Met Ephrem (Kyriakos): The Devil

 Arabic original here.

 

The Devil

 

An incident that occurred more than once in the Gospel shows the importance of the Lord's fighting the devil (Luke 8:26-39, Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20). By His power and His resurrection, Christ defeated the devil, leaving him the power to harm humans, which makes the period between Christ's resurrection and His second coming an opportunity for man to participate in the struggle against evil spirits.

The Book of Revelation points to increased activity of the devil in the last days, until Christ comes and puts an end to it once and for all in the general resurrection. Sin is the only real evil, from which all calamities come. It opens the path for the activity of evil powers and harm to mankind. In today's secular world, many psychologists deny the existence of evil spirits. Only God's grace can make us able to confront the evil of sin, darkness, and evil, harmful spiritual powers. Then, we join ranks with the Lord in fighting the evil one until death.

This struggle began with the fall of Adam and Eve, when the Lord addressed the following words to the devil (the serpent): "'And I will put enmity between you and the woman' ... and to the woman He said, 'I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children' ... then to Adam He said, 'In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread ... For dust you are and to dust you shall return'" (Genesis 3:15-19).

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul says, "Take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day," and concludes by saying, "take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:12-17).

Today, in the Desert of Gennesareth, the Lord comes and heals a man in whom there were demons. For us, this liberation has taken place sacramentally through baptism. We must strive, as we have said, in our commitments, with the help of our godparents and spiritual fathers, to apply and live out our promises. Then, we will escape evil and find ourselves "clothed and in our right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus," (cf. Luke 8:35), clothed in grace and light, wrapped in the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Returning to God takes place through repentance, confession and spiritual struggle: "this kind does not come out except with prayer and fasting," by the intercessions of the Mother of God and the saints.

+Ephrem

Metropolitan of Tripoli, al-Koura and their Dependencies