Think Bigger!

24 June 2026  Isaiah 49:1-6

Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist

“I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)

The philosopher/journalist Hannah Arendt covered the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961, and, like many, was surprised to find that the defendant Adolf Eichmann was not a twisted psychopath. Like pretty much all of the planners, engineers, and paper-pushers of the Holocaust, he was just a bland bureaucrat who was intellectually and morally disengaged from the monstrous evil he provided the logistics for.

The Church today is growing wildly in places like Nigeria, where 94% of Catholics go to Mass weekly and more, despite the widsespread predations of terrorist groups like Boko Haram and Fulani Militias. The Church in Africa has spotted “the world, the flesh and the devil” and for that reason their resistance is effective. They are growing like mad. The real enemy is bigger than we think. We become bigger than we think possible when we remember that.

Hannah Arendt famously subtitled her book on the trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem, “A Report on the Banality of Evil.” The most hideous works of darkness are not, not even mostly, the work of psychopaths, but the work of bland, ordinary people who “try not to think about” the true nature of the things they do.

In 1947 Hans Fallada published, Every Man Dies Alone, regarded today as a classic of 20th century European literature. It is based on the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, who were executed in 1943 for leaving postcards with dissident messages in random places around Nazi Berlin. Their work, and other movements like it (e.g. the White Rose Resistance) were utterly ineffective in slowing down or obstructing German war operations, and did nothing to mitigate the Holocaust. This was partly due to brutal and ruthless suppression by the Gestapo, but also because these movements never gained popular support, and were widely unknown. What made the Hampels think that leaving postcards in stairwells and bus stops was ever going to be enough? Why did so many people ignore the postcards, turn them in to the Gestapo, keep their heads down and silently hope the Nazi nightmare would just “go away”? It turns out there wasn’t just a banality of evil in the 1940s, but also a banality of the good. It is one of the reasons it finally took armies to solve the problem of Nazi wickedness.

Much more has been said and needs to be said about this than is possible here. What is certainly true is that the resistance movements of World War II, and many since, did not think big enough. Our struggle is not against the Nazis – or Antifa, or MAGA supporters – but against an enemy far more subtle and dangerous, viz. the world, the flesh and the devil. As St. Paul said, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). The early church had this view, and grew during the generations of misunderstanding and persecution, grew more when the persecution became violent. The Church today is growing wildly in places like Nigeria, where 94% of Catholics go to Mass weekly and more, despite the widsespread predations of terrorist groups like Boko Haram and Fulani Militias. The Church in Africa has spotted “the world, the flesh and the devil” and for that reason their resistance is effective. They are growing like mad. The real enemy is bigger than we think. We become bigger than we think possible when we remember that.

“It is too little,” says Isaiah, “for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob. I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). Only a “light to the nations” is sufficient to vanquish the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. Witness becomes truly effective when we remember the wide scope and real target of our calling.