[7] After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, unaware of what had happened. [8] Peter said to her, "Tell me, did you sell the land for this amount?" She answered, "Yes, for that amount." [9] Then Peter said to her, "Why did you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen, the footsteps of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out." [10] At once, she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men entered they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. [11] And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.
(CCC 2469) "Men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another" (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II 109, 3 ad 1). The virtue of truth gives another his just due. Truthfulness keeps to the just mean between what ought to be expressed and what ought to be kept secret: it entails honesty and discretion. In justice, "as a matter of honor, one man owes it to another to manifest the truth" (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 109, 3, corp. art). (CCC 2446) St. John Chrysostom vigorously recalls this: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs" (St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in Lazaro 2, 5: PG 48, 992). "The demands of justice must be satisfied first of all; that which is already due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity" (AA 8 § 5): When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice (St. Gregory the Great, Regula Pastoralis. 3, 21: PL 77, 87).
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