Honesty...

"Know, My child, there is no reconciling the truth. There is no meeting it halfway. Avoid all occasion of sin and you will not have to suffer for going off the trail, the road." - Our Lady of the Roses, September 28, 1974

 

The following are short stories on honesty taken from The Catechist by Rev. Canon G.E. Howe:

A little martyr to truth.--A little orphan boy, ten years old, was adopted by a farmer, from a hospital in Milwaukee. Some time after his installation in  his new family, the little boy having had occasion to remark some very bad conduct on the part of the farmer's wife, thought it his duty to inform the husband. But the woman denied the charge so vehemently that the farmer was convinced that his wife had been calumniated. The wife then insisted that the boy should be whipped till he retracted what he had said; and the husband taking a scourge, suspended the child from a beam in the room and whipped him with so much barbarity, that the blood streamed on the ground. He stopped then and asked the child if he still persisted in what he had said, "Father," said he, "I have told you the truth, and I cannot retract, to tell a lie." The blows commenced again with renewed fury, and continued till the poor little fellow fell almost lifeless into the arms of his executioner, to whom he said, throwing his little arms around his neck: "Father, father, I am dying! I have told the truth!" And he expired. The Court took cognizance of the affair. The miserable woman was convicted of the crime of which she was accused, her husband was condemned as guilty of murder on the person of his adopted child; finally the young orphan was proclaimed the Martyr of Truth.

Death rather than a lie.--During the French Revolution, the priests were proscribed and forced to conceal themselves in the very forests and caves of the mountains. A young girl, Magdalen Larralde, living on the borders of Spain, was afraid to have recourse to her own parish priest in his concealment, and used to cross the mountains to receive the Sacraments on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. One day, on her return, she was seized by the French soldiers, and taken as a spy to their general. In answer to inquiry, Magdalen said, in all simplicity, what her object was in crossing the border. The general, touched by her young, and anxious to save her, quickly replied: "Do not speak of Sacraments; say, rather, the French troops drove you in fear to Spanish ground." Magdalen replied this would be a lie to say, and she could not do so. In spite of urgent representations, her firmness never yielded, and she refused to save her life by telling a lie: she was therefore condemned to the guillotine.

Miracle on favor of truth.--St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow, had bought some land of a man named Peter, and settled it upon his Church. The nephews of the deceased vendor accused the Bishop, contrary to truth, that he had not paid for the land. The Saint made every endeavor to show that he had, but without effect. Polish historians related that after three days' prayer and fasting, he went to the Church, and causing the man's grave to be opened, commanded him, in God's name, to rise and bear witness to the truth that the land had been paid for; God granted his prayer, and to the astonishment of the whole court, Peter appeared and declared that the land had been paid for by the Bishop, and being led back to the grave, he returned again to his former state.

"Satan is the father of all liars. He is the master of deceit. He will place a thousand truths among you if he can build up one lie of deception, starting it as an acorn and growing into a tree that one day shall be burned down in the fires!" - Our Lady of the Roses, August 5, 1977

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