Evil and Its Origins

See also: Sin, Fault, Blasphemy, Satan, Pain, Suffering, To Suffer, Good.

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File:Catéchisme illustré des vérités nécessaires, page 4, God.jpeg

God chases Lucifer and the rebel Angels from Heaven - Illustrated Catechism of necessary truths, page 4.

According to the work of Maria Valtorta, God did not create Evil; it was Lucifer who engendered it through his disobedience at the beginning of time. Because of this, Hatred appeared and eternal Hell was created. Through the fault of our first parents, Adam and Eve, evil and death entered the earth and ravage it. Since that moment, Christ and Lucifer, now Satan, have contended over the possession of Souls. This struggle will reach its climax at the end of times before Evil, Satan, and his worshippers are defeated forever.

God does not use Evil to tempt us; He only tempts us with beneficial gifts. It is up to us to seize them.

Heaven at the origin

At the beginning, all was order in creation. But order does not exclude freedom: God created nothing to be enslaved. On the contrary, perfect freedom is found in order because it excludes constraints born of fear of intrusion, dread of aggression, and the struggle against destructive wills.        

Such was the universe as a whole before Lucifer abused his freedom by stirring up disorder of passions within himself—by his own will.    

His original name, Lucifer, means "the light-bearer." In other words, the bearer of Light, that is, God, since God is Light. He was an angel, the most beautiful of the Angels. His perfect spirit ranked only below God. Of all that exists, he was second in beauty, the pure mirror reflecting the unbearable Beauty of God. His mission among men would have been to execute God's will, the messenger of the decrees of goodness that the Creator transmitted to His blessed children without sin, leading them always higher into His likeness. The bearer of light would speak to men through beams of this divine light he carried, and as they were without fault, the men would understand these flashes of harmonious words full of love and joy.         

Finished effortlessly because realized in an ordered way, creation would have continued without effort from the creatures if disorder had not come to break the harmony of Heaven with Lucifer’s rebellion, and that of Eden with the rebellion of Man-Adam.

Lucifer’s sin who becomes Satan

Lucifer, the "light-bearer," believed himself to be Light itself. But "to bear the light" is very different from "being the Light." The Light before whom all Creation bows is the Son of God, the Word of the Father, He "through whom all things were made." The second person of the Trinity "is the perfection of the Three summarized in one Person. An infinite perfection before which the heavenly armies prostrate themselves." He has no equal nor anything in common with the angelic creature Lucifer once was.

The archangel Lucifer loved incompletely. The Pride of self occupied space in him, a space where love could not exist. He saw himself as God, he saw himself in himself, he saw himself in his companions—since God enveloped him with His light and took joy in the splendor of His archangel—and because the Angels venerated him as the most perfect mirror of God, he admired himself. Present alongside God from the earliest acts of Creation, he aspired that Creation would say of him what is said of the Incarnate Word in the prologue of John: "All things were made through him." From that moment the archangel becomes sacrilegious, murderer and predator.     

He was to admire only God, but he admired himself. In every creature, all good and evil forces are present and contend until one side prevails to produce good or evil. Lucifer attracted Pride.

It was through this breach of Pride that his destructive depravity entered. Because of it, he could not understand nor accept the Christ-Love; synthesis of infinite, unique, and triune Love. The fact that in our day heresy spreads that denies the divine humanity of the second Person to make Him merely a good and wise man is easily explained by this key: the lack of love in the human Heart and its incapacity to love.

Since he knew the future wonders of God, Lucifer wanted to take God’s place. His troubled mind already made him see himself as the chief of future men, adored as the supreme power. He thought: "I know God’s secret. I know the words. His design is known to me. I can do all He wants, Him. As I presided over the first acts of creation, I can succeed. I am." This word, which only God can say, was the cry that marked the ruin of the Proud one. And he became Satan.

He who was created to bear the light and messages of God freely and voluntarily chose to be unfaithful to the Lord his Creator and to His Grace. It was this prideful delusion, this presumption to Believe oneself God instead of the Son of God and thus not bound to obedience and ADoration, that struck down the rebel. If he had been all love, there would have been no room for anything but love in him. But there was room for Pride, which could be called the disorder of intelligence.       

