The Gospels recount the healing of a man who had been rendered mute by a demon. The moment the demon was driven out, the man regained his speech, and those who witnessed the miracle were filled with amazement. Like so many of Christ’s miracles, this event is much more than an act of physical healing. It reveals something profound about the spiritual life. Physical ailments often become signs of the deeper wounds caused by sin. Blindness can symbolize our inability to recognize God’s will, deafness our refusal to hear His voice, paralysis our inability to do the good we know we ought to do, and muteness our reluctance to speak openly to God. Christ came not only to restore health to broken bodies but also to heal wounded souls, and many of His miracles foreshadow the healing He continues to accomplish through the sacraments.
St. John Chrysostom comments that the man could not even ask for help because the devil had bound not only his tongue but, in a sense, his entire soul. The image is striking because it describes a temptation that every Christian experiences. We too can become spiritually tongue-tied. Pride, embarrassment, or fear can prevent us from acknowledging our faults before God. We may speak readily about many things, yet remain strangely silent about the very struggles that most need His healing grace. If we hide our weaknesses in prayer, refuse to open our hearts in spiritual direction, or deliberately conceal sins in Confession, we place obstacles in the way of God’s action. A wound that is exposed to the Divine Physician can be healed; a wound that remains hidden is allowed to fester.
The danger extends even further. When we cease to speak honestly to God, we gradually lose the ability to listen to Him. The soul becomes less responsive to grace and less willing to accept the truths that call for conversion. We begin to explain away our faults, excuse our weaknesses, or convince ourselves that change is unnecessary. The light God offers us is still there, but pride makes us close our eyes to it. The path back to Him always begins with the humility to acknowledge our need.
For that reason we should never be discouraged when we become more aware of our defects. Discovering our weaknesses is not a sign that we are moving backwards. Often it is evidence that grace is helping us to see ourselves more truthfully. St. Josemaría Escrivá reminds us that we should not be surprised by the burden of our human weakness or by the persistence of disordered inclinations. Such discoveries should not fill us with discouragement but with confidence. Our misery is not an obstacle that keeps God at a distance. It is often the very reason we seek Him more earnestly. The saints did not become holy because they imagined themselves to be free from faults. They became holy because they learned to entrust those faults continually to God’s mercy and allowed Him to transform them little by little.
The Psalmist exhorts us, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Every grace God gives us invites a response. We can welcome His light with simplicity, or we can resist it because the truth is uncomfortable. Sincerity keeps the heart open to grace. It allows us to acknowledge reality without excuses and to entrust ourselves to the One who already knows us completely and loves us without reserve. There is great freedom in discovering that we do not have to pretend before God. He sees everything already. Our task is simply to place ourselves honestly before Him and allow His grace to do its work.
This love for sincerity grows out of a deeper love for the truth. Truth is not merely an intellectual concept or a useful moral principle. It reflects the very being of God and therefore deserves our reverence. Yet our vision of the truth is easily clouded by selfishness, pride, and attachment to worldly ways of thinking. We readily believe what flatters our vanity, excuses our laziness, justifies our desires, or protects the image we wish others to have of us. Without realizing it, we begin to construct a version of reality that is more comfortable than true.
Our age speaks frequently about authenticity and sincerity, yet these words often mean little more than expressing whatever one happens to feel. Genuine sincerity is something much deeper. It requires us to stand before reality as it truly is. We can hide behind carefully constructed appearances before other people, and sometimes even deceive ourselves about the motives behind our actions. We may avoid silence because it forces us to confront ourselves, or neglect our examination of conscience because we prefer not to look too closely at our lives. We can even attempt to remain anonymous before God, avoiding the personal encounter with Him that prayer always requires. None of these evasions brings peace. We become fully ourselves only when we have the courage to live in the truth.
This is why sincerity is indispensable to Christian life. We cannot love God if we are unwilling to be honest with Him, though He already knows every corner of our hearts. Nor can we grow in holiness if we refuse to acknowledge our faults without excuses or self-justification. The person who continually reshapes reality to suit his own preferences gradually loses the ability to judge rightly. Passions, habits, pride, and spiritual laziness begin to distort the conscience until good appears burdensome and evil seems reasonable. Such blindness rarely comes all at once. It develops gradually whenever we prefer comforting illusions to the liberating demands of truth.
Jesus presents Himself not simply as one who teaches the truth but as the Truth itself. Everything about His life reveals reality as God intends it to be. In contrast, He calls the devil the father of lies because every lie ultimately separates us from God and from ourselves. Before His Passion, Christ prayed that His disciples might be sanctified in the truth. Holiness and truth can never be separated. The more we love Christ, the more we desire to see ourselves honestly, to recognize our need for conversion, and to allow His grace to reshape our lives according to the truth that alone brings freedom.
*By the Via Virtutis team
Photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash
