Truth and Love: The insperable elements of Christian Life
November 15, 2024 - Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
2 John 4-9
Today's first reading comes from the Second Letter of John, likely written to a local church that the author affectionately calls "a chosen lady." This is a fitting description for the Church. Saint Peter, for example, defined the Church as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God's] own possession." The purpose of the Church is to "proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9).
Our excerpt highlights two elements inseparable in Christian life: truth and love (see 2 John 4-9). "What is truth?" Pilate asked Jesus before crucifying Him (see John 18:38). It is difficult to know which school of thought Pilate subscribed to or how he asked this question: as a skeptic who did not believe in the possibility of knowing truth, or as a seeker of truth. However, Pilate’s concept of truth may have been shaped by pragmatism and the need to maintain order and power. Facing pressure from various factions, he may have viewed truth as relative or unimportant compared to the political expediency of keeping peace.
Before Pilate, Jesus said that He came "to bear witness to the truth" (John 18:37), and to His disciples, He said: "I am the Truth" (John 14:6). Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that "God is truth itself, the sovereign and first truth," and commenting on Jesus' trial, Pope Benedict XVI explained that "'bearing witness to the truth' means giving priority to God and to His will over against the interests of the world and its powers." Jesus, in His life, did exactly that. He came to do the will of the Father. Moreover, in Jesus, we see the "incarnation of Truth."
During John's time, a group of "deceivers" appeared who did not accept the truth of Jesus' incarnation—that the Word became flesh (see John 1:14; 2 John 7). For us Christians, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the incarnation of the Word of God, and His saving death are the two fundamental truths on which the entire Christian theology and spirituality are built. All other truths of our faith must be subordinated to these two. If we negate one of them, everything collapses. If, as the deceivers of John's time claimed, Jesus did not come in the flesh, then He could not die in the flesh for our sins or rise in the flesh for our justification (see Rom. 4:25). If that were so, we would remain in our sins. Such an idea could only come from an enemy of Christ and His Church that is fittingly called "antichrist."
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI wrote an encyclical letter on "Integral Human Development" titled Caritas in Veritate ("Love in Truth"). The late pontiff wrote that "Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity" (Caritas in Veritate, 1). God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, but Jesus gave us only one: "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another" (John 13:34-35). Our Lord called this a new commandment because He is the paradigm example of such love. Saint Paul wrote: "Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2).
Truth and love are two inseparable elements of our life as Christ's followers. May we walk in truth and love one another as Christ loved us, so that the world may know that God is love and that we are Jesus' disciples.