4th Sunday after Easter 18 May 2014 Sermon

4th Sunday after Easter 18.5.14 Truth

If we have come here to Mass it probably means that we believe that what we profess and do in this place is actually the truth. That is, that we are in the right place as far as religious matters go.

There are many churches around Adelaide that we could go to instead, non-Catholic, non-Christian; and other buildings such as temples and mosques, private homes; or like most Adelaide residents we could just go to the shops instead.

We believe we are in the right place because this is the Church that Jesus Himself founded, the Church built on the apostles, in particular, Peter.

For all the failings of individual Catholics this is still the right Church and in a sense, the only Church.

We believe the Catholic Church possesses the fulness of truth, because, as Our Lord promises in John’s Gospel, He would send the Holy Spirit to make sure we would stay on the right path.

And that same Holy Spirit would teach us a lot more things, and make things clearer, so that we could have certainty in our beliefs.

Many Catholics today are embarrassed by any claim that the Catholic Church possesses the truth. They prefer to say that we really do not have the answers after all. We are still ‘searching’, the same as everyone else.

With all due acknowledgment to human frailty it does not help matters if we throw out all our dogmas and definitions, compiled so carefully over centuries.

Those things are true and remain true. We must certainly be humble before the truth but we must not deny that same truth in an attempt to be conciliatory to others.

In the Gospel today Our Lord promises that the Holy Spirit will prove right those who are right and wrong those who are wrong.

This would cover attitudes as well as concepts. We can be right in one and wrong in the other.

We could, as Catholics, have the right doctrine but the wrong attitude, such as pride.

Or, the other way round, we can have a humble attitude yet be too willing to accommodate our beliefs to what others want of us. We must be humble, certainly, but we must also seek the exact truth about matters pertaining to our faith.

It is not sufficient just to be ‘sincere’ in our approach. If something is known to be true we must believe it. eg that Our Lord made Peter the first Pope, that Our Lord is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament; that Our Lady intercedes for us etc…

In practice we can work on both fronts at the same time.

We can strive to understand as much as possible about our Catholic faith, with judicious reading and prayer.

And we can strive to be as humble, charitable, truthful and all the other virtues as possible.

For both tasks we need the Holy Spirit to enlighten us (as regards belief) and to inflame us (as regards behaviour).

We hope meanwhile that those of other faiths will also invoke the same Holy Spirit and come to a greater clarity and charity on their part.

Traditional Catholics are very wary about ‘ecumenism’, fearing that the truth will disappear altogether if we trade with it.

We can, however, be charitable to all comers without sacrificing anything of our own beliefs.

And it is the ultimate charity to keep that truth intact so that others who have never known it will have somewhere to rest when they have found it.

Only a divine intelligence could manage so many things at once. May the Holy Spirit be active in bringing about true unity of believers in Jesus Christ, as well as attracting non-believers to the Truth that brings eternal life.