Dear Friends,
Once there was an emperor who looked at himself in the
mirror and realized that he was getting old. “I will have to find for myself a
successor,” he thought. So, he called together the children of his land, and
gave them each a pot filled with soil and one seed. “Come back next year at
this time,” he instructed them, “and show me what you have grown.” The
following year, as the date approached, little Ling’s pot had nothing to show
for his efforts. Nothing. Ling didn’t want to go back to face the emperor, but
his mother reminded him that he had done his best. On the appointed day,
children came carrying pots with all sorts of colors and blossoms of every
size. The emperor came in. His eyes took in every festive pot until he found
Ling holding his pot without any visible growth. The emperor came over to him,
put his arms around Ling and said to the assembly: “I gave you each a boiled
seed to plant, knowing full well it could not grow. Ling was the only honest
one among you. Because of his honesty, he will be the next emperor.”
The followers of Jesus are like Ling. We bear the mark of
truth in our lives. In this, we are like Jesus, who valued truth
immeasurably. “Who do you say I am?” His
own personal answer to that question was, “I am the Way, the Truth and the
Life.” At another time, Jesus wanted his followers to know with certainty “You
shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
And when confronted with Pilate during his Passion, Jesus refused
to let Pilate give him a title. Jesus needed no titles. He already knew who he
was. In fact, Pilate missed the truth of who Jesus was, because he, Pilate
himself, did not live by the truth. Living the truth gets us into trouble with
those who prefer lies. Yet, if we allow him entry, Christ’s love and embrace
are greater than any truth we have to face.
It’s one thing to lie to others. It’s more serious to lie to
ourselves. When we lie to ourselves, we ignore the real problems in our
families, among our friends. It hurts when we don’t live the truth or tell the
truth to someone we say we love. It can make our body ache with anxiety. Living
the lie can not only hurt us, it can eventually destroy us.
People know when things are muddled. They can’t be fooled.
The most important day of our life may be when we tell the truth and live with
it.
Jesus before Pilate today, on this great feast of Christ the
King, asks us the same question He asked Pilate: What is truth?
What is Jesus’ truth? What is our own truth as disciples of
the Lord? Good questions for ourselves and for our Church as we end one
liturgical year and begin other next week. Let’s let this be a week of
truth-telling and truth-being.
~Sister Joan Sobala
~Sister Joan Sobala
