The Gospel tells us that Jesus once cast out a demon that had deprived a man of the power of speech. As soon as the demon had gone, the man began to speak, and the crowd was filled with wonder. The physical cures performed by Christ were real events, but they can also help us understand the deeper healing he came to accomplish in our souls. St. John Chrysostom observes that this man was in a particularly helpless condition because he could not even express his need. His tongue was bound, and he was unable to ask Christ for the help he required.
Something similar can happen to us spiritually. We may know that something is wrong in our life and yet find it extraordinarily difficult to speak about it. Pride or shame can close our lips precisely when we most need to open them. A temptation that seems overwhelming while it remains hidden often loses much of its power when we speak about it honestly. Once we acknowledge a fault, we can begin to confront it and seek the grace we need to overcome it.
The devil therefore has every reason to encourage concealment. He wants us to hide our weaknesses from God, from ourselves and from those who can help us. We may be ashamed of what we have done or afraid of disappointing someone whose good opinion matters to us. Sometimes we fear being misunderstood or judged. At other times, the real difficulty is that we already suspect what we will be told and do not want to face the change that the truth may require.
For this reason, we can be tempted to leave things deliberately vague. We speak around a problem without naming it clearly or tell the story in a way that places us in the most favourable light. We may even persuade ourselves that because we have mentioned something indirectly, we have been completely sincere. Yet partial disclosure can become another form of concealment. If we hide important matters in Confession or deliberately withhold what is relevant when seeking spiritual guidance, we deprive ourselves of much of the help God wants to give us.
Over time, this habit can become more serious because we learn not only to hide the truth from others but also to disguise it from ourselves. At first, we may simply find it difficult to admit a particular fault. Gradually, however, we can become resistant to advice and unwilling to hear anything that challenges the image we have formed of ourselves. The person who refuses to speak honestly may eventually find it difficult to listen.
We should therefore not be frightened when we discover weakness in ourselves. Human frailty should not surprise us. We are wounded by original sin and remain capable of selfishness and disorder even after many years of sincere spiritual struggle. St. Josemaría advised us not to be alarmed when we become aware of our weakness, since the discovery of our limitations should lead us to seek God more closely. God does not ask us to approach him pretending that we are already perfect. He knows us completely and wants us to come to him as we really are so that his grace can heal and transform us.
Our defects become especially dangerous when we refuse to acknowledge them. Once we recognize a weakness, we can pray about it, struggle against it, ask for advice and make practical resolutions. If we insist that it does not exist, very little can be done. We therefore need sincerity first of all with ourselves.
This is more difficult than it sounds because we are remarkably skilled at explaining our own behaviour. When we lose our temper, we immediately remember how unreasonable the other person was. When we fail to fulfil a responsibility, we can usually identify circumstances that made it unusually difficult. When we make a selfish decision, respectable reasons often come readily to mind. Some of these explanations may be partly true, since circumstances do affect us and other people can contribute to difficult situations. But we still need to ask honestly what our own responsibility was. We cannot grow if the explanation for our faults is always found outside ourselves.
This does not mean judging ourselves harshly or assuming that everything is our fault. Good self-knowledge requires balance. We should recognize our gifts and the progress God has enabled us to make just as honestly as we acknowledge our defects. What matters is that we learn to see reality without constantly adjusting it to protect the image we would like to have of ourselves.
The daily examination of conscience helps us develop this habit. At the end of the day, we place ourselves before God and look honestly at how we have lived. We thank him for what was good and ask pardon where we failed. Over time, patterns begin to emerge that we might otherwise miss. We may notice that certain situations repeatedly make us impatient, that a particular kind of criticism provokes a disproportionate reaction, or that we habitually avoid some responsibility. Once we see these patterns clearly, we are in a much better position to struggle.
The purpose of the examination is not to become absorbed in ourselves. Excessive self-analysis can make us anxious and turn the spiritual life inward. We examine ourselves in order to return to God, and we do so in his presence. This makes an enormous difference. If we look at our faults apart from God, we may become discouraged or defensive. Before him, we remember that the One who sees everything already knows us completely and still loves us. We do not need to protect our reputation before God.
