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Preface
The future welfare of both Church and state depends chiefly on the manner in which the rising generation is brought up, for if all parents were to give their children a good religious training, the future prosperity of both Church and state would be assured, because a good religious training will make children good Christians, and, as experience proves, good Christians are always good citizens. In our "Popular Instructions on Marriage" we have briefly outlined the duties of parents in the bringing up of their children. In this little work we enter more fully into details, and clearly point out, almost step by step, the manner in which Christian parents should bring up their children from birth to the time when they embrace that state of life for which God has destined them. May this little book prove useful in directing and assisting parents in the proper performance of the noble but difficult task of making their children exemplary Christians and virtuous citizens!
Chapter One - The Parental Rights and Obligations
Dear Christian parents, your responsibility as parents is indeed great. As individuals, you are answerable for your own souls; but as parents, you shall be required to give the Sovereign Judge a strict account of the souls of your children. It is your sacred duty so to train your children that they may become not merely good citizens and useful members of society, but more especially faithful members of Christ's body on earth, viz., the holy Catholic Church, in order that after this life they may be saints in God's heavenly kingdom. If they become good practical Christians, they will most certainly prove useful to society, and be law abiding and patriotic citizens.
Comparatively few parents thoroughly appreciate the full extent of their responsibility. Were young men and young women, before marriage, fully to realize the extent of the obligations incumbent on parents, many would shrink from entering a state so encumbered with duties and cross. In the bringing up of children both the father and mother should act in concert. If you neglect your parental duties in whole or in part, or if in their discharge you act separately from, or in opposition to each other, the tree of your marriage will produce only thorns and thistles, and your children will be neither good Christians nor useful citizens, and, far from becoming the prop and consolation of your old age, they will bring down your gray hair with sorrow to the tomb.
You ought to be firmly persuaded of the great truth, that your children belong, in the first place, not to yourselves, but to God. It is He who gives them to you and takes them back when He pleases. God only lends your children to you: He entrusts them to you as so many precious talents, for which you are strictly accountable to His infinite justice. In Europe especially, infidels and Freemasons, maliciously subverting the order of nature established by the Creator, seek to concentrate all rights and powers in what they are pleased to call " the state." They most erroneously assert that the child belongs, not to his parents, but to the state; and, out of hatred of the Christian religion, they dare to claim for the state the exclusive right of educating the children in state or public schools. If, as they say, the child belongs to the state, the child's parents being themselves the children of their own parents, must likewise be the property of the state; and therefore we no longer have any freemen, but all men are the chattels or the slaves of the state! And as in some countries the masons and infidels claim to be the state, it would seem that they modestly (?) claim to own and dispose of their fellowmen just as they please. If, according to the masonic doctrine, both the child and his parents belong to the state, the state is obliged, not merely to educate the children, but also to feed, clothe, lodge, and provide with the comforts of life both the children and their parents—just as the state is now doing in its institutions for paupers and criminals! Such a doctrine, however, is evidently false and absurd, and utterly subversive of the order of nature.
Let us never lose sight of the grand fact that the state is composed, not of single individuals, but of' families. Without families, that is, with individuals only, the state could not be perpetuated, but would soon become extinct. To endure, the state must be composed of families i.e., of the parents and their children. Hence the unit of society or the state is the family, and not the isolated individual, just as the individual is the unit of the family. From this it follows that the family as an institution antedates the state, for, as everybody knows, every compound is posterior to its components. This being the case, the natural and logical conclusion is that the family has natural and essential rights which the state is bound to respect and even to protect; for these rights are inalienable, and independent of the state, because they are, as we have seen, prior to the state. Among these natural and essential rights of the family are the indissoluble union of husband and wife in matrimony, and the parental rights over the children.
The parental rights are derived from God Himself, the Author of nature and the Institutor of matrimony and the family. These rights, being only delegated by Him to the parents, are not unlimited and arbitrary; but they are defined, and accompanied by certain indispensable obligations. When the parents utterly neglect these sacred obligations, or are incompetent, or physically unable to discharge them properly, the state and other lawful authorities may, each within its own respective sphere, step in to assume control of the children. The state may enact just and equitable laws concerning marriage and education, but only in so far as these entail civil rights or effects; but said laws must in no wise usurp or antagonize the natural rights of the family or of the parents. The laws which in any way encroach on these essential and rights are unlawful, unjust, tyrannical, and not at all binding; and no one can, without gross and unpardonable injustice, be compelled to observe them or to submit to them.
Comparatively few parents thoroughly appreciate the full extent of their responsibility. Were young men and young women, before marriage, fully to realize the extent of the obligations incumbent on parents, many would shrink from entering a state so encumbered with duties and cross. In the bringing up of children both the father and mother should act in concert. If you neglect your parental duties in whole or in part, or if in their discharge you act separately from, or in opposition to each other, the tree of your marriage will produce only thorns and thistles, and your children will be neither good Christians nor useful citizens, and, far from becoming the prop and consolation of your old age, they will bring down your gray hair with sorrow to the tomb.
You ought to be firmly persuaded of the great truth, that your children belong, in the first place, not to yourselves, but to God. It is He who gives them to you and takes them back when He pleases. God only lends your children to you: He entrusts them to you as so many precious talents, for which you are strictly accountable to His infinite justice. In Europe especially, infidels and Freemasons, maliciously subverting the order of nature established by the Creator, seek to concentrate all rights and powers in what they are pleased to call " the state." They most erroneously assert that the child belongs, not to his parents, but to the state; and, out of hatred of the Christian religion, they dare to claim for the state the exclusive right of educating the children in state or public schools. If, as they say, the child belongs to the state, the child's parents being themselves the children of their own parents, must likewise be the property of the state; and therefore we no longer have any freemen, but all men are the chattels or the slaves of the state! And as in some countries the masons and infidels claim to be the state, it would seem that they modestly (?) claim to own and dispose of their fellowmen just as they please. If, according to the masonic doctrine, both the child and his parents belong to the state, the state is obliged, not merely to educate the children, but also to feed, clothe, lodge, and provide with the comforts of life both the children and their parents—just as the state is now doing in its institutions for paupers and criminals! Such a doctrine, however, is evidently false and absurd, and utterly subversive of the order of nature.
Let us never lose sight of the grand fact that the state is composed, not of single individuals, but of' families. Without families, that is, with individuals only, the state could not be perpetuated, but would soon become extinct. To endure, the state must be composed of families i.e., of the parents and their children. Hence the unit of society or the state is the family, and not the isolated individual, just as the individual is the unit of the family. From this it follows that the family as an institution antedates the state, for, as everybody knows, every compound is posterior to its components. This being the case, the natural and logical conclusion is that the family has natural and essential rights which the state is bound to respect and even to protect; for these rights are inalienable, and independent of the state, because they are, as we have seen, prior to the state. Among these natural and essential rights of the family are the indissoluble union of husband and wife in matrimony, and the parental rights over the children.
The parental rights are derived from God Himself, the Author of nature and the Institutor of matrimony and the family. These rights, being only delegated by Him to the parents, are not unlimited and arbitrary; but they are defined, and accompanied by certain indispensable obligations. When the parents utterly neglect these sacred obligations, or are incompetent, or physically unable to discharge them properly, the state and other lawful authorities may, each within its own respective sphere, step in to assume control of the children. The state may enact just and equitable laws concerning marriage and education, but only in so far as these entail civil rights or effects; but said laws must in no wise usurp or antagonize the natural rights of the family or of the parents. The laws which in any way encroach on these essential and rights are unlawful, unjust, tyrannical, and not at all binding; and no one can, without gross and unpardonable injustice, be compelled to observe them or to submit to them.
