The Spirit of truth

Fr. Roy Cimagala .

WE need to be familiar with the Spirit of truth. He is the one who will show us the whole truth and not just some aspects of it. If we really want to be in the truth and not confused and lost in the many appearances of truth, we need to get in touch with the Spirit of truth.

Christ himself said: “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” (Jn 16,13)

We have to take note that this business of getting to the whole truth involves a process. It’s not a one-shot deal. It involves some kind of journey. No one can ever say he has the whole truth until he reaches where the Spirit of truth would finally lead him.

We have to remember that everything that exists has something of the truth, since by merely existing, that something is already true. But as to whether it has the whole truth, it would depend whether it has the Spirit of truth or not.

The most important thing is to see if something that we consider to be true is in conformity with the Spirit of truth.

Otherwise, we will be deceived and trapped by the many appearances of truth that do not bring us to the real thing which, in the end, can only be God.

Thus, we can say that even the devil, who is a liar and is the father of lies (cfr. Jn 8,44), has some truth in him. That he exists is already an indication that he is true and real. And everything that he says to tempt us certainly contains a lot of truth.

But as to whether he has the whole truth, we can definitely say that he does not have it. He precisely will take us away from the ultimate and constant truth—God. He will do it by giving us the many deceptive appearances of truth.

We need to be clear about this point. Especially today when we are bombarded with a lot of data and information supposedly containing scientific things and facts, we have to see to it that all these pieces of information are related to the Spirit of truth.

So, for example, when we read news items and opinion columns or listen to some talk shows, we should be properly guarded. They will always try to impress us with what they consider to be the truth. But unless they are related to the Spirit of truth, we will always have reason to doubt them, or to take them with a grain of salt, or to consider them in a tentative way, or to simply dismiss them.

Unless related to the Spirit of truth, these pieces of information may just be inspired by self-interest that goes against the common good. They can hardly escape from the distortions of their biases and prejudices. They may even outrightly go against God, the source of all truth and goodness. In fact, sad to say, this latter observation is getting rampant.

Even the scientific data can in the end be not in the truth, since if they are not related to the Spirit of truth, they can only occasion in us the anomalies of pride, vanity, greed, etc.

With the Spirit of truth, we will always enjoy the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit in varying degrees. With the Spirit of the truth, all our assertions of truth will always redound to the ultimate purpose of our life here on earth—our own sanctification and salvation.

To be in the truth, our pursuit of it will not just limit itself to some earthly and human interest. It will always be meant for our sanctification and salvation, no matter mundane and human the issue at hand we are dealing with is.

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Becoming God-like. Since we have been created in the image and likeness of God, we should put all our energy in becoming like God. To be like God is not some kind of mental disorder that some people stereotype such effort to be. In fact, that is the ultimate purpose of our life here on earth.

We need to be reminded that our life here on earth is the time God uses in his eternity to create us. Our creation is not yet over. We are still a work in progress, a work that now includes our redemption. In the eternity of God, he knows that man would fall from his state of original justice and would need to be redeemed.

There are many things involved in becoming God-like. In fact, everything must be involved, including our weaknesses, our sins which, if handled properly, can also actually lead us to God.

Precisely God became man to show us the way of how we can become like him amid our wounded and sinful human condition here on earth.

But for this purpose, we cannot overemphasize the need for us to study and meditate on the life of Christ as recorded in the gospels and taught authoritatively by the Church.

We have to familiarize ourselves with his words and deeds, with every gesture and reaction he made to the different situations, since everything he said and did was meant to show us how to deal with the different situations of our life.

Precisely Christ said that he is “the way, the truth and the life” for us. We cannot be any other than be like Christ. We need to assume his mind and his will. We need to have his heart.

If that sounds incredible, do not worry because in the end it is Christ himself who will do it for us. He will be the one to complete and perfect what God has started with us. Ours is simply to be open to his will and ways, like “clay in the potter’s hand.” (cfr. Jer 18,6)

We need to overcome the understandable awkwardness we feel in dealing with this truth about ourselves. Our nature is an open one, not a closed one. It is open to the elevation to the supernatural life of God, or to its downgrading to the level of the animals and to damned.

We have to do our part to become God-like in Christ through the Holy Spirit. And there are many and even endless ways of achieving this goal. Definitely, we have to learn to pray, to talk with God, to have a constant consciousness of his presence and his interventions.

We have to avail of the sacraments which are the usual channels for God’s grace to come to us. We have to learn how to fight against anything that takes us away from God—our weaknesses, the temptations and our sins, the deceptive allurements of the world and the tricks of the devil.

We should realize more deeply that we are becoming more and more like God everyday. We should aim at getting to see, understand and react to things in the way God would see, understand and react to them through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

In a sense, everyone of us should learn how to be meditative and contemplative even in the midst of our worldly affairs.

In fact, the world and everything in it should not be a hindrance in our relation to God. If we try our best to be like God in Christ, we would know how to deal with whatever worldly situation we can find ourselves in, such that it would lead us to God.

God has given us all the means. And there are now many and abundant instrumentalities in the Church and in the world that would make these divine means accessible to us. The different charisms and spiritualities in the Church offer such facilities. They are all there for the taking so that in the end we can be God-like.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com