XXIX — SINCERITY

Presence of God. — Give me, O Lord, a frank and sincere heart, lover of truth, that seeks and wills truth at any cost.

Meditation

1 — “Lord,” asks the psalmist, “who shall dwell in your tabernacle? Who shall abide in your holy mountain?” And he answers: “He who walks blamelessly, seeks justice, and speaks in his heart what is true” (Ps. 14:1). God is truth, and no one can be admitted to his intimacy if he does not seek as much as possible to live in truth, to be truthful in all his conduct. First of all we must seek truth in the innermost heart in order to know ourselves as we truly are, as we are in God’s sight, stripped of every mask and superstructure. Therefore we must accept not only truths that please us, but also those that displease us and wound our self-love to the quick by uncovering our defects and bad tendencies. The sincere soul never closes its eyes before these truths and, although humiliating, esteems them highly, knowing well that humiliation which puts one in truth is worth far more than illusion which, flattering pride, keeps one in falsehood.

Precisely to put us in truth, to know what we really are, God sometimes permits difficult circumstances in which the exercise of virtue becomes particularly hard and laborious. Under the impact of contrarieties, the soul sees rising in itself movements of impatience, anger, rebellion, egoism previously unknown and from which perhaps it thought itself freed. In such cases, instead of turning its gaze elsewhere, one must have courage to recognize and confess with humble frankness all one’s miseries. St. John of the Cross speaks of certain pious souls who in their confessions “color their sins skillfully, so as not to appear so bad and not lose the confessor’s esteem; this is rather going to excuse oneself than to accuse oneself” (cf. Dark Night I, 2, 4). The soul that loves truth is very far from acting thus, and in its confessions, even when it must accuse itself only of venial faults and imperfections, exposes everything with great sincerity, without frills, without artificial diminutions, never attributing to circumstances, but solely to itself, all that it finds defective within. And this frankness in confessing its weaknesses is the first step toward being freed from them.

2 — If a soul is little sincere in its interior life and in its relations with God, it can never deceive God, and its insincerity will redound only to its own harm. But regarding neighbor, it is not so: lack of sincerity can easily cause harm to him, if only by deceiving him. Therefore not only charity but also justice demands that in relations with neighbor one use the greatest sincerity. “Putting away all falsehood,” exhorts St. Paul, “speak the truth each one to his neighbor, because we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:25). By force of natural bonds, and even more of supernatural ones that bind him to us, neighbor has full right not to be deceived either by our words or by our actions.

To be sincere it is first necessary that our words correspond to our thought. To be convinced of one thing and express another with intent to deceive is directly contrary to truth and therefore an offense against God, infinite Truth. This is absolutely inadmissible in a soul that aspires to union with God: how can falsehood pretend to unite itself to supreme Truth? And yet, though in subtler and slighter form, certain lacks of sincerity are not wholly absent from the conduct of devout souls: little tricks, words artfully thrown out to deflect a just reproach, to cover an error one does not wish to acknowledge, or even to attract some praise or a little admiration. All this from vanity, from human respect, to avoid humiliation or inconvenience. Wretched procedures, unworthy of a frank and noble spirit! Any lack of sincerity, however small, displeases the Lord greatly in a soul given to Him and constitutes a serious obstacle to its spiritual progress. St. Margaret Mary writes: “If I saw a soul adorned with all virtues except that of sincerity, and knew it favored with great graces, all in it would seem to me deceit and illusion.”

But it is not enough to be sincere in words; one must be sincere also in actions and in all conduct. Sincere conduct is that which shows us as we are, without affectations, without wanting to appear what we are not. Words and actions must express the truth sought and loved interiorly. Sincerity does not require revealing to everyone all that we are, think, or know — which would be contrary to prudence and other virtues — but it requires that all we reveal, whether by words or actions, and even by silence, correspond to truth.

Colloquy

“O Lord, to reach You, who are way, truth, and life, one must walk by the way of truth, without any fiction or simulation, renouncing reason darkened by self-love and human respect. One must proceed with simplicity, dying completely to self and to creatures. Teach me, then, eternal Truth, to conduct myself with great simplicity and frankness. Grant that my soul, simple as a dove, may always fly in You to nest in your breast and there nourish itself with knowledge of You and of itself, so that, abhorring its own malice, it may find in itself nothing in which to be satisfied, and therefore not remain far from You, finding no place to rest outside You. Teach me to walk straight straight on the way of truth, without stopping, but always going forward, hastening and running swiftly in order to follow You, eternal Truth, my guide and my way” (St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi).

“O Lord, may your truth instruct me, guard me, guide me to salvation, and free me from every impure affection. To You I confess my sins with deep sorrow and bitterness, and do not permit me to grow proud for having done some good work. I am always a sinner, subject and slave to many passions. By my nature I always tend to evil: quickly I fall, quickly I am overcome, quickly I am troubled and cast down. I have nothing of which I can glory, but much for which I must humble myself, and in your sight I am worth far less than I believe.

“Teach me, O Lord, to admire your eternal Truth and to despise my absolute nothingness” (Imitation III, 4, 3-4).