The Deceiver: Our Daily Struggle with Satan

"Why, at every time and in every place, are human events filled with wickedness and suffering? Evil - of which death represents the summit, its highest expression - is not the work of God, who created everything. "Through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it" (Wisd. 2:24). This new book by Fr. Livio, which is connected to his previous books, is dedicated to the mystery of the devil, of whom through revelation we have only a partial but irrefutable knowledge. Fr. Livio continues the task of casting light on some of the truths which form an essential and fundamental aspect of the Christian message and which today are often left in the shadows by contemporary pastoral practices, seeming to have small following in the life of the faith of the people of God. Of course, focusing a work on Satan involves the risk of a somewhat false perspective in which, by the overestimating of Satan's importance, the main point of Christian life can seem to be an anxious vigilance in battle against the enemy who assails us, rather than the contemplation of a Love that saves us by happily and humbly calling us to respond to it. It is a risk of which the author is well aware; but he confronts and overcomes The Deceiver viii it, showing the admirable coherence which unites the diverse aspects of the Christian Faith. The entire vision of the relationship between God and man is recalled, and the theme in question, with its disquieting aspects, is presented within a framework in which the victory of God over evil stands out: "The victory of Christ over Satan is the very heart of the Gospel," emphasizes Fr. Livio. The sources on which the author bases his presentation of Satan's nature and works are the Scriptures (an impressive number of citations, unequivocal in their significance) and the Magisterium of the Church in its most recent formulation, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The two biblical accounts, namely the temptation and fall of our first parents in the Old Testament and the victory of Christ in the desert in the New, are examined in depth, because they signify the two great stages of the history of salvation: the victory of the demon over Adam, and the defeat of the demon by the New Adam, Jesus. These two moments are the paradigm of Satan's activity regarding man. His activity consists essentially in the falsification of reality, presenting evil to man under the form of a completely desirable good: thus, Satan is the Deceiver"--… (more)