All truth leads to freedom
only because our freedom is constantly
being perfected by the freedom of the LORD.
Freedom that is authentic to our humanity
is always relevant to our human need to be happy.
It is not the false image
of that presumptuous freedom
that shuns the accountability
that is an inherent responsibility
of an authentic human freedom.
Therefore,
freedom is not free
that binds us to the Evil in all evil things -
freedom is free which binds us to the truth
of God and of each other in common humanity.
(Truthfulness)
To be truthful,
seek first the Source of all truth
for as God is, we are.
Truth is
the mother tongue of heaven:
In the truth we are able to understand
and through it we are able to be understood.
Truth is
the common medium of all virtue:
By the truth good is recognized and applauded
and because of it evil is revealed and punished.
Therefore,
love the LORD
in everything and with everything.
This is the path of all true things.
- selah -
Strive to be aware of this
and in thy own understanding
strive in all things to speak the truth,
mean what you speak, speak what you mean,
and own up to what you mean
- doing all things in love and out of love -
for God and for thy fellow citizens upon the earth.
Exercise truthfulness
with a compassionate regard
for the humanity of other people -
so be gentle when you should speak.
For the habitual grace of truthfulness
does not bind us to the truth - rather -
it binds the truth - through us -
into the active service of charity
so that truth is made available,
by the demands of prudence
and command of charity,
most especially when it counts.
The object of this virtue is truth itself,
that which fills with substance all things whole
and endow it with force and meaning
which is more than its words.
The act of this virtue
is the honorable expression of truth
and this honorable expression - being -
the explicit recognition
amidst our human need for absolute truth
that the truth that lives in other people's lives
(the particular reality of the individual good)
- must also be recognized -
as an integral part
of this particular virtue's
expression of right action.
For the truth must be
- by its own virtue -
is wielded for no other reason
than to make men free.
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Truthfulness is an expression of the cardinal virtue, Justice.
The individual exercise of truthfulness is therefore, simultaneously both a personal as well as a civic virtue.
The ancient Filipinos possessed this virtue to a high degree.