Fr. Roy Cimagala
THIS is an expression that appears in the second letter of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 7. “The mystery of iniquity is already at work…”
I suppose it refers to the fact that in spite of the infinite goodness of God who lavishes it on us in great abundance, we can still manage to go against him. That’s indeed a great mystery.
Yes, we can only spontaneously ask, why oh why is this so? What’s really wrong with us?
Imagine our first parents, the prototype of all humanity, created in the state of original justice, in the state of grace, and endowed with great and powerful gifts like immortality, integrity and impassibility, and yet they managed to sin!
Not only that, even in our redeemed state when we are already made a new creation thanks to God who became man and who revealed to us all that we need to know about ourselves, and then assumed all our sinfulness by offering his life on the cross, and yet we continue to sin!
It’s indeed a mystery. We cannot fully explain this phenomenon. But yes, we can derive from it endless useful and practical considerations that can effectively guide us in our earthly sojourn that is often buffeted with all sorts of trials.
One is that we have a great tendency to be so easily intoxicated by the goodness of God that more often than not we end up wanting to replace God himself, or that we make ourselves our own God.
This was, in fact, the most insidious temptation made on Adam and Eve. “You will not die,” said the father of lies to Eve. “For God knows that when you eat of it (the forbidden fruit) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3,4-5)
It was indeed a kind of irresistible temptation, and both our first parents fell for it. An insight that can be gathered from this event is that the greater the gift or blessing God gives us, the bigger, the more subtle, the trickier the temptation we can expect.
This should come as no surprise to us. If the devil is clever and shrewd, we, with God’s grace, can and should be more clever and more shrewd. That’s precisely what Christ warned us about: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents but as innocent as doves.” (Mt 10,16)
That’s why, as to those who sometimes complain why, when they are trying to make an improvement in their spiritual life, in their love for God and others, they seem to be assailed by more difficult temptations instead, they should not be surprised.
By falling to this demonic deception, it is as if to say that it would be better not to make any effort to grow in one’s life of sanctification, so we can avoid more complicated temptations. We should know better than that.
All this can only mean that we need to fight on! And to counter this mystery of iniquity, which can seem to be overwhelming, we simply also have to put ourselves more deeply in the mystery of God’s love and mercy.
We should not allow ourselves to be won over by the tricks of the devil, even if we can feel that we are already a hopeless case because of the innumerable and very ugly sins we have committed. God never gives up on us. We should never give up on him. Let’s continue hoping, asking for forgiveness as many times as necessary and never tiring in beginning and beginning again.
In dealing with this mystery of iniquity, we have to understand that we are dealing with something that exceeds the grasp of human reason and our purely human and natural ways. We need to have recourse to the Holy Spirit and the Cross of Christ because we need nothing less than the supernatural power of God to deal with this most heinous mystery in our life.
This will require a lot of humility, because our tendency is to subordinate even the supernatural power of God—his infinite and gratuitous mercy—to our human ways and reasoning that can be clothed in sophisticated legalisms.
This is not to say that human and ecclesiastical laws are not important. They are indispensable. But they should not be made to undermine the very gratuitousness of God’s love and mercy.
Of course, it might also be a mystery to delineate the precise lines that distinguish and unite our laws and God’s inscrutable ways. Thus, humility is absolutely needed here!
E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com
