Our Venerable Father and Confessor Basil, Bishop of Parios.
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat.
Acts 5:1-11. John 5:30-6:2.
Read Acts 5:1-11
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
Have you ever told a lie? Think about this for a moment.
If you are like me, you probably remembered a little lie, what we often call a “white lie,” that you told to save face in front of a another. And you used that very reason, to save face, as the justification for the lie.
Think about lying some more.
Have you ever lied to yourself? Is it true that you lie to yourselves and to others about who you truly are? Do you try to hide your true self? Do you try to project to yourself and to others a partially or wholly made image with which you wish you and others to see? You may really be messed up inside and don’t want others to perceive this, so you create another persona.
Have you ever lied to the Lord?
Think about this… Every lie I tell myself denies me to myself who I really am. Every lie I tell others denies who they really are. Every lie I tell the Lord denies that He is God. And every lie affects not just me but also my relationship with others and the Lord.
We hear about lying, and the gravity of that sin even when we provide psychological or sociological reasons for doing so, in the selection from the Acts of the Apostles. Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Apostles and to the Lord in that they tried to look like Barnabas but acted deceptively. The unity and holiness of the new Christian community’s life was at stake. Ananias and Sapphira were literally cut off from the community for the denials made in their lie.
What can we learn? Stop lying. It ain’t doing anybody any good!