390- The Fish and the Cat

While Mark and Michael were playing, Michael dragged the tablecloth. Therefore, the vas fell down and was broken. Then, Mark said to his brother, “Mom will punish you, as she likes this vas so much.”

“I’m obliged to lie and say that the cat broke it. Will you witness for this?”

“No, we aren’t used to lying.”

“But I don’t want to sadden Mom or be punished.”

“She’ll be more sad when she discovers that you lied.”

“How?”

“Lying will never save you and everything concealed shall be revealed. If we lie we become Satan’s sons for, “He is a liar and the father of it” (John 8.44). Do you know the story of the fish and the cat?”⁽²⁾

“No, tell me about it.”

A fisherman took a fish weighing seven pounds to a rich man to sell it to him. The rich man paid its price and asked him to send it to his house. When the man’s wife saw it, she phoned her brother and invited him to dinner, as she knew that he liked fish. In the evening, the rich man went home. When his wife served him supper, he was surprised not to find the fish served. Therefore, he asked, “Why didn’t you cook the fish?”

“I prepared it to be cooked. As I was busy talking on the phone, the cat ate it all.”

“Did the cat ate it all?”

“Don’t you believe me?”

The man took the cat and weighed it. It weighed seven pounds. Then, he said to his wife, “The fish weighs seven pounds. Then, what’s this, the cat or the fish which she ate?”

Then, the wife was ashamed of herself since lying did not save her the trouble.

→ English translation of the story here at St-Takla.org: سمكة أم قطة؟!

+ Grant me the spirit of truth.

Then, I could not tell a lie.

+ Uproot from me lying,

So that I would not be a son to Satan the father of it,

But a son to You O the Truth.

Footnotes and references for this page here at St-Takla.org:

(2) Bennett, J. William. The Moral Compass.·

Following her Steps

Short Stories (Stories for the Youth) Books by Father Tadros Yacoub Malaty

The Traces of the Nails