Libranos Del Mal -

This is the evil we love to hate: violence, corruption, abuse, injustice. It’s the news cycle that leaves us exhausted. It’s the tyrant, the trafficker, the liar. We want deliverance from them . And rightly so. This evil is real, and it breaks the world.

It’s a phrase so familiar to those raised in the Christian tradition (the final line of the Our Father ) that we often recite it on autopilot. But if we stop—if we really sit with those three Spanish words—they reveal something profound. Because mal (evil) is not just a villain in a movie. It is not just the monster under the bed. Libranos del Mal

We want to be protected from liars, but not from our own self-deception. This is the evil we love to hate:

We want God to deliver us from the enemy, but we refuse to be delivered from our hatred of the enemy. We want deliverance from them

And then, after the prayer, do the hard part: look at the person in the mirror. Look at the person you’ve been avoiding. Look at the quiet, ordinary evil of your own small cruelties.

This is more subtle. It’s the gossip that feels justified. The indifference that masquerades as “minding your own business.” The systems we benefit from that crush the vulnerable. This evil doesn’t wear a black cape; it wears a business suit or a polite smile. We participate in it daily without ever feeling like a “bad person.”

You are not asking for a comfortable life. You are asking for a free one. You are admitting that you are in over your head, that the darkness is real, and that you cannot pull yourself out by your own bootstraps.