The need for transparency and sincerity

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

“There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.” (Lk 12,2) With these words, Christ is clearly telling us that there is no point hiding things from God since he knows everything. Neither should we be hiding things from others, unless due to proper discretion we may have to withhold certain things.

To be sure, our life would be much lighter and happier that way. We would unload ourselves from unnecessary burdens. What is more, we would keep our good relations with God and with others. Our life would be much simpler and properly focused on its true ultimate purpose.

We should really work on our need for transparency and sincerity. We cannot deny that many are the elements nowadays that can undermine that need. Signs and even structures of hypocrisy, deceit, corruption and the like are all around us. Sad to say, they seem to be the mainstream culture today.

Consider again what benefits a good sense of transparency can give us. It will help us develop and sustain our integrity in life. It means that everything that we do is good, that is, morally good. Of course, this sense of transparency can only take root when it is based on our faith in God who sets all the laws in our life, and therefore, all that is good for us.

We have to realize more deeply that before God, nothing can be hidden. We, therefore, have to adopt a lifestyle that would make us do everything in his presence. In fact, we are not simply meant to do things in his presence. It is more to do everything for God’s glory. Thus, when we do things without God in mind, let us be warned that we are already doing things wrongly.

We should not base our sense of transparency on human, natural and worldly criteria alone. These latter standards do not capture all the good that is proper to us. At best, they may just be silent about the finer nuances and consequences of what is generally good for us. We have to remember that many mysteries shroud our understanding of things.

But what is bad nowadays is that our human laws and worldly standards have started to go against God’s will. This, of course, can be due to our limitations in truly understanding God’s law. But it can also be due to our sinfulness and malice. Nowadays, I believe it is the latter that has led us to make laws that are openly against God’s law. We need to do something drastic about this predicament.

And we can start by being sincere in our confessions and spiritual direction. It is indeed necessary that we be brutally sincere when we go to confession and to spiritual direction. We have to learn to lay all our cards on the table so that the human instruments used by God to help us in our spiritual life, can truly help us.

We should not be afraid or ashamed to do so, because in these occasions, it is indeed God who is acting through the human instrumentalities. We have to approach confession and spiritual direction with a strong supernatural outlook, because it is only then that we can deal with our misplaced sense of fear and shame. To be truly sincere is not only to say facts and data. It is to probe into the motives of all our actions, especially our sins and misdeeds.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com