Lying vs. being discreet

THEY may look and sound the same but they actually are worlds apart from each other. One destroys the truth. The other protects and defends it, and even promotes it.

Lying can sound like the truth since it can cite facts and data, but the intention is to deceive others. Being discreet may be quiet on some facts and data without denying them. The motive behind is not to deceive but to help others appreciate a relevant truth.

That’s simply because human as we are, we get to know and appreciate the truth in stages. We hardly can take the whole truth in one go. And so we have to know and handle the truth with discretion.

To distinguish between lying and being discreet would require us to have a proper understanding of what truth is, where to find it and how to find it. It is also a matter of how and when to present it.

It also involves the question of motives. Truthfulness and discretion are not just a matter of producing facts and data, blabbering them indiscriminately. They necessarily have to consider the intentions and the circumstances also.

Most importantly, truthfulness and discretion will always uphold charity even if in a given moment such effort would involve a lot of sacrifice. It’s charity that would dictate the terms of discretion in telling the truth.

The forcefulness of truthfulness and discretion is never one of pride and arrogance, of wanting to dominate and control others. It is rather to uphold the dignity of the person as image and likeness of God and a child of his. It is working for the common good and not just for one’s own interest.

To be sure, truthfulness that would know how to distinguish between lying and being discreet would require nothing less than for us to have a vital, intimate relation with God who reveals himself to us fully in Christ, who in turn is made present to us now in the Holy Spirit.

Christ himself has told us where to find the truth. “I am the way, the truth and the life,” he said. (Jn 14,6) And even more explicitly, he said to Pilate: “Everyone on the side of the truth listens to me.” (Jn 18,37)

The obvious basis for this is that God, of course, being the creator of all things in the world, would know everything. He is the very foundation of reality, the very measure and standard of truth. Nothing is true, in the proper sense of the word, true, where God is ignored, if not mocked. It is God where truth and charity become identical.

Truthfulness that would know how to distinguish between lying and being discreet just cannot be a matter of our own estimation of things, no matter how well supported we feel our assertions are.

We always need to refer things to God and try our best to see and understand things and later to talk about them the way God sees, understands and would talk about them.

This can only happen if one has a personal relation with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. This will involve constant prayer, thorough study of the doctrine of our faith, developing the whole range of virtues all throughout our life, especially the virtue of humility.

This will involve the supernatural means like having constant recourse to the sacraments and an active cooperation in the continuing redemptive work of Christ through personal apostolate. That way, we truly get in touch with the people in the most objective way!