Before we ask the question 'What is Truth?'

Written by Lisa Damiani and she requested I post. For references to the following see the now deceased Fr Hogan's posting and Richard P. Fitzgibbons page.

Before we ask the question 'What is Truth?' which Pontius Pilate asked Jesus before He was crucified, we need to ask the question 'What is Love?' We all want it - our whole being needs it. Where do we get it? First we have to separate the many loves which in our language all have the same word. There are so many ‘loves’: Eros (sexual love), filios (brotherly or friendship love), love between parents and children, 'love' for things (I love my car!) and agape (or divine, unconditional love). The deepest form of love is agape love. We all want to experience the deepest love possible - where there is deep love, there is joy, peace, and fulfillment. Who doesn't want fulfillment in their life? Sure, there is a certain fulfillment (happiness) in eating when we are hungry, or sleeping when we are tired. There is happiness in getting a promotion, or buying something we always wanted. There is also happiness in sexual pleasure – this can be very deep when it is between husband and wife and when they are completely giving themselves. However, the deepest fulfillment is not in any of these things - not even in doing charitable works can we find the deepest fulfillment (that is getting close, though!).

Where do we find the agape love that will give us total fulfillment? If you look at the lives of the saints, you will find that they were or are the happiest people on earth. They found the deepest possible love through union with God and through giving themselves completely to God and to other people. They receive agape love from God and give it to those around them. It is only in giving will you receive.

How do we find this union with God that the saints so desired and found? St. John the Evangelist says that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him” (1 Jn. 4:16). We must abide in God and He, His love, will abide in us. Many people imagine God as sitting around by Himself all day unconnected to us and the world, just patting Himself on the back for what a great guy He is. God never sits back doing nothing or thinking about Himself….what does God do all day? He loves. He is not alone in His Love because that would not be complete love. The only way it can be real love is if it gives of itself AND receives. God is a community of love. The Father from all eternity loves the Son and the Son from all eternity loves the Father and the Holy Spirit IS the love between the Father and the Son. Okay, deep breath! That is a lot to think about...

This is called circumincession (no, not circumcision!)—a spiraling of love between the Father and Son and back again. Anyway, I am getting too deep. So, to really understand what love is, we have to look at God....and where do we see the greatest expression of love that God has shown us?...In the cross. Jesus died in a most painful, brutal death called His Passion - it was in utter love of us that He died! He took our sins (yes, ALL of our sins) upon Himself and was nailed to a cross. God (Jesus) dying for us was only way to forgive our sins because sin is an eternal offense against God and only God could make reparation for an offense against Himself.

In this act of love on the cross, there are 5 characteristics of Divine love that we can see:

1. Full knowledge (Jesus knew exactly what He was going to do)

2. Freely chosen (In the agony in the garden He said not my will but yours be done)

3. Self-giving (He gave every drop of blood He had for us)

4. Life-giving (This is what gives us life - eternal life if we accept it)

5. Permanent (He did not hang there for a few hours and then say enough of this! He gave it all forever)

This definition of love is similar to the definition of a car – if a car is missing a wheel, it is no longer a car but a motorized tricycle! If one or two of these above characteristics are missing, then it is no longer love.

Let us then apply these same characteristics of Divine love to married love because married love is to be a living sign or sacrament of the love between Christ and His Church. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5: 25). St. Paul is telling us that Christ died for His Spouse (us, the Church) and that we must apply that same Divine love to married love. In our marriages do we love each other with all the five characteristics? Because if one or two are missing, then we are no longer loving, but using each other. Who wants to be used or to use another person? What we all desire deep within our hearts is true love—to give and to receive it. Without love, without God's love, we can never be fully human and fully alive. Who does not want to be fully alive, living and breathing God's love everyday and for all eternity? Is that not for what we were made?

In conclusion, if we want to give love and receive love, then we must first know what love is and receive that love from God. We cannot give what we don't have! Only God can give us the agape, divine love we all desire deep within ourselves - who does not want to live in eternity with Love? Let us begin to love God now, on earth, so one day He will take us to be with Him forever in glory where we will live in Eternal Bliss and communion with Love!

Why does the Catholic Church say marriage is between one man and one woman?

Two reasons for upholding the Church’s teaching on marriage, namely, that marriage can only be the union of one man and one woman.

