December 30, 2013 – Catechism 2857 – 2865

“The ruler of this world has mendaciously attributed to himself the three titles of kingship, power, and glory.” I didn’t really know what this meant because I didn’t know what “mendaciously” meant. Once you know what it means, “telling lies, especially habitually; dishonest; lying; untruthful: a mendacious person”, it seems pretty obvious. You wonder if Satan has ever told the truth. You wonder how habitually a person has to lie to earn this definition. In my line of work, I have met people that probably have met the criteria. It makes you wonder if they know what the truth is or if they have lied so much that they actually begin to believe it. They get to a point, where they are so saturated with the lies, that truth makes no sense, honesty has no purpose, and reality becomes lost.

Over the last 4 years, doing these reflections, I have talked a lot about Truth and the Catholic Church. Most of the reflections revolve around the idea that having more than one truth or truths that contradict each other is not rational, biblical, or what Christ taught. Yet, that is what the world and many Christians want and is striving to obtain. A world where there is no Truth, but what you believe is truth. The world is becoming more and more “mendacious”. Which makes all the sense in the world when you know that the world is Satan’s domain. And the more we lie to each other, to ourselves, about what is right, that there is a Truth, the more we will become saturated in our lies and Truth will be harder and harder to see. Truth should be what we seek, but when we fed only lies, we lose the taste for truth, it becomes bitter in our mouth. That is why the world doesn’t want to hear abortion is wrong, that gay marriage will destroy families, that contraception dissolves morality. Truth taste bitter when you have lived off lies for so long. But we are called to feast on the Truth, to choke down the bitter taste, knowing it is better for us. The equivalent of “eat your vegetables”. That is what Christ brought us, gives us, ask us to do and to tell the world.