Liberating Truth.

If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

One of my former students sat before me two years after he graduated from college. “I am an alcoholic,” he said in tears. Remarkably successful in college, he was a mess inside, trying to drink himself to self-acceptance. With every step in AA, he savored an interior liberation he never could have imagined. Critical to his sobriety was recovering the faith of his childhood, but in an entirely new way. When he let down his well-constructed defenses, grace finally had room to seep in. He was confirmed in the Church last spring.

Another student came into my office as a senior in college, more at peace than I had ever seen him. “I’m gay,” he told me after some small talk. “And I know God loves me very much.” He just smiled. He’d known he was gay for a long time. But now he was ready to acknowledge the beautiful truth of his creation. Conversations followed and continue to this day as he tries to find his place in the Church that he also loves very much.

In these young men, I witnessed liberating truth. To “remain in my word” is to make our home in the heart of Christ. In that heart, we see ourselves as we truly are: beautifully gifted, flawed and complicated creatures, called to serve as disciples in the midst of an equally beautiful and broken world. Their courageous witness invites me to embrace the truth of God’s unconditional love that frees me, for example, from the need to find acceptance through achievements and accolades.

The truth sets us free from all that gets in the way of our loving and being loved. While this interior work is not an easy grace, the freedom it leads to is transformative and often contagious.

Fr. Kevin O’Brien. Taken from Give Us This Day.

Fr. Kevin O’Brien, SJ, is dean of the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University. He is author of The Ignatian Adventure: Experiencing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in Daily Life.