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Christ unites us to his battle and
his agony. He urges us to vigilance of the heart in
communion with his own. Vigilance is ‘custody of
2612 the heart’, and Jesus prayed for us to the
Father: ‘Keep them in your name.”6° The
Holy Spirit constantly seeks to awaken us to keep
watch.’6’ Finally, this petition takes on all its
dramatic meaning in relation to the last temptation of our
earthly battle; it asks for final perseverance.
‘Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he 162
who is awake.~Ió2
2850 The last petition to our Father is
also included in Jesus’ prayer: ‘I am not
asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to
protect them from the evil one.”6~ It touches
each of us personally, but it is always ‘we’
who pray, in communion with the whole Church, for the
deliverance of the whole human family. The Lord’s
Prayer continually opens us to the range of God’s
economy of salvation. Our interdependence in the drama of
sin 309 and death is turned into solidarity in the Body
of Christ, the ‘com munion of saints’.’6~ 2851 In this petition, evil is not an abstraction,
but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who
opposes God. The 391 devil (dia-bobs) is the one who
‘throws himself across’ God’s plan and his
work of salvation accomplished in Christ.
2852 ‘A murderer from the beginning.., a liar and
the father of lies’, Satan is ‘the deceiver of the
whole world’.’6~ Through him sin and death entered
the world and by his definitive defeat all creation will be
‘freed from the corruption of sin and
death’.’66 Now ‘we know that anyone born of
God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him,
and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of
God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil
one.”6~ The Lord who has taken
away your sin and pardoned your faults also
protects you and keeps you from the wiles of your
adversary the devil, so that the
enemy, who is accustomed to leading into sin, may not
surprise you. One who entrusts himself to God does not dread
the devil. ‘If God is for us, who is against
us?”68 |
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