Our prayer should therefore be completely sincere. There is no point in presenting God with an edited version of our life. He already knows what happened and understands our motives better than we do. We can speak openly about the things of which we are ashamed and the temptations that trouble us. Sometimes simply naming what is happening within us is an important step: we can tell Our Lord that we are jealous, that we do not want to forgive someone, that we are afraid of what others think, or that we know what we ought to do but do not want to do it. When we pray this way, we stop pretending and allow Christ into the place where we actually need his help.
This openness naturally extends to Confession. The sacrament of Penance is one of God’s great gifts because there we place our sins before Christ without disguise and receive his forgiveness. We do not go to Confession to present a favourable account of ourselves but because we are sinners in need of mercy. We should therefore resist the temptation to soften what we have done or explain it in a way that minimizes our responsibility. We simply say what needs to be said as clearly as we can. There is no advantage in hiding from the doctor what needs to be healed.
The same openness is important when we freely seek spiritual direction. Someone trying to help us spiritually can work only with what we are willing to reveal. If we carefully present a version of ourselves designed to obtain the advice we already want, we defeat the purpose of seeking guidance. Often the matter we most want to conceal is precisely the one we most need to mention. We may feel considerable resistance beforehand, but once we have spoken honestly, what seemed overwhelming in secrecy often becomes much more manageable.
None of this means that sincerity requires us to tell everyone everything about ourselves. We have a legitimate right to privacy, and prudence determines what should be shared and with whom. Sincerity is not indiscriminate self-disclosure. With God, however, there can be no concealment. In Confession we must be truthful about our sins, and when we freely seek genuine spiritual guidance, we should be willing to reveal what is relevant. We should pay particular attention when we notice ourselves deliberately avoiding a subject, since our reluctance may indicate something we need to face.
The Psalmist urges us, “O that today you would listen to his voice! Harden not your hearts.” We usually think of hardness of heart as an open rejection of God, but it can develop more subtly when we repeatedly avoid a truth we do not want to face or postpone a change we know we should make. Each refusal makes the next one easier. The opposite is also true. Each time we respond sincerely to grace, we become freer because we discover that admitting our weakness does not cause God to love us less.
When we stop defending ourselves before God, we experience his mercy more deeply. We no longer have to maintain an idealized image of ourselves. Concealment is exhausting because it requires us continually to protect what we want others, and perhaps ourselves, to believe. Living sincerely before God frees us from that burden. We can stand before him as we are, knowing that our defects do not surprise him and that his mercy is greater than our failures. Like the mute man in the Gospel, we need Christ to free our tongue. Once we begin to speak honestly, healing can begin.
Living in the Truth
To live sincerely, we need a deep love for the truth. Truth brings us into contact with reality as God has created it and enables us to see ourselves, other people and the world as they really are rather than as we might prefer them to be. Our Lord revealed its supreme importance when he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Truth is not merely one element of Christ’s teaching; he identifies himself with it. The devil, by contrast, is described as “a liar and the father of lies,” and from the beginning his influence has depended upon deception.
We see this in the temptation of Adam and Eve. The serpent did not present evil honestly but distorted reality and promised something sin could never deliver: “You will be like God.” Every temptation contains something of the same deception. We are encouraged to believe that we will be happier if we disregard God’s will, only to discover that sin never gives what it promises. Christ comes to free us from these illusions: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Living according to truth is not always easy because our judgment can be influenced by what we want. We are remarkably capable of finding arguments in favour of conclusions that suit us. When something appeals strongly to us, reasons for doing it can seem very convincing; when the truth requires sacrifice, our reasoning may suddenly become much more complicated. We therefore need a healthy awareness of our capacity for self-deception. This does not mean distrusting every thought or motive, but recognizing that none of us sees himself with perfect objectivity. Our desires and fears influence how we interpret events, while pride can make facts that threaten our preferred image of ourselves especially difficult to accept.
