Reflection by Fr. Chris

While I still need to watch Cabrini, I did sit down last week to watch another movie by Angel Studios, The Shift. I did not know what to expect from the film. I do not like science fiction but I love the main actor who plays “the benefactor,” Neal McDonough (who just so happens to be a devout Catholic). 

Without giving the plot of the film away, the main character meets a woman and falls in love. The marriage falls on hard times and one day he is in a car accident. When he awakens from the accident, he is alone on the street, and encounters a man who calls himself “the benefactor.” Quickly, the audience realizes that “the benefactor” is in fact the devil. He takes the protagonist to a diner to offer him a deal--serve him and he will return him to his wife. (This movie deals with multiple realities and the protagonist was sent to another reality at the time of the accident). Concerning the multiple realities, the movie is a bit confusing, but basically, the man rejects the deal from the devil and is sent to a reality that is set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future. 

After five years in this reality, there is a confrontation between the protagonist and “the benefactor,” wherein the devil character loses his temper at his failure to reach a deal and declares, “You've seen it. You know what I can give to you. Do you want to know who the liar is? Do you want to know? He's (God) the liar. He lies to you when He says there's hope and goodness in this world. He lies to you when He says He loves, He forgives, He cares. If He cares so much then why am I allowed to do these things to you? Look at what He lets me do to you, to Tina, to everyone. If He really loves us, why doesn't He stop me? Why doesn't He just stop me?” Here, the devil goes back to the age-old argument against the faith--if God is all good and all powerful, how is there evil? This question has been answered by many theologians throughout the history of the Church (most prominently by St. Augustine who argued that free will was the cause of evil), yet there remains some mystery surrounding this question. 

I write not to speak about the problem of evil, but about the other part of the rant from the devil, the part about love and hope. The devil loves to make us think that we are not loved, that because of sins that we committed, God could not possibly love us. If we were to believe this, then we would not seek the mercy of God, and if we do not seek the mercy of God, we would find ourselves trapped in a cycle of sin. Furthermore, if we fail to understand the love that God has for us, we will seek our fulfillment with the offerings of this world, and the finite offerings of this world would never satisfy us.

To combat the devil, we begin by acknowledging that Satan is indeed real, and like “the benefactor,” he does not love us, he loves chaos. Secondly, we have to acknowledge that God is more powerful than the devil and offers us the tools in which to combat the devil in this life. Thirdly, we acknowledge the love that God has for us. God sent His Son into the world to save us. It wasn’t because we were worthy. It was because we are His children. We belong to Him. This life is not about earning God’s love, but accepting the love, and accepting our role in serving God and His Church.  

Fr. Chris