Deliver Us from Evil
In the seventh and final petition of the Lord’s Prayer, after having prayed for deliverance from temptation, we pray for deliverance from evil.
Evils are undoubtedly part of human life, even for the baptized, due to the effects of original sin. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, evil is defined as the absence of a good that should be present. This especially applies to the presence of God in our lives. We have evil in our world because people have free will and some freely choose to reject God and His Commandments and embrace evil. Yet, like all things, free will was created to be good. It is naturally good for a creature to be rational and make its own decisions.
If we happen to suffer because of another, it does not mean that we are not loved by God. God is with us through the sufferings of life. He, too, came and suffered by being betrayed by His friends, denied by Peter, mocked and crowned with thorns, stripped of His garments, commanded to carry the Cross, and crucified. The God of Heaven and earth was put to death by our sins so that we might have eternal life, thus drawing unfathomable good out of the most horrific evil possible.
Scripture confirms that the cause of all human sinfulness is ultimately the sin of Adam (original sin): “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Death and destruction do not come from God (cf. Wis. 1:13), but rather from the evil one who seeks to damn us all (cf. Wis. 2:24).
We cannot blame God for the evils present in the world. Rather, it is our duty to bear them and carry our own crosses throughout this life. Pope Benedict XVI expressed a similar message when he wrote: “Jesus, Whose divine love alone can redeem all humanity, wants us to share His Cross so that we can complete what is still lacking in His suffering (cf. Col. 1:24). Whenever we show kindness to the suffering, the persecuted, and defenseless, and share in their sufferings, we help to carry that same Cross of Jesus. In this way, we obtain salvation and help contribute to the salvation of the world.”
What We Pray for in This Petition
Turning to The Catechism of St. Pius X, we read: “In the Seventh Petition: But deliver us from evil, we ask God to free us from evils, past, present, and future, and particularly from the greatest of all evils which is sin, and from eternal damnation, which is its penalty.” We should not expect to be spared from all trials and temptations, of course, since they help us grow in virtue and ultimately win “the crown of life” (James 1:12) prepared for those who “persevere to the end” (Matthew 10:22, 24:13).
The Catechism of St. Pius X therefore adds:
“We say: Deliver us from evil, and not, from evils, because we should not desire to be exempt from all the evils of this life, but only from those which are not good for our souls; and hence we beg liberation from evil in general, that is, from whatever God sees would be bad for us.”
From what evils do we pray for deliverance? First and foremost, they include the evils inherent in our broken world: disaster, famine, disease, war, and sin. Yet our petition goes further by also asking God to deliver us from the riches, honors, and other temporal goods that could potentially endanger our souls. And chief of all, we ask for deliverance from everlasting suffering in hell, as stated in The Catechism of the Council of Trent:
“We also beg of God that we be not cut off by a sudden death; that we provoke not His anger against us; that we be not condemned to suffer the punishments reserved for the wicked; that we be not sentenced to endure the fire of Purgatory, from which we piously and devoutly implore that others may be liberated.”
How to Pray This Final Petition
We should certainly pray when evils threaten us. However, rather than turning to God in prayer only in times of distress, Christians must “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), as St. Paul says. Considering the order of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, we know that we must first seek to honor and praise God before asking for our own needs.
Furthermore, we affirm in our prayer that God is the ultimate Author of all healing and deliverance, even through the medium of modern medicine. All healing ultimately comes from God, and we must place our hope in Him. Yet, the use of modern medicine, which is subordinate to the will of God, is certainly permissible.
Our Final Moment
While God, in His omniscience, ultimately knows the final destination of each soul (including those who will be lost), He wants “all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). As such, He calls each of us to cooperate with His grace, rooted in Baptism, and to persevere in the “faith that worketh by charity” (Gal. 5:6) so as to “reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:8). If we die in the state of sanctifying grace, we will one day enter Heaven (likely after some time in Purgatory). If we die in the state of mortal sin, we will go to hell for all eternity.
These points are dogmatically defined by the Church. And since it is possible for a Catholic to mortally sin at the end of his life and die before receiving sacramental absolution or making a perfect act of contrition, it is certainly possible for any human soul on earth to lose Heaven. Thus, it is necessary for us to keep in mind our ultimate goal of Heaven at all times and to pray for final perseverance.
Concerning various tribulations which God permits us to endure for our own ultimate good, The Catechism of St. Pius X further adds: “Tribulations help us to do penance for our sins, to practice virtue, and above all to imitate Jesus Christ, our Head, to Whom it is fitting we should conform ourselves in our sufferings, if we wish to have a share in His glory.” As Our Lord has asked us to carry our crosses after Him, we cannot expect to be immune from all evils in a world hurt by the effects of sin – both original sin and our actual sins.
Deliverance from Satan
Of the many evils for which we pray for deliverance, one of the chief among them is temptations from the devil, who, day and night, seeks our eternal damnation.
The devil was once an angel, even one of the greatest of the angels, whose name is Lucifer, which means “light bearer.” Yet, before the creation of man, one-third of the angels fell from Heaven and became demons, sentenced to an eternity in hell away from God (cf. Isaias 14:11-12; Luke 10:18; Apocalypse 12:4, 7-9). The Baltimore Catechism teaches clearly: “Before he fell, Satan, or the devil, was called Lucifer, or light-bearer, a name which indicates great beauty. He was cast out of Heaven because through pride he rebelled against God.”
The demons fell from grace because they refused to accept God’s divine plan. They balked at the thought that God would become a man to share with man the life of the Blessed Trinity in a unique way unavailable to them. They refused to accept that a mere humble and lowly maiden would be their Queen, to Whom they would minister. They chose to be condemned to hell and spend all eternity away from God when He revealed to them His plan regarding the Incarnation, the Kingship of Christ in His Humanity, the Queenship of Mary, and the creation of men destined to be the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.
And for this reason, the demons seek day and night to bring about our own damnation. The Baltimore Catechism again clearly teaches: “The devil tempts us because he hates goodness and does not wish us to enjoy the happiness which he himself has lost.” They are lost forever, and they want us to be lost, as well. And one of the greatest tricks of the devil is to convince man into believing his diabolical suggestion that he does not exist. From these evils, we especially pray for deliverance.
For a more thorough explanation of this and other petitions, see the book The Roman Catechism Explained for the Modern World.