Remaining in the Truth of Christ

We are Christians because we adhere to the Lord and we follow him. We know that there is no life in us outside of Christ because he is the true vine and we are its branches. In order to bear fruit we, his branches, are nourished by Christ Words, Body and Blood, and are pruned in due time by the Lord.

We are proud to confess that our identity, our joy of life, our hope and strength comes from our belonging to him and his teaching. We say: “Whoever keeps his commandments, lives in God and God lives in him.” We do not hide the fact, as false humbleness and tolerance would demand, that while remaining in Christ we know the truth, the truth with the liberating and life bearing power. In humbleness and charity we announce to the world that the Lord is greatest gift to humanity. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We proclaim that everything has its origin in Christ and his teaching, everything is shaped by it and directed towards it.

In Christ there is no division and conflict between law and freedom, truth and love. Obeying God’s Commandments cannot paralyse souls, as some people intend to say nowadays, but they are in Christ the path to salvation, liberation and fulfillment of life. The Ten Commandants are engraved by God in the human heart.  They are about the full meaning of life, and their morality is not only about avoiding sin, but also about living in accord with the teaching of Christ, who is Light and Life. In fact in Christ we see how much love “rejoices in the truth” and how much freedom is made of the law, out of Ten Commandments and Beatitudes.

“Our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active; only by this can we be certain that we are children of the truth.” Proclaiming the Truth of God’s Commandants is itself re-rooting us in the Source of life. Because of that, in its depth, it has nothing to do with any ideological separation of people from the healing closeness of the word and of the sacraments of Jesus.

Fr Stan