“I am the truth”

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, Incarnate Word, splendor and brightness of the Father, instruct and illumine my soul.

MEDITATION

1. Jesus came to give us life and to show us the way which leads to it. He, the Teacher of life, is also its source.

At the beginning of Jesus’ apostolate, the heavenly Father presented Him to the world as its divine Teacher. The Holy Spirit, descending upon Jesus in the form of a dove immediately after His baptism, and the voice from heaven saying, “ This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Mi 3,17) are, as it were, the divine credentials guaranteeing His teaching and giving the basic reasons for it. Who could refuse to believe His doctrine if He is the Son of God and the Holy Spirit is with Him? Two years later on Mt. Thabor, the same presentation is renewed: the same voice, the same words, “ This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” but this time an explicit mandate is given us: “ Hear ye Him!” (ibid. 17,5). By these words an even greater light is cast upon the teaching mission of Christ.

Jesus revealed Himself as Teacher, as the one and only Teacher : “ You call Me Master...and you say well, for so I am” (Jn 13,13). “Neither be ye called masters; for one is your Master, Christ” (Mt 23,10). Strengthening the validity of this claim, Jesus declared that He was the Life and the Truth. He even equates the latter with His origin and mission, as when He declared to Pilate: “For this was I born, and for this I came into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth” (Jn 18,37). Those who listen to His word, hear the truth: “If you continue in my word...you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (ibid. 8,31.32).

2. A man may or may not be a teacher; in either case, he remains a man. Jesus, on the other hand, is Teacher by nature, because He is the Incarnate Word. God is Truth; all the truth which is in the Father is communicated to the Word, and comes to us through Christ. Jesus is Teacher because He is the Word, the substantial Word of the Father, and as such, He possesses and manifests all truth, all wisdom, all knowledge; indeed, He Himself is the Truth, the Wisdom, the Splendor, the Light of the Father. It is because of this that Jesus could say that He was the one and only Master. Other teachers know only a part of the truth; Jesus not only knows all truth, but because He is the Word, He is the Truth. Other teachers set forth truths which are superior to them, truths which exist outside themselves, and of which they can have but an imperfect knowledge. Jesus, on the contrary, teaches the truth which He Himself is by nature. His teaching, therefore, is supreme, unique, and infallible. This is why He said, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in Me may not remain in darkness” (ibid. 12,46), and even more explicitly, “I am the light of the world” (ibid. 8,12). Jesus alone could call Himself the light of the world, because the Word alone is the light.

The teaching of Jesus does not consist then in mere human words, however sublime and elevated they might be, but it is the revelation of God Himself. This is the Word to which He invites us to open our minds and hearts.

COLLOQUY

“O divine Father, You have opened the Book of Life, Jesus Christ, before us, Your children. In Him, the God-Man, we find all that we could wish to know. Reading in Him, we shall be filled with holy knowledge; we shall find all the doctrine we need for ourselves and for others. But, O my soul, if you want to be enlightened and instructed, you must not read this Book of Life hastily or superficially, but slowly and attentively; then you will be inflamed with divine love and you will know the truth.

“Above all, O my soul, try to have a true knowledge of God and yourself; you can obtain this only by reading, meditating, and studying the Book of Life, Christ, Our Lord ” (St. Angela of Foligno).

O my Jesus, true light, drive away the clouds of ignorance which come from my evil nature, and give me the grace to seek the truth with a sincere heart and to love it; for You, the Incarnate Word, are the Truth.

Be the only light on my path, the only Master to guide my steps. I need You, eternal Truth, to liberate me from the slavery of my frailty and wretchedness, and from the passions which often blind my conscience and hinder me from complete adherence to the good and the true which You teach me.

Your truth teaches me that You are He who is, and that I am one who is not; that You alone have worth, and that I have no value; that You are All, and I am nothing, and if there is any good in me, it is a wholly gratuitous gift from You.

O Jesus, grant that I may seek Your truth and love it, even when it is painful, or when, like a two-edged sword, it lays bare my miseries, my faults, my sins. Let Your truth penetrate my whole being and all my acts; make me courageously reject every light which does not emanate from You!

O my only Master, make me comprehend the vanity of all knowledge and thought which does not reflect Your truth. O Lord, submerge my soul in Your light, penetrate my mind and heart with Your truth. Unite me to You, O eternal Truth! O Jesus, Incarnate Word, Incarnate utterance of my God, instruct my soul. I wish to learn everything from You, to “ spend my life in listening to You” (E.T. IT).