Moment With Betty

Love, is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God’s Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by obedience to God’s plan for him, in order to realize it fully in this plan, he finds his truth, and through obedience to this truth he becomes free (Jn. 8:22- Jesus was simply telling the Jews to uphold the laws given by God, to protect the truth and guide the people of Israel). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction and to bear witness to it in life are therefore challenging and an essential forms of charity. With charity, everyone feels the interior desire to love genuinely. love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person.

The pursuit for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the hardship that our humanity brings to it and HE reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us.

 Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way and in a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love hence, truth needs to be sought, found and expressed for if we cannot speak love and truth then we are outside the will of God and should not speak at all. (Excerpts from Benedict XVI’s -2009 encyclical,)

Be that as it may, the first question one should ask oneself is, do I love this person that I am talking to? Because if you really don’t care for this person, then it is most likely that the truth you are about to share is going to come off in a tone that makes your truth impossible to accept. For without truth, Love becomes an empty shell and without love, truth cannot be defended.

But if you love the person, pray and then proceed boldly. Stand firm, let nothing change your mind because at that point, you have entered a spiritual battle by promoting and defending the truth. Remember that the enemy is not the person you are competing with but rather Satan himself, the father of lies.  Do this with gentleness and respect.

Speak the truth, yes, it is sometimes hard to speak up for the reasons of losing a friend, or appearing judgmental, of categorically telling your friend that she /he is going the wrong way, at the wrong time. But if you love that friend of yours, it will please God and you will be fulfilled that you spoke up, I know that sometimes you would wish that you hadn’t done that but we need to rely on the Holy Spirit for direction and guidance.

So, if you must do the right thing and be a good friend, you should be ready to occasionally deal with the problems of confrontations or name calling and bashing that sometimes come from disagreeing with others on the absolute truths particularly, that of the Bible. For James A. Garfield once said “ I love  agitations and investigations and glory in defending unpopular truth againgst popular error”. Defending the truth is not an easy task so, if you must do so, be ready to sometimes  encouter serious challenges and confrontations.  But trust me, sometimes confrontation is the opening of dialogue and unless we have an honest dialogue done out of love, not much can be accomplished.

Often times, the fear of confrontation tends to hold us back from speaking up and that’s embarrassing because when I think of all that Christ went through for us, the scourging, the brutality, torture on the way to Dolorosa, I’m ashamed that l have not done much to uphold the truth.

Unfortunately, this is the world we live in, a world of no principles, a world where right and wrong is defined by feelings and truth has been twisted to suit our own opinions and selfishness. However, if we truly love, promote and defend the truth and also love our friends, we will pray and then proceed boldly, stand firm and let nothing stop us or change our minds from the doing the right thing. Remember that by taking that bold step, you have entered a spiritual battle because as l earlier stated, the enemy is not the person you are contending with but rather Satan himself, the father of lies. So, do this with gentleness, respect and most importantly with serious prayer.