Truth that will set us free?

HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
WITH THE PARISH PRIESTS OF THE ROME DIOCESE

LECTIO DIVINA

Paul VI Audience Hall
Thursday, 23 February 2012

God’s oneness is identified with our hope. Why? In what way? Because God’s oneness is hope, because this guarantees us that, in the end, there are no different powers, in the end there is no dualism between different and clashing powers, in the end there is no dragon’s head left which could be raised against God, the filth of evil and sin is no more.

In the end all that is left is light! God is the one and only God: there is no other power against him! We know that today, with the ever increasing evils we experience in the world, many doubt in God’s Almightiness; indeed, various theologians — even good ones — say that God cannot be Almighty because what we see in the world is incompatible with almightiness. And in this way they wish to create a new apology, to excuse God and to “exculpate” God from these evils.

However this is not the right way, because if God is not Almighty, if other powers exist and endure he is not truly God and is not truly hope, because in the end there would be polytheism, in the end there would be fighting, the power of evil. God is Almighty, the one God. Of course, in history a limit has been set on his omnipotence, recognizing our freedom. However, in the end everything returns and no other power is left; this is the hope: that the light wins, that love wins! In the end the power of evil does not endure, only God endures! And thus we journey on in hope, walking towards the oneness of the one God, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit in the One Lord, Christ. 

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Truth is not imposed with other means than itself! Truth can only come through itself, through its own light. However, we stand in need of truth; without truth we do not know the true values and how could we order the kosmos of values? Without truth we are blind in the world, we have no path. The great gift of Christ is precisely that we see the Face of God and, even though we see it enigmatically, very insufficiently, we know its basis, the essential of truth in Christ, in his Body. And in knowing this truth, we also grow in charity, which is the legitimation of the truth and shows us that it is truth.

I would say precisely that charity is the fruit of truth — the tree is known by its fruit — and if there is no charity, then truth is not adopted or lived either; and where truth is, charity comes into being.