Carmelite homily for Wednesday (Easter V), May 27, 2020 – Lectionary 299 (John 17:11-19)
In today’s Gospel Jesus says, as he prays for the Apostles, ‘consecrate them in truth; your word is truth; I consecrate myself for them so that they may be consecrated in truth.” There’s a lot of truth language here, but there needs to be because there’s a lot of lies. Society says, ‘oh, there shouldn’t be any pain; there really is no death; do what you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone.’ There’s a lot of lies. Advertisers! They promise everything, just buy the product. Truth needs to be discerned; discerned deeply. Saint Therese writes, “I can nourish myself on nothing but truth.” That is true – where true nourishment is. Not in lies, not in emptiness, not in falsehood – but in truth. But it takes a little bit to get there; it takes a lot of work to get to that food.
