My truth?  Your truth?  Her truth?  His truth?  Which one matters?  Which one should we believe?  Which one is true?

It seems to me that the only truth that matters is the truth:  the definite article, you might say.  The truth exists outside all of us.  “The truth may be something that we can never quite reach” (What is Truth?) but it is something we can and should always seek to converge upon.  It is something that can change us for the better, if we allow its beauty and goodness to illuminate the depths of our innermost selves.  It is the one thing that can bring all people together, if we allow out beliefs to converge upon it through the process of enquiry.

Some people might claim that my truth is just another way of saying my opinion or my recollection or my belief.  However, these other options do not explicitly claim superiority over other people.  My opinion may differ from yours but that statement makes no claim that you are wrong.  They contain an implicit humility and openness to other people that is absent from my truth.  If I attempt to take possession of the truth by replacing the definite article with a possessive adjective, then I build a wall between us.  If what you say differs from my truth there is immediately an implication that what you say is untrue:  you are wrong.

Pope Francis wrote, “I like to think that we do not possess the truth so much as the truth possesses us, constantly attracting us by means of beauty and goodness.”  I agree.  However, this doesn’t stop us from attempting to take possession of the truth.  When we do this we are actually attempting to change the truth so that it matches our opinions.  However, we can’t change truth.

Maximillian Kolbe wrote, “No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

When we attempt to take possession of the truth, when we attempt to change the truth, we reject the truth.  We reject something that could change us for the better.  We reject the one thing that could bring all people together.