TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s Gospel reading (Jn 8:31-42) continues Jesus dialogue with the Jewish religious leaders. It begins this way:

“If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples,
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (vv. 31b-32)

“Jesus embodies divine truth (14:6) and has come to bear witness to the truth (18:37). Acceptance of him liberates us from the slavery of sin, ignorance, and deception (8:12; CCC 2466).” (The Gospel of John [Ignatius Catholic Study Bible], 34)

“In Jesus Christ, the whole of God’s truth has been made manifest. ‘Full of grace and truth,’ he came as the ‘light of the world,’ he is the Truth. ‘Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.’ The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know ‘the truth [that] will make you free’ and that sanctifies. To follow Jesus is to live in ‘the Spirit of truth,’ whom the Father sends in his name and who leads ‘into all the truth.’ To his disciples Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth: ‘Let what you say be simply “Yes or No.”” (CCC 2466)

“The knowledge of the truth which Christ is speaking about is not just intellectual knowledge; it is rather the maturing in the soul of the seed of divine Revelation. That Revelation’s climax is to be found in Christ’s teaching, and it constitutes a genuine communication of supernatural life (cf. Jn 5;24): he who believes in Jesus, and through him in the Father, receives the wonderful gift of eternal life. Knowing the truth is, in the last analysis, knowing Christ himself, God become man to save us; it means realizing that the inaccessible God has become man, our Friend, our Life.

“This is the only kind of knowledge which really sets us free, because it removes us from a position of alienation from God — the state of sin and therefore of slavery to the devil and to all the attachments of our fallen nature — and puts us on the path of friendship with God, the path of grace, of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, the liberation we obtain is not just light which shows the way; it is grace, which empowers us to keep to that way despite our limitations.” (The Navarre Bible: St John, 127-28)

“[N]otice how Jesus says that human freedom follows upon and presupposes knowledge of the truth. In order to be truly free, a person must first know what is true.” (The Gospel of John [Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture] , 161)

Two lines come to mind, as I reflect on the highlighted verses of this passage:

1. “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38)

Pilate’s famous words while looking Truth right in the eyes. Echoed today by seemingly millions. Can we really know the truth? Cardinal Ratzinger bemoaned the “dictatorship of relativism” today. Most clear thinking folks nodded their heads in agreement in that homily nearly twenty years ago. Not so many folks would have believed that it didn’t even take twenty years till concepts like “mother,” “marriage,” and “gender” were up for grabs. This twisting of truth and reality itself is the work of the devil, as Jesus tells the Pharisees a little further on in the same interaction we heard proclaimed today:

“You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.” (Jn 8:44)

And what does Satan “inspire” people to do?

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator. (Rom 1:25)

Wow. Doesn’t that encapsulate perfectly the state of our world today? With no eternal anchor, the crashing waves of self-focus toss us about. When anything goes, nothing stays firm.

Let us cling to the Rock that is Peter and the Church Christ founded as if our life depended on it (and it does, here and hereafter). A sure “light”house in the stormy weather of our modern confused age.

2. “You can’t handle the truth!” — Col. Nathan R. Jessup

Certainly, the Gospel message is a challenging one. Hearing the truth and living it out can be painful at times. But it is the antidote to what ails us in a time of cultural sickness and even death. It seems that in our day, maybe more than ever, we can’t handle the Truth that is Jesus and His message, preferring “my truth.” To be fully and authentically human, stick with “the Truth.”

God bless.