KEEP US IN TRUTH

Young people are curious. They ask many questions. I am assigned in Letran Calamba, at present, as chaplain of the Basic education department, and every day I would be visiting pupils from nursery to Junior High School. Toddlers would often pose questions to me; lots of questions. Why are you wearing white? Why are you so tall compared to us? Why are you always here during our recess?

We young people ask a lot of questions in life, and the world is not wanting of answers for us. Everyday we are bombarded with thousands of information. They fill our minds with content we readily consume. But does this information truly form us to become whom God intends us to be? Are these truths faithful to our identity and destiny as children of God?

The world today makes us believe a lot of truths.

You can be good if you only use this product; if only you wear these clothes; if you purchase these latest gadgets; if you belong to this kind of people; if you have all sorts of honors and recognitions.

With your failures, mistakes, shortcomings and sins, you are good for nothing. You can never be loved with your scars. You have to be flawless. Thus, we do all sorts of things to please this world. But even if you fulfill the demands of this world, you will never be good enough for this world.

This world feeds us with THESE HALF-BAKED TRUTHS. They do not speak the whole truth. They are lies.

Be critical to the truths being peddled before our screens and walls. Seek the truth behind the things in your life. DARE TO ASK: IS IT TRUE? St. Thomas had always been critical about the truths in his days. When Christian thinkers thought works of Aristotle and other non-Christian thinkers should not be used in discussing things about God since they are of pagan origin and uninspired, St. Thomas dared to ask: Is it true? He examined them and in fact used these pagan works to write a summary of our theology which is still used today: The Summa Theologiae. If St. Thomas took hook-line-and-sinker the truths espoused by many during his time, we might not have his Summa Theologiae. Indeed, truth is not dictated by plurality, but by its faithfulness to the reality it pertains to, and ultimately by its faithfulness to the will of God. Thus, dare to ask, IS IT TRUE?      

Yes, it is true, you are broken. Yes, it is true, you have sins. Yes, it is true, you are imperfect. But is it true that you can never be loved with these inadequacies? NO!

I stand before you as a testimony for these. We young priests, just like you, have all these sorts of imperfections, sins, and temptations. But because of God's love and mercy, we were made priests.

WHAT IS THEN THE TRUTH? THE WHOLE TRUTH?

The truth, dear friends, is, with all humility we have to admit, we cannot have all the answers to our questions. We can never achieve the whole truth in our life. If Jesus (God) is the truth, we can never contain this Truth in all the books of this world. St. Thomas, upon seeing the back of the Lord in a vision, was tempted to burn all his writings, for he thought his work was straw in comparison to what he had seen. He stopped writing and months later, he died. For the whole Truth can be likened to the vast ocean, and our mind is simply a bucket. Can a bucket contain an ocean? No. It will explode! Our limited minds will never fully comprehend the complex truth and plans of God for us. We will explode and die. What we can do is to simply immerse this bucket (our minds) in that vast ocean of Truth. With faith in God, pray that we may know even just a portion of God's will; that we may contain in the cupboard of our mind a piece of Truth God possesses.

The Good News is God revealed to us, through Christ, the truths that are necessary for our salvation; the truths we need to know to be a better person.

HOW DO WE KNOW THE TRUTH?

We can only know and process by bites. We know truth through springs and rivers of truth that faithfully leads us to the vast ocean of TRUTH. St. Thomas counseled a brother: “You should choose to enter by small rivers and not go right away into the sea, because you should go from easy things to difficult things.” Begin by reading the scriptures, by studying the teachings of the Church, for they contain the truths revealed by Christ.

WHAT ARE SOME TRUTHS KNOWN TO US?

What can we fill in our bucket? God loves you. This is the single truth that we can hold on to in our life. Don't make it difficult for Him to love you by telling yourself that you cannot be loved; by filling in our minds with the half-baked truth that this world offers to us. Do not fill the cupboard of your mind with lies. You are loved despite who you are; despite your mistakes, imperfections. You will never be good enough for this world. But for God, His love is more than enough for you.

Holding on to this truth that God loves you, immersing our bucket in the ocean of Truth, we pray that God may shield us from the lies and deceptions of Satan. We pray that we may be at the service of Truth as God keeps us in Truth.