Spirituality

Living Your Truth Will Set You Free

By Beth Trouy

The word truth doesn’t seem to have the indelible power it once had even just a decade ago. Now, we all seem to be at odds, more than ever before, in agreeing to what is the truth. I always thought that valid statistics, video evidence, and a trusted authority were all that were needed to agree to fact. Not so anymore. We can manipulate stats to fit our opinion. We alter videos. We stretch the truth to fit our platform. It’s hard to know where to turn, and who to trust. Integrity seems to be taking a back seat to influence and popularity. How can we set our moral compass when “True North” seems to be negotiable?

Growing up Catholic, I was fortunate to have been taught the process of discernment of inner truth. The beauty of this process is that my inner truth may not be yours; even though we both may have been given the same set of information, morals or teachings. Now don’t let this confuse you to think this means you can make up your own statistics or version of facts. No, this truth is more the inner core of one’s conscience in discerning what one’s personal truth of who we are called to be in this world. For people with sexual orientation variances or gender dysphoria, figuring out this truth can be life or death. Society can give a person a lot of conflicting information depending on where you look. For someone confused and unsure, knowing what is “right” and how best to find it, can be a trial. You see, if we live the life we think others think we should, we aren’t really living at all. Statistically speaking, the suicide rate for LGBTQ persons is 6 to 8 times higher than the national population and nearly 50% of transgenders attempt suicide. Only in living our truth as we are created, will we thrive. How then, do we know and find our truth in a world full of

conflicting information?

Unfortunately, churches can be some of the worst sources for affirming information on this subject. It’s no wonder so many are leaving organized religion altogether. The Catholic Church also has its many, many faults regarding sexual and gender norms, but one area it gets right is its teachings on the examination and primacy of conscience. It teaches that “conscience is a person’s most secret core and sanctuary. There we are alone with God whose voice echoes in our depths.” It says further that we are obligated to follow our conscience even if it does not align with those around us. We are obligated to follow our conscience even if it opposes teachings of the Church. In fact, to fail to follow one’s conscience is a grievance and dishonor to our Creator. Furthermore, it says, not following our moral conscience is as much a sin as doing harm to another. For, we are harming ourselves when we deny our inner truth.

Finding truth today is a journey that requires careful research. Finding our inner truth can be even more difficult with all the

conflicting information. Is it natural? Is it a defect? Being misled by fake news, misguided ministers and just bad theology, it can be nearly impossible to discern. Add in some low selfesteem and insecurity and it can be deadly. The best suggestion is to turn off the outer chatter

and go, as the Church says, to our inner sanctuary where we are alone with our Creator. In deep contemplation, discernment and conversation with God, while sorting through the information we have learned, we will know our true selves. There, in the quiet of our souls, we will know our truth. Interestingly enough, this passage can be found in section 1776 of the Catholic Catechism. The truth will set you free.