Modern culture places great value on authenticity and being true to oneself, and there is something valid in this emphasis. We should not live behind a false persona or shape our entire life around what other people expect us to be. But authenticity cannot simply mean expressing whatever we happen to feel. Our feelings are real and often tell us something important about what is happening within us, but they can also be confused or disproportionate. If we feel intense resentment toward someone, sincerity requires us to acknowledge the resentment. It does not follow that we are justified in nurturing it. The feeling is part of reality, but it is not the whole of reality.
The same is true of our desires. We may genuinely desire something that is not good for us, and a desire does not become morally right merely because it feels deeply authentic. Genuine self-knowledge therefore requires us to go beyond asking what we feel or want. We also have to ask what is true and what is good. We do not create ourselves. We receive our existence and our human nature from God, and our deepest identity is discovered in the light of the One who created us rather than by treating every interior impulse as authoritative.
Sometimes the truth about ourselves is encouraging. We may discover gifts we had underestimated or recognize that God has helped us grow in ways we had not noticed. At other times, what we discover is uncomfortable. A decision we defended as reasonable may have been influenced largely by selfishness. What we called prudence may have contained a good deal of fear, while what we regarded as justified indignation may have owed something to wounded pride.
We are very capable of giving flattering names to our defects. At the same time, we should be careful not to oversimplify. There are legitimate needs for rest, prudent boundaries and occasions when firmness is necessary. The problem arises when we use respectable language principally to avoid looking honestly at our motives. Changing the name does not change the reality.
We therefore need intellectual and moral honesty with ourselves. We cannot decide that something must be right simply because it suits us, nor can we make the moral law disappear by insisting that our circumstances are exceptional. If we repeatedly justify conduct that we know to be wrong, our conscience can gradually become distorted. At first, we may recognize clearly that something is questionable but make an exception for ourselves. The next justification comes more easily, and eventually we may cease to recognize the problem at all.
The greatest danger in deception is not that we succeed in misleading other people but that we eventually succeed in misleading ourselves. Intelligence does not protect us from this. It can sometimes make the danger greater because it gives us more sophisticated ways of defending what we already want to believe. We need the courage to allow reality to correct us.
Sometimes we recognize a problem in a vague way but refuse to follow the truth to its consequences because we suspect that a serious change may be required. Perhaps we have invested years in a particular direction and gradually realize that we should change course. We may have defended a position strongly and then discover that we were wrong, or we may need to apologize after insisting that someone else was entirely to blame. These moments can be painful because accepting the truth may cost us something. Yet reality does not change because we refuse to look at it.
There is great freedom in being able to say simply, “I was wrong.” Everyone makes mistakes, and our dignity does not depend upon always appearing to be right. A mature person wants the truth more than he wants to preserve an image of being right. This attitude frees us from the exhausting need to defend every decision and justify every mistake.
Prayer helps us acquire this freedom. We can ask Our Lord to show us where we are deceiving ourselves and help us see what we would rather overlook. His light may reveal motives or defects that make us uncomfortable, but God never shows us our weakness merely to humiliate us. He shows us what needs healing because he loves us.
The examination of conscience can help us respond to this light without becoming excessively introspective. We do not need to conduct a complete psychological analysis of ourselves every evening. We place ourselves before God and look honestly at the day, thanking him for the good, acknowledging where we failed and considering whether there is something concrete we should correct. Over time, this simple practice helps us know ourselves more realistically.
Confession gives us an even deeper encounter with the truth about ourselves. We name our sins and accept responsibility for them, but at the same time we hear the words of absolution. We discover that acknowledging the truth does not lead to rejection but to mercy. We often hide our faults because we fear that admitting them will diminish us, yet when we bring them honestly to Christ, we become freer.
The same principle applies when we seek advice. If we have a strong preference, we may unconsciously emphasize the facts that support the answer we want and barely mention those that point in another direction. Without saying anything literally false, we can create a version of the situation almost guaranteed to produce the advice we hope to receive. Genuine openness requires us to present the relevant facts as they are and remain willing to hear an answer we may not have wanted.
Living in the truth ultimately brings peace because we no longer have to defend an illusion. The truth may initially be painful and may require a difficult change, but concealment demands far more of us in the long run. We can acknowledge weakness without concluding that we are worthless, admit that we were wrong without losing our dignity, and recognize serious defects while remaining confident that God’s grace can change us.
