IF PIGS COULD FLY

A REFLECTION FOR LOW SUNDAY

This Sunday’s Gospel tells the tale of St. Thomas the Apostle—Doubting Thomas.  There’s a story told of another St. Thomas who seems to be the direct opposite of his namesake.  This was the great theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the story provides, through his apparently mistaken credulousness, with a different perspective about having faith…

St. Thomas Aquinas was in his priory one day, when he noticed some of the other friars standing over by the window, chuckling amongst themselves and looking through the window up into the heavens.  “Come quickly!” they called to Thomas, “look up there in the sky!  There’s a pig flying up there!”  And St. Thomas ran to the window and looked up.  Of course, there was no flying pig, and the other friars were highly amused at their friend’s credulity.

They asked him how on earth he could have believed that pigs could fly, and his response contains a good lesson for all of us.  “I’d rather believe,” he said, “that pigs can fly, than believe that my brothers could tell a lie.”

When I first heard the story, I wondered what was going on with such a smart doctor of the Church as St. Thomas when he made this surprising response to the prank played on him.  On the face of it, he seems to be saying that we should believe without question everything people tell us.  But of course, that wouldn’t make sense at all, and St. Thomas Aquinas of all people knew that.  On the contrary, he questioned everything that human beings had to say about the things of God, and his list of Quaestiones form the great Summa Theologica, which is the standard theology text in traditional seminaries even today.

St. Thomas’s point was simply this—that we should tell the truth at all times.  If everyone always told the truth, we would never have to question anyone’s veracity, only whether or not they had make an inadvertent mistake in what they said.  The world would certainly be a simpler and better place if we could trust everything we read and hear, and not have to resort to cynical disbelief as our default response to everything we’re told.

Alas, we cannot change the world.  But we can change our own behavior.  If we, at least, tell the truth at all times, we will develop a reputation for being trustworthy.  People will recognize that when we speak, we mean what we say, and they can take it as being factual, or at the very least, sincere.  Lying is sinful because it is opposed to our Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  And the only way to achieve Life eternal, is by maintaining the Truth along the Way.