For those of you who
read this in print, did you know that I also post it online at our parish
website? That makes it available to my
mom in Alabama, among countless – okay, maybe about thirteen – other fans
around the country. But there it is just
more among a lot of stuff on the internet; why should anyone believe this?
You know me, you know
who I am and what I do with my days; what I have learned, and what I laugh
at. So you know the context in which to
take what I offer. But for someone
coming across it online, how would they know whether to believe anything I
write?
I have been thinking
about this lately because there is so much information and disinformation
available these days thanks to our communications technology. How do you choose what you will believe? On what information, and on whose opinions,
will you base your life decisions?
Can you honestly
evaluate your day, your week, and see whose words you take for truth, and whose
you view with suspicion? What are the sources of news and thought that
you accept and act upon? Why have you
chosen those? It is never a bad time to
evaluate this, as it has such an influence on your life and what you do with
it.
Saint Bartholomew,
whose great and holy Feast Day is brutally suppressed this year by the Twenty
First Sunday in Ordinary Time, is famous for his skepticism when he first met
Jesus. We hear about it in the first
chapter of Saint John’s Gospel, where he is called Nathanael: Philip found Nathana-el, and said to him,
"We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote,
Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nathana-el said to him, "Can
anything good come out of Nazareth?"
Now Philip was a
friend, so Bartholomew did not dismiss what he said; but neither did he automatically
take his word for it. So Philip, who was
confident in what he had found in Jesus, offered immediate verification of the
highest sort. Philip said to him, "Come and see."
Then what happened is
one of my favorite episodes in all the Gospel; the banter between Jesus and
Nathanael in which Nathanael encounters the reality of who Jesus is, and Jesus
ribs Nathanael for his skepticism, but also promises him more. I love it.
Jesus
saw Nathana-el coming to him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite
indeed, in whom is no guile!" Nathana-el said to him, "How do you
know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you
were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nathana-el answered him, "Rabbi,
you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Jesus answered him,
"Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You
shall see greater things than these." And he said to him, "Truly,
truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of man."
Perhaps because
Bartholomew is my heavenly patron, I always turn a critical eye to any new
information, especially information that claims to call for me to change the
way I live. I encourage you and all whom
I meet to do the same. I encourage you
even to be skeptical about the information I give you – though I hope you could
stay as good-natured as Nathanael about it.
Because
God has given us in Christ everything we need to judge all information, to
discern all truth, and to grasp all reality.
Christ gives us not information, but Himself. I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)
Monsignor
Smith