Just as God intended the archangel to stand by His side from the earliest acts of creation and to know its destiny of love, He also wanted him to know the necessity that his sin would impose on God: the Incarnation and Death of a God to counterbalance the sin Lucifer would commit unless he overcame his Pride. God showed him the vision. The first annihilation of God is found in this act of gentle and supplicating conviction towards the Proud one.

It was an act of love. But Lucifer was already Satanized. Instead of love, he saw only fear, weakness, insult and threat. He therefore engaged hostilities Against God, saying: "You are? I am also. What you have done is for me. There is no God. And if there is one, it is me. I adore myself. I abhor you. I refuse to recognize as Lord the one who cannot overcome me. You should not have created me so perfect if you did not want me to pose as a rival. Now I am, and I oppose you. Triumph over me if you can. But I do not fear you. I too will create, and your creation will tremble because of me. I hate you and want to destroy what is yours to create in its ruins what will be mine. I know and recognize no other power than myself. From now on, I adore only myself."         

The birth of Evil, Hatred, and Hell

The entire Creation was then seized with a horrified convulsion at the infamy of these sacrilegious words, a convulsion like none will equal at the end of Creation. Hell was born: the reign of Hatred.

Lucifer made Pride an instrument of seduction: He seduced his less attentive companions. He turned them away from the contemplation of God as the supreme Beauty.            

This Revolt killed in him and his followers charity, order, and harmony.          

It is from the incubation of Pride that Evil was born. Evil is a force that sprung spontaneously like certain monstrous diseases in the healthiest body.

Hell, the place of eternal and unimaginable torments where those who live in hatred of the Lord and His Law rush, was created because of him, the rebel Archangel.

With his followers, Lucifer was struck down by God and defeated by the faithful Angels. Struck down because now stripped of the power of his state of Grace, and "thrown down into the abyss" where his terrible fire of hatred, his light and flame now horrible, so different from the flame of grace and love received at creation, ignited an eternal fire of unimaginable atrocity.

When Lucifer’s sin irreversibly upset the order of paradise, a great horror struck all the Angels. The full charity that had existed alone before had fallen into an abyss from which foul hellish odors exhaled.

The absolute charity of the Angels was destroyed, and Hatred appeared. Frightened, the faithful Angels wept for the pain of God and His wrath. They wept for the outraged Peace of paradise, for the violated order and for the fragility of spirits. They no longer felt certain of being blameless by their pure spirit: Pride was latent and could develop.

Satan contaminates the Earth

Evil thus existed before man was created. God had cast out the cursed incubator from paradise. But unable to contaminate paradise any more, he contaminated the earth.  

It was through him indeed that all evil came...     

At the bottom of the abyss where he had fallen, ugly for eternity, Lucifer, now Satan, thirsted for vengeance. His first act of vengeance touched Adam and Eve. His poisoned tooth implanted the mark of his bestiality in the perfection of creation, communicating to it his own appetite for lust, vengeance, and pride.      

By resisting Satan’s seductions, our first ancestors would have imitated the good Angels vainly tempted by Lucifer during his rebellion, and they would have gained an increase of Grace.

The impulses and instincts of human nature were originally ordered and good elements. They were arranged according to reciprocal harmony, well adapted to the final goal for which man was created. Their disorder was the creation of Lucifer, the rebel.        

The sin Against love, that is, the Pride of intellect and Heart, from which innocent man-Adam became guilty, the terrible sin of self who wants "to become like God" (Genesis 3:5), was created by Lucifer who later seduced man to the same sin, making him like him in rebellion Against the Lord.  

For centuries upon centuries, man has Struggled Against infernal venom and Satan perpetuates an endless series of crimes of vengeance. No one escapes the disorder caused by Lucifer and our first parents. Even Christ had to confront them.  

The sin of Lucifer, of Adam, and later of Judas of Kerioth was to want everything because they had received much. They believed themselves "gods" because God had chosen them, sure to be saved without any merit other than love granted by God. They thus became guilty of an extremely grave sin. For if God’s Goodness is perfect and infinite, it is neither foolishness nor injustice.    

