“You can’t handle the truth!” This famous line from the movie “A Few Good Men” touches upon what I think is the deepest question in the human heart, “What is truth?” Yet sometimes, a question is not a question; sometimes, it is a statement in disguise. A genuine question is an inquiry, a quest for information… a quest for truth. It requires openness on the part of the one asking. Sometimes we do not seek answers because we are afraid to ask. Pilate did not wait for Jesus to answer; he trusted in the limited knowledge he had.
What is truth?... Perhaps the question should be, Who is Truth?
How often do we believe the lie that we can’t handle the truth. How often do we give into the fear that what will be required of us is more than what we have. My dear brothers and sisters, we CAN handle the truth because we were made for Truth.
Our relationship with the truth is ultimately a direct reflection of our relationship with God. This is why Satan, in the Garden, went straight for the jugular.
How often do we listen to the snake instead of listening to God?
In the Feast of the Annunciation, we find the antidote to that.
Mary asked a question and waited for a response. Mary listened to the messenger of God, and she believed.
Let us then learn to ask… then wait for a response. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to guide us.
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 Good wine comes from good grapes, and good grapes come from good vines, but a good vine can come from either good or bad terrain. The terrain helps determine how much effort the vine has to put in to be productive, and it also helps determine the characteristics of the grape the vine produces. In the Christian life, we often hear, “thrive where you are planted,” this is consistent with the metaphor of our lives as the branches of the vine. Christ can make something good out of our every situation, especially when we stay close to Him. That means that we have to embrace our life in Him, we have to become good branches of the vine wherever it is planted, and that means we want to grow to be consistent, for we do not want our fruit to vary much from time to time. We want to be able to produce good wine every time. The good Christian strives to be consistent throughout. Let us think about food for a moment. Do you ever taste something unevenly seasoned without thinking something is not quite right? It is the same with us...
We need to work on our interior life so that the person we are may be defined by our faith in the Most-High, and that our faith may permeate and infuse our external life with the Christ-like quality we receive from communion with our Lord. The mind does control the body, the same as thought controls the action. We must remember that our minds are forged by our experience. So what are the experiences that we seek? Do they bring us closer to Christ? Do we keep Him in mind when we go out into the world? Our Christian consistency is built and maintained by those experiences we seek. We forge minds and spirits by seeking to experience Christ in the world. For us believers, Heaven is partially here, for we can find Christ in the Eucharist and each other, but only if we seek it as such and recognize it as such. What is our desire while on this Earth? May we stay close to our Lord and bear good fruit. Amen.
 Image: View from Mount Tabor, site of the Transfiguration. Photo Creds - Laura Worhacz
Dearest Eucharistic Family, I am in Israel, on a pilgrimage through the Holy Land. It is nightfall after the first-day experience of the Church of the Wedding Feast at Cana, the Church of the Annunciation, and the magnificent sacred grounds of Mount Tabor, where Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the high mountain. The breathtaking moment of being where the Apostles were with Jesus is a gift for us to think of often. For a moment in the midst of this Lenten Season, let us listen; hear the voice of Jesus say, "Thank you for loving me." As we immerse in the magnificence of God's love for us to the depths of Jesus' Passion, may all we will offer during this penitential time empower us to serve the highest calling this side of the heavens. I will be walking with seventeen pilgrims on the Via Dolorosa soon, and I think of our spiritual father, Saint Peter Julian's words above. Imagining the intensity of falling deeply into the sufferings of Our Lord and Savior on the ground on which he walked. He came to teach us to care for one another, to be attentive to one another. He came to love us beyond our sins and to serve with the same Passion of His love. Walking with someone changes our relationship with them. We begin to see as others may see and grow in compassion to expound and help one another find truth, holiness, and salvation.
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AuthorsWe are Ivonne J. Hernandez, Rick Hernandez and Laura Worhacz, Lay Associates of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, and brothers and sisters in Christ. 
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