When Evil Seems to Be Winning

Today was a hard day ... one of those you just sort of put your head down and wish for it to end. Know what I mean?

M.J.'s funeral was today. Burying a friend my own age (breast cancer), who had a child even younger than my own, made me contemplate my own mortality. Am I doing the best job I can with what God has given me? Something worth considering ...

Father said it best. "God has nothing to do with cancer. Or drunk drivers. Or war. Evil is real, and it touches every life at one time or another."

Later, on impulse, I called another friend, I'll call her Joan, whom I haven't seen for about a year. She confessed that her husband is abusing her. She has two preteen girls, who both have special physical needs. The husband has managed to isolate Joan from her church friends, her employer, and most of her extended family with fantastic stories -- evidently paranoid ragings of an unwell mind.

All things considered, Joan is better off than many women in abusive marriages. She understands that the violence will only escalate, and that she needs to protect herself and her children. She has a job, and has the means to be able to support herself and her children.

And yet, in a very real sense, evil is winning. The fight isn't over ... there may be years and years of battle ahead. But as I was reminded at the funeral today, the battle won't last forever. At times that final punch cuts in unseemly fashion.

Tonight two families are hurting -- one whose mother has gone to God, one who is trying to hang on. Please pray for them both.

Áve María, grátia pléna,
Dóminus técum.
Benedícta tu in muliéribus,
et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Jesus.
Sáncta María, Máter Déi,
óra pro nóbis peccatóribus,
nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae. Ámen.