God prevents Adam from being damned forever.    

But God wanted to prevent Adam from risking to repeat the sin of Lucifer, who became Satan for having refused to adore Love made flesh. If God had proposed the future Christ to Adam, Adam might have refused also to adore the future Christ, the true synthesis of Trinitarian Love.   

Too often, man sterilely curses the first sin, blasphemes Against God accusing Him of being a reckless Lord who subjected man to a Temptation stronger than he. But what would have happened if man, instead of yielding to the Temptation that induced him to Believe that by eating the forbidden fruit he would become like God, had come, without any tempter, to Believe himself God because he was without sin, without pain, and without death?         

There would have been no redemption because man would have been a new Lucifer. It would even have been an innumerable legion of demons since, over centuries, humanity would have multiplied through all the procreations; it would then not be only one man and one Woman, but all, who would have sinned by this sacrilegious heresy and the human race would have perished entirely in an infernal punishment.        

Lucifer pridefully claimed to redeem man himself, judging that his likeness to God was not a participation of nature, but substantial, thus making him equal to God in knowledge, power, and beauty. He thus greatly offended the Holy Spirit, dispenser of lights, truths, and wisdom found in God. Now sins Against The Holy Spirit, committed by Lucifer and his rebel companions, as they are also committed by many men, are not forgiven.

Satan's struggle Against Christ until the end of times

Since his fall, Satan wants to have his own people to oppose God’s People. He pursues this goal relentlessly, out of hatred for God and hatred for the creatures God loves as a Father. The intelligence Lucifer had before being struck down—very sharp, fitting for the prince of angelic populations—as well as his powers, he retained even after the divine strike. He now uses them to achieve his goals. He spies on every human action, listens to every word. From every word spoken and every action performed he profits. He uses the physical constitution of the individual, his illnesses, misadventures, studies, affections, occupations, and everything he finds suitable to be sown with discord, to sow his strife. He causes phenomena apt to seduce us and cause us to be deceived.         

These are the wonders about which Christ warned us when announcing the last times, warning humanity Against these same wonders and Against the voices of false christs and false prophets who will appear here and there.

Satan is the "Opposite": the opposite of God whom he opposes. Each of his Actions is the antithesis of God’s Actions. All his machinations aim to push men to oppose God. That is Satan. He opposes the three Theological Virtues the triple concupiscence</nowiki>. To the four Virtues cardinal and all others coming from God, he opposes the pool of his horrible vices.

Lucifer uses his cunning to deceive and his great intelligence to devise when and how to provoke God’s suffering by the loss of a creature. He never wastes his time uselessly. Omnipresent on earth, he works among the multitude.

The little attention man pays him and his rare desire for Good, leaves Satan almost omnipotent over creatures, but he must carefully calculate his time and not waste a moment to work effectively. For infinite profit, he seeks to increase his infernal forces with treasures stolen from God: the Souls.

Among the many things the current world, full of Pride and incredulity, denies, is the presence and immense power of the Demon. Logically, Atheism denying God also denies Lucifer, this creature of God become rebel, adversary of God, the Tempter, the Envious, the Evil One, the Tireless, the Simulator of God.

Since he was cast down into the abyss where there is only Darkness and horror, Satan wants to establish there a copy of the heavenly court, have his own ministers and Angels, subjects and sons. When he manifests himself to deceive us, he disguises himself as a spirit of light. His appearance and thoughts are concealed under ornaments copied from the Most High.

Thus Satan approaches Maria Valtorta: On July 4, 1944 he counterfeited the Voice that inspires her to urge her to curse those who had harmed her. Another time he pushes her to divert the work for his own profit and personal glory or instills Doubt about the origin of the visions.

Satan has not lost his powerful intelligence simply because he passed from archangel to demon: on the contrary, he uses his extremely sharp intelligence for evil instead of good, as he would have used it had he remained an archangel.

The temporary triumph of Satan.         

His infernal cunning and satanic intelligence continuously work to increase his prey, opposing the work of Salvation of God. His cunning and intelligence would not prevail if humans possessed the Blood of the Redeemer and an earnest will. Humans lack too many things to have weapons to oppose the Beast, and it knows this and acts openly without more disguising itself in false appearances.     

