Love is True


St Paul's most famous exegesis on love in 1 Chorinthians 13 describes love as many things but somehow does not mention one crucial fact - Love is truthful. But he does bring up the question of love and true in another of his letters.
Ephesians 4:15
If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow completely into Christ, who is the head.

There are several additional instances across the Bible where the Lord exhorts us to speak the truth. Apart from the 10 commandments that is!

Zechariah 8: 16-17
These are the things you should do: Speak the truth to one another. In the courts give real justice - the kind that brings peace. Do not plan ways of harming one another. Do not give false testimony under oath. I hate lying, injustice, and violence."

Jesus Himself warns us that having life in Him will mean we will need a lot of pruning.
John 15:2
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.

Pruning cannot happen if we are too delicate about speaking and living truthfully/living for truth.
St Edith Stein, aka St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, famously said, "Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth." In our times when truth is the casualty for a false tolerance, whats been given person to person all around is often not love in its fullness because it lacks the crucial aspect of truth.

Most of us have embraced a moral view point where morality is considered subjective and not objective. We tend to justify that our actions/responses as morally correct depending on the situation. For example, a highly successful model sleeping with different men everyday is considered immoral by most while a widow indulging in prostitution to feed her little babies is not so immoral. Right?  Wrong! Prostitution is wrong no matter what the motivation. Virtue remains virtue no matter what the situation. While sin remains sin no matter what the circumstance. This is what lives of saints like Maria Goretti teach us. As St Don Bosco famously said, "Death rather than sin". Unless we hold on to the understanding that wrong is wrong no matter what the compulsion, we loose the ability to fight any type of evil because a subjective justification can always be found.

This is true for both the small and big things in life. In fact, as Jesus famously asked , if one cannot be trusted in the little things, how can one be trusted in the big things?

So make an effort to understand objective morality and be willing to call a wrong a wrong although it will certainly make you less liked/popular among your friends and family. As Jesus said, worry not about laying up treasures for yourself here on earth that moth and rust (and people's memories) can eat away but, lay up for your selves treasure in heaven that are ever lasting. Be concerned primarily about gaining the eternal crown of the saints of God rather than of sitting pretty with the various fleeting crowns men have to offer.

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