“But deliver us from evil...” Satan seeks to render us ‘powerless ambassadors of Christ’

We often identify “evil” with significant events or persons in world history, such as Hitler or the Nazis or Stalin or Mussolini. Later, it was Bin Laden and the violent attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Between these events was another evil perpetrated on the United States – President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, in 1963. Sadly, a more recent assassination attempt occurred on July 13, 2024, targeting our former president, Donald J. Trump. Then there are the countless evils inflicted upon individuals and families, especially violent attacks in our big cities that result in unprecedented acts of murder, theft and injury.
 
As “evil” as these individuals and events are, it is the underlying personification of evil or the “evil one” that should give us reason to pause and reflect on our journey through life and how we hope to exist for all eternity. The evil one prowls the earth seeking souls otherwise destined for Heaven. As Sacred Scripture puts it: “Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
 
In his first epistle, Saint John goes further, telling us: “Whoever sins belongs to the devil, because the devil has sinned from the beginning. Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
 
Throughout Scripture we are told about the devil time and again. The first book of the Bible opens with a narrative about our first parents and the forbidden fruit. The serpent or snake in Genesis chapter 3 was Satan or the devil. Appearing as a snake, Satan deceived Adam and Eve into believing that the fruit of the forbidden tree in the garden of Eden “was desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis “But deliver us from evil...” Satan seeks to render us  ‘powerless ambassadors of Christ’ 3:6) and they would “be like gods, who know good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).
 
The Book of Isaiah identifies Lucifer as another name given to Satan. Once a beautiful angel of light, Lucifer defied God and fell from grace. In Isaiah we read: “How you have fallen from the heavens, O Morning Star, son of the dawn! How you have been cut down to the earth, you who conquered nations” (Isaiah 14:12).
 
It should not surprise us that Satan “a murderer from the beginning … a liar and the father of lies … [and] the deceiver of the whole world” (CCC 2852), prowls the earth seeking to destroy our faith as Christ’s disciples. Through fear, anxiety, worry and depression, Satan seeks to weaken our ability as witnesses to the gospel, rendering us powerless ambassadors for Christ, and stunting our spiritual growth.

The last petition to God in the Lord’s Prayer is where the rubber meets the road. Our prayerful request that God protect or deliver the human race from evil and from the evil one “is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan … the [fallen] angel who opposes God”  (CCC 2851). The devil who is “personally opposed to God and to His plan of salvation” (CCC 2864)] is the one who “‘throws himself across’ God’s plan and His work of salvation accomplished in Christ (CCC 2851).”
 
Through the sly initiative of Satan, “sin and death entered the world and by his definitive defeat [through Christ] all creation will be ‘freed from the corruption of sin and death’” (CCC 2852). “Victory over the ‘prince of this world’ was won once for all at the Hour when Jesus freely gave Himself up to death to give us His life. This is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world is ‘cast out’ (CCC 2853).”
 
Some individuals and groups accuse the Church, and Christian men and women, of overstating the power of evil, as well as making the faith seem negative and hopeless. In fact, it would be wrong to shield people from the truth about evil. The Lord Jesus Himself remained focused on seeking deliverance from every evil. We, therefore, need continual deliverance from temptation and weakness; from sin and evil (past, present and future). We beg God’s forgiveness and seek a life without evil. This is most apparent in the Lord’s Prayer, but Jesus also reiterates this in other places. For example, He says: “I am not asking You to take them out of the world, but I ask You to protect them from the evil one (John 17:15).”
 
We may wonder why we spend so much time asking God to deliver us from evil. The reason we repeat this prayer over and over is that we live in a world of spiritual and bodily evil, which comes forth from the presence of sin. As such, we need continual deliverance.
 
We ask God Our Father to deliver us from past evils in which we participated through sin and beg His forgiveness. We also ask God to help us overcome and conquer present evils, including temptation and other weaknesses. Finally, we ask God to deliver us from future evils and provide us with His benevolent grace to help us from falling into future sin.
 
In this final petition, the Church brings before our Father all the distress of the world. Along with deliverance from the evils that overwhelm humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance in expectation of Christ’s return. Praying in this way, she anticipates in humility of faith the gathering together of everyone and everything in Him who has “the keys of Death and Hades,” who “is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (CCC 2854).”
 
“Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of Your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” (Roman Missal, Embolism after the Lord’s Prayer).
 
Father Hillier serves as diocesan director, Office of Pontifical Mission Societies, the Office for Persons with Disabilities and Censor Luborum.