Ave Maria Meditations
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” (John 14:6) said our Lord, Jesus Christ. We continue to look at the topic of truth this week. Jesus also said that “The truth will set you free.” (John 8:32). So how just does the Truth, Jesus, set us free? It is through His gift of forgiveness and salvation though the Church in sanctifying grace from the Sacraments that free us from enslavement to sins. And we can become slaves to our passions, to sin! We have been taught that God can neither deceive nor be deceived (Catechism #156)… And when we stand before God at the end of our lives, there can be no excuses but only the truth of how we have lived our lives. It can be hard to know the truth about ourselves but if we live in accord with the Commandments, we can have a pretty good idea how we will stand before God.
We have the Commandments but what else? Doesn’t the Jewish faith follow them, or any of the thousands of other “denominations”? But they all have their own interpretations and explanations. Only one Church is Apostolic in that it embraces what has come down through the ages through the Apostles to whom Jesus said, “He who hears you, hears Me.” In other words, Our Lord gave authority to the apostles and to their successors. No other “denomination” has that. It is what the Catholic Church teaches these 2000 years that reflects the truth our Lord wanted us to know and these Traditions point the way to a holy and God-pleasing life and there lies our true freedom. It is in living such a life that we will come to see Jesus Christ face-to-face as we enter into Heaven. Ave Maria!