If people knew how to think, they would endeavor to be good to bend goodness to their confession. Instead, Saltfishness dominates them. Consequently, prayers, Sacraments and sacramentals, made impure by Saltfishness, have no power Against Lucifer who disrupts the world.

All humanity is guilty. But it includes sinners and impious ones. The sinner is simply a sinner, but the impious carry sin to a demonic perfection. For in evil, the demon knows how to reach perfection, and his most faithful Disciples can do just as much as their master.

Those who refuse to acknowledge any law, neither natural nor human, are Lucifers, the Lucifers of Earth. Over the years their number increases rather than diminishes as it should following the diffusion of the Gospel, its tireless preaching, and the civilization it spreads. Peace, justice, and light are promised to men of good will. But they are of bad will.

The Beast is full and pulsing. It is its hour of feast. But it seeks the shadows to act. It hates the Light, it who called itself Lucifer! It hypnotizes those not marked by the Blood of the Redeemer. It increases its efforts because it knows it is its hour and that the hour of Christ approaches when it will be overcome forever.

Just as God gave each nation its guardian angel, so Lucifer gave it its demon. The order given by Lucifer is the same for all demons. Hence one can understand that Satan’s reign is not divided and therefore endures.   

This order sums up as: "Sow horror, despair, errors so that peoples detach themselves from God by cursing Him."  

The demons obey and sow horror and despair, extinguish faith, strangle hope, destroy charity. On the ruins, they sow hatred, lust, and atheism. They sow hell and succeed because they find already favorable ground.         

My Angels also struggle to defend the country I have assigned them. But my Angels do not find favorable ground.

It is the demons, installed as masters in the Hearts, who lead nations to death. And among some peoples, there are few Hearts that are not the dwelling of demons: countless demonic legions manipulating entire nations like puppets. "And how can I reign where the Hearts have become the dwelling of Lucifer’s children?" wonders Jesus.  

Lucifer rejoices in these times, in these Hours of glory, which belong to him. He stands on his throne—he, the cursed, the struck down, the one cast out by God—he stands on the throne men have raised for him, and the Lamb is offered to his infinite mockery. Offered to his horrible derision is the One he has never been able to overcome, The One into whom he has never penetrated, The One who has defeated him a hundred times and a thousand times, The One who forces him to admit defeat for twenty centuries, The One who will defeat him until the end, liberating by His infinite power the spirits of good will.

He will be defeated. But meanwhile, he appears victorious. And the Sacrament of all Sacraments, this mystery of love to which even the most seraphic human love fails to render worthy honor, this mystery of love is delivered to Satan by men as a means for his ephemeral triumph.

The final confrontation

"It is a struggle between Heaven and Hell," says Jesus to Maria Valtorta. "You are but a deceptive screen. Behind your troops fight Angels and demons. Behind your pretexts hides the true reason: Satan’s struggle Against Christ.           

It is one of the first selecions of humanity, whose last hour is near, to separate the harvest of the elect from the harvest of the reprobate. Unfortunately, the harvest of the elect is meager compared to the other.         

When Christ comes to conquer the eternal adversary in His Prophet, He will find few marked by the Cross in their spirit".

The first time, to Save the Earth, God sent His purifying waters: the Flood. The second time, He sent a bath of blood, and what blood: that of His Son! None of these Purifications served to transform humans into children of God. Now God the Father is weary of the human race, for humans have preferred hell to heaven. Lucifer, their ruler, tortures them to push them to blaspheme Against the Triune God and make them his children forever.

Christ wished for a second Passion to Save the world, but God the Father did not allow it: it would be useless. Christ will come only at the last hour.    

When this time comes, a great number of stars will be carried away by Lucifer’s annals who, to conquer, needs to diminish the lights of Souls. This may happen because not only laity but also members of the clergy will have lost firmness of faith, charity, strength, purity, detachment from the seductions of the world, necessary to stay in the orbit of God’s light. These stars mentioned in the Apocalypse are thus those Jesus called "the Salt of the earth and the light of the world," His ministers.