First, we have what Jesus taught us and is written in Matthew, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female’ and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?” (Mt 19:5-6) This was in response to a question on divorce, but Jesus is clearly stating that marriage is between one man and one woman. If there is any confusion to Jesus’ words or intent, we just need to look at the disciples’ response a few verses later, "If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." (Mt 19:10)

At that time, divorce was very common as was polygamy and homosexuality. We see aberrant sexual behavior described in the first chapter of St Paul’s letter to the Romans (Rom 1:24-28) and in other non-Church writings. But, Jesus clearly spells out “male and female” and defines a marriage covenant that is for a lifetime, between one man and one woman. Basically, man and woman are made for each other both bodily and spiritually!

Secondly, God created marriage to carry on God’s work of creation. We see this when Jesus pointed back at Genesis where we have two descriptions of God’s intent at the time of creation. In the first chapter we have God stating, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Gen 1:28) And, in the second chapter, “a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.” In the latter case, this is the description that God intended a man and woman to have intercourse. God is saying through these two statements (as Christ reinforced), that sex is intended to be between a man and woman and the purpose is to generate new life. We know deep in our hearts that sex is all about creating new life.

Finally, the Catechism that is an expression of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition is full of rich descriptions of marriage and God’s intent. (For example, CCC 1602-1620) In these paragraphs on marriage are several statements reinforcing what I stated above. For example, CCC 1616 refers to St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians where Paul writes: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church.” (CCC 1616 & Eph 5:31-32)

Why does the Catholic Church say birth control is wrong?

The Church teaches that artificial birth control is wrong. Here are three reasons for this teaching.

First, artificial birth control limits the charity (self-giving love) of the conjugal act. It eliminates or attempts to eliminate fertility. In some cases such as sterilization, it completely eliminates fertility. As a result, one is not giving fully and therefore not loving completely as God intended but rather withholding a significant, if not the most significant part of the conjugal act.

Secondly, the conjugal act must be open to life. After all, sexual intercourse is an expression of a life-giving love. The purpose of the conjugal act is to produce semen in an attempt to find an ovum thereby creating life. This is a wonderful gift from God, i.e. that humanity can participate in “creation.” So, the second significant reason artificial birth control is wrong is that it is used to prevent this creation of life, i.e. it indicates one is not open to life during the conjugal act.

Thirdly, artificial birth control interferes with one of the most significant biological aspects of the body. Basically, it violates the body and what the body is trying to do through sex. The reason sex usually “feels good” is because the body is inclined to procreate, to have the semen produced so that it tries to find the ovum. Artificial birth control is an attempt to violate what the body is biologically trying to do. God made the bodies of man and woman to have and desire sex. Artificial birth control changes all this. Sex now becomes something else, i.e. a way to use sex primarily for pleasure.

Argument of the Month

Check out the argument of the month site at http://www.aotmclub.com/.
It has become rather popular.

Where do we find "The Truth?"

Each of us seeks "The Truth."
Where do we find it?
Who do we listen to and whom do we ignore?
How do we know if we have found it?

Some people say, "I shall follow no MAN." What they are really saying is they are only following their own person, their own thoughts/reason/...
A bunch of folks follow their own reasoning but pretty much everyone put some confidence in some people or ideologies.

Does God leave us in the cold or has God given us a way of knowing "The Truth?"

Is there a more important question than, "What is The Truth?"

The Truth Explained!

I was sick for a couple of days and read a new book that just came out.
The author did a great job (I thought) of dealing with the base question of this blog, i.e. “What is the Truth?”
There is a part of the book where the author is writing about the famous trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate.
Pilate says to Jesus "So you are a king?"

Jesus answers:

“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.”

To this, Pilate responds like a good politician: “What is truth?”

Let me just quote the text dealing with this question:

