Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" (John 18:37-38a, RSV)
This infamous question from Pontius Pilate has infected our country. It seems that some people no longer know what truth is, don't believe that it exists or, some may say that truth does exist, but that it is unknowable. I am not here speaking of the simple truth of 2+2=4. Most sane people would be able to agree with that. The truth, or rather the Truth, that I am speaking of in this blog is the Truth that Christ refers to in the above quote from the Gospel according to St. John. It is this Truth that many people are not willing to accept, especially in this country.
Now some may ask how I can say such a thing when a majority of people in this country are still Christian. Don't Christians, by very definition of that name, accept the Truth that Christ taught to the world? Well they should. But the fact is that they don't. While I think that most Americans still believe that there is an Ultimate Truth, a problem arises when each individual acts as if he is the determiner of that Truth. And that is exactly what we have in America and other countries around the world.
Before I continue I will try to explain the Catholic understanding of the Truth that Jesus taught. Jesus, the Son of God who became man in order to save mankind from sin and death, revealed to the world the Truth about who God is, who we are and how we are supposed to act in relation to God and our fellow man. Notice that I used the word 'revealed' because this teaching of Jesus is something not created by mankind but has been revealed to us. And Jesus entrusted this revelation to the Catholic Church to safeguard from error and promised that "the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Matt 16:19, RSV) The Church's duty is therefore to protect this Truth and to hand it on to succeeding genereations without adding anything to it and without taking anything away from it.
While I am working on a different post I thought I would quickly give my thoughts on political correctness. Basically, I think it is stupid. Political correctness is based on the timid fear of offending someone else's sensibilities. Such as saying 'humankind' instead of 'mankind' in order not to offend any women in the audience. (By the way, you won't see me do that in any of my posts, at least not on purpose.) And this in turn has led to people being fearful of speaking up about things that are actually important because they don't want to offend anyone. For example, someone who is not willing to correct a friend about his homosexual lifestyle. Or somenone being unwilling to encourage a friend to keep her baby instead of having an abortion. This must stop. If you know something is wrong then you have a duty to speak up and try to change the wrong behavior. How is anything in this world ever going to improve unless you do?
My initial purpose for starting this blog was to be able to post my sermons on the internet. The reason being that there are usually a few people that ask for a copy after I preach on a Sunday. And instead of just emailing it to individuals I thought it would be more convenient to post it on the web.
But there is also another purpose for starting this blog: reaching a bigger audience. The parish I serve (Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church in San Antonio, Texas) is not the biggest in the Archdiocese of San Antonio. In addition to this it also seems that I am "preaching to the choir" at my parish. Now don't get me wrong - it is a very good thing that the people at Our Lady of the Atonement are sincere, devout and faithful Catholics. But I believe that it is a part of my calling as a priest to challenge those Catholics who don't know their faith or don't live it as they should. And, as you can tell from the blog's subtitle, I want to especially challenge my brothers in the priesthood. And I hope this blog can help to do that. And now I will explain how I plan to make that happen.
It may be asked why the title for this first post is not the same as the title for the blog, or vice versa. First, let me say that I didn't want the title of the blog to be "Speaking the Truth in Love" because I didn't want people to get the wrong first impression. My opinion is that many people today don't know what true love is. It seems that most people think that love is some kind of sentimental drivel that you "fall into" and can just as easily "fall out of". This is evidenced by the extremely high divorce rate in this country, even amongst Catholics! Now, as a quick side note let me explain that the romantic love between a man and a woman does involve how they feel about one another. But married love cannot be based on feelings. Feelings come and go but the love in marriage has to be based on a decision to stay with the other person just like you promised God and your spouse on your wedding day. Because of this misunderstanding of what love is I have chosen not to use the word love in the name of this blog.
Now to answer the question of why I chose to use the word boldness in the name for this blog. Basically, it is has to do with the fact that there doesn't seem to be enough boldness in the proclamation of the Truth of the Catholic Faith anymore. And my own opinion of why people are no longer bold in proclaiming the Truth is because they are afraid of offending other people. Our nation is infected with the disease of political correctness at this point in time. And because of that people are not as willing to speak out about right and wrong and Ultimate Truth because they don't want to be perceived in a negative light by society. But this is not how our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us to behave.
We learn from His own example to us and from His teachings contained in the Gospels that if you speak the Truth you will offend someone. In fact, you will probably will offend many people. After all, people took offense at His teaching and then they crucified Him. And if we are to be like Christ (and isn't that the point of being a Christian) then we need to be willing to speak the Truth of the Faith, even if it offends someone and even if it puts our own life in danger. And to do that we must be bold.
And now to address the title of this post: (My Attempt at) Speaking the Truth in Love. Let me first say that while I do expect to offend people in my own proclamation of the Gospel it is not my intention to offend them. I know that if I am faithful to proclaiming the Truth of the Catholic Faith then someone will be offended. I am not trying to offend but offense will be taken nonetheless. Now, the reason I say this is my attempt at speaking the Truth in love is because the only way I can perfectly speak the Truth in love would be if I were Christ. But I am not. I am a fallen creature that is bound to make mistakes. And that is why I say it is an attempt, with the help of Christ, to speak the Truth.
But all of this must be done in love. Not the sentimental drivel that I spoke of earlier in the post but real love. The love that Christ has for all mankind. This is the love that caused the Son of God to become a man. This is the love that caused Him to proclaim the Truth of the Kingdom to mankind. This is the love that drove Him to the Cross to die for our sins. The love of which I speak is the love of God wanting all mankind to be saved from eternal death and separation from Him and to live with Him forever in Heaven. And the most loving thing we can do for our fellow man is to tell them the Truth - even if it offends them.
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