"Woe to those who will see me at that hour after having chosen Lucifer for their lord!" says Jesus to Maria Valtorta. "My Angels will not need to carry weapons to win the battle Against the antichrists. My gaze will suffice.".  

"You will understand who God is and who Lucifer is only when you are in the grip of torture," He continues. "Terrible lesson! And the more you sin, the fiercer his grip because there are limits even to my unlimited yet intelligent Goodness. Remember this.".

"Pray then, you who are good, that the world may only die at the appointed hour. Pray that God does not send His justicers to strike it, as He did with Lucifer and Adam. For certainly, the decrees of God are eternal. But they can be modified when His justice and honor impose on Love to remind creatures that there is only one God and that no one is greater than Him. This for the world.".          

The end of the world

What will happen then?        

Just as we seek to transmit some wealth to our children for a better life, so Jesus urges us to do all we can to transmit a legacy of spiritual strength that they can develop and multiply to have it in abundance when the hailstorm of the last battles of the world and mad Lucifer lash humanity in such a way that one wonders whether hell would be better.       

Hell! Humanity will experience it. For those who remain faithful to the Spirit, paradise will come afterwards, as will the earth that is not earth: the Kingdom of heavens.        

The archangel Michael who defeated Lucifer and guards Paradise will appear as a celestial sign in the last times. At that time, Israel will join Christ’s Rome so that there will no longer be two branches of God's people — the blessed and the cursed due to its deicide — but a single root of Christ because it will live in Him.

Then the mystery of God will be fulfilled. "Then you will know God," says Jesus to Maria Valtorta. "All the men of the earth, all, from Adam to the last-born, gathered like grains of sand on the dunes of the eternal shore, will see the Lord God, Creator, Judge, King.        

"Yes, you will see that God whom you will have loved, blasphemed, followed, mocked, blessed, vilified, served, and fled. You will then know how Good He deserved your love and how Good He was worthy to be served.        

"Oh! Joy of those who consumed themselves to love and obey Him! Oh! Terror of those who were His Judases, His Cains, those who preferred to follow The Antichrist and the Seducer instead of the Word made flesh in whom is Redemption, of Christ, the Way of the Father; of Jesus, very holy Truth; the Word, true Life".          

Good will return to the source from which it came. Evil will be thrown where it was already thrown at the time of Lucifer’s Revolt and whence it came out to trouble Adam’s weakness by seducing the senses and pride.           

Just as love, hatred is eternal: it is eternal since it first appeared in the accursed Spirit of Lucifer and his followers. It is eternal in hell which, from then, existed and will never end. It is eternal in the Hearts of men who chose it as their queen, and who will carry it beyond time.    

These two eternities: love and hatred; the Expiator and sin; Jesus and Lucifer; will be, in a continuous being, the King of heaven and the king of the Abyss, each at the head of his people. After time, hatred will continue to blaspheme among the people of the cursed. For Lucifer’s sin, there is no forgiveness.

If the great Seducer could penetrate the sensible paradise, he will not be able to insinuate himself into heavenly paradise. Lucifer, already cast down from heaven into hells because of his rebellion, will be buried and become "nothing" at the end of times, before the new heaven and new earth come, so that he can no longer act, harm or make suffer those who, after overcoming all sorts of trials and purifications, will live in the Lord.

In "The Gospel as it was revealed to me"

Misfortune and suffering endured

• Is pain not always an evil? - No, friend, it is evil from the human point of view.
• Suffering has not been useless. I believe, I know it has served you more than a whole year of teaching. Suffering, the meditation on evil that man can do to his fellow man, pity, faith, hope, charity that you had to exercise, and by yourselves, have matured you like children becoming men...

Temptation, choice to do or not do

• What is obedience to God’s commandments? It is good, because God commands only good. What is disobedience? It is evil because it puts rebellious feelings in the soul, fertile ground for Satan’s work.
• We have everything within us: good and evil. We carry everything with us. On good blows God’s breath. On evil blows Satan        
• In all human Actions there is the possibility of good or evil depending on how they are done.         
• All seeds of evil and all Aspirations to Good lie dormant in man by the loving will of God, by the evil will of Satan who suggests, tempts, excites, while God attracts, comforts, loves. Satan tempts to seduce. God works to conquer.
• It is always man’s will that accomplishes good or evil. And on man’s will, God’s Will projects its lights and Satan’s will his poisonous vapors. It belongs to man to Homelir the light or poison and to become just or sinner.
• For evil, it is not enough to not do it, one must also not desire to do it.