Chapter Two - The Two Classes of Parental Duties
The state, we have seen, is composed of families. Every family has a head—the father. The mother is the natural companion and helpmate of the father, and shares his authority and duties. The parental authority is derived, as we have seen, not from the state, but from God Himself. Parents are, then, independent of the state in their natural rights over their children.
Your parental authority, dear parents, imposes on you two classes of duties towards your children. One class of duties regards the bodies and the temporal welfare of your children; the other concerns their spiritual and eternal welfare. These latter duties, being by far the most important, necessarily hold the first place; and the former obtain only a secondary importance, and must always remain subordinate to the latter.
Your first duty towards the bodies and the temporal welfare of your children is to protect and preserve their life. To seek to limit the number of your children by certain practices now in vogue is a most heinous crime. Read the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, and you will see how the divine vengeance overtook Onan for doing a detestable thing” Onan's conduct was bad enough, but it did not amount to the murder of the innocents a crime which threatens to become as common among men pretending to be enlightened Christians as it was among the immoral pagans of old. The flames of hell cannot burn too fiercely for those Christians who commit such enormous crimes in order to indulge their animal passions without restraint and escape the burden of parentage. Such persons are worse than brutes. The divine vengeance will not fail, sooner or later, to overtake them.
Next to life, you owe your children necessary food, clothing, and shelter, according to your means. You should be ready to endure sufferings and privations yourselves rather than allow your little ones to be a prey to the pangs of hunger or the inclemency of the weather. The slothful, drunken, gambling, and dissipated parent who neglects to provide his children with the necessaries of life, or who deserts them, is an inhuman wretch, deserving of the execration of mankind and of the terrible justice of an avenging God.
You ought also to care for both the cleanliness and health of your children. When these are sick, both of you, that is, both the father and mother, should tenderly nurse them, sparing no labor, fatigue, or expense for their alleviation and restoration to health.
It behooves you not to lose sight of the great truth that man's first duty in this life is to serve God, and that he cannot attain his final end, that is, perfect and endless happiness, unless he faithfully serve God. To serve God means to submit our whole being to Him and to His holy law, to submit to Him our body and its senses, our soul and its faculties; in a word, to regulate all our thoughts, words, and actions in accordance with His commandments. If we willfully break a single divine commandment in some important point, although we may faithfully keep the others, we forfeit our salvation, according to the saying of St. James. This may be made clear by the following illustration: A man may not meet death by drowning, by disease, by a fall or some other accident, or by hanging himself, cutting his throat, or blowing out his brains; yet if he refuses all nourishment, or takes a sufficient quantity of poison, he will surely die. In like manner, a man may not deserve hell for cursing, for perjury, for theft, for adultery, or for drunkenness, if he refrain from these vices; nevertheless, if he fail to perform his religious duties or to discharge the obligations of his state of life, he is most assuredly deserving of eternal reprobation.
Your parental authority, dear parents, imposes on you two classes of duties towards your children. One class of duties regards the bodies and the temporal welfare of your children; the other concerns their spiritual and eternal welfare. These latter duties, being by far the most important, necessarily hold the first place; and the former obtain only a secondary importance, and must always remain subordinate to the latter.
Your first duty towards the bodies and the temporal welfare of your children is to protect and preserve their life. To seek to limit the number of your children by certain practices now in vogue is a most heinous crime. Read the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, and you will see how the divine vengeance overtook Onan for doing a detestable thing” Onan's conduct was bad enough, but it did not amount to the murder of the innocents a crime which threatens to become as common among men pretending to be enlightened Christians as it was among the immoral pagans of old. The flames of hell cannot burn too fiercely for those Christians who commit such enormous crimes in order to indulge their animal passions without restraint and escape the burden of parentage. Such persons are worse than brutes. The divine vengeance will not fail, sooner or later, to overtake them.
Next to life, you owe your children necessary food, clothing, and shelter, according to your means. You should be ready to endure sufferings and privations yourselves rather than allow your little ones to be a prey to the pangs of hunger or the inclemency of the weather. The slothful, drunken, gambling, and dissipated parent who neglects to provide his children with the necessaries of life, or who deserts them, is an inhuman wretch, deserving of the execration of mankind and of the terrible justice of an avenging God.
You ought also to care for both the cleanliness and health of your children. When these are sick, both of you, that is, both the father and mother, should tenderly nurse them, sparing no labor, fatigue, or expense for their alleviation and restoration to health.
It behooves you not to lose sight of the great truth that man's first duty in this life is to serve God, and that he cannot attain his final end, that is, perfect and endless happiness, unless he faithfully serve God. To serve God means to submit our whole being to Him and to His holy law, to submit to Him our body and its senses, our soul and its faculties; in a word, to regulate all our thoughts, words, and actions in accordance with His commandments. If we willfully break a single divine commandment in some important point, although we may faithfully keep the others, we forfeit our salvation, according to the saying of St. James. This may be made clear by the following illustration: A man may not meet death by drowning, by disease, by a fall or some other accident, or by hanging himself, cutting his throat, or blowing out his brains; yet if he refuses all nourishment, or takes a sufficient quantity of poison, he will surely die. In like manner, a man may not deserve hell for cursing, for perjury, for theft, for adultery, or for drunkenness, if he refrain from these vices; nevertheless, if he fail to perform his religious duties or to discharge the obligations of his state of life, he is most assuredly deserving of eternal reprobation.
Chapter Three - Faith and the Fear of God
Without the knowledge and practice of faith there can be no true wisdom. Genuine practical wisdom has its source in the fear of the Lord, for the royal prophet says, "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord” (Ps. ex, 10). But the fear of the Lord can be found only in the knowledge and practice of the true faith.
The advocates of the public school system of education—among whom are found not a few Catholics who take this position because they ignore their holy religion or desire to please the world—maintain that ignorance is the cause of crime. If they meant ignorance of the true religion, we might let their assertion pass; but the ignorance they mean is illiteracy, or ignorance of secular and profane sciences. Their assertion is, however, utterly false, as has been repeatedly proved by the Catholic press throughout the land. It is not secular ignorance that is the cause of crime, but it is godlessness, that is, the lack of the true knowledge and fear of God. The fear of God is alone, at all times, capable of curbing and restraining man's violent passions. A sad experience proves that where this wholesome fear is wanting, crime increases at a fearful rate. Has the universal diffusion of secular education in this country brought about the diminution of crime? No, not at all; read the daily papers, the proceedings of the courts, and you will be shocked at the daily increase of crime, both in frequency and malice, not only among the men, but even among the women; not only among the illiterate, but more especially among what are termed the "educated classes." Injustice, adultery, seduction, divorce, murder, and suicide are becoming so common, that one might suppose that the country is fast relapsing into the corruptions and abominations of ancient paganism. All this is but the natural result of the present godless system of education that obtains among almost all our people, except the Catholics who are devoted to their holy religion. An illiterate godless person is bad enough; but an educated godless person is incomparably the more to be dreaded, because his superior know-ledge furnishes him with superior means and numberless expedients to devise and execute, in a wholesale manner, deeds of darkness, and at the same time to evade the clutches of human justice, and even to continue to move in respectable society! An illiterate godless person may by violent means steal small sums of money but it takes the smart, educated godless person, in places of trust, power, and influence, to steal millions by apparently lawful means, and to commit other crimes of rare malice and refinement, and to be able at the same time, if not to secure absolute immunity, at least to defeat, in a great measure, the ends of justice. The greater scourge and curse of society is not the godless ignoramus, but the godless refined and educated gentleman! Godlessness, however, proceeds from the want of a lively faith and a lack of the fear of God. We are therefore justified in asserting that the principal source of crime is religious ignorance and neglect.
Your first duty, then, as parents, is to bring up your children in godliness, that is, in the knowledge and fear of God. To discharge this sacred and indispensable duty, it behooves you to impart to your children a good and sound religious education both in theory and in practice.
