Lent with the Early Church Fathers Day 20

Day 20

Lent with the Early Church Fathers

A daily post from Tom Bandy

Based on A Year with the Church Fathers (Ed. Mike Aquilina, St. Benedict Press, 2010) 

Love the Truth as the Martyrs Did 

Philoxenus 

Jesus our God commands us to declare truth openly, and not to be ashamed, and not to blush, and not just to accept what we are told by people in authority, and not to seek to please those who are the adversaries of truth – for whoever wishes to please others cannot be a servant of Christ. 

But as for anyone who has experienced the love of Christ, and tasted the sweetness of truth, nothing will ever be able to diminish the ardor of their pursuit in search of the truth they love. For truth is agreeable and sweet above all things, and it inflames every soul that has tasted rightly to seek after it. 

Like the divine apostles in the holy martyrs, everyone who experienced this pleasure sought it with unspeakable ardor. Nothing was able to diminish the ardor of their love and the pursuit of truth: neither fire, nor beasts, nor swords, nor torture, nor exile from country to country, nor close confinement in dungeons, nor the insults of enemies, nor calumnies, nor injustices, nor the inconstancy of friends, nor the defection of acquaintances, nor separation from family, nor the opposition of the whole world, nor the onslaught of visible and invisible enemies, nor anything above or below, can separate from the love of Christ those who have tasted and perceived the truth. 

TGB: Paul uses much the same words to declare nothing can separate us from the love of God revealed by Christ. Here we see that nothing can separate us from the truth of God embodied in Christ. Love and truth are two aspects of the same experience of the reunion of the finite and the infinite, of the human soul and divine presence. Truth is not just correct information. It is a kind of spiritual reunion.