The Search For Truth In Today’s World

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

AMID all the obvious overload we have today in terms of facts and data, opinions and views, ideologies and philosophies, fiction stories and narratives, rapidly evolving innovations, etc., we cannot deny that the search for truth has become a very challenging task.

We certainly should not ignore them. Rather, we should give them due consideration. But we should not forget that truth can only be found in God who revealed himself and the whole truth to us in full in Christ, “the way, the truth and the life.”

Yes, we have to give due consideration to all these things, but we should never forget that to deal with them properly, sorting them out without getting lost along the way, we have to be firm in our pursuit for that task of identifying ourselves more and more with Christ. This is going to be an ongoing affair, a work in progress for our whole life. We can never say we have definitively and perfectly identified ourselves with him.

Only with Christ can we deal with these things in the best way, but seeing to it that the Christ we want to show is not a disembodied Christ, a Christ simply of doctrine and some pious practices, but the Christ who adapts himself to the way the people are without compromising the truth. It’s Christ who shows the truth always in charity.

Let’s remember that Christ went all the way not only to become man, but also to assume all the sins of men without committing any sin, if only to save us. So, like Christ, we have to learn how to be adaptive to the different and changing conditions of our life, to the different kinds of people, without losing our Christian identity and consistency.

Christ was always adapting himself to the people, being flexible to everyone, and yet managed to accomplish his mission, whatever the situation was. He was not only passively adapting himself to the environment. He was also actively pursuing his goal in different ways. He was versatile.

He rounded off all these expressions of adaptability, flexibility and versatility by offering his life on the cross. There he made as his own all the sins of men, died to them and rose from the dead. He turned the cross from being a tree of sin and death into a tree of life. His death conquered sin and death, and opened the door to eternal life.

To become Christ-like would indeed require a lifelong effort, but we can always start and develop it anytime. Let us not wait for some so-called opportune moment to be so. Any time, any situation can and should be an occasion to be like Christ. Obviously, we have to know Christ more and more. Thus, we need to be familiar with his life, his teachings and his example.

So, to be in the truth, we have to refer things to God. In fact, what would really assure us that we would be fully in the truth despite truth’s many levels, aspects, angles, etc., is when we are with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. There is no other way to be truthful!

This means that we have to be vitally identified with Christ who told Pilate that he came to bear witness to the truth. (cfr. Jn 18,37-38) Only in Christ can we be in the truth. Only when we look, understand and react to things the way Christ did would we be in the truth!

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com