You should have your children baptized as soon as possible, that is, within a week after their birth; in certain dangerous climates it is the rule to have them baptized within a month. It is very sinful to defer their baptism for a longer period of time than the aforemen-tioned.
You should prefer the services of a good, conscientious Catholic physician, and of a good, well instructed Catholic midwife, so that in case of danger private baptism may be duly administered to your little ones. You should, moreover, bear in mind that none but good, practical Catholics may stand as godparents to your children at baptism. It is your sacred duty to begin to teach your children the science of salvation from their earliest infancy. Teach them, first of all, to lisp the holy names of Jesus and Mary; and, as soon as they begin to learn to speak, gradually teach them how to make the sign of the cross, and to recite the "Our Father," the "Hail Mary," the Creed, the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition. Explain to them the meaning of the crucifix and of the holy pictures which you have, or which you should have, in your house. Inspire them with the love of God, with the horror of sin, with a tender devotion to "sweet Jesus and Mary." By the time they are old enough to be sent to school they ought to know not only all the ordinary prayers, but also the principal articles of faith and the obligations of a Christian. We shall develop this in the following chapters.
The advocates of the public school system of education—among whom are found not a few Catholics who take this position because they ignore their holy religion or desire to please the world—maintain that ignorance is the cause of crime. If they meant ignorance of the true religion, we might let their assertion pass; but the ignorance they mean is illiteracy, or ignorance of secular and profane sciences. Their assertion is, however, utterly false, as has been repeatedly proved by the Catholic press throughout the land. It is not secular ignorance that is the cause of crime, but it is godlessness, that is, the lack of the true knowledge and fear of God. The fear of God is alone, at all times, capable of curbing and restraining man's violent passions. A sad experience proves that where this wholesome fear is wanting, crime increases at a fearful rate. Has the universal diffusion of secular education in this country brought about the diminution of crime? No, not at all; read the daily papers, the proceedings of the courts, and you will be shocked at the daily increase of crime, both in frequency and malice, not only among the men, but even among the women; not only among the illiterate, but more especially among what are termed the "educated classes." Injustice, adultery, seduction, divorce, murder, and suicide are becoming so common, that one might suppose that the country is fast relapsing into the corruptions and abominations of ancient paganism. All this is but the natural result of the present godless system of education that obtains among almost all our people, except the Catholics who are devoted to their holy religion. An illiterate godless person is bad enough; but an educated godless person is incomparably the more to be dreaded, because his superior know-ledge furnishes him with superior means and numberless expedients to devise and execute, in a wholesale manner, deeds of darkness, and at the same time to evade the clutches of human justice, and even to continue to move in respectable society! An illiterate godless person may by violent means steal small sums of money but it takes the smart, educated godless person, in places of trust, power, and influence, to steal millions by apparently lawful means, and to commit other crimes of rare malice and refinement, and to be able at the same time, if not to secure absolute immunity, at least to defeat, in a great measure, the ends of justice. The greater scourge and curse of society is not the godless ignoramus, but the godless refined and educated gentleman! Godlessness, however, proceeds from the want of a lively faith and a lack of the fear of God. We are therefore justified in asserting that the principal source of crime is religious ignorance and neglect.
Your first duty, then, as parents, is to bring up your children in godliness, that is, in the knowledge and fear of God. To discharge this sacred and indispensable duty, it behooves you to impart to your children a good and sound religious education both in theory and in practice.
You should have your children baptized as soon as possible, that is, within a week after their birth; in certain dangerous climates it is the rule to have them baptized within a month. It is very sinful to defer their baptism for a longer period of time than the aforemen-tioned.
You should prefer the services of a good, conscientious Catholic physician, and of a good, well instructed Catholic midwife, so that in case of danger private baptism may be duly administered to your little ones. You should, moreover, bear in mind that none but good, practical Catholics may stand as godparents to your children at baptism. It is your sacred duty to begin to teach your children the science of salvation from their earliest infancy. Teach them, first of all, to lisp the holy names of Jesus and Mary; and, as soon as they begin to learn to speak, gradually teach them how to make the sign of the cross, and to recite the "Our Father," the "Hail Mary," the Creed, the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition. Explain to them the meaning of the crucifix and of the holy pictures which you have, or which you should have, in your house. Inspire them with the love of God, with the horror of sin, with a tender devotion to "sweet Jesus and Mary." By the time they are old enough to be sent to school they ought to know not only all the ordinary prayers, but also the principal articles of faith and the obligations of a Christian. We shall develop this in the following chapters.
Chapter Four - Religious Training at Home
Your principal duty as parents is, as we have said, to bring up your children in the holy love and fear of God. All your other duties are only secondary and subordinate to this one, and must never be allowed to interfere with it. You should, then, teach your children to love and fear God, and not to love and fear the world.
Charity is the greatest of the virtues: it is the life of the others. “Had we faith great enough to move mountains,” says St. Paul; “were we able to speak all the languages of angels and of men, and were we even to master all sciences, and be at the same time wanting in charity, in divine love,—all this would profit us nothing!” The love of God is the sum of all our duties, for, says St. Augustine, "love God, and do what you will."
You should show to your children that no one is more deserving of our love than God, the infinitely good, wise, bountiful, great, and perfect Being, who, without any merit on our part, has loved us from all eternity; who for our sake did not spare His own beloved Son, who loved us so exceedingly as to die for us the most cruel and disgraceful of deaths; who so lovingly bestows numberless favors on us every moment of our life; who so mercifully forgives us our sins; who so generously deigns to make us His children destining us forever to share His own unspeakable happiness and glory.
You should teach your children, from their tenderest years, all the claims which God has to their love, as well as their most sacred obligation of loving Him with their whole heart and soul, with all their mind and all their strength, and this not in words only, but sincerely and in deed. Since love is the union of wills, you should fully convince them that the true love of' God consists in having but one will with Him, in doing all that He commands, and in seeking to please Him in all things.
Nothing tends more to ennoble and exalt rational beings, and incite them to the performance of noble and heroic deeds than divine love. Tell your children how divine love imparted to millions of martyrs the strength to endure the most excruciating torments and undergo the most painful death; that it is the love of God which has enabled, and still daily enables, poor weak mortals to leave parents, home, friends, country, worldly goods, and bright prospects, and renounce the pleasures of sense, in order to lead a life of poverty, chastity, obedience, self denial, and self-sacrifice in the service of the poor, the ignorant, the sick, the wretched, and the outcasts of society, and daily perform those heroic deeds from which even the most bitter enemies of the Catholic Church cannot withhold the tribute of their admiration.
Those who have learned to love God above all things not only seek to please Him in all their actions but they dread to displease Him above every other evil. This is the fear of God. Your children should be most intimately persuaded that sin, being an offence against God, is the only real evil, and that therefore it behooves them to hate, dread, and shun it more than the loss of beauty, of health, of worldly goods, of liberty, of reputation, and even of life itself. You should indelibly impress it on their minds that they ought to avoid sin at any cost, and should be willing to lose all, to suffer all, to sacrifice all, rather than ever willfully offend God by a single sin, even if that sin could procure the salvation of the world!
You should make it plain to your children that they can have no excuse for committing sin not their feelings or their inclinations, not worldly interest, not worldly custom or fashion, not human opinions, not even the avoiding of the greatest temporal misfortunes, for sin is the greatest of all evils: it is indeed the only real evil.
You should not fail frequently to remind your children that God is everywhere present, that He witnesses and notes down not only their most secret actions, but even their most hidden thoughts and desires, and that He will, after their death, call them to a most rigorous account of all the thoughts, words, deeds, and omissions of their life. This will inspire them with a wholesome fear of the divine justice; but if you have endeavored to instill divine love into their hearts, that fear will not be a servile fear, that dreads only punishment, but it will be a childlike fear—the fear a dutiful and affectionate child has of displeasing and offending the best of parents.
