Why were we so vulnerable to the terrorist attacks of September 11? This is a question which has been on the minds of many Americans in recent months.

Certainly a number of reasons could be given for our vulnerability, but at the top of the list would have to be this one: We didn’t take our enemy seriously enough. The lapses in security, the failure to pick up on suspicious activity at flight schools, the failure to do proper background checks on people coming into our country—these problems were the result of an all-too-casual attitude toward those in the world who were seeking to destroy America.

Take your enemy seriously—that was the sad and tragic lesson of September 11 for the people of the United States.

It’s also the lesson of today’s Gospel text from Matthew 13—although in this case the enemy is not Osama bin Laden or any earthly terrorist, it’s Satan.

In this passage Jesus says, "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all though the wheat, and then went off." Notice that the enemy in this parable worked in secret. He didn’t do his dirty business out in the open where he would have been easily recognized. Like a typical Al Qaeda operative, he plotted—and he attempted to destroy—surreptitiously.

When people today think of Satan their image is usually colored by movies like the Omen and the Exorcist. But only rarely does Satan act in such an extraordinary fashion. Most of the time he’s quite content to use the ordinary realities of life to achieve his evil ends. And this is something we need to be aware of.

Professor Scott Hahn of the University of Steubenville put it well when he said, "The devil loves to use the good to keep us from the best." Another way to make the same point is to say that Satan loves to use creation to keep us from the Creator!

God’s creation is good; the things of this world are good. But when they’re misused—and they often are— then they quickly become the means of our destruction. Material possessions, for example, are good, but they can easily lead us away from God if we become too attached to them. Friendships are also good, but friends can sometimes take the place in our heart which should belong to God alone. When Augustine finally gave up his sexual promiscuity at the age of 33 and gave his life to the Lord, he looked back on how he had treated women like objects and abused the good gift of sexuality and he wrote, "In my unloveliness [O Lord] I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you . . . " Augustine understood how Satan had used the good to keep him from God.

And then there’s the lure of our own weak flesh, affected as it is by original sin. This is something else the devil tries to capitalize on. Our flesh wants comfort; our flesh wants pleasure. Now please don’t get me wrong: there is nothing intrinsically evil about either comfort or pleasure. But the devil will try to use these otherwise good desires to get us to embrace evil in some form. From the films of Osama bin Laden which were broadcast around the world after September 11, it’s clear that he and his terrorist friends received great pleasure from orchestrating the murder of over 2,000 innocent American citizens. That’s a vivid and tragic example of how Satan has used the desire for pleasure to lead people into sin—serious sin. He will try to do the same to us; you can bet on it.

But the good news is that the power of God is far greater than the power of the evil one. As St. John has told us, "Greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world." But this incredible power is like the electricity running through the walls of this building: it must be plugged into!