Love, commandments, truth
By Fr. Roy Cimagala
Chaplain
Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)
Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
WE need to know the intimate relation among this triad. Christ said it very clearly,
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (Jn 14,15) And more than that, he
also said that it is when we love him by following his commandments that the Spirit of
truth would be with us and would lead us to the truth.
This is what he said: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate
to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it
neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will
be in you. (Jn 14,16-17)
It is important that we meditate on these words of Christ very closely if only to
understand the relation of how love of Christ is achieved by keeping his commandments
and how that love can lead us to the truth that nowadays is being twisted and distorted
according to one’s whims and caprices, one’s biases and prejudices, creating all sorts of
spins and narratives to suit one’s interest at the expense of truth itself.
This distortion of truth is most especially noticed nowadays in the fields of
politics, journalism, and even in the sciences, philosophies and ideologies. Even open,
unmitigated lies are peddled, and done with so much self-confidence and aplomb that it
would seem that the devil, the father of lies, is having a heyday.
Many people nowadays just say and write, opine and claim or proclaim
something with hardly any regard to our duty to check things with Christ first. They
seem convinced that God has nothing to do with whatever they would be saying or
claiming.
As a result, in spite of the powerful means of communication we are having, what
we are having are more and worsening differences and conflicts. Instead of unity, we
have graver division. Instead of generating more understanding and charity, we have
growing cases of anger and hatred.
We need to remind ourselves strongly that we can only manage to achieve real
love for God and for one another, and to be in the truth, when we truly follow and love
Christ. We should dismiss any thought that tells us that we can manage to have them
outside of Christ.
These days, it’s clear that the pressure to just say and write with hardly any
reference to Christ is quite strong and seemingly irresistible. But we should just fight
against that tendency.
With Christ, not only would we be in the truth. We would also be charitable,
knowing when and how to say or assert anything. We have to be reminded that for truth
to be real truth, it has to be charitable. Truth and charity always go together, though we
should not understand charity as simply being sugary and always pleasing. Charity can
have a bitter taste too.
And to be in the truth does not mean that we only use facts and data. Christ used
many literary devices like parables, similes, metaphors, hyperboles and oxymorons to
proclaim the truth. These literary devices were not meant to deceive us. They were not
lies.
We too can use these literary devices but they should always be inspired by the
spirit of Christ, for that can only assure us that these devices would point us to the truth.
Again, let us realize more deeply the close and indispensable relation among love, the
commandments of Christ, and the Spirit of truth.