Jesus answered [Pilate], "You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"

Being an ogre is not consistent with being a king. Such was the conviction of Shrek as he and Fiona lived for the time being in the kingdom of Far Far Away, and Shrek suddenly realized that he was next in line to be king. As a consequence, he had to find the person who was in line to be king after him, and convince him to be king. His name was Artie, a teenager in school, and someone in need of maturity which of course, Shrek, Donkey and Puss in Boots were willing to give. Artie finally came around to his task, but he and his mentors first had to deal with the malice of Prince Charming. Artie came to maturely accept his position because he finally understood that it was his destiny to be the king, and the only person preventing him from being what he was capable of being was himself. As Shrek tells him, "If there's something you want to do, or someone you really want to be, then the only one standing in your way, is you!"  

In John's Gospel, it is clear that Jesus knew who he was. He was born, he tells Pilate, because he had to testify to the truth of his identity--what Pilate would consider to be a king in a human way of speaking. Knowing who he was, he could accomplish what he had to accomplish, namely, the redemption of humankind. It was a truth that Pilate could not even begin to understand.

Perhaps Pilate's famous question of "What is truth?" is nothing more than a statement that he did not understand the truth of who he was. If he had known such a truth, perhaps the history of our world would have been altered. It is not easy to know "who we are" because there are so many obstacles that block the knowledge. The primary obstacle is probably ourselves, since we do not want to make the effort to mature and accept the responsibility to change what we must in order to be more than we are now.

Interestingly enough, we have the example of an ogre in a fantasy world who was able to grasp the truth of who he was, and was able to give it to someone else. It is a lesson for all of us. We can be so much more than we are now. The block is not a hostile world, or even the hostile people in the world. The block is ourselves. We must acknowledge our weaknesses, and change what we must so that we can be what we are meant to be--mature human beings in control of ourselves to such a degree that great things can be accomplished through us in our world.

THOUGHT
 
PRAYER

Good and gracious God, you call us to be aware of what we can be in our world. Such a calling leads us to accept the principles of your Son, so that we can achieve the maturity we must in order to help ourselves and others. We pray for that grace. Be with us, we pray. 

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©2007 Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America