Our security does not depend upon maintaining a flawless image of ourselves. It rests in the fact that we are children of God. He already knows the whole truth—our gifts and failures, our good intentions and mixed motives. Nothing we discover about ourselves is new to him, and he still loves us. This gives us the courage to prefer truth to appearances and allows Christ’s promise to be fulfilled more deeply in us: “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Truthfulness in Our Relationships with Others
If we want to live in the truth, this must also shape the way we deal with other people. We should become men and women whose words can be trusted. Others should not have to wonder whether we mean what we say, whether we will keep our promises or whether our account of events has been adjusted to make ourselves look better.
Most of us would never invent a serious lie, but dishonesty can enter our lives in subtler ways. We may exaggerate a story, omit a detail that reflects badly on us or describe a conflict in a way that places most of the blame on someone else. Everything we say may technically be true while the impression we deliberately create is false. We need to be especially careful when our reputation is involved, since our first instinct after making a mistake is often to explain why our conduct was understandable. There may indeed be circumstances that should be taken into account, but maturity usually requires us first to acknowledge plainly what we did.
Our Lord teaches us to speak with simplicity: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’” We should try to develop this straightforwardness in our relationships. We do not need to manipulate every account so that we appear in the best possible light, and we should be able to admit a mistake without surrounding the admission with so many explanations that responsibility almost disappears.
This simplicity also includes keeping our word. When we make a commitment, other people should ordinarily be able to rely upon us. Circumstances sometimes change and make it impossible to do what we promised, but we should not make commitments lightly or abandon them merely because something more attractive appears. Reliability is one of the ways we respect others. Repeated lateness, forgotten responsibilities and casual cancellations may seem like small matters, but over time they weaken the trust on which relationships depend.
Truthfulness does not, however, mean saying everything that happens to be true. We also need prudence and discretion. Some facts are not ours to reveal, confidences must be respected, and other people have a right to privacy. The statement “But it is true” does not by itself justify repeating something. Before speaking about another person, we should consider whether there is a legitimate reason to do so and whether the person to whom we are speaking needs to know.
Gossip often begins innocently. We start discussing someone we both know, and the conversation gradually turns toward that person’s defects or private affairs. Nothing said may be entirely false, yet the conversation can still damage a reputation and encourage us to see the person primarily through his weaknesses. We should be particularly cautious when someone is not present to explain his actions or defend himself. It is easy to accept one side of a story when it confirms an opinion we already hold.
This does not mean that we should refuse to discuss genuine problems. There are situations in which another person’s conduct must be addressed or discussed with someone who has a legitimate responsibility. We may also need advice about how to handle a difficult situation. What matters is why we are speaking and whether the conversation serves a real good. If we are discussing someone’s faults because there is a genuine need to solve a problem, the conversation may be entirely appropriate. If criticism has simply become entertaining or makes us feel superior, we should stop.
The same sensitivity should guide our humour. Good humour strengthens friendships, but teasing can become hurtful when we fail to notice another person’s sensitivities. We do not have to become afraid of joking with one another, and affectionate teasing can be a natural part of friendship. But we should pay attention to how another person responds and be willing to stop when something is clearly causing discomfort.
There are also times when love requires us to tell someone a difficult truth. If a friend is making a serious mistake, remaining silent merely to avoid an uncomfortable conversation may not be charitable. Parents and others who have responsibility for people may have an even clearer duty to address problems. Yet telling the truth is not enough. We must also try to tell it in the right way.
Before correcting someone, we should examine our motives. We may sincerely want to help, or we may simply be irritated and looking for the satisfaction of pointing out what is wrong. The same words can have a very different effect depending upon the spirit in which they are spoken. We should also make sure, as far as reasonably possible, that we know the facts. It is easy to judge an action without understanding the circumstances behind it, and sometimes listening first changes our understanding considerably.
Our Lord gives us a beautiful example in his encounter with the woman caught in adultery. He did not deny the seriousness of her sin, but neither did he join those who wanted to humiliate and condemn her. After her accusers had gone, he said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.” He told her the truth and called her to conversion, but he did so in a way that restored hope rather than crushing her.
