As of late I have been asking myself the same question quite frequently: why is it so difficult for us to speak absolutely about our faith? We fall so easily into the trap of relativism because we live in its framework, we are educated to think in a relativistic way, and we are expected to accept multiple options, multiple lower-case t truths, etc. Even if we utter in word what we aspire to believe as absolutely true, often our actions and our subsequent words do not back up this seemingly impossible stance. And yet…
The more I contemplate, the more I am truly convinced that Christianity- read, Catholicism, the only full and true faith revealed to the Church- is the one and only religion with a truly divine mandate, a heavenly bond, a direct call from on High. Both logic and faith confirm this.
No other religion so encapsulates both the fullest reality of our being and the deepest aspiration of every human soul. That we are born deeply flawed and yet yearn every waking day for something better, for a taste of the divine. That to be righteous and to obey the moral law set down by our Creator is perhaps the most difficult thing we can do, bringing with it frustration, vacillation, and persecution, and yet what bliss to follow the narrow path! No clearer sign is there than this: “Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.”
What of the other major faiths? For the Jews, at the time of reckoning, when the Son of Man descended in the deepest humility and was then hung on the Cross for our iniquities, they rejected him, preferring to retain their worldly laws and loyalties to cling to a hope which, unbeknownst to them, had just been fulfilled. Muhammed, the Prophet of Islam, led wars and insurrections and ultimately died in peace like many a worldly king. The Buddhists promise personal nirvana through individual contemplation, and yet quo vadis for the rest? And so forth. And yet, the one true God is worshipped and adored through His Son, who alone gave himself up in the lowest humiliation, in the purest act of sacrifice, through his terrible death on the Cross and his subsequent Resurrection. Just as the soldier is the only person who has truly fought for our freedoms, so too our Lord, Jesus Christ, is the only one who has truly died for our sins.
He died in fulfillment of the Greatest Commandment: “that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John
This was and is the revolution ushered forth by the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, that not by condemnation, nor isolation, nor hatred are we to live and serve our Lord, but by the heavenly grace that is love, the unconditional yearning for the good of another. And to this end we are to dedicate all in our being to seeing that our brethren be sanctified unto their ultimate salvation in the oneness of the Spirit, through the mercy of our Lord and King, from now unto the end of the world. Amen.
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