Fifth Sunday of Lent - Christian Authenticity

I think we need to talk today about Father Dominic’s anonymous X (or Twitter) account—at least, the one that no longer exists.

But not just because of that account. More important are the implications it raises—and how today’s Gospel speaks to all of our lives. Because I think we’re all tempted to split ourselves into multiple selves.

That was the idea behind the account. I thought, “Well, maybe I can make an anonymous Twitter account where I can just be my real self—like things, comment on things, not worry about people judging me or wondering what I stand for as a priest.” I imagined it as a place where I could be a little less filtered, less censored.

But then I had to ask: Is that a good thing?

I have a particular role—I'm a priest. I represent the Church, whether I like it or not, whenever I'm out in public. I don’t get to just do whatever I want. And so I had to think seriously: Is it good for any of us to have a public self and a private self? Is it good to yell things in traffic that we would never say out loud in front of others?

That’s a real question. One I wrestled with this week. And when I read this Gospel, I felt it spoke directly to that question.

Because in today’s Gospel, we see two types of people.

On one side is the woman caught in the very act of adultery. We don’t know her full situation. Maybe she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe, as some suggest, she was a more flagrant actor—someone who lived in sin, possibly even entrapping others. Maybe this was her way of life.

And in our culture, there’s a strange tendency to reverence authenticity, even when the person is authentically doing wrong. We say things like, “Well, at least they’re being real. At least I know where they stand. They say whatever they think.” We admire that.

But that’s not necessarily virtuous. If your authentic self is not a good self, being authentic isn't something to admire. Honesty without goodness isn’t holiness.

On the other side, you have the Pharisees. They also aren't good people—but in a different way. They maintain this religious exterior, this whitewashed piety. They present themselves as good, devout, respectable people. But behind the scenes, they’re plotting to trap and destroy Jesus—the one person in this scene who truly is good.

So we might feel like those are our only two options:

Be authentic and bad, or

Be good-seeming but fake.

But I don’t think those are the only options. Because there’s a third person in this Gospel: Jesus Christ.

And what’s remarkable is how calm, how peaceful He is in the middle of this volatile, emotional situation. There’s shouting, accusations, shame, and scandal—and Jesus is this point of serene clarity right in the center.

How?

I think part of it is that Jesus doesn’t have two selves. He doesn’t say one thing in traffic and another in the synagogue. He doesn’t act differently in private than He does in public. He is always His authentic self.

Now you might say, “Well sure, He’s God.” But Jesus is also showing us what it means to be truly human. He’s showing us how we are meant to live: fully integrated, fully at peace, not divided within ourselves.

And when we look at the saints, we see that same quality. Think of someone like John Paul II—a massively public figure. And yet everyone who knew him personally said he was the same in private as he was in public. There wasn’t a curated persona and then a hidden life behind it. He was just himself—all the time. That’s the kind of authenticity we admire.

So maybe Christ is inviting us today—and especially in Lent—to become more authentically ourselves in every context.

Look at what He says in this Gospel, in response to all the turmoil: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

He doesn’t immediately confront the woman. He doesn’t blast the Pharisees either. He simply turns everyone inward. Look at yourself. Stop accusing. Stop hiding. Stop condemning. Stop posturing. Start being real—in the best sense of that word.

That’s powerful advice. Because I think this habit of division—of public vs. private self—comes partly from how we indulge our emotions. We revel in outrage. We enjoy it. We want to yell in traffic. We want to get riled up. It feels good to be right and to be angry.

But Christ is saying: Pull back. Step away from the outrage. Step away from the emotional chaos. Step away from the condemnation.

Whether it's toward others or toward ourselves, it’s all noise. We want someone to condemn. We want someone to blame. We want to feel righteous—but that’s not real righteousness.

And on the flip side, we might say, “Well, at least I’m being myself.” But being our “authentic self” isn’t automatically good either. Christ isn’t asking us to be “authentically angry” or “authentically bitter.” He’s asking us to be authentically good.

To bring our different selves together—to seek coherence. That’s not easy. But that’s the Lenten project.

To ask:

Why do I act one way in public and another in private?

What part of myself am I feeding?

What part of myself do I want to grow?

I saw something recently that reminded me of this. I was at the Ford dealership, and the man helping me had a little framed story on his desk. You may have heard it before. It was a so-called Native American story that goes like this:

“Inside each of us are two wolves. One is dark, the other is light. They fight each other constantly. Which one wins? The one you feed.”

That’s true. We each have an unredeemed self and a redeemed self. We have the person we are—and the person we want to become.

And the self that wins… is the one we feed.

If I’m feeding myself outrage, bitterness, gossip, judgment, distraction—what kind of person will I become?

But if I feed myself truth, love, beauty, peace—what kind of person might I begin to be?

That’s the invitation. That’s the challenge. And that’s the hope: That over time, with Christ, with grace, we too might become like the saints—fully, beautifully, authentically ourselves.