Christ and Truth

Readings for Friday, November 12/Memorial of St. Josaphat:
2 John 4-9
Psalm 119:1,2,10,11,17,18
Luke 17:26-37

"Anyone who is so 'progressive' as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son."

This powerful verse from the Second Letter of John drives home rather forcefully the connection between  Christ and the teaching of the Christ received through the Apostles. If you reject one, you reject the other. It is obvious - because John is addressing it - that there was a problem of some Christians becoming so 'enlightened' by the wisdom of the age that they began to stray from the truths of the Christian faith. They thought their brothers and sisters in the Lord just didn't have the grace to enter into the wisdom as they had. And so John reminds them and their fellow Christians that if they stray from the Truth that are the teachings of Christ, then they stray from Christ Himself, Who is the Way, Truth, and Life.

I've been to several conferences where they address this topic that we as Catholics - and really all Christians - don't really have a choice of what is True. Rather, we simply have the choice in whether we will submit ourselves to it or try to make our own truths. One speaker spoke about taking the Catechism of the Catholic Church - the compilation of the teachings of the Church founded by Christ - and we tear out the pages we don't agree with. And if everyone does that, then in the end the Truth will be simply the cover of the book. So, we must accept it all or accept the fact that we cut ourselves off from the Lord. I can't help but think of it as someone looking up into a tree and thinking, "This tree would be better without that limb," and then climbing up, perching on that limb and cutting it off, allowing both the limb and their own self to fall to the ground. The limb is dead - the person certainly injured, if lucky. It's laughable to think that someone would do such a thing, and yet it happens so frequently that souls cut themselves off by pridefully turning away from the Lord because they believe that others are the ones who simply aren't enlightened enough to see the 'real truth.'

Let us pray that we might always abide in the Truth that is Jesus Christ and that those who have strayed away from His teaching might be grafted back onto the Vine Who provides us all life, both today and in eternity.