Charity is the greatest of the virtues: it is the life of the others. “Had we faith great enough to move mountains,” says St. Paul; “were we able to speak all the languages of angels and of men, and were we even to master all sciences, and be at the same time wanting in charity, in divine love,—all this would profit us nothing!” The love of God is the sum of all our duties, for, says St. Augustine, "love God, and do what you will."
You should show to your children that no one is more deserving of our love than God, the infinitely good, wise, bountiful, great, and perfect Being, who, without any merit on our part, has loved us from all eternity; who for our sake did not spare His own beloved Son, who loved us so exceedingly as to die for us the most cruel and disgraceful of deaths; who so lovingly bestows numberless favors on us every moment of our life; who so mercifully forgives us our sins; who so generously deigns to make us His children destining us forever to share His own unspeakable happiness and glory.
You should teach your children, from their tenderest years, all the claims which God has to their love, as well as their most sacred obligation of loving Him with their whole heart and soul, with all their mind and all their strength, and this not in words only, but sincerely and in deed. Since love is the union of wills, you should fully convince them that the true love of' God consists in having but one will with Him, in doing all that He commands, and in seeking to please Him in all things.
Nothing tends more to ennoble and exalt rational beings, and incite them to the performance of noble and heroic deeds than divine love. Tell your children how divine love imparted to millions of martyrs the strength to endure the most excruciating torments and undergo the most painful death; that it is the love of God which has enabled, and still daily enables, poor weak mortals to leave parents, home, friends, country, worldly goods, and bright prospects, and renounce the pleasures of sense, in order to lead a life of poverty, chastity, obedience, self denial, and self-sacrifice in the service of the poor, the ignorant, the sick, the wretched, and the outcasts of society, and daily perform those heroic deeds from which even the most bitter enemies of the Catholic Church cannot withhold the tribute of their admiration.
Those who have learned to love God above all things not only seek to please Him in all their actions but they dread to displease Him above every other evil. This is the fear of God. Your children should be most intimately persuaded that sin, being an offence against God, is the only real evil, and that therefore it behooves them to hate, dread, and shun it more than the loss of beauty, of health, of worldly goods, of liberty, of reputation, and even of life itself. You should indelibly impress it on their minds that they ought to avoid sin at any cost, and should be willing to lose all, to suffer all, to sacrifice all, rather than ever willfully offend God by a single sin, even if that sin could procure the salvation of the world!
You should make it plain to your children that they can have no excuse for committing sin not their feelings or their inclinations, not worldly interest, not worldly custom or fashion, not human opinions, not even the avoiding of the greatest temporal misfortunes, for sin is the greatest of all evils: it is indeed the only real evil.
You should not fail frequently to remind your children that God is everywhere present, that He witnesses and notes down not only their most secret actions, but even their most hidden thoughts and desires, and that He will, after their death, call them to a most rigorous account of all the thoughts, words, deeds, and omissions of their life. This will inspire them with a wholesome fear of the divine justice; but if you have endeavored to instill divine love into their hearts, that fear will not be a servile fear, that dreads only punishment, but it will be a childlike fear—the fear a dutiful and affectionate child has of displeasing and offending the best of parents.
Chapter Five - Religious Training at Home - Continued
You should thoroughly educate your children both in the knowledge and the practice of faith. From their earliest infancy, as we have said, they should be taught the truths of faith, and be accustomed to the fulfillment of its obligations.
The origin and destiny of mankind should be deeply impressed on their minds. As they advance in years their religious training should be more and more thorough, until they become competent correctly to explain the principal doctrines of the Christian religion, and successfully to refute the ordinary and popular objections against them. They should be made aware that the true faith is the greatest gift that God can bestow on them in this life, and that they should prize their holy faith above every worldly good, and be ready, like the martyrs, to offer every sacrifice, even their own life, rather than deny or endanger their faith. But they should, above all, be made to live their faith, that is, constantly to regulate their conduct in accordance with its max ims, and conscientiously to discharge all the duties it imposes. In a word, you should spare no effort to render their faith a lively faith.
Your children ought, moreover, to become acquainted with the constitution and government of the Catholic church; with the principal points of her history; with the immense influence she was wielded over society, civilization, literature, the arts and sciences; with her wonderful victories over idolatry, pagan corruption, powerful persecutors, despotism, heresies and errors of all kinds, and false science. They should have some knowledge of the principal saints, heroes, learned men, missionaries, religious orders, pilgrimages, and charitable institutions of the Catholic Church.
For this purpose there ought to be a completely new series of textbooks for our schools and other educational establishments, for the present ones are deficient in many of these points. Hitherto our Catholic children have been kept in comparative ignorance concerning the glories of the Catholic Church, her beneficent influence over society, and her great, learned, noble, and virtuous men and women—the heroes and benefactors of the human race. The scientific, historical, and literary textbooks used in our Catholic institutions are, in not a few instances, reproductions of anti-Catholic publications, from which the more odious calumnies and errors have been eliminated, but are not yet wholly free from error and hostile misstatements, and which are mostly silent concerning what is most glorious to the Church and most dear to the Catholic heart.
One of the great faults in the present system of educating children is the neglect to accustom them to serious thought and reflection. Serious matters are seldom brought to their notice, and when so brought are usually presented in so superficial a manner, that they make but a slight impression, which is soon cast aside as disagreeable, or even entirely effaced from their minds. We need not wonder that the young of both sexes; especially the girls, are so light-minded, so vain, so attached to trifles, so averse to work, to serious reading or study, so powerless to control their feelings and passions, so fond of dress, pleasure, and amusements.
Among the many points on which you should lay particular stress in the education of your children you cannot too greatly insist on the vanity of this world and of all its goods and pleasures, and their utter inability to satisfy the human heart and impart true happiness. Your children should be most intimately persuaded that they are destined for something- far more noble and excellent than the enjoyment of the paltry goods and insipid pleasures of this life—a life so full of misery and bitterness, of sufferings and disappointments. All their thoughts and aspirations should be principally directed to the attainment of the heavenly goods and the unspeakable happiness for which God has created them. They ought to be firmly convinced that this world is a place of labor and trial; that this life is only a preparation for another and better life; that it is wrong to attach one's heart to earthly goods and joys; that it is their duty to use the temporal goods which God bestows on them only as means of acquiring the goods of eternity. You should teach them to seek, not so much riches, beauty, honors, learning, and pleasure, but rather virtue and supernatural merit.
Often repeat to them the words of our divine Saviour: "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?"
But these are not the only serious thoughts you should urge upon the consideration of your children. You ought frequently to remind them that death puts an end to all earthly beauty, riches, honors, and pleasures; that it does not spare any one; that it may come at any moment; that it will most assuredly come sooner than they imagine, to separate them from everything they hold most dear on earth; that it will reduce their bodies to a hideous mass of corruption; that the hour of death is the terrible moment on which their eternity will depend, and that after death they shall be required to give a most rigorous account of all the thoughts, words, and deeds of their whole life to the all-seeing and most just Judge, who forever rewards the good in heaven and punishes the wicked in hell. These wholesome truths, however disagreeable to the animal man, will, if frequently recalled to their minds, preserve them in the path of duty, for, says the Holy Ghost, "remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin." These serious considerations will serve them as powerful incentives to resist and overcome temptations, to practice virtue, and to lay up a treasure of good works for the next life.
