The Church is: The Joy of Knowing Truth
by Fr. David M. Knight
June 1, 2024
Saturday of the Eighth Week of Easter
Memorial of Saint Justin, Martyr
Lectionary 352
Jude 17, 20b-25/Mk 11:27-33 (352)
In the Church there is openness to all truth. We have preserved all God revealed to his People: first to the Jews, then to the Christians. And we accept all God has clarified or human intellect discovered before or after that amplifies that revelation. In 1965, the bishops at Vatican II, recognizing the Church’s “task of promoting unity and love among people,” looked to “what humans have in common and what draws them to fellowship.” Mentioning specifically Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, the bishops affirmed, “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions” (“Declaration On The Relation Of The Church To Non-Christian Religions,” 1, 2).
No one culture can best prepare people to appreciate, or enable them to express and embody in customs, all that is good and true and beautiful. When the Church discovered she was “catholic” (kata-holos, universal) at the council in Jerusalem (Acts 15:1), she realized Christianity is not identified with its expression in Jewish culture or any other. Later attempts to impose Roman or European cultural forms on Christians of other countries were inconsistent with our Catholic character.
When we think of the Church we should not think of some narrow, restrictive body of doctrine, but of a community that professes openness to be one with all that is true and good and beautiful—but which, at the same time, has the sureness, the certitude, and the courage to proclaim some truths explicitly as doctrines or dogmas of faith.
To proclaim openness to everything while refusing to commit to anything is pure self-deception. It is a denial of truth and a refusal of goodness at the very root of our being.
ACTION: Think about the value of knowing truth as such.
PRAYER: “Lord, open my eyes.”
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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