"I could never do that," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because then I wouldn't be transparent."
I had to think about his answer. What did he mean by "transparency"? What would it have to do with not having a secret sexual relationship?
"Being transparent" means living a life that's an open book to others, "open" because we are not lying to ourselves, or to others, or to God about our thoughts and actions, and our motives for those thoughts and actions. If we are transparent, we don't lie to ourselves by dishonestly justifying sinful words and actions. Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, in his book "Sacred Visions" talks about the honest and transparent priest whom Pope John Paul II chose to be Archbishop of Chicago, and later Cardinal, Joseph Bernardin:
"Maturity and generatively lie in honesty and transparency. We see a wonderful example of this in the case of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. When he was falsely accused of sexual abuse, he was able to stand publicly before the world and say, with credibility: 'Everyone who knows me knows that this accusation is false because my life is an open book.' Everyone who knew him believed him precisely because of the transparency evident in his life..."
Later, Bernardin's accuser admitted that he was lying, and the two men reconciled.
Maturity does not mean that we are perfect. Maturity lies in being honest. Martin Luther once wisely said that we need to "sin bravely and honestly." We are all sinners, and God can forgive any sin - but God can only forgive us if we admit that we are committing a sin, to ourselves, to others, and to God. Honesty means not keeping secrets! Fr. Rolheiser says
"Could you cheat someone, be sexually unfaithful, slander someone, or commit a sin of any kind and feel comfortable in sharing that openly with those who are closest to you? The need to hide some action from others is a strong moral nudging. If we are walking in grace, we do not need any other commandment: we can do anything as long as we do not have to lie about it.
"And there is a further insight in this. When we do something wrong and then cover it up and lie, it is not so much the particular thing that we did wrong that harms us, it is the lying about it afterward that does the real damage. We are all weak, we all fall, and we all commit sin. God understands this, and it is not so much the sin itself that harms us. What causes the real harm is lying, covering up, sneaking around, not being transparent, living a dishonest life."
When we keep lying to everyone, including ourselves, we can eventually begin to believe our own lies! To sin bravely and honestly is to admit that we have sinned, to not buy into our own lies, our own evasions from the truth, our own self-created illusions that we are not sinning.
The lovely hymn "Attende Domine" has these lines :
"Humbly confessing that we have offended,
Stripped of illusions, naked in our sorrow,
Pardon, Lord Jesus, those your blood has ransomed."
Lying is the ultimate moral canker because our human spirits were created to live in truth, not in duplicity. Continuous lying hardens out hearts, warps our souls, distorts our consciences. Continuous lying eventually turns us into dedicated sinners. Fr. Rolheiser says
"Indeed, that is how the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit, the one infamous sin that cannot be forgiven, can happen. It begins with lying, with rationalization, cover-up and dishonesty. When we sustain a lie for any length of time, we begin to warp our conscience and the sin can become unforgivable, not because God does not want to forgive but because we no longer see any need to be forgiven. Lying, especially to ourselves, hardens and corrupts the spirit. That is why Satan is called the prince of lies rather than the prince of weakness. That is also what is contained in Martin Luther's famous axiom: 'Sin bravely.' The invitation, in Luther, is not that we should have the courage to sin without flinching, but that, if we do sin, we should have the courage not to lie or rationalize about it after the fact."
It's easy to get confused about the difference between "sin" and "temptation." A word about temptation. Every good person is tempted. Even Our Lord for our sake endured temptation and suffering. Temptation only becomes sin when we give in to it. According to Friar Jeremy, "Friar's E-Spirations" on the Franciscan Media website, "Good people are tempted by the attractiveness of sin....Temptation is an attraction to sin and, given our wounded human nature, it is very normal to experience attraction to sin."
However, dedicated sinners, those people who lie continuously to themselves, others, and God, about their words and actions, are not tempted. Friar Jeremy says that sin speaks from within the sinner's heart, and quotes the opening lines of Psalm 36:
"Sin directs the heart of the wicked; their eyes are closed to the fear of God."
Friar Jeremy says "Psalm 36 says that truly bad people are not tempted. If Satan sought to tempt, he would not waste time on a true sinner. Dedicated sinners don't need temptation. It is important to know the struggle with temptation that good people have only means that they are seeking to live good lives. That's why they are tempted. (For example) con artists, cheats, and investment robbers never have to worry about temptations because they have made the decision to rob others. They probably even sleep well at night. Good people experience guilt. Dedicated sinners do not."
But God has given us weapons in our struggles against temptation, especially about the temptation to delude ourselves that we're NOT sinning when we are. St. Paul says "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline." When we truly love God, ourselves, and others, love is the power that makes us strong and powerful to resist temptations to hurt ourselves, others, and God. Love gives us the power of self-discipline so that we do not give in to the seductive attractiveness of sin.
If we want to realize how destructive lying is, consider this: Lying, in the end, was what condemned Jesus to death. Another verse of "Attende Domine" says
"Innocent captive
you were led to slaughter,
Sentenced by sinners
when they brought false witness (lies).
Keep from damnation those
your death has rescued."
If we live in the light, the light of God's face, we are not ashamed to be spiritually and morally naked before God because we live in honesty and transparency. We are honest with God about our temptations, our failures, and our sins - and God loves us, mends our brokenness, and washes us clean of sin, over and over again!
May our God Who is not hidden, but is always present, Who is Truth Itself, bring us to an inner place of light and truth. May we experience the power of the Holy Spirit within us, a Spirit of love and self-discipline to resist all that would harm us. May our lives indeed be open books, open to ourselves, others, and God's abiding grace.