A recent reading gives us something to ponder:

if this endeavor or this activity is of human origin,
it will destroy itself.
But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them;
you may even find yourselves fighting against God. (Apr 4th)

The Gospel reminds us that Christ can take a few scraps of food and turn it into a feast. But Christ, through His Church, can do far more than multiply loaves and fishes. His Church will storm the very gates of hell, and win. It seems that every other month I meet a Catholic who is convinced that the Church is upon the verge of total annihilation, upon the precipice of defeat. The enemy threatening to devour Catholicism is always different: relativism, radical traditionalists, money, the Vatican, and more often than I can comprehend, Islam.

Gerald at the The Cafeteria is Closed sums this mindset up:

I know that Catholicism is a suicide cult to some but thankfully not to the majority, else there’d be no Catholicism. (Haloscan)

Their solutions, ironically, are always the same: personal and interpersonal violence. Is hell is to be conquered with tanks and protests, with nukes and curses? Why do so many Catholics put more trust in our own power than God’s? Why do we call guns peacemakers, even while deriding compassionate souls as peaceniks? Other the side, why do we fight for justice without praying to the God of justice? How can we look for Christ in others while ignoring Christ in the Church? Why do hold signs saying ‘love your enemies’ while cursing enemies in our hearts?

If we really believed that Christ had triumphed on the cross, then we’d rejoice in our so called ‘defeats’. Mother Theresa said it well: we are called to be faithful, not successful. The Apostles rejoiced at being scourged for Christ. They didn’t see suffering and death as a sign of defeat. They saw suffering as a sign of Christ’s presence, “rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.” For his name - a name that they remained faithful to, even as they stared at the defeat of the cross.

This doesn’t mean that we sit back while evil triumphs. Christ didn’t say that he’d protect the Church from hell. He said that the gates of hell would not stand against the Church! The Church attacks! The body of Christ confronts evil, and defeats its enemies!

But how? How does the body of Christ break hell into pieces? “I have given you a model to follow,” Christ tells us. “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” This new form of warfare is described by our new Pope:

The Lord has conquered on the cross. He has not conquered with a new empire, with a force that is more powerful than others, capable of destroying them; he has not conquered in a human manner, as we imagine, with an empire stronger than the other. He has conquered with a love capable of going to death.

This is God’s new way of conquering: He does not oppose violence with a stronger violence. He opposes violence precisely with the contrary: with love to the end, his cross. This is God’s humble way of overcoming: With his love — and only thus is it possible — he puts a limit to violence. This is a way of conquering that seems very slow to us, but it is the true way of overcoming evil, of overcoming violence, and we must trust this divine way of overcoming. (Zenit)

In weakness, St. Paul tells us, we find true strength. Weakness allows us to love, allow us to be merciful. And it is precisely through mercy that evil is defeated. In his encyclical Rich in Mercy, Pope John Paul the Great draws these thoughts into one final conclusion:

Mercy constitutes the fundamental content of the messianic message of Christ and the constitutive power of His mission . . . (it) does not allow itself to be “conquered by evil,” but overcomes “evil with good.”

Mercy will destroy our enemies. Mercy will destroy evil. Mercy will, and has, saved us.

If they come at us with missles, we come back at them with mercy. If they come at us with nukes, we come back at them with mercy.

Suicide bombers? Mercy.
“Radical Islam”? Mercy.
Unjust wars? Mercy.
Poverty? Mercy.
Greed? Mercy.
Hunger? Mercy.
Racism? Mercy.
Abortion? Mercy.
The assault upon families? Mercy.
Crime? Mercy.
Murder? Mercy.
Death? Mercy.

Evil?
Mercy.

Believing in the crucified Son means “seeing the Father,” means believing that love is present in the world and that this love is more powerful than any kind of evil in which individuals, humanity, or the world are involved. Believing in this love means believing in mercy. For mercy is an indispensable dimension of love; it is as it were love’s second name and, at the same time, the specific manner in which love is revealed and effected vis-a-vis the reality of the evil that is in the world, affecting and besieging man, insinuating itself even into his heart and capable of causing him to “perish in Gehenna. (Rich in Mercy, JPtG)

In case we have forgotten, the works of mercy:

The Corporal Works of Mercy
To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty.
To clothe the naked.
To visit and ransom the captives.
To shelter the homeless.
To visit the sick.
To bury the dead.

The Spiritual Works of Mercy
To admonish sinners.
To instruct the ignorant.
To counsel the doubtful.
To comfort the sorrowful.
To bear wrongs patiently.
To forgive all injuries.
To pray for the living and the dead.