In the next place, you ought to teach your children to consider God, not as a Being who is far away and does not care for them, but as their most loving Father, their most generous benefactor, and their last end, in whose infinite goodness they should place all their trust, to whom they, with childlike confidence, should daily and even hourly have recourse in all their wants, asking forgiveness for their shortcomings, and expecting grace and strength faithfully to perform their duty and acquire life everlasting.
Your children should be intimately persuaded that they belong wholly to God, and are therefore bound in conscience to serve Him, that is, to labor daily in His service, to offer Him all their thoughts, words, and deeds, and cheerfully accept and patiently bear all the sufferings, crosses, and trials He may send them as means of atoning for their sins, and gaining merit for eternal life. They ought to be constantly reminded of the absolute necessity and unfailing efficacy of prayer as a means of salvation; and nothing should be left undone to inspire them with love for this holy exercise. You cannot insist too much on this important subject, for, as St. Alphonsus clearly proves, prayer is the key of salvation; those who pray are saved, whilst those who do not pray are lost.
The origin and destiny of mankind should be deeply impressed on their minds. As they advance in years their religious training should be more and more thorough, until they become competent correctly to explain the principal doctrines of the Christian religion, and successfully to refute the ordinary and popular objections against them. They should be made aware that the true faith is the greatest gift that God can bestow on them in this life, and that they should prize their holy faith above every worldly good, and be ready, like the martyrs, to offer every sacrifice, even their own life, rather than deny or endanger their faith. But they should, above all, be made to live their faith, that is, constantly to regulate their conduct in accordance with its max ims, and conscientiously to discharge all the duties it imposes. In a word, you should spare no effort to render their faith a lively faith.
Your children ought, moreover, to become acquainted with the constitution and government of the Catholic church; with the principal points of her history; with the immense influence she was wielded over society, civilization, literature, the arts and sciences; with her wonderful victories over idolatry, pagan corruption, powerful persecutors, despotism, heresies and errors of all kinds, and false science. They should have some knowledge of the principal saints, heroes, learned men, missionaries, religious orders, pilgrimages, and charitable institutions of the Catholic Church.
For this purpose there ought to be a completely new series of textbooks for our schools and other educational establishments, for the present ones are deficient in many of these points. Hitherto our Catholic children have been kept in comparative ignorance concerning the glories of the Catholic Church, her beneficent influence over society, and her great, learned, noble, and virtuous men and women—the heroes and benefactors of the human race. The scientific, historical, and literary textbooks used in our Catholic institutions are, in not a few instances, reproductions of anti-Catholic publications, from which the more odious calumnies and errors have been eliminated, but are not yet wholly free from error and hostile misstatements, and which are mostly silent concerning what is most glorious to the Church and most dear to the Catholic heart.
One of the great faults in the present system of educating children is the neglect to accustom them to serious thought and reflection. Serious matters are seldom brought to their notice, and when so brought are usually presented in so superficial a manner, that they make but a slight impression, which is soon cast aside as disagreeable, or even entirely effaced from their minds. We need not wonder that the young of both sexes; especially the girls, are so light-minded, so vain, so attached to trifles, so averse to work, to serious reading or study, so powerless to control their feelings and passions, so fond of dress, pleasure, and amusements.
Among the many points on which you should lay particular stress in the education of your children you cannot too greatly insist on the vanity of this world and of all its goods and pleasures, and their utter inability to satisfy the human heart and impart true happiness. Your children should be most intimately persuaded that they are destined for something- far more noble and excellent than the enjoyment of the paltry goods and insipid pleasures of this life—a life so full of misery and bitterness, of sufferings and disappointments. All their thoughts and aspirations should be principally directed to the attainment of the heavenly goods and the unspeakable happiness for which God has created them. They ought to be firmly convinced that this world is a place of labor and trial; that this life is only a preparation for another and better life; that it is wrong to attach one's heart to earthly goods and joys; that it is their duty to use the temporal goods which God bestows on them only as means of acquiring the goods of eternity. You should teach them to seek, not so much riches, beauty, honors, learning, and pleasure, but rather virtue and supernatural merit.
Often repeat to them the words of our divine Saviour: "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?"
But these are not the only serious thoughts you should urge upon the consideration of your children. You ought frequently to remind them that death puts an end to all earthly beauty, riches, honors, and pleasures; that it does not spare any one; that it may come at any moment; that it will most assuredly come sooner than they imagine, to separate them from everything they hold most dear on earth; that it will reduce their bodies to a hideous mass of corruption; that the hour of death is the terrible moment on which their eternity will depend, and that after death they shall be required to give a most rigorous account of all the thoughts, words, and deeds of their whole life to the all-seeing and most just Judge, who forever rewards the good in heaven and punishes the wicked in hell. These wholesome truths, however disagreeable to the animal man, will, if frequently recalled to their minds, preserve them in the path of duty, for, says the Holy Ghost, "remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin." These serious considerations will serve them as powerful incentives to resist and overcome temptations, to practice virtue, and to lay up a treasure of good works for the next life.
In the next place, you ought to teach your children to consider God, not as a Being who is far away and does not care for them, but as their most loving Father, their most generous benefactor, and their last end, in whose infinite goodness they should place all their trust, to whom they, with childlike confidence, should daily and even hourly have recourse in all their wants, asking forgiveness for their shortcomings, and expecting grace and strength faithfully to perform their duty and acquire life everlasting.
Your children should be intimately persuaded that they belong wholly to God, and are therefore bound in conscience to serve Him, that is, to labor daily in His service, to offer Him all their thoughts, words, and deeds, and cheerfully accept and patiently bear all the sufferings, crosses, and trials He may send them as means of atoning for their sins, and gaining merit for eternal life. They ought to be constantly reminded of the absolute necessity and unfailing efficacy of prayer as a means of salvation; and nothing should be left undone to inspire them with love for this holy exercise. You cannot insist too much on this important subject, for, as St. Alphonsus clearly proves, prayer is the key of salvation; those who pray are saved, whilst those who do not pray are lost.
Chapter Six - What the Children Should be Taught to Avoid
1. Occasions of Sin - Since it is of the greatest importance that your children should avoid sin and lead a virtuous life, it is your sacred duty to strive to impress deeply on their minds the necessity of avoiding the occasions of sin. Just as you carefully guard your children from frequenting persons and places infected with contagious diseases, lest they contract said diseases and thus endanger their corporal life, so also you should bestow even greater care to preserve their spiritual life by keeping them from all companions, from all per-sons, from all places, from all amusements, and from all reading which may prove dangerous to their faith, to their purity, to their sobriety, and to their honesty. Explain to them that it is a sin, and often a grievous sin, for them to frequent such occasions of sin, for just as it is a grievous sin rashly to expose one's corporal life to a very great and probably fatal danger, so it is a sin even still more grievous to expose one's salvation unnecessarily to a proximate occasion of mortal sin. Often remind your children of these words of the Holy Ghost: "He that loveth danger shall perish therein" (Ecclus. III. 27). The neglect of parents in removing their children from the occasions of sin, and their failure to impress deeply on their young minds the fearful dangers of such occasions, are the cause of the wicked life and the eternal ruin of thousands of children.
2. Human respect - leads many astray who would otherwise remain good and exemplary Christians. You should therefore engrave it deeply on the minds of your children that it behooves them to avoid sin and do their duty, no matter what others may do, no matter what others may think or say, no matter how much ridicule others may cast on them for it. Show them that there never is any disgrace in doing what is right or in being laughed at by worldlings for doing one's duty, but that the moral cowardice which yields to human respect by neglecting one's duty, by committing sin just to please others, just to escape ridicule, is most disgraceful. Explain to them how unreasonable, how foolish, and how dangerous it is for them to suffer themselves to be guided by the opinions of those whose views deserve no respect, on account of their worldly-mindedness and dissipated and even vicious life. Explain to them how noble he is who has the moral courage to trample human respect under foot and despise and the ridicule of such persons, and who shows himself a lover of duty and virtue. Remind them that even the wicked themselves cannot withhold their esteem and admiration from those who have the courage to practice virtue and shun every sinful act and occasion.
