Moral and Social Evils and Power of Goodness Lesson 4

 To the extent that we’ve been influenced by others’ goodness, we are more inclined to do good ourselves. Liberty Mutual "Pay it Forward" Commercial  The extent that we have been influenced by others’ lies, coldness and selfishness, we have also been pulled in those directions. Ellen's message about the dangers of bullying  Example:  If a smile is contagious so is back-biting

 Eventually, individual moral evils lead to social evils on a much greater scale.  One person does wrong, so another person does wrong, which influences more people to do wrong.  No moral wrong is unimportant!  Unless we fight our tendencies to do wrong in small ways, bit by bit we become more complacent about it and tempted to do wrong in more serious ways.  Little White Lies Lead to Bigger Ones! – Examples?  Marijuana – The Gateway Drug concept

 For example, this affects our society’s legal system.  A mere warning by law enforcement personnel, a slap on the wrist by the courts, send the message that spousal or child abuse or drunken driving isn’t so bad.  People are more tempted to continue these types of behavior until they end up fatally harming someone.  Broken Window Theory! Broken Window Theory!  Article – Cosmo Kicks Butt  “Defusing the Crime Bomb” What is One Way We can do this?: (according to the article)

 Teenagers in our society have the most reason to fear some of the cruelest results of sin.  As a group, you are the most frequent victims of murder, rape and violent crimes in general in our society.  Students carry knives and guns to school in order to feel safe.  Evils like these don’t happen by themselves.  Sin by sin and individual by individual – people cause moral and social evil to happen and let it continue.  Article: “Edges: Don’t End Up In Here Like Us” - Small Crimes to Big Crimes” List the two most important lessons you can take from this article: 1) 2)

 As strong a hold as evil gets in someone’s personal life or in the world, the power of good is far greater and can overcome it.  Goodness is God’s power and Jesus’ resurrection makes clear that good will always triumph in the end.  Christians call this power of goodness God’s grace.  Jesus’ redeeming life and death have made us worthy of this gift of the power of goodness, and shown us how to use it to bring us closer to God and others.

 Jesus told and showed us, loving kindness and only loving kindness can ultimately overcome all the evil in the world.  Evil is cast out by good.  God gives us the gift, the grace and power of goodness in many special ways.  We must also ask God for it, and earn it by the loving ways we try to use this power of goodness as perfectly as we can.  The extent that we truly live our baptism and beliefs as Christians, we can overcome the tendencies left behind by original sin which influence us to do wrong instead of what we know is right.

 Being a force for good is a main concern of society as well as of religion.  Many children receive no moral education at home, while their peers are constantly encouraging them to ignore their conscience.  These children may eventually come to have no idea or a twisted notion of what is right and wrong.  Many suffer neglect and abuse which further buries their conscience.  Their view about what is and is not acceptable human behavior become even more distorted.  Finally threats of punishment cannot even convince them that there’s anything wrong with murdering you much less with stealing your wallet.

 Catholics should play an active role in supporting basic moral education in society.  We also have an equally serious responsibility to see that moral education in a public context respects, rather than violates, individuals’ religious freedom.  Religion addresses the real source of crime – the struggle between evil and goodness within the human heart.

 You have been assigned the task of creating a new slogan for a campaign to encourage people to become more aware of how their small actions can affect others  Design a t-shirt to be sold and worn in our community promoting this issue!  Be prepared to share and explain your rationale.  If you want to change big things, you pay attention to small things." -Rudy Giuliani on C- span talking about the Broken Windows theoryon C- span