“It is the question that is also asked by modern political theory: Can politics accept truth as a structural category? Or must truth, as something unattainable, be relegated to the subjective sphere, its place taken by an attempt to build peace and justice using whatever instruments are available to power? By relying on truth, does not politics, in view of the impossibility of attaining consensus on truth, make itself a tool of particular traditions that in reality are merely forms of holding on to power?
And yet, on the other hand, what happens when truth counts for nothing? What kind of justice is then possible? Must there not be common criteria that guarantee real justice for all – criteria that are independent of the arbitrariness of changing opinions and powerful lobbies? Is it not true that the great dictatorships were fed by the power of the ideological lie and that only truth was capable of bringing freedom?
What is truth? The pragmatist’s question, tossed off with a degree of skepticism, is a very serious question, bound up with the fate of mankind. What, then, is truth? Are we able to recognize it? Can it serve as a criterion for our intellect and will, both in individual choices and in the life of the community?
The classic definition from scholastic philosophy designates truth as “adaequatio intellectus et rei” (conformity between the intellect and reality; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 2c). If a man’s intellect reflects a thing as it is in itself, then he has found truth: but only a small fragment of reality – not truth in it grandeur and integrity.
We come closer to what Jesus meant with another of St Thomas’ teachings: “Truth is in God’s intellect properly and firstly; in human intellect it is present properly and derivatively. And in conclusion we arrive at the succinct formula: God is “ipsa summa et prima veritas” (Truth itself, the sovereign and first truth).
This formula brings us close to what Jesus means when he speaks of the truth, when he says that his purpose in coming into the world was to “bear witness to the truth.” Again and again in the world, truth and error, truth and untruth, are almost inseparably mixed together. The truth in all its grandeur and purity does not appear. The world is “true” to the extent that it reflects God: the creative logic, the eternal reason that brought it to birth. And it becomes more and more true the closer it draws to God. Man becomes true, he becomes himself, when he grows in God’s likeness. Then he attains to his proper nature. God is the reality that gives being and intelligibility.
“Bearing witness to the truth” means giving priority to God and to his will over against the interests of the world and its powers. God is the criterion of being. In this sense, truth is the real “king” that confers light and greatness upon all things. We may also say that bearing witness to the truth means making creation intelligible and its truth accessible from God’s perspective – the perspective of creative reason – in such a way that it can serve as a criterion and signpost in this world of ours, in such a way that the great and the mighty are exposed to the power of truth, the common law, the law of truth.
Let us say plainly: the unredeemed state of the world consists precisely in the failure to understand the meaning of creation, in the failure to recognize truth; as a result, the rule of pragmatism is imposed, by which the strong arm of the powerful becomes the god of this world.
At this point, modern man is tempted to say: Creation has become intelligible to us through science. Indeed, Francis S Collins, for example, who led the Human Genome Project, says with joyful astonishment: “The language of God was revealed.” Indeed, in the magnificent mathematics of creation, which today we read in the human genetic code, we recognize the language of God. But unfortunately not the whole language. The functional truth about man has been discovered. But the truth about man himself – who he is, where he comes from, what he should do, what is right, what is wrong – this unfortunately cannot be read in the same way. Hand in hand with growing knowledge of functional truth there seems to be an increasing blindness toward “truth” itself – toward the question of our real identity and purpose.
What is truth? Pilate was not alone in dismissing this question as unanswerable and irrelevant for his purposes. Today too, in political argument and in discussion of the foundations of law, it is generally experienced as disturbing. Yet if man lives without truth, life passes him by; ultimately he surrenders the field to whoever is the stronger. “Redemption” in the fullest sense can only consist in the truth becoming recognizable. And it becomes recognizable when God becomes recognizable. He becomes recognizable in Jesus Christ. In Christ, God entered the world and set up the criterion of truth in the midst of history. Truth is outwardly powerless in the world, just as Christ is powerless by the world’s standards: he has no legions; he is crucified. Yet in his very powerlessness, he is powerful: only thus, again and again, does truth become power.”

“Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection” by Joseph Ratzinger : Pope Benedict XVI pages: 191-194

Love means never having to say you’re sorry? AGAIN?

We know this is not the case. I thought for sure folks would jump all over the last article and argue strongly that one of the most important things we need to do is tell people we are sorry and also make amends when we wrong someone.

For example, if we steal from someone, we need to not only say we are sorry but also return what was stolen plus interest. That’s clearly the right thing to do. Imagine stealing from someone and then saying, well, love means never having to say you are sorry so I’m just going to let that person love me. This is obviously bad behavior and not part of “the truth.”

If we hurt a loved one (even if we don’t think we did), we should still apologize and try to overcome the wrong. Right? Does anyone disagree with that?

It is hard for us to overcome our pride and say we are sorry. We will beat around the bush or soften the apology. This is typical of most men (dare I say).
It is the more mature individuals that are able to overcome their pride and truly apologize and make amends.

Let’s look once again at what Jesus did. When did Jesus say he was sorry?
He never did anything wrong as he was/is God and perfect. So, how could he ask for forgiveness? But, he did ask for forgiveness for others such as when he was being crucified. He asked his Father to forgive his murderers. Then, he went on to make amends for them by shedding his own blood.
This is the example we need to follow.