out of the darkness ever more boldly. For instance, yesterday, I saw a news story about a healthy cow that was apparently killed for no reason other than for the perpetrator to cut out the cow’s tongue and leave it. That may seem like it has no relation to a story about 12-year-old girls trying to murder their companion, but to my mind it does. People under satanic influence do a lot of weird things, especially to animals. No, I’ve never heard of a satanic practice of cutting a cow’s tongue out, but it’s just weird. And gruesome.

The sad thing is that so many people seem to fail to notice what is happening. My husband and I were talking about the steep decline of our society over the last few years. Of course, the decline has been in the making for some time, but in the last several years, it seems we are just about jumping off a cliff rather than sliding down a slippery slope. The slippery slope is behind us. We’re holding onto the edge of the cliff by a fragile root stuck in the ground.

The US bishops have put out a little 1-1/2 minute video encouraging everyone to pray and fast for “life, marriage, and religious liberty”.  Well, those are all good things to pray for, of course. But the bishops are forgetting that they have not properly trained the people as to what exactly those principles mean, and why they are important. Just as many Catholics are currently praying for gay “marriage” as are praying against it; many Catholics think social justice causes are more important than the abortion issue; and the vast majority of Catholics use artificial contraception. A friend described the bishops’ well-intended video exhortation as “the functional equivalent of using a Hostess Twinkie to combat a raging bull elephant”. It's almost as if they are just going through the motions, with no real conviction behind their words. I am starting to think that most people don't really know what it means to pray any more...it's all about good wishes and happy thoughts. (Of course, the bishops’ little ad does mention fasting and abstinence - credit where credit is due, I guess.)

Sigh.  

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.