Reflections from the Heart – July 30, 2023

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.”  The word honest is an interesting word for us to consider, take to prayer then use as a measure in our own life to determine if our relationship with God is truly true and honest.  In that same measure, can we say the same about being honest in our relationships and interactions with one another and even in the manner we see and judge ourselves.  Are we honest in the purest sense of the word?  Meaning, to be honest is to be true without any falsehood, deception, lie or malicious or bad intention.  To be honest is to think, respond and act in a way that is true and trustworthy and provides the whole truth and nothing but the truth without any sort of deceit.  Are you truly honest in your conversations, messages, postings and interactions with others?  Are you honest without being dishonest in your dialogue with God without omitting or hiding something from God? Do you ever wonder why we try to lie or be dishonest with God when he already knows?  Do you say you pray and really don’t want to? Do you say you are going to pray but have no intention in doing so? Do you pray but really don’t pray?  Be honest.  Are you honest with yourself in your own conversations with yourself either in the interior silence of your mind or said aloud when you talk to yourself?  Can you imagine we lie to ourselves and even lie about lying to ourselves?  We make ourselves believe that our words, behavior and actions are okay when we know they are not.  We try to justify honesty and make excuses for it. We say “yes” we understand something when we really don’t.  We say “I know” or make gestures that we know the answer when we really don’t. We say we didn’t say that or we insinuate we didn’t say anything at all when we know we really did.  There is such a freedom in being honest and living life honestly.  We don’t have to backtrack or add to a lie or invent new ones.  The truth truly sets us free.  Being honest always and in all our interactions and relationships means that we don’t have to worry about recalling or remembering something we said or did not say to one person and perhaps differently to another.  Acting honestly does not cause us to be concerned about what we did or did not do because the truth is, we remember or honestly, we forgot.