Accepting truth personally
From Dominic Sam, Port Elizabeth
Mario Compagnoni (“A non-believer’s opinion”, April 18) refers: There are three main obstacles to belief which operate within the will: not wanting truth; not activating truth we already have so that more will come to us; resisting truth because it threatens the wrong habits we have come to love as portions of ourselves.
Our Divine Lord, who is truth itself, could not convince the Pharisees and certain sinners to believe that he was the Son of God. They were intellectually confounded by his knowledge but still they did not believe.
Religion seemed to them to be a thing to be discussed and debated as if it were impersonal. Though God can be discovered by study, instruction, and reading, these alone will not bring one to God. There must also be a willingness to accept truth personally.
Within each of us there lives the ego and the I. An example of the ego is reading The Southern Cross during the Easter homily. The I is our unique personality made in the image and likeness of God. If we attempt to live the ego and the I simultaneously we suffer inner dissatisfaction.
Our Lord told us that if we wish to save our life we must lose it. He was stating the psychological truth that if we lose our ego we shall find the I. As the ego dies, the I is born, and as the I surrenders itself freely to God revealed in Jesus Christ, life finds a new centre in him. Thus the I becomes secondary and we say in the Our Father “Thy will be done”. The ego never loves God for it is its own God.
Mario, I implore you to allow the ego to become secondary and open yourself to God. He will listen.
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