The bad Actions caused to others          

• The reflection of good and evil on the Face

Evil personified

See also related entries: Satan    

• Evil is a force born spontaneously
• I had dedicated myself to God from my first Age because the light of the Most High had clearly shown me the cause of the world’s evil and I had wanted, as far as it was in my power, to erase from myself the mark of Satan.       
• Evil is against good, and I must conquer evil in each to put good... and not all want it...    
• But when will Evil cease to harm? Maybe it will blunt its arrows Against your Sacrifice? Will it persuade itself it is defeated? - Never. It will always believe it triumphs despite the denials from the just.

In other works of Maria Valtorta

The Notebooks of 1944

• Catechesis of May 22 : Evil always comes under the fleeting and deceptive appearance of a human profit. Never be mistaken. The true profit is supernatural. Trials are the currency used to acquire it. (page 302)

The Notebooks from 1945 to 1950

• February 18, 1974 : "Is Temptation, in this case, a sin or a glory? Good or evil? It is not sin. And even if it is an element of evil, it can be turned into a means of good and glory thanks to the free will with which man resists it [...] Also remember that man's life serves to expiate the evil he commits."

In fundamental Christian texts

In the Bible

• For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), no good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I do. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Misfortune and suffering endured

• The experiences of evil and suffering, injustices and death seem to contradict the Good News, they can shake faith and become a Temptation for it 164
• Faith in God the Almighty Father can be tested by the experience of evil and suffering. 272 et seq.
• Providence and the Scandal of evil 309 et seq.
• No one escapes the experience of suffering, evils in nature and especially the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? 385
• God’s triumph over the Revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment 677

Temptation, choice to do or not do

• By receiving holy Baptism which purifies us, the forgiveness we receive is so full and entire that nothing remains to be erased, either from original fault or faults committed by our own will, nor any penalty to undergo to expiate them (...). Yet the Grace of Baptism does not free anyone from all infirmities of nature. On the contrary, we still must fight the movements of concupiscence which constantly lead us to evil" 978
• It is by faith in the Good News and by Baptism that one renounces evil and acquires salvation 1427
• Every man experiences evil around him and in himself 1606
• Man knows the Voice of God urging him "to do good and avoid evil" 1706 et seq.
• As long as he has not definitively fixed his last Good, which is God, freedom involves the possibility to choose between Good and evil, and thus to grow in perfection or to fail and sin. 1732
• The objective rules of morality state the rational order of Good and evil, confirmed by Conscience. 1751
• Present in the Heart of the person, Moral Conscience enjoins him, at the right moment, to do good and avoid evil. 1777
• Moral law forbids the paths of evil that distance from God and His love. 1950
• The Decalogue is a light offered to the Conscience of every man to show him God’s Call and ways, and protect him Against evil. 1962

The bad Actions caused to others

• "Those who have done good shall rise to life, those who have done evil, to condemnation." 998
• Interior penance is a radical reorientation of all life, a return, a conversion to God of all our Heart, a cessation of sin, an aversion to evil, with repugnance towards the bad Actions we have committed. 1431
• Israel experiences that sickness is, in a mysterious way, connected to sin and evil. 1502
• The apprehension of evil causes hatred, aversion, and fear of coming evil. This movement ends in sadness over present evil or anger opposing it. 1765
• It is never permitted to do evil so that good may result. 1789 and following
• Like the first sin, sin is disobedience, a Revolt Against God, by the will to become "like Gods", knowing and determining good and evil. 1850
• Wishing grave evil on the Neighbor is a mortal sin. 2539

Evil personified

• Jesus’ priestly prayer (at the Last Supper) is inspired by the great petitions of the Our Father: [...] deliverance from evil. 2750
• "But deliver us from Evil." 2850 and following

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