Monday, February 1, 2010

Reject Easy Annulments, says the Pope

Check out this beautiful and timely message on marriage and annulments from our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI.

I found one line particularly interesting in regard to this blog's primary topic, apologetics: 
“Without truth charity slides into sentimentalism,” the Pope told officials of the Roman Rota, at the opening of its judicial term. “Love becomes an empty shell to be filled arbitrarily. This is the fatal risk of love in a culture without truth.”
Here, Pope Benedict eloquently gets at the relationship between truth and love.  For many non-Catholics with whom I speak, it often seems that truth takes a back seat to charity, such that issues of truth can be swept under the rug of love.  Rather, love and truth are interdependent.  Both are necessary, and both support one another.  To share the truth is to love someone, so long as the truth is shared in love.  Even when the truth hurts, we must share it with those whom we love (and we are called to love everyone!), though let us be vessels of the Holy Spirit so that the pain of loss people experience when learning the truth of Christ (they must let go of the false conceptions, etc. with which they previously identified) can be softened by the gentleness spirit of the evangelist and the sure certainty of their newly-found faith.  Let us boldly and lovingly proclaim the ancient, yet ever-new, orthodox faith with all of our brothers and sisters.

Let us pray for an increase in truth as well as an increase in love such that all Christians may become one like Jesus and the Father.  So, come, Holy Spirit!

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