Sincerity

Anyone who hides a temptation from his director shares a secret with the devil. —He has become a friend of the enemy.

The dust thrown up by your fall blinds and disorients you, and you have thoughts which rob you of your peace.

—Have you sought relief in tears by the side of Our Lord, and in confident conversation with a brother?

Sincerity: with God, with the director, with your fellow men. —If you act like that, I shall be certain of your perseverance.

Do you want to know how to be frank and simple? Listen to these words of Peter and meditate on them: Domine, Tu omnia nosti… —Lord, You know all things!

“What shall I say?”, you asked when you began to open up your soul. And with a sure conscience, I answered: “In the first place say what you would not like to be known.”

The defects you see in others are perhaps your own. Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex… — If your eye is clear, the whole of the body will be lit up; whereas if the eye is diseased, the whole of the body will be in darkness.

Moreover: “How is it that you can see the speck of dust in your brother’s eye, and are not aware of the beam that is in your own?”

Examine your conscience.

We all need to foresee our lack of objectivity whenever we have to judge our own behaviour. This applies to you too.

I agree, you are saying nearly all the truth… Therefore you are not truthful.

You complain…, and I go on with holy intransigence: you complain… because this time I have put my finger where it hurts.

You understood what sincerity is when you wrote to me: “I am trying to form the habit of calling things by their proper names and, above all, of not looking for words for what does not exist.”

Think about this carefully: being transparent lies more in not hiding things rather than in wanting things to be seen. It is a matter of allowing the objects lying at the bottom of a glass to be perceived, and not trying to make the air visible.

Let us always act in the presence of God in such a way that we never have to hide anything from men.

Your worries are at an end… You have discovered that being sincere with the director sorts out all complications with admirable ease.

How mistaken parents, teachers, directors… can be, when they demand absolute sincerity and then, when they are told the whole truth, are frightened!

You were reading in that dictionary the synonyms for insincere: “two-faced, surreptitious, evasive, disingenuous, sly”. —As you closed the book, you asked the Lord that nobody should ever be able to apply those adjectives to you, and you resolved to improve much more in this supernatural and human virtue of sincerity.

Abyssus, abyssum invocat… — deep is calling on deep, as I have already reminded you. It is the exact description of how liars, hypocrites, renegades, and traitors behave. As they are disgusted with their own behaviour, they hide their misdeeds from others and go from bad to worse, creating an abyss between themselves and their neighbour.

The liturgy rejoices with the song: Tota pulchra es Maria, et macula originalis non est in te! — You are all fair, O Mary, without original sin! In Her there is not the slightest shadow of duplicity. I pray daily to our Mother that we may be able to open our souls in spiritual direction and the light of grace may shine in all our behaviour!

Mary will obtain for us the courage to be sincere, if we ask her for it, so that we may come closer to the Most Blessed Trinity.

References to Holy Scripture
References to Holy Scripture
References to Holy Scripture
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