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.
"Though the path is plain and smooth for people of good will, those who walk it will not travel far, and will do so only with difficulty if they do not have good feet, courage, and tenacity of spirit.
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St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church
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"O Lord, my God, who will seek you with simple and pure love, and not find that you are all one can desire, for you show yourself first and go out to meet those who seek you?
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St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church
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"The Lord has always revealed to mortals the treasures of his wisdom and his spirit, but now that the face of evil bares itself more and more, so does the Lord bare his treasures more."
St John of the Cross, OCD - Doctor of the Church
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