Truth Is More Than Understanding!

    So in praying about this Gospel today, I find it difficult for me to really find the words to speak or write about it. For some reason I have a block, but the theme of "Truth hurts" comes into my mind. The truth of life experiences can be painful, they can be joyous and they can be extremely sobering to us. The truth is that one thing that has no way of being false or changed. It is what it is and nothing can change that; a lie can't even change it, rather the lie simply covers the truth up for a time and eventually that truth will come out into the open air.

    Today we have a situation that arises where Jesus tells the Jewish people the truth of who He is. Jesus says, "Amen, Amen I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death." Now this raised a flag with those in the crowd because in saying this, Jesus told them that He was on the same level as God, that He is God. We face this same challenge today in our everyday lives. We wake up every morning and decide if we know that Jesus and God truly exist. Some people say no. They claim that science explains everything, some people cannot see how a loving God would allow people to die, some simply have never heard of God, and others sadly have had a traumatic experience within the Catholic Church or another Christian denomination. For some, they know all about the teachings of the Catholic Church and of Christianity and many other forms of religion, but still choose to be a non believer of any kind of supreme being, this is a stance I can deeply respect since they have taken the time to learn about everything.

    The point is that today I find myself in the crowd who is questioning Jesus. The way I see this reading in my head is that Jesus is there, the elders of the town are in front and throughout telling the people to be quiet and to only let the elders speak. They question Jesus on behalf of all the people, and the elders, who are at this point in time are ready to kill Jesus due to His courage and lack of standing down from the truth, they pick up stones to try to finish Him off right there, but Jesus finds a way to hide and escape. So I get to thinking to myself, "If Jesus is God and He spoke only truth, and I am to follow God's lead, why do I not always stand up for what I believe in? Why do I just give in sometimes to the injustices of this government, or to the hate that is brought upon my Church?" This is where we get into the idea that the Truth can Hurt and that Truth will never be changed.

    Jesus gave us the example to spread the Truth to all the ends of the earth. The Gospel, the faith of His followers, the teachings found in Scripture and the Traditions that Jesus has brought into practice during His ministry. Just because it is hard for us to understand something does not mean that it is not true! Just because I am horrible at Math and I can not comprehend numbers does not mean that I can go in and say truthfully that 1+1=4. It does not happen because the truth is that 1+1=2 no matter how much I do not understand how it remains 2 forever. Just because we cannot understand how Jesus comes into the form of bread and wine does not mean that Jesus does not actually become the essence of the bread and the wine. On the road after the Resurrection Jesus appeared in a different form that His Apostles couldn't recognize Him, but that did not mean that it wasn't Jesus. In fact they recognized that the man was Jesus once they broke bread!

    The point is that everyone today can only believe in something that they can explain. The sense of faith is quickly leaving the people of England and the US. The truth is that when you have no faith you will die and when you have faith, unless you work to spread that faith, you are not doing your job. So today, let us put our ability to understand things that are impossible to explain aside and let us rely on the truth that there are things we humans will never understand why or how they happen. We must have faith everything will work out for the best and that is how life is truly lived, it is just the Truth of the matter!