Moral courage is, without doubt, far superior to physical courage and far more worthy of admiration. For, indeed, how noble and praiseworthy are those young men and young women who are true to the dictates of their conscience and faithful to duty in spite of the bad example, the ridicule, and the sneers of those with whom they are compelled to associate! In this connection often repeat to your children these words of our divine Saviour: "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven." (Matt. x. 32, 33.) This means that those who have the moral courage to practice their religion in spite of the opinions and ridicule of the evil-minded will be acknowledged by our divine Saviour as His true disciples, as d serving of heavenly reward, whilst the moral cowards who neglect their duties to please men to escape being laughed at, shall be excluded from heavenly bliss.
3. Lying and Deceit - See that your children shun all lying and deceit. Tell them that God is truth itself, whilst the devil is, as Our Lord calls him, "the father of lies." "Truth is not in him [the devil], ... he is a liar and the father thereof." (John viii. 44.) The quotation of these words will render it easy for you to explain to your children that those who tell lies, who try to deceive others, cannot please God, who is truth itself, but greatly displease Him, since they perform the works of the devil, the father of lies. Engrave deeply on their minds from their tenderest infancy the necessity of being always truthful, of never seeking to deceive, of carefully avoiding even the smallest lies. Explain to them that lying is disgraceful before both God and men, that it is always wrong to tell a lie, and that they should never tell the least lie under any pretext whatever, were they even capable of thereby saving their own life. If you catch them telling a lie or deceiving you or others, be sure to punish them severely for it. But all your instructions and admonitions concerning this important matter will, of course, avail nothing if you yourselves do not most conscientiously avoid all lying and deceit, and adhere to the simple truth in all things and under all circumstances. Finally, impress deeply on the minds of your children the necessity of making a sincere confession, and the peculiar heinousness of lying and deceit in the Sacrament of Penance.
4. Faults against Charity and Justice - Teach your children to avoid faults against charity. Clearly explain to them how sinful it is to backbite one's neighbor, to exaggerate his faults, to carry tales, to turn him or his physical and moral defects into ridicule, to indulge in excessive teasing or rough treatment, to engage in quarrels, to say or do anything to hurt the feelings of others. Insist on their avoiding all rude behavior and excessive boisterousness, and on their being polite and civil towards everybody, and especially towards their elders, and even towards their companions. See that they respect the property of others, and severely punish whatever faults they may commit in wantonly taking, breaking, defacing, injuring, or destroying what belongs to others; and, if they have done any injury to their neighbor's property or goods, be sure to oblige them to make due reparation. Teach your children never to appropriate to themselves anything either at home or elsewhere without due permission.
5. Sins of the Tongue - Do not fail severely to punish your children whenever they are guilty of cursing, and more especially whenever they utter obscene words or commit obscene actions, Leave nothing undone to correct them of any bad habit which they may have contracted in these points. Frequently admonish them of the great reverence due to God's holy name and to all holy things, and of the sinfulness to wish evil to their neighbor. Tell them that Our Lord considers as done to Himself whatever we do to our neighbor, and that those who wish evil to their neighbor deserve, as a just punishment, that the same evil should befall them.
Inspire them with a disgust and horror of everything impure, showing them how degrading the vice of impurity is, and how carefully everything leading to it should be shunned. You should use every available means to deter them from every word, every look, and every deed that may in the least offend Christian modesty, and should never let any fault against this virtue go unpunished. Oh! how many children have gone astray, have degraded themselves below the level of the brute, and have brought disgrace to their parents and their family, because their parents failed to watch over their morals and to punish them for transgressing the rules of Christian propriety and modesty! What answer will such criminally negligent parents give to the just Judge of mankind when He will demand of them a most strict account of the souls of their children?
6. Vanity - It is of great importance to the spiritual and temporal welfare of your children that you should warn them against vanity. Teach your daughters especially that a handsome face and form, beautiful dress, and costly jewelry do not add merit to any one, and that many girls have been ruined both temporally and eternally for indulging in vanity, since it was for them the occasion of falling into sin and disgrace. Explain to them that a beautiful exterior and fine dress often hide a heart that is defiled by impurity, and is an object of horror and disgust to God and His angels. Remind them that that face, that body of which they are so proud, and which they take such great pains to adorn, shall one day become the food of worms and a disgusting mass of corruption.
Put them in mind that God regards not the perishable beauty of the body, but the beauty of a pure and virtuous soul, and that a homely and poorly dressed girl whose heart is pure is more pleasing to God than the handsomest and most richly dressed girl whose heart is worldly and not adorned with modesty.
That your words may be more effective, add practice to precept, and do not dress your daughters extravagantly. This point you should especially take to heart on two solemn occasions, viz., your daughters first holy communion and their wedding. Use every means in your power to prepare them for both of these great occasions, not by indulging their vanity and striving to have them outshine others by a greater display of rich finery, but by inspiring them with the Christian Dispositions necessary for the worthy reception of these great sacraments. Adorn their souls rather than their bodies. It is hardly possible that your daughters should have any devotion on those memorable occasions if your whole care has been to adorn their corruptible bodies, whilst you paid little or no attention to the adornment of their souls.
7. Idleness—It behooves you to see that your children shun idleness, which is the parent of vice, or, as St. John Chrysostom designates it, the devil's pillow. Sloth is especially dangerous in the young of both sexes when their passions are beginning to assert themselves. Strive never to leave them alone without some employment to occupy their minds, and thus prevent the entrance of temptation therein. There is a saying that an idle person needs no devil to tempt him, for his passions will surely do so, and will do it much more dangerously than the devil could tempt him. We learn from experience that the temptations arising from our passions are both more violent and more dangerous than those which proceed from either the world or the devil.
It is well if your children are fatigued when they retire to rest at night, for they will then soon fall asleep and sleep soundly, and thus escape many a temptation. Accustom your children to rise early, and not to yield to sloth when they are summoned to rise. Teach them that is precious in both a temporal and a spiritual sense; that it is given to them by God principally as a means to save their immortal souls; that time well employed will purchase eternal bliss in heaven for them, whilst the abuse or killing of time will endanger their salvation.
See that your children always punctually and carefully perform their allotted tasks, telling them that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well. In a word, accustom your children to be conscientious in the discharge of their duties, and to be always usefully employed.
2. Human respect - leads many astray who would otherwise remain good and exemplary Christians. You should therefore engrave it deeply on the minds of your children that it behooves them to avoid sin and do their duty, no matter what others may do, no matter what others may think or say, no matter how much ridicule others may cast on them for it. Show them that there never is any disgrace in doing what is right or in being laughed at by worldlings for doing one's duty, but that the moral cowardice which yields to human respect by neglecting one's duty, by committing sin just to please others, just to escape ridicule, is most disgraceful. Explain to them how unreasonable, how foolish, and how dangerous it is for them to suffer themselves to be guided by the opinions of those whose views deserve no respect, on account of their worldly-mindedness and dissipated and even vicious life. Explain to them how noble he is who has the moral courage to trample human respect under foot and despise and the ridicule of such persons, and who shows himself a lover of duty and virtue. Remind them that even the wicked themselves cannot withhold their esteem and admiration from those who have the courage to practice virtue and shun every sinful act and occasion.
