Episode Details

“Commit to the Lord, trust in Him, and He will act.”

Fr. Tom Sparacino: When Wickedness Seems to Be Winning

It was a rough day at sea, and Fr. Tom Sparacino doesn’t pretend otherwise. “That’s a heavy load when you’re rocking on the seas — literally.” He’d spent the morning watching the seabirds dive-bomb into the waves and wondering where they ever find rest, and one bird out in front of the ship looked to him like the Holy Spirit leading the way.

He admits he’s not a confident flyer, and he hadn’t counted on turbulence on a boat. When a plane bounces, he asks, do you grab the seat in front of you? “Do you realize you’re holding on to the thing that’s going to crash?” That’s what fear does, and it’s what the evil one does: he wants us to go with him. “We could never go with him, because we have the Lord. Why would we want something like that when we have salvation?”

On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Fr. Tom traces where Mary has appeared — in the fields of Portugal, in a cave in Lourdes, on a mountain in France with tears on her face — and notes that every time, she warns us: don’t give in to evil.

The day’s psalm is a reaction to that same question every believer eventually asks: why do the wicked seem to prosper while the good suffer? The psalmist’s answer is simple — commit to the Lord your way; trust in Him, and He will act. Fr. Tom shares the breviary antiphon he underlines every time he comes across it: “I love you, Lord, my strength.” It’s only by grace that we overcome wickedness, he says. The good aren’t losing. They’re gaining grace.

Let Him into the recesses of your heart

Then he turns to the Gospel, where Jesus says it isn’t what goes into a person that defiles but what comes out of the heart. Fr. Tom loves to cook — with plenty of garlic, so the seminarians always know when he’s in the kitchen — and he points out that even the best meal in the world ends up in the latrine. “We’ve eaten good on this boat, right?” But the food we receive at the altar, and the Word we consume, cut straight to the heart — “where wickedness doesn’t live, but God lives, the good lives. And that’s where we need to live.”

“Wickedness always appears to be winning — but it will never win. Commit to the Lord. For Lord, You are our strength, You are our hope.”

Key quotes (pull quotes / social)

• “When there’s turbulence, do you hold on to the seat in front of you? Do you realize you’re holding on to the thing that’s going to crash?”
• “We could never go with him, because we have the Lord. Why would we want something like that when we have salvation?”
• “Each time she appears, she warns us: don’t give in to evil.”
• “Commit to the Lord, trust in Him, and He will act.”
• “I love you, Lord, my strength.”
• “The good aren’t losing. We’re gaining grace.”
• “Wickedness always appears to be w