Many many years ago when the Wagga City Council was thinking of building a new tunnel straight through Willans Hill (wouldn’t that be great) the mayor asked the international community to submit quotes.

So a French construction company visited the mayor here in Wagga and said “Oui oui, we can build your tunnel for $60 million.” The mayor said to the French rep, “That’s a lot of money. Can you break down your expenses for us?” “Of course,” replied the French rep. “$20 million for materials, $20 million for labour, and we shall keep $20 million for our profit.” 

Next day a representative from an English construction company comes to Wagga and visits the mayor and says, “We can build your tunnel for only $30 million.” The mayor was impressed, but asked, “Can you break that $30 million down for us?” The English rep replied, “Certainly sir. $10 million for materials, $10 million for labour, and we shall retain $10 million as our profit.” Finally, a little known Australian company called Dodgy Brothers Constructions rings up the mayor and says “Mate, we can get your tunnel done for only $90 million.” The mayor was somewhat surprised at the figure, and so says, “That’s quite a lot of money. Could you please break it down for us?” “Sure thing mate.” replied the rep on the phone from Dodgy Brothers Constructions “$30 million for you guys, $30 million for us guys, and we’ll give the contract to the English.” 

Honesty and telling the truth should be so much a part of us that we should do it even if it will not profit us; even if it means we will make a loss. There should be some things that are so true within us that we do not need clever articulated reasons for doing them, and one of them should be telling the truth. Jesus once said of himself, “I am the Truth” (Jn 14:6). If everything about Jesus is good and Jesus is the truth, then it  stands to reason that truth must be good.  

Once I had a written six-year contract of tenure dissolved by a remote boss after only two years. I believed my appointment was valid and true, so I stood my ground against him. He suspended me, took away my allowance, my good name throughout the organisation and even my residence and so I ended up living in my car. He was somehow able to take away almost everything I had worked for. It was amazing. My “friends” quickly walked away and my friends and family begged me to submit to him. My nephews and nieces would cry when they saw me, my sisters were always crying over me and given that my oldest brother, whom I had been ignoring, had drowned only months beforehand, it was a truly horrible time for our whole family. 

Finally, my parents sat down with me and begged me to yield with great emotion and my mother had tears in her eyes. Before too long I had tears in my eyes too and I looked up at my parents and explained “Look. I know I act the clown all the time as if nothing matters to me in life. But some things do matter to me and I do my work well and so I do not want to live in a world where men can break their covenants, just because they are the boss.” 

I don’t know if my little speech convinced my parents but it certainly convinced me that we should always stand by what we sincerely believe to be the truth.

We can’t always know the truth with perfection, but we can search for it and be faithful to whatever truth we have found in life so far. Being faithful to this truth is what brings us peace in the now. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said “The truth will set you free”.  – Father Brendan Lee