Truth Must Be Lived

In reading The Risk of Education I've come across this idea of Giussani's that truth is ultimately something lived, not a body of knowledge to be mastered, committed to memory, or expounded in handy formulae. To pass on the Christian faith, one must live it. And one cannot live the Christian faith apart from an encounter with Christ, apart from conversion to Christ in a daily, on-going, life-exchange kind of way. I must live Christ.

I remember when this truth first sparked into awareness in me. I can see myself, a 20 year old college student, sitting in my pastor's study in the Lutheran church in which I was brought up. I was telling him, essentially, that I was leaving Lutheranism and joining a charismatic fellowship, because I'd had a dramatic encounter with the Holy Spirit, and I wanted to live this experience that had gripped me. My Lutheran Synod did not accept that what had happened to me happened in this modern age (and had apparently lost all sight of the fact that it had ever happened in any point of history).

Like any good Lutheran pastor, mine counseled me from the Bible to follow sound doctrine (it might have been Titus 1:9 to which he referred; Lutherans are somewhat prone to yanking verses out of context). It then dawned on me with crystal clarity that "following sound doctrine" was far more about the way one lived, and in whose company, than mental assent to a list of beliefs. Rather than focusing on the "doctrine" part, or the "sound doctrine" part as was my pastor's concern, the word "follow" lit up in my heart. I wanted fiercely to be on my way with others who were drawn through a similar encounter. That dwarfed every other desire of mine.

Was I living the fullness of truth then? No, I wasn't. Some of my pastor's concerns were well founded. But I was following, and was open to God's guidance. Five years later I made another transition into full communion with the Catholic Church. And even after that, I followed through some very rocky terrain in my heart. Living the faith became a very solitary, painful, confusing experience for many of the years after this memory at age 20.

But here, the words of a friend of mine a few years back ring in my ears. He and his wife had just lost a son at nearly six months gestation. "This is an awful cross," he said, "but the only thing that makes it possible to endure is that it is Jesus' cross." The only thing that makes it possible to live the Christian life is that it is Jesus' life, and it is with Him we walk, and after Him we follow.