Conviction

I've been on my own for the past day or so, hanging out at home with just the doggies while the rest of the family is up visiting the Grand Canyon.  I was supposed to go, but a sick doggie changed my plans, and so I've been relishing the peace and quiet at home instead.  

Since it's Mother's Day weekend, I decided to spend it indulging in a few guilty pleasures:  yummy beer (Oberon!), double workouts (yay for finally getting back up to my 5K after our Lenten sicknesses!), and my number 1 guilty pleasure:  a marathon of Law and Order: SVU reruns on Netflix. 

Yep, I'm a Law and Order junkie, and my favourite cast of actors happens to be on the SVU version.   (Well, now that Jesse L Martin is gone, of course...)

Anywho, I was watching an episode from one of the first seasons today while on the treadmill (yay for two guilty pleasures at once!  No, I did NOT drink the beer at the same time....), and a line from one of the actors really stood out to me.  It was a mom, who was talking about raising her children after their father had been murdered.  When asked by a detective just what she had told them about the incident, she responded, "I never sugar-coat the truth."

That phrase has been on repeat, in my brain, all day.  Through countless other episodes.   Through driving to and from Mass tonight.   I was reminded of it again during Father's homily.

"I never sugar-coat the truth."

"I never sugar-coat the truth."

Fellow Catholics, now is the time to ask ourselves if this statement applies to us.   Are we sugar-coating the Truth?

Sugarcoat:   to make superficially attractive or palatable

 Are we covering up or hiding the Truth so much that others can't recognize it?

Are we spinning the Truth in order to make it superficially attractive?

“Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.”

― G.K. Chesterton

Catholics...have we forgotten the Truth?

This Truth:

In Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest. "Full of grace and truth," he came as the "light of the world," he is the Truth.²⁵⁷ "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness."²⁵⁸ The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know "the truth [that] will make you free" and that sanctifies.²⁵⁹ To follow Jesus is to live in "the Spirit of truth," whom the Father sends in his name and who leads "into all the truth."²⁶⁰ To his disciples Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth: "Let what you say be simply 'Yes or No.'"²⁶¹

Man tends by nature toward the truth. He is obliged to honor and bear witness to it: "It is in accordance with their dignity that all men, because they are persons . . . are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth."²⁶²  

(CCC 2466-2467)

And this Truth:

The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known.²⁶⁹

All Christians by the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in Baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at Confirmation. ²⁷⁰

(CCC 2472)

Catholics, have we sugar-coated the truth so much that we no longer recognize it as truth?  Have we shoved this desire and search for the Truth so far down into ourselves that we don't even try any more?

Catholics, we know the Truth.  The one and only Truth:  Jesus Christ.  We are face-to-face with the Truth every time we go to Mass.

Have we forgotten Him and what He told us?

Catholics, He is asking us to be authentic.   He is asking us to bear witness to the Truth.   He is asking us to witness to the Truth and make it known.

Have we been doing that?

Or have we been sugar-coating that witness, so that it is superficially attractive?

Do you know what else is superficially attractive?  

The Evil One.   

He twists reality, making evil seem desirable.   Sin glitters under his influence.   The hard truth of reality (the destruction caused by sin) is made superficially attractive.   Bad seems good...immorality seems moral......vice looks like virtue....

Catholics, now is the time to stand up to the sugar-coating.  If we don't understand or see the wisdom in the Church's teachings, now is the time to start learning, to start asking.   

We need to know, and cling to, the Truth.

We need to know, and to cling to, Jesus Christ.

Now is the time for conviction.   Now is the time to stand up.   Now is the time to bear witness to the Truth. 

“Right is Right even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.”
― G.K. Chesterton

*****

If you want to start learning, I highly recommend starting here.