Daily Thought For February 1, 2017
Only The Truth Can Set Us Free
What is remarkable to me is the aggressiveness, always on the verge of pouncing, which we experience openly in our society — the lurking readiness to demean the other person, to hold him guilty whenever some misfortune occurs to him, to accuse society, and to want to change the world by violence. It seems to me that all of this can only be understood as an expression of the suppressed reality of guilt, which people do not want to admit. But since it is still there, they have to attack it and destroy it. As long as the situation remains thus — that is, as long as people suppress the truth but do not succeed in doing away with it, and as long as they are suffering from this suppressed truth — it will be one of the tasks of the Holy Spirit to “convince the world of sin” (John 16:8). It is not a question here of making people’s lives unpleasant and of fettering them with restrictions and negations but rather simply of leading them to the truth and thus healing them. Human beings can only only stay healthy when they are true and when they stop suppressing and destroying the truth. The third chapter of the Book of Genesis, on which this meditation is based, is of a piece with this task of the Holy Spirit, which he pursues throughout history. He convinces the world and us of sin — not to humiliate us but to make us true and healthy, to “save” us.
from In The Beginning - A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger pp.80-81