Moral courage is, without doubt, far superior to physical courage and far more worthy of admiration. For, indeed, how noble and praiseworthy are those young men and young women who are true to the dictates of their conscience and faithful to duty in spite of the bad example, the ridicule, and the sneers of those with whom they are compelled to associate! In this connection often repeat to your children these words of our divine Saviour: "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven." (Matt. x. 32, 33.) This means that those who have the moral courage to practice their religion in spite of the opinions and ridicule of the evil-minded will be acknowledged by our divine Saviour as His true disciples, as d serving of heavenly reward, whilst the moral cowards who neglect their duties to please men to escape being laughed at, shall be excluded from heavenly bliss.
3. Lying and Deceit - See that your children shun all lying and deceit. Tell them that God is truth itself, whilst the devil is, as Our Lord calls him, "the father of lies." "Truth is not in him [the devil], ... he is a liar and the father thereof." (John viii. 44.) The quotation of these words will render it easy for you to explain to your children that those who tell lies, who try to deceive others, cannot please God, who is truth itself, but greatly displease Him, since they perform the works of the devil, the father of lies. Engrave deeply on their minds from their tenderest infancy the necessity of being always truthful, of never seeking to deceive, of carefully avoiding even the smallest lies. Explain to them that lying is disgraceful before both God and men, that it is always wrong to tell a lie, and that they should never tell the least lie under any pretext whatever, were they even capable of thereby saving their own life. If you catch them telling a lie or deceiving you or others, be sure to punish them severely for it. But all your instructions and admonitions concerning this important matter will, of course, avail nothing if you yourselves do not most conscientiously avoid all lying and deceit, and adhere to the simple truth in all things and under all circumstances. Finally, impress deeply on the minds of your children the necessity of making a sincere confession, and the peculiar heinousness of lying and deceit in the Sacrament of Penance.
4. Faults against Charity and Justice - Teach your children to avoid faults against charity. Clearly explain to them how sinful it is to backbite one's neighbor, to exaggerate his faults, to carry tales, to turn him or his physical and moral defects into ridicule, to indulge in excessive teasing or rough treatment, to engage in quarrels, to say or do anything to hurt the feelings of others. Insist on their avoiding all rude behavior and excessive boisterousness, and on their being polite and civil towards everybody, and especially towards their elders, and even towards their companions. See that they respect the property of others, and severely punish whatever faults they may commit in wantonly taking, breaking, defacing, injuring, or destroying what belongs to others; and, if they have done any injury to their neighbor's property or goods, be sure to oblige them to make due reparation. Teach your children never to appropriate to themselves anything either at home or elsewhere without due permission.
5. Sins of the Tongue - Do not fail severely to punish your children whenever they are guilty of cursing, and more especially whenever they utter obscene words or commit obscene actions, Leave nothing undone to correct them of any bad habit which they may have contracted in these points. Frequently admonish them of the great reverence due to God's holy name and to all holy things, and of the sinfulness to wish evil to their neighbor. Tell them that Our Lord considers as done to Himself whatever we do to our neighbor, and that those who wish evil to their neighbor deserve, as a just punishment, that the same evil should befall them.
Inspire them with a disgust and horror of everything impure, showing them how degrading the vice of impurity is, and how carefully everything leading to it should be shunned. You should use every available means to deter them from every word, every look, and every deed that may in the least offend Christian modesty, and should never let any fault against this virtue go unpunished. Oh! how many children have gone astray, have degraded themselves below the level of the brute, and have brought disgrace to their parents and their family, because their parents failed to watch over their morals and to punish them for transgressing the rules of Christian propriety and modesty! What answer will such criminally negligent parents give to the just Judge of mankind when He will demand of them a most strict account of the souls of their children?
6. Vanity - It is of great importance to the spiritual and temporal welfare of your children that you should warn them against vanity. Teach your daughters especially that a handsome face and form, beautiful dress, and costly jewelry do not add merit to any one, and that many girls have been ruined both temporally and eternally for indulging in vanity, since it was for them the occasion of falling into sin and disgrace. Explain to them that a beautiful exterior and fine dress often hide a heart that is defiled by impurity, and is an object of horror and disgust to God and His angels. Remind them that that face, that body of which they are so proud, and which they take such great pains to adorn, shall one day become the food of worms and a disgusting mass of corruption.
Put them in mind that God regards not the perishable beauty of the body, but the beauty of a pure and virtuous soul, and that a homely and poorly dressed girl whose heart is pure is more pleasing to God than the handsomest and most richly dressed girl whose heart is worldly and not adorned with modesty.
That your words may be more effective, add practice to precept, and do not dress your daughters extravagantly. This point you should especially take to heart on two solemn occasions, viz., your daughters first holy communion and their wedding. Use every means in your power to prepare them for both of these great occasions, not by indulging their vanity and striving to have them outshine others by a greater display of rich finery, but by inspiring them with the Christian Dispositions necessary for the worthy reception of these great sacraments. Adorn their souls rather than their bodies. It is hardly possible that your daughters should have any devotion on those memorable occasions if your whole care has been to adorn their corruptible bodies, whilst you paid little or no attention to the adornment of their souls.
7. Idleness—It behooves you to see that your children shun idleness, which is the parent of vice, or, as St. John Chrysostom designates it, the devil's pillow. Sloth is especially dangerous in the young of both sexes when their passions are beginning to assert themselves. Strive never to leave them alone without some employment to occupy their minds, and thus prevent the entrance of temptation therein. There is a saying that an idle person needs no devil to tempt him, for his passions will surely do so, and will do it much more dangerously than the devil could tempt him. We learn from experience that the temptations arising from our passions are both more violent and more dangerous than those which proceed from either the world or the devil.
It is well if your children are fatigued when they retire to rest at night, for they will then soon fall asleep and sleep soundly, and thus escape many a temptation. Accustom your children to rise early, and not to yield to sloth when they are summoned to rise. Teach them that is precious in both a temporal and a spiritual sense; that it is given to them by God principally as a means to save their immortal souls; that time well employed will purchase eternal bliss in heaven for them, whilst the abuse or killing of time will endanger their salvation.
See that your children always punctually and carefully perform their allotted tasks, telling them that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well. In a word, accustom your children to be conscientious in the discharge of their duties, and to be always usefully employed.
Chapter Seven - Devotions Which the Parents Should Teach Their Children
I. Necessity of Prayer - There is nothing which it behooves parents to engrave more deeply in the hearts of their children than the absolute necessity of prayer for salvation. St. Alphonsus, doctor of the Church, says: " He who prays shall certainly save his soul, and he who does not pray shall certainly lose it." Hence, if you have the salvation of your children at heart you will not fail to do all in your power to persuade them of the absolute necessity of prayer. Say to them, in the words of St. Augustine: "Prayer is the food of the soul; as the body cannot live without food, so also the soul cannot preserve its spiritual life, which is divine grace, without prayer." Tell your children that Our Lord says expressly, "Without Me you can do nothing" (John xv. 5). This means that without God's grace we can do nothing for our salvation. But we cannot obtain this indispensable grace of God without praying for it. Explain, moreover, to your children that prayer is all-powerful with God, for He has solemnly promised to hear our prayers: "Amen, amen, I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you" (John xvi. 23). Remind your children that they can pray at all times and in all places, for God is everywhere, and is ever ready to listen to us when we speak to Him for ask Him any favors. Tell them that they should always pray with attention, with earnestness, with confidence, and with perseverance; and that they should pray, above all, for all the graces which they need to avoid sin, to keep the divine commandments, and to be saved.
Tell them also that they may pray even for temporal favors, under the condition that such favors will not endanger their salvation. See that your children pray:
(1) every morning to thank God for having preserved them during the night, and to offer to Him all the thoughts, words, and actions of the day;
(2) before and after meals; and
(3) at night, before retiring to rest.
Teach them, moreover, how to make a good intention before every action, offering it thus to God: "All for Thee, O Lord, all for Thee." Impress deeply on their minds the necessity of praying at once in temptation, by repeatedly invoking the holy names of Jesus and Mary, for if they then neglect prayer, they will assuredly be lost.
