Growing and Understanding Truth
By Timothy Green
Diocese of San Angelo, Texas
There are many roads to understanding truth, but
first one has to realize the definition. Jesus said to him, "I am the way,
and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"
(John 14:6). One of the dilemmas of growing up is understanding truth compared
to the youthful perception of truth (freedom).
Father John Corapi speaks of freedom in terms of
liberty and truth. He states that there is a youthful perception of freedom that
is doing what you want, or what "feels good". This is also called "license."
License is doing what one wants to do simple because it "feels right."
This is the pitfall that many youth and young adults fall into when they define
"freedom." John 8:32, "Then you will know the truth, and the
truth will set you free." Freedom is found in the truth and not doing what
"feels right" or "because I think this is right". When I
define my truth with what "feels good for me" at the time, then I
become my own God, or my own "truth". The "truth" is Jesus
and understanding life not with what any individual may "feel", but
living life by "every word that proceeds from the mouth of God"
(Mathew 4:4).
This is the paradox of freedom, that one must
surrender freedom to God to gain perfect freedom. One thing I love about our
Catholic faith is it thrives when we embrace the wisdom of Christ. This is the
rare freedom the Saints of the Catholic faith found and some only for a brief
moment. This is the freedom that was embraced by Abraham when he was asked to
sacrifice his son (Gen 22:1-12). It is the freedom that Moses found when God
asked him to go and set His (God) people free (Exodus 3). This is also that
freedom that Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta found in caring for the poor. She
found life in the places where others dared not go. So freedom is found within
the confinements of the truth of God. How, can this be true? The world tells us
that "we are only free" when we can live life according our instincts,
no matter how bizarre those instincts maybe. It stresses that we, not God,
determine what truth (lifestyle, relationship, and habit) is for us and God
really does not care one way or the other. According to the world this has to be
true because "I feel this to be right (true) in my heart (my being -or- it
is the way I was born)." This also dictates that I do not have to obey
Mathew 4:4, because of the "higher law" of my feelings.
We can only experience "truth" in God. We
grow and understand life through our Catholic faith, and the times I have lived
with God being my "truth" GREAT things have happened in my life. The
times where I followed my "feelings", because something just "felt
right", I have met disaster; disaster in the form of paying a high price of
losing myself in the "because I want to" of the world. When this
happens, I go to confession and I am placed back on track. The truth is this, "these
things I (Jesus) have spoken to you so that My (Jesus) joy may be in you, and
that your joy (your freedom, your understanding of truth) may be made full"
(John 15:11).
I close with a word for our youth and young adults.
God wants you to live a free, joyous, happy life. We must obey our Catholic
faith. We do not lose anything by our obedience but gain more than what we can
ever imagine. "And Jesus, replying, said to them, 'Have faith in God
[constantly]. Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain (this bad
relationship, this debt, this depression) Be lifted up and thrown into the sea!
and does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says will take
place, it will be done for him' (Mark11:22-23)".
