7. Lie Not One to Another: Masks, Excuses, and the New Man's Plainness

"Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds." - Colossians 3:9

The old man does not live only by gross sin. He also lives by mask, excuse, evasion, self-protection, and half-truth. He wants to appear better than he is, suffer less blame than he deserves, and keep a false peace by hiding what should be confessed or spoken plainly. St. Paul strikes at that whole atmosphere when he says, "Lie not one to another."

That matters because many souls come far enough to denounce the counterfeit, yet still live by the old man's crookedness in ordinary speech. They evade, exaggerate, manage impressions, hide faults, flatter when they should speak truly, and rename self-protection as prudence. But the new man cannot be built on falsehood. He belongs to Christ, who is Truth.

St. Paul gives the command plainly: "Wherefore putting away lying, speak ye the truth every man with his neighbour: for we are members one of another."[1] This is not only a prohibition of dramatic deception. It is a law for Christian speech itself. Falsehood wounds communion because the Church is not held together by managed appearance, but by truth.

Colossians makes the same point in direct relation to conversion: "Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds."[2] Lying therefore belongs to the old man not only in obvious fraud, but in the whole habit of falsifying reality to save face, preserve vanity, or escape correction.

Scripture shows why this matters so much. The devil is a liar from the beginning.[3] Falsehood does not merely misstate facts. It imitates the enemy's own way of ruling. The new man must therefore become plain.

Catholic tradition has always treated truthfulness as more than factual precision. It is an interior rectitude of soul. The truthful man does not merely avoid technical lies. He refuses duplicity. He does not build a second self out of performance, concealment, and calculation.

That matters because many religious environments tolerate a great deal of disguised falsehood. Souls learn to answer selectively, dramatize injuries, narrate intentions more nobly than they were, or hide sin beneath polished words. But Catholic conversion does not preserve that atmosphere. It cleanses it.

The saints speak sharply here because they know falsehood corrodes everything it touches. It deforms Confession, poisons friendship, weakens authority, and gives the old man a chamber to hide in after outward reform has begun.

The great penitents become plainer as they become holier. St. Augustine does not narrate himself as a misunderstood innocent. St. Margaret of Cortona does not curate her past to preserve dignity. St. Peter does not convert by explaining away his denial. The saints become honest because grace makes them willing to stand in truth before God.

By contrast, ages of corruption become theatrical. Men flatter superiors, conceal motives, soften sins, and learn the language of orthodoxy without the humility of plain dealing. That is one reason the counterfeit thrives. It feeds on managed appearances.

Wolves prefer environments where everyone says less than the truth, because then corruption can survive under religious language. The new man must break that shelter.

The remnant should therefore apply this command concretely.

• stop using pious language to hide disordered motives;
• stop answering in half-truths because full truth would cost esteem;
• stop recasting laziness, fear, vanity, or resentment into nobler names;
• confess sins plainly instead of surrounding them with self-defense;
• govern households by truth spoken cleanly, without dramatics or manipulation.

This does not mean rude speech, indiscriminate disclosure, or the destruction of lawful reserve. It means that where truth should be spoken, it is not falsified. Where fault is real, it is not cosmetically narrated. Where correction is needed, it is not evaded under the name of peace.

The counterfeit church survives by ambiguity, double speech, and managed appearances. The remnant cannot.

The new man must become plain. Not crude, not theatrical, not harsh for pleasure, but clean in truth. The old man lies because he wants to protect himself. The new man tells the truth because he belongs to Christ.

One necessary test of conversion is whether the soul is becoming more honest before God, neighbour, and self, or merely more Catholic in language while remaining evasive in life.

For the next movement in this Pauline line, continue with Be Angry and Sin Not: Wrath, Quick Peace, and Shutting the Door Against the Devil.