Choose a topic from Part 2B:
1. What a lie is in words, dissimulation is in outwardaction. Hence, dissimulation has the character and evil of lying.Yet not every pretense is dissimulation; there is figurative actionas well as figurative speech.
2. Hypocrisy is a kind of dissimulation. A man is asimulator when his actions express any falsity. He is ahypocrite only when the falsity which his actions expressis that he is a better, or wiser, or holier person than he actuallyis.
3. All dissimulation is a lie in action. Hypocrisy is atype of dissimulation. Therefore hypocrisy is a he in action, andconsequently it is a sin.
4. Hypocrisy (and, indeed, all dissimulation) is a mortalor a venial sin, according to the end intended by the simulator orhypocrite. If this end be directly opposed to charity, and isa matter of importance, the sin is mortal.
"Whom do you seek, friend, if you seek not God? Seek him, find him, cleave to him; bind your will to his with bands of steel and you will live always at peace in this life and in the next."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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"God gives us some things, as the beginning of faith, even when we do not pray. Other things, such as perseverance, he has only provided for those who pray."
St Augustine
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"God looks neither at long nor beautiful prayers, but at those that come from the heart."
The Cure D'Ars
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