Chapter LXX: On Truthfulness

THE prophet David cries out, in the 30th Psalm, “Into thy hands I commend my soul, because thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth” (Ps. xxx. 6). What confidence and childlike reliance on God is here, and what does it rest upon? On the truth of the Almighty: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away” (St. Matt. v. 18). He is the eternal truth, and all our hopes and all our happiness depend on it that he is so.

So we say: “O my Lord! I believe, because Thou art the infallible truth.” Truth, then, and perfect truth in God, ought to be most dear to us. We should say frequently: How lovely is the truth of God. Thanks be to God that He is the perfect truth. The God of perfect truth, who cannot deceive in the smallest particular, has redeemed me; praise be to His holy Name!

If this perfect truth and sincerity of God is the foundation of all our hopes in Him, a perfect truth and sincerity on our part ought to correspond to it. Jesus Christ is the pattern, and we must be the copy. As St. Paul says: We must put off the old man, “who is corrupted according to the desires of error; and put on the new man, who, according to God, is created in justice and holiness of truth. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak ye the truth every man with his neighbor” (Eph. iv. 22-25). The soul that desires to make her salvation sure will begin by holding all lying in abomination. The lying tongue, says Scripture, is an abomination to the Lord, and so it should be to her. And she should make a thorough work of it, casting out all lies, small or great, and speaking the truth in all things.

Some may imagine that it is enough to be careful and speak the truth in all matters of importance. It is not enough. We must speak truth in small and great, in all things. And I will tell you the reason why. Sincerity is the basis and foundation of the Christian character, and lying and falsehood are directly opposed to this sincerity. Now, a real sincerity of character will throw out all exceptions; it will and must extend to all things. Just as the magnet draws to itself all the little bits of iron in its neighborhood, so will true sincerity of character draw all our little actions and words to itself and make them all sincere and truthful.

You can all understand how if God could lie to us in any matter, however small, all our confidence in Him would be destroyed. In the same way if we find a person lying in small matters, we conclude there is no real and true sincerity of character there.

The habit of lying in little things will bring on the habit of lying in great ones, for lying is a weakness and cowardice, a want of Christian courage, that basely and meanly gives up pleasing Jesus Christ for fear of some man or woman who may be displeased. When this road is once entered upon it is travelled over very rapidly. You have given up to this cowardly fear in a little matter. You are more cowardly now than before and more ready to give up again. A greater thing comes up; you are afraid to tell the truth, and lie again. So a little lie draws on a big one, and that another, until a habit of lying is formed, and God only knows whether it will ever be broken up.

The worst of it is that this lying eats out and corrupts the whole character; it extends to all kinds of things; as well to God as to man. If you deceive your neighbor, you will become deceitful and double-dealing in all your ways. You will begin to deceive yourself, and frame excuses for sin, and plaster it over until your own conscience is blinded by a false light.

And maybe this deceit and falsehood may corrupt and infect your heart to such an extent that your penance may be false also, and bring you to the bar of God unforgiven, when it is too late to repair the evil.’

Do not say, then, that any lie whatever is a small thing. It is the devil that prompts us to utter such maxims. He wants to throw a small cord around us, in order to bind us by and by with a strong and heavy chain.