As a teacher, one characteristic that I hope to instill in my students is a zeal and love for the truth. When my younger students engage in discussion, it sometimes happens that one student makes a dubious claim about the text we are reading, yet no one else steps in to refute the claim or even question it. During the debrief of our discussion, then, I typically ask why no one thought to ask a question about it. I see a similar behavior when students accept the first thing they read on a Google search without doing any investigation into the source—which is another practice I have tried to correct. I hope that my corrections and interventions help my students develop a greater concern for the truth, even in a small way.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus prays that his disciples might be consecrated in the truth, which is the word of the Father, Jesus himself (cf. John 17:17–19). More than anything else, coming to know the truth means coming to know Christ through prayer, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments, but a concern for the truth in other areas of knowledge goes hand in hand with these. A love for the truth can lead us to Christ, as was true of today’s saint, Justin Martyr, who studied various schools of philosophy before coming to know the truth of faith in Jesus. Looking to his example, and mindful of Jesus’ prayer today, let us ask God for a deeper love of the truth, in order that we might be led more surely to Christ.