Pursuing truth in charity

IN our pursuit for the truth, as when we do our best to

update, refine or polish what we already know about our faith and what

are already defined as truths and doctrine of faith, we have to avoid

getting so trapped and imprisoned by their exclusive nature that we

sacrifice charity, especially its finer if more difficult and

challenging points.

            This danger can take place when the more we seem to know

about our faith, the less charitable we become, since such growing

superiority in our knowledge of the faith would make us more

judgmental of others, more detached from them, and less able to

understand and deal with those who do not enjoy the same privilege or

status that we do.

            This happened in the case of the Pharisees and the scribes

in the times of Christ. These people so prided themselves to be in

possession of what is true about faith and religion that they looked

down on those who were not like them. They even looked down on Christ

and did everything to find fault in him until they managed to bring

Christ to his crucifixion.

            We have to realize that if truth is really truth, it will

always foster charity, not hinder or undermine it. Truth’s exclusive

character does not displace the inclusivity of charity. Rather it

enhances charity’s inclusive character.

            We have to be wary of the seemingly competing if not

contradicting tendency between truth and charity that many of us

believe with respect to the truth-and-charity relation. If truth

sacrifices charity, then it would not really be truth. And vice-versa.

If charity sacrifices truth, it would not really be charity. We have a

distortion of both, a falsification of both.

            We have to be clear about a certain point that many of us

think about the mutual relationship between truth and charity. Many of

us think that for truth to be charitable, it has to give up on

something. And also vice-versa. For charity to be in the truth, it has

to somehow sacrifice some of its requirements.

            Nothing should be given up or sacrificed from either side

of truth and charity, if both really are what they are. Of course,

given our wounded, limited and sinful human condition, things may look

like we are giving up or sacrificing something for truth to blend with

charity, and for charity to blend with truth. But that is a subjective

appreciation of things that we need to overcome and rectify.

            Can we do it? Of course, we can, but always with the grace

of God and never without the involvement of suffering and pain. The

cross of Christ will somehow be in the middle of all this.

            The problem is that many of us have the implicit attitude

that God’s grace can be an optional thing in this issue, and that the

cross, as much as possible, can and should be avoided. We can think

that if we can do away with grace and the cross to be both in the

truth and charity, then it would just be fine.

            But the truth is that we can never do away with grace and

the cross in pursuing the truth in charity and charity in the truth.

Let us always remember that Christ himself did not stop simply in

preaching what is true and not true with respect to faith, what is

right and not right with respect to morals. Man’s salvation cannot be

attained with preaching alone.

            Christ had to offer his life on the cross. And for that,

he had to commend his spirit to his Father. “Father, into your hands I

commend my spirit,” he said. (Lk 23,46) These words express Christ’s

availment of the grace that he has in common possession with the

Father and the Holy Spirit, if we can describe it that way.