"... And The Truth Shall Make You Free."

I have been thinking about today's Gospel lesson from the 8th chapter of John containing those well-known words of Christ:

31 Then Jesus said to those Jews, who believed him: If you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed.
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

How many times have we heard some slick politician quote the last part of this scripture completely out of context - "The truth shall set you free" - in order to further their own political version of the "truth"?

I know that I've heard the "Reverend" Jesse Jackson, who should know better, quote this scripture out of context on several occasions, usually to imply that he knows and wants to share with us the "real truth", which the mean old Republicans are trying so desperately to obfuscate.

[In addition, I was reminded today by a friend that the words "The truth shall set you free" appear on the facade of one of the buildings overlooking Thomas Jefferson's monument to secular humanism: "the Lawn" at the University of Virginia (my alma mater).]

What's clear, however, when you consider the Church's teachings and when you read Christ's entire quote in context, is that the Lord is telling us that the only way for us to be truly free is to know the objective Truth, which is Him ("I AM the way, the truth, and the life"). And the only way we can know Him is to continue to follow Him and do, as Our Lady commanded us, whatever He tells us.

Again, we're not talking about some subjective "version of the truth" (i.e. "Well, my truth is ..."), which depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. The Gospel today tells us of the objective Truth - who is and was and forever will be. Know that Truth, and we shall be truly free indeed.