To Belong to the Truth

It may have been before the Fall, and I’m sure Thomas Jefferson meant well in declaring that it was in 1776, but it seems that truth is no longer self-evident. Rather, it must be learned. What’s more, we must have it revealed to us. And our Christian claim is that there is only one Man who can reveal it - the One who referred to Himself as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” adding, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

“Come to me,” Jesus says to us. “Learn from me.” It is the voice of the Good Shepherd who also said before laying down His life for us, “For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world — to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me."

To belong to the truth, therefore, means listening for the voice of Christ and following Him, so as to be led by Him into the green pastures of God’s grace and heavenly teaching in this world, and into the eternal life of the world to come.

It is also Christ, alone, Who makes this possible for us. “Do this in memory of me,” He says while feeding us at that first Eucharist. And should we ever forget what we are learning from Him, He says, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

The Christian, therefore, no longer belongs to this world, but to Christ. We’ve been given new birth - by water and the Holy Spirit - into a new way of thinking, a new way of seeing reality - one that is radically different from the popular worldview of independence and individualism. The Christian life is one of dependence and community, one that requires following before we can lead, and one that means dying before we can live.

But how hard it is to recognize the voice of Christ these days, when so many films, for example, are proclaiming pseudo-gospels. In the very beginning of Hollywood’s latest film about Mary, for example, Our Lady narrates to the viewer, “You may think you know my story. Trust me. You don’t.” Movies like this may seem to be re-telling our story, but they are not. They are re-writing it.

But that’s what the children of this generation are like. They do not pray. They do not go to church. They are full, not of grace, but of doubt and guilt. And yet they are emboldened by something to take it upon themselves to tell a story they’ve neither understood nor loved. No wonder people tend to say things like, “The Jesus I know would never...” or “The God that I believe in would let me...” It’s hard to fault them when the “Jesus they know” is only as relevant as Hollywood’s most recent depiction of Him.

I am not against cinematic interpretations of the Gospels. Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth quite literally changed my life. I just think we have to try extra hard these days to come to Christ and to learn from Him where He may be found, to come together where the Scriptures are proclaimed and the Sacraments celebrated, not merely to hear “about” Christ, but to know Him. Rather, to be known by Him, the Good Shepherd, who says, "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me." In the Church, we hear the voice of the living Christ, and come into His presence, enabling us to belong to the truth. +