We should try to do the same when we have to correct someone. The purpose is not to win an argument or demonstrate our superiority. We want to help the other person recognize the truth and respond freely. Sometimes this requires firmness. Charity does not mean vagueness, and a serious problem may need to be named clearly. But firmness never requires humiliation. We can speak plainly while respecting the dignity of the person before us, choosing an appropriate time and, whenever possible, correcting privately.
Our love for truth is tested just as much when we receive correction ourselves. It is relatively easy to value sincerity when we are the ones telling someone else what he needs to hear. The more difficult test comes when another person tells us something about ourselves that we would rather not hear. Our first reaction may be defensive. We think immediately of explanations or remind ourselves that the person correcting us has faults of his own. We may seize upon some weakness in the criticism so that we can dismiss the whole thing.
A better response is to ask whether there is some truth in what has been said. The correction may have been expressed badly or may even be partly unfair, but it can still contain something useful. We lose nothing by examining it honestly before God. Other people sometimes see aspects of our behaviour that are difficult for us to recognize ourselves, and we should value friends who care enough to tell us the truth with affection and respect.
At the same time, we should never use sincerity as an excuse for harshness. Some people pride themselves on saying exactly what they think and describe themselves as brutally honest, as though the hurt they cause were proof of their courage. There is nothing virtuous about unnecessary brutality. We are not obliged to express every negative opinion we form, and often charity tells us to remain silent. When something does need to be said, we can usually say it without choosing the most cutting words available.
St. Paul tells us to speak “the truth in love.” We need both. Without truth, what appears to be love can become a sentimentality that refuses to confront what is wrong. Without love, truth can become a weapon. The Christian way asks more of us because we must remain faithful to reality while remembering that the person before us belongs to God and must always be treated accordingly.
This is especially important when we disagree about serious matters. We can oppose false ideas clearly and sometimes vigorously without becoming contemptuous of the person who holds them. We often do not know why someone believes what he does or what experiences have shaped his thinking. Listening does not require agreement, but it may help us understand the person well enough to speak more effectively and charitably.
The same attitude is essential in the apostolate. If we hope to help others come closer to Christ, they need to know that our interest in them is genuine. We should not give the impression that we are merely waiting for an opportunity to correct their opinions. When people trust us, they may eventually speak about doubts, failures or moral struggles that they have never expressed before. We should not be frightened by what we hear. The fact that someone has spoken honestly may itself be an important step toward God.
We can receive such openness with respect while remaining completely faithful to the truth. If our immediate reaction is shock or condemnation, the person may never speak about the matter again. Christ showed us another way. People could approach him because he saw the truth about them without ceasing to love them. He never flattered or deceived them, but neither did he reduce them to their sins.
Our love for truth should therefore make us more trustworthy rather than harsher. We should become simpler in our speech, more reliable in our commitments and less willing to damage another person’s reputation. We should also become more ready to admit when we are wrong and more willing to listen when someone tells us something we would prefer not to hear.
We will always discover a gap between what we are and what God is calling us to become. There will be inconsistencies and defects that remain despite years of struggle, but we do not need to hide them or pretend that they are not there. We bring them to Christ and begin again.
The mute man in the Gospel was freed when Christ restored his ability to speak. Something similar happens in us when we learn to live in the truth. We become able to speak honestly to God about what is happening within us, to acknowledge the truth about ourselves without fear, and to deal truthfully and charitably with others. This does not mean saying everything we think or exposing everything that belongs legitimately to our private life. It means having nothing essential to hide from God and being willing to live in his light.
Christ tells us that the truth will make us free. That freedom begins when we stop hiding from the truth ourselves. As we allow his light to reach the parts of our life we would rather conceal, we discover that the truth is not something to fear. The One who reveals the truth about us is also the One who loves us, forgives us and gives us the grace to change. Living sincerely before him, we gradually become freer to acknowledge our faults without despair, receive correction without feeling diminished, and speak the truth to others without using it as a weapon. In this way, the sincerity that opens our own soul to God also helps us become instruments through whom others can encounter the freedom of living in the truth.
*By the Via Virtutis team
Photo by Avery Evans on Unsplash
