In a world in which lies and dissimulation are so often the habitual behavior of many, we Christians must be truthful men, always fleeing even the smallest lie. This is how we should be known by those who treat us: men and women who never lie, not even in matters of little importance, who reject from their lives anything that smacks of dissimulation, hypocrisy or falsehood, who know how to rectify when they have made a mistake. Our life will then be of great apostolic fruitfulness, because we always trust in the person of integrity, who knows how to speak the truth with charity, without hurting, with understanding towards all.
"How many weaknesses, how much opportunism, how much conformism, how much vileness!" Pope Paul VI said, referring to "those good people who forget the beauty and the gravity of the commitments that bind them to the Church". This same situation, which has perhaps become more evident in recent years, will lead us to abhor falsehood, no matter how small it may seem to us, because "falsehood is opposed to truth as light is opposed to darkness, piety to impiety, justice to iniquity, goodness to sin, health to sickness and life to death. Therefore, the more we love the truth, the more we must hate lying. "
It is not a question of knowing to what extent it is possible to say false things without incurring a serious fault. It is a matter of abhorring falsehood in all its forms, of telling the whole truth; and when prudence or charity does not allow it, then we will keep silent, but we will not invent formalistic resources that falsely soothe our conscience. We must love the truth in itself and for itself, and not only insofar as it affects harm or advantage to ourselves or to our neighbor. We must abhor lying as something clumsy and ignoble, whatever the end to which it is employed. We must abhor it because it is an offense to God, the supreme Truth.
It is easy to believe what one wishes. And so, for example, many enemies of the Church are always inclined to take as true all injurious rumors, judging without sufficient evidence, and even informing public opinion on that basis. This, in the final analysis, is tantamount to lying, both in its origin and its consequences. Against the lie, so often coldly employed, we have the truth, clarity, sincerity without equivocation or ambiguity: the firm practice of truthfulness in daily personal relationships, in business, in the family, in studies and in the organs of public opinion when we have access to them. We do not know how to respond to a lie with another lie.
The liturgical prayer invites us to cry out: May our voice, Lord, our spirit and our whole life be a continual praise in your honor.... May our conversation always be truthful, befitting a child of God.
Hablar con Dios