Today, we continue in John’s Gospel with Jesus’ Prayer to the Father. He speaks powerfully to the nature of truth. He has sought to concentrate the faithful in the truth and nature of God. Fr. Rolheiser writes that we have lost any sense of what truth is. Our facile denial of whatever truths we judge as inconvenient are labeled as “fake news,” “alternate facts,” or phantom conspiracies. Social media, for all the good it has brought, has also created a platform for anyone to make up their own truth and then work at eroding the truths that bind us together and anchor our sanity. We now live in a world where two plus two often no longer equals four. That plays on our very sanity and has created a certain social insanity. The truths which anchor our everyday life are becoming unmoored. What frightens and unsettles me more than the threat of the Covid virus, the growing inequality between the rich and the poor, the dangers of climate change, and even the bitter hatred that now separates us from each other is our separation from truth. One of the central lessons in the gospels is this: lying is the most dangerous of all sins. And this doesn’t just play out regarding our relationship with God and the Holy Spirit. When we lie, we’re not only playing fast and loose with God, we’re also playing fast and loose with our own sanity. Our sanity is contingent on what classical theology terms the “Oneness” of God. What this means in lay terms is that God is consistent. There are no contradictions inside of God; because of that, reality can also be trusted to be consistent. Our sanity depends on that trust. For instance, should we ever arrive at a day where two plus two no longer equals four, then the very underpinnings of our sanity will be gone; we’ll literally be unmoored. Our personal sanity and our social sanity depend upon the truth, upon us acknowledging the truth, upon us telling the truth, and upon two plus two forever equaling four.