Answering a World of Lies with the Fifth Advent Candle

Candlemas

The Advent wreath provides a wonderful means for representing the spiritual fruit of the season.  We’re going to take a specific look at the fifth candle of the Advent wreath and spiritual fruit that is so much in need as we come to the end of 2020.

Advent Candles and Spiritual Fruit

One of the many wonderful traditions of Advent is the Advent wreath.  Each of the four candles represents a different spiritual fruit:

  1. Prophet candle: hope, in the coming of the Savior
  2. Bethlehem candle: faith, to respond to God’s plan for our life
  3. Shepherd’s candle: joy, especially the joy of finding Jesus
  4. Angel’s candle: peace, as in the Angelic greeting of “on Earth peace to men of goodwill”

The fruits of Advent are spiritual fruits, similar to the traditional “Fruits of the Holy Spirit”.

Spiritual fruits are reality at a deeper level; different than surface-level emotions that bear the same name.  They are independent of our feelings or circumstances.  They are made manifest in our soul and result from communing with the Trinity.  The deeper that relationship, the more fully we experience genuine hope, faith, joy, and peace – and any other fruit the Spirit might desire for us this Advent.

This brings us to the subject of this reflection…

The Fifth Advent Candle and Truth

An optional but common feature of Advent wreaths is a fifth candle.  A white candle, signifying Christ.  Christ’s candle is traditionally taken to represent purity or light.

But in 2020, Truth might be what we should most seek as we look to the coming of the Christ child.

Cardinal Sarah, in The Power of Silence, says this about lies and truth: “Modern society can no longer do without the dictatorship of noise.  It lulls us in an illusion of cheap democracy while snatching our freedom away with the subtle violence of the devil, the father of lies.   But Jesus repeated tells us: ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’  (Jn 8:31-32)

Living in a World of Lies

Let’s take stock of things for context.  We have overbearing government elites who think of themselves as gods and pass crushing rules and requirements – stifling ordinary citizens while placing themselves above it all.  There are the intellectual elites and Illuminati, enamored with technology and hedonism, preaching a bland philosophy of niceness with carefully controlled messaging to manipulate the masses.  There are many people trying to live with a “foot in both worlds” – going along with the feel-good messages of the elites while also trying to be followers of God.  And there are those of the priestly class, who all to often seem to be more interested in worldly advancement than preparing souls for eternity.

There is almost no corner of the world to be found where the plain and simple Word of God is proclaimed – everything has a spin, an agenda, a narrative.

We are, of course, talking about the world of the Gospel.  Perhaps you recognize the Romans, Greeks, Samaritans, and Pharisees.

Or, were you thinking of modern-day America?

Jesus became man and was born into a world nearly devoid of truth.  St. Augustine in a Christmas homily proclaims, “Truth, then has arisen from the earth!”

The truth was desperately needed two-thousand years ago.  The Jews had forfeited their moral authority and the pagan influences of Greece, Rome, Persia, and other cultures were readily advancing the City of Man.

Two-thousand years later we again find truth in short supply.

That’s not all that is in short supply, because truth and love go hand in hand.  In fact, they are the principal attributes of God as we understand Him and mirror Him with our spiritual powers of intellect (Truth) and will (Love).  When truth flourishes, so does love.  When the truth is snuffed out…

Oh, even in a world without truth there will always be plenty of “niceness” and “tolerance” to go around, but if the truth is allowed to die out, genuine Christian charity will go with it.

And right now we are awash in lies just as they were in the world of the Gospel.  Lies about which lives matter and why.  Lies about what it means to be made man and woman.  Lies about where a virus started, who it affects, and how to best respond to it.  Lies about who won the election and how.  Lies about who gets to be “fact-checkers”.  Lies from within our very Church about how we are to best love and serve our neighbor.

You know the things I’m talking about.  And I’m certain you also believe there are lies swarming around these topics.  We may disagree on where to draw the line between truth and lie, but we see and sense lie upon a lie just the same.

And that is spiritually damaging.

The details may be different for each person, some may experience anger or cynicism, others may be ensnared in some of the lies.  But the result, spiritual damage, is equivalent.  Even if we were to have perfect discernment of truth from lie, it would nevertheless take a toll on our soul to live in a world where virtually everything uttered by the mainstream media is tainted in a way to disrupt society and undermine the Faith.  And even if we completely tune out the mainstream “narrative”, we are still called to go out and engage a culture that, by and large, buys into it.

The Advent Solution

Jesus was born into the world of the Gospel to bring Truth.

Jesus needs to be spiritually reborn into our modern world to reaffirm Truth.

I need Truth to be renewed in my heart this Advent.  We all do.  And what is that renewal if not a rebirth?

This is a common intention at Advent – for Christ to be reborn in our hearts.  It’s nicely represented here.

How does a Hallmark phrase become a spiritual reality?  It’s similar to Jesus’ words to Nicodemus (“no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above”) connected with His words to His disciples (“you will do greater things than I”).  We are, of course, not physically giving birth to Jesus (just as we are not physically reborn from our mother’s womb), but we are allowing Him to bring new spiritual life to us – so we can bring Him to the world in new ways.

God brings new life to us when we share more in His life – when we share in the life of the Trinity.  That is the very definition of grace.  We open ourselves to that grace through the Sacraments, growing in virtue and mental prayer.  All three are indispensable.  God gave us Advent as a season for spiritual growth, a time to expand our capacity to receive His grace.

This is how the other fruits of Advent operate – joy, peace, faith, and hope are born anew in us (they are given life if you will) when we make the effort to connect our interior life with the life of the Trinity during Advent.

And that’s what I’m praying for with Truth.  Just as the other Advent fruits are deeper than merely superficial feelings, the Truth of Advent is deeper than mere facts, figures, and data.

Here are three inescapable truths about Truth in ascending order (meaning they get more transcendentally real as they go):

  1. Truth Exists

This is where Pilate most famously went off the rails – what is truth?

Truth is the matter of conforming the mind to objective reality.  Before Immanuel Kant, most everyone bought into the idea that there is objective truth.  These days, most people still get this on a gut level, even if they live as if it were not the case.

The transcendentals – Truth, Goodness, and Beauty –are powerful because they tap into our innate awareness that there is something greater than us – something that is both outside of us and at the same time, written into us.

  1. There is Only One Truth

This is related to #1, but distinct.

Many people want to have their cake and eat it too:  “Yes, there is truth, but it’s relative …  What is good (or, true) for me, doesn’t have to be for you.”

This doesn’t hold water.  Anything that is not strictly a matter of opinion or preference (e.g. whether fruit cake is good or evil), admits only one truth.  Two opposing views of reality cannot both be correct.  The chair cannot be made from metal and made from wood.  Something is not both living at the moment of conception and not living at the moment of conception.  Both definitions cannot coexist.  We must wrestle things to the ground and come to the one and only truth.

  1. Truth is a Person

Jesus tells us I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

This is why #1 and #2 hold.

Truth exists because Jesus Christ exists.

There is only one Truth because there is only one Christ.  Nor are there any contradictions in His teachings – He would not set us up for failure with teachings that conflict with one another.

Lighting the Fifth Advent Candle

The Truth that is Christ is the only antidote (or vaccination, to go with the word of the day) to the insanity of our present situation.  And it is clinically insane to not see reality for what it is.

When it comes right down to it, truth is not merely a matter of facts and data, and who has more of them on their side. Truth is the Second Person of the Trinity.  Truth, if we welcome Him, is a companion of our soul.  Only then can we share Him with others so that they too are inoculated against the lies.

Through that sharing, the Light of the World becomes alive in the world in a new way.

It is as if He is born anew.

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