Growing in Integrity

In this episode, Fr Richard Healey reflects on themes of integrity, truth, and the significance of baptism. Drawing from Dante’s “Divine Comedy” and the scriptures, he explores the detrimental effects of lying, even in small forms, on our authenticity and connection with God. Fr Richard highlights the transformative power of Jesus’ baptism, inviting us to embrace our true identity and live with integrity. He encourages us to let go of falsehoods and accept God’s grace, fostering a more authentic and fulfilling life. Join us as we delve into the journey towards wholeness and divine love.

00:00:00 How are you going? It’s one of my pet peeves when someone that someone kind of random, someone anonymous, ask you that question because they’re really not expecting a genuine answer, are they? They just want you to say, not bad. Find things. Whatever. I mean, it’s such a wonderful thing when a friend asks you that question and you know that they really want to hear the answer. Like that’s a precious moment. Being able just to exchange that. But I still don’t understand why someone who’s just selling you something wants to ask you that question. And I just think that’s just weird, because a lot of the time, I’m not even really quite sure what I’m feeling or what’s exactly going on with me. So not bad. Fine. Doesn’t really cut it a lot of the time. And it’s important to kind of understand that because one of the things about our world is we can get kind of trapped in a situation that we really struggle to be free from. One of the things I was reading during the week was a book by an author called Martha Beck, and she writes about integrity, and she uses Dante’s Divine Comedy as a kind of guide to lead her through this topic of integrity.

00:01:29 And when Dante arrives finally in the very depths of hell, do you know what the sin is that he finds there? What the sin is that there’s at the very worst of all of the offending. I’ll give you a hint. It’s not the murderers. It’s not the terrorists. It’s not someone who’s an adulterer. It’s not even the pedophiles. It’s not even the politicians. But it’s this The worst possible sin is like the worst possible creature in terms of the mortality of humans. You know, it’s not an alligator or a croc or a shark or an elephant that you have to be afraid of. The number one creature that kills the most humans is the mosquito. This tiny, little insidious kind of creature that’s carrying all kinds of diseases. So the worst sin that we can commit is the sin of lying, because, well, the thing is that lying kind of causes havoc to us, no matter even if it’s a white lie. You know, the number of times that people will confess, oh, I told these, these white lies.

00:02:39 And I guess if we’ve got white lies, we must have gray lies and black lies as well. But when you actually do an analysis, like when you examine someone and the brain patterns that are happening, when someone is telling a lie, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a white lie or the worst possible lie. Exactly the same parts of the brain are being lit up, and exactly the same intensity is happening regardless of what kind of lie it is, because it’s causing this havoc upon us, regardless of what the source is or how serious it might seem to us. Because the thing is that lying really lies at the foundations of every other kind of sin that we can imagine. So if we want to live in a place of integrity, the first thing that we have to do is to begin to really honor and respect the truth. And the first truth that we have to respect is the truth of who we are, the truth of who we’ve been created to be, who we’ve been brought into relationship with.

00:03:54 You know, in an eye opening reading today. When the people were locked in that period of exile so far from home, the message that they needed to hear was the message of comfort, comfort or comfort my people. And the great message of Isaiah is this call, this invitation to come on home, to return back to the place of rest, to come back to their deepest identity, because we so often believe all kinds of lies within ourselves. We believe that we’re not worthy. We believe that we’re not able to make it. We believe that we’re fundamentally alone in the world. And so we need to hear that message of comfort. But we also need to hear the message that Paul tells to Titus. In our second reading, he says that when the Lord showed us such kindness, he wasn’t for any reasons of any of the good works that we ourselves had done, but simply his compassion. That the only reason that the Lord showed us this saving grace, this washing with water, this gift of the Holy Spirit, was simply because of the compassion of God, not because of anything that I had ever done to deserve that.

00:05:15 And so when Jesus emerges out of the waters of baptism, when he is at prayer, we’re told that then the heavens are torn apart and he hears the voice of the father making that declaration to him that you are my precious son. You are my beloved, the one in whom I delight, the one in whom I find my favor. You know, it’s really hard for us to believe that when we’re so used to telling the lies, these little fibs, these little quirks that we have when we’re trying to grift, when we’re trying to deceive. We’re trying to distort when we’re using social media just to present the very best of us, all of the different ways that our society applauds. You know, all kinds of things that are essentially just different forms of lying. But all of it undermines that ability to live in integrity. And integrity simply means to be undivided, to be whole. To live in that space where we can actually know who we are. This feast of the baptism, I think, is a transitional feast, because it’s inviting us to reflect upon the incarnation, upon the humanity of Jesus being one with us.

00:06:36 But it’s also inviting us into that experience of encountering him in our ordinary lives, in the way of discipleship that opens up over the Sundays of Ordinary Time that we’re invited into that reflection upon how do I live in integrity? How do I live in this place that is undivided and whole? How do I encounter that? And the first thing that we need to do is to stop lying to ourselves. To rest and to trust in the words of Jesus, inviting us into that space where he will join us in the waters of baptism, even though he doesn’t need it. But he goes through that to invite us into that space of transformation and renewal so that we can have our sins washed clean, so that we can let go of all of the junk that attaches itself, all those lies that we believed. All of those messages that we’ve heard and that we’ve taken on board. And we can just let them all float down. That’s where the water cleanses us. We can let them go down the stream to the Dead Sea, down to that space where there is no life.

00:07:43 Because that’s the ultimate fruit of a life of lying, a life of deception is the death that comes from the Dead Sea. But we’re given this chance of life. We’re given this chance of renewal. And we can embrace that. As we start this new year, as we live in the freedom of integrity, that we can live in a way that actually embraces all of our health. That’s the other thing about living a life of integrity. A scientifically is actually allows us to be free from all kinds of of other diseases and improves a whole immune system. It helps us to overcome all kinds of of other diseases. We’re just more capable of living in that truth and in that moment, so we can embrace this life of integrity by embracing the call of Jesus, to live in this freedom, and to allow his love and his mercy to call us into salvation by the washing of the water and the gift of the Holy Spirit.