Only with God can we be truly sincere

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

WITH Christ lambasting the scribes and Pharisees of his time for their hypocrisy (cfr. Mt 23,27-32), we are somehow reminded that the secret to be truly sincere and to keep our integrity and consistency is simply to be with God who is Truth himself and our source and enabler of our own sincerity.

There is no other way to be sincere and truthful which is not simply a matter of spouting facts and data. To be in the truth requires a lot more than just giving out facts and data. It involves all the other things like justice, fairness, charity, mercy, etc.

Much less is truth only about a certain view or choice that may be supported by a majority of the people. Truth can only be found in God when the Spirit of Truth shows us what truth is.

To know the truth and to be in the truth are a matter of being discerning of what the Holy Spirit tells and shows us. In short, we cannot know and be in the truth unless we follow what the Spirit tells us. Bluntly said, we cannot be in the truth unless we are vitally connected with God who is actually always with us. The problem is that we oftentimes ignore him.

We have to realize that facts and data need a proper spirit for them to serve the cause of truth. We need to realize that truth in the context or setting of our human condition needs a proper spirit. Without considering the proper spirit, they can only be used—or misused—by all sorts of possible human motives that in the end may not be right for us, or may just be self-serving to some of us but harmful to others.

The truth that comes from the Spirit of truth obviously can make use of facts and data and the results of some majority vote, but it will always be a dynamic one that in the end would lead us to our ultimate goal in life—our own salvation, our attainment of the fullness of our human dignity as children of God, sharers of his divine life and nature. It’s also one that works for the unity of all of us, not division.

This understanding of truthfulness is very much needed especially in our political life. As we can readily see, there is so much partisanship that it would be practically impossible to tell whether a partisan is completely truthful.

Since we cannot avoid politics due to our human condition that requires us to be continually organizing ourselves for the common good, we cannot help but come up with different and even conflicting views and positions.

We have to be ready to face this challenge of resolving these issues as best that we can, that is, in a way that is worthy of our dignity as persons, children of God, and as a people capable of governing ourselves properly. Only then can we be truthful in spite of our differences and conflicts.

Thus, it’s imperative that we know what is to be a person, a child of God and a self-governing people. This obviously will require that we are grounded on some clear creed. And the Christian faith, more than any other man-made ideology, can provide that.

It’s our Christian faith that constitutes the ultimate basis of what is good and bad for us as individual persons and as political beings as well. It provides us with the standards to know the distinction between things with absolute value in our life and those with only relative value. It provides us with the ultimate truth.

            Email: roycimagala@gmail.com