2. The Infant Jesus - Your younger children should be animated with a special devotion to the Infant Jesus. Explain to them in simple language that the Son of God became a little child for their sake, to teach them how to be good children. Relate to them how He was born in a stable in great poverty and destitution, beginning then already to suffer for the sins of mankind.
Tell them how He grew up in age, grace, and wisdom before God and men; how He was obedient, patient, industrious, kind, and charitable towards all, and how He loved prayer Do not fail to explain to them how they can best imitate so great a Model.
3. Our Saviour’s Passion - In the next place, inspire your children with a tender love for Jesus Crucified. Read to them or make them read aloud out of the Gospels, especially on Fridays and during Lent, the history of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Explain the crucifix to them, telling them how it teaches them three principal lessons.
First, speak to them of the enormity and malice of mortal sin, which is so grievous and so offensive to God, that not even all men and all the angels combined could, by any amount of penance, sufficiently atone for a single mortal sin, and that the horrible and endless pains of hell itself are insufficient to appease the divine justice for a single mortal sin, but that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, innocence itself, alone could do so, and that He did it by taking our sins upon Himself and dying on the cross after shedding all His blood. Tell them, secondly, that the crucifix teaches us the value of our soul, which is, indeed, worth more than the whole world, since Jesus Christ, who well knew its value, paid for it an infinite price,—every drop of His most precious blood, by which He redeemed our souls. Showing the crucifix to your children, say to them: "Behold, my children, how much your soul is worth; do not, then, sell it to the devil for a trifle, for a momentary pleasure, but save it at any and every cost, for what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?" (Matt. xvi. 26). In the third place, say to your children that the crucifix urges them to love Jesus Christ, who has loved them so much as to die for their sake the most cruel and disgraceful of deaths. Say to them: "Children, Jesus died for you because He loved you so much; He could not have done more to show His love for you, love Him, then, in return, for He de-
sires your love; love Him truly by seeking to please Him, by avoiding sin, which so greatly displeases Him. Go to Jesus on the Cross in all your troubles and sufferings, and suffer a little for Him who has suffered so much for you. Go to Jesus on the Cross when you are sorely tempted, and beseech Him most earnestly not to suffer to fall into sin and be lost that soul of yours for which He has died: if you do this, Jesus will surely hear your prayer."
4. The Blessed Eucharist, the Sacred Heart and the Holy Face - One of the most necessary devotions with which you should inspire your children is the devotion towards the Blessed Eucharist. Teach them to genuflect to our dear Lord present in the sacrament of His love when they enter and leave the church, and to behave in His presence with the utmost propriety and reverence. Send them regularly and punctually to holy Mass on all Sundays and holy-days of obligation.
Provide them with a suitable prayer-book, and see that they make use of it whenever they assist at Mass, and whenever they go to confession and holy communion. If possible, send them to hear Mass every day. Inspire them with an ardent desire to receive holy communion, and leave nothing undone to dispose them well for the reception of so great a sacrament, especially when they are to receive their dear Lord for the first time. It is advisable for you to receive holy communion with them on this latter happy and ever memorable occasion.
Accustom them to go to Vespers and Benediction, and to salute, at least interiorly, our Lord Jesus Christ, whenever they pass before a church. To the devotion to Jesus in the sacrament of His love we should join the beautiful and salutary devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—to that Heart which has sacraments loved men so much, and which will be stow so great favors on all who honor it. Endeavor to introduce into your family the praiseworthy and most useful custom of approaching the On the first Friday of every month, or on the Sunday following, in honor of the Sacred Heart. Nowadays many insults are offered to God by blasphemy, by false, unjust, and unnecessary oaths, by cursing and other profanations. In atonement for these outrages introduce into your family the devotion to the Holy Face of our loving Redeemer.
5. The Blessed Virgin Mary - St. Alphonsus justly maintains that a true servant of Mary cannot be lost. You should, therefore, consider it one of your most important duties to leave no means untried to instill into the hearts of your children, from their very infancy, a deep and tender devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It would be well if, after the example of many pious parents, you would dedicate your children, even before their birth, or at least from their baptism, to this most holy of virgins, and thus place their innocence and purity under her special protection.
Teach your children to look upon Mary as their loving Mother, to invoke her aid with all fervor and confidence, in all their temptations, in all their trials, in all their wants, and to prepare for her feasts by novenas of prayer and good works, and to receive holy communion on all her principal feasts. Cause them to wear a medal and the scapulars in her honor, and daily to recite the beads. If you succeed in inspiring them with a true and tender devotion to this purest of virgins, to this most powerful and loving of mothers, you will have secured the preservation of their purity and their eternal salvation, for Mary is, indeed, the Mother of perpetual help and of final persevere.
Recommend to them also devotion to Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows, and teach them to sympathize with her in her sorrows, especially with the grief and anguish which she endured at the foot of the cross, when she became our Mother by the last will of her dying Son, Jesus Christ. Mary, says St. Alphonsus, will extend her special protection in life and death to all who sympathize with her in her sorrows.
6. St. Joseph - Since every one of us shall die one day," says St. Alphonsus, "we should all have a great devotion to St. Joseph, especially that we may through his intercession obtain the grace of a good death." St. Teresa used to declare that she had never in vain invoked the assistance of St. Joseph in either temporal or spiritual wants.
Strive then to inspire your children with a great devotion to St. Joseph, so that they may be assisted by him in all their temporal and spiritual wants, and especially that they may obtain through him the inestimable grace of a good death.
7. The Guardian Angel - Frequently remind your children, from their very infancy, that each of them has a guardian angel constantly near them to protect them, to advise them, to help them to save their souls, and to witness all their actions. Inculcate on their minds that it is their duty to revere and love him, to avoid doing in his presence what they would be ashamed to do before their fellow-men, to pray daily to him to assist and protect them, and to have all confidence in him, especially in all dangers of both soul and body.
8. The Patrons of Youth - Teach your boys to honor, love, and imitate St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Stanislaus Kostka, those youthful saints and patrons of youth, and to pray frequently to them to guard and preserve them from all danger of losing their faith and purity. In like manner, endeavor to inspire your daughters with a great devotion to St. Agnes, that young virgin who, to preserve her faith and her purity, underwent martyrdom.
Have your daughters to place the priceless treasures of their faith and purity under her protection, and often to invoke her to obtain for them the grace to preserve both their faith and purity amid the many dangers that may beset their path in this life.
9. The Souls in Purgatory - Since "it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins" (2 Mach. xii. 46), you should endeavor to inspire your children with a tender compassion for the suffering souls in purgatory. Teach them how to relieve these holy souls by their prayers, by acts of self-denial, by the offering up of good works, and especially of holy Mass and holy communion, by the gaining of in indulgences, and by alms from their savings to the poor and the needy.
10. Pious Confraternities - Be sure to induce your children to join pious sodalities, confraternities, and societies, according to their age and means, and to keep faithfully the rules thereof. This is especially necessary for your grown-up children.
You should leave no means untried to keep them out of not only forbidden and dangerous societies, but even all purely worldly associations, where they may meet with companions whose worldly mindedness and religious indifference may prove dangerous to their faith and their morals.
Tell them also that they may pray even for temporal favors, under the condition that such favors will not endanger their salvation. See that your children pray:
(1) every morning to thank God for having preserved them during the night, and to offer to Him all the thoughts, words, and actions of the day;
(2) before and after meals; and
(3) at night, before retiring to rest.
Teach them, moreover, how to make a good intention before every action, offering it thus to God: "All for Thee, O Lord, all for Thee." Impress deeply on their minds the necessity of praying at once in temptation, by repeatedly invoking the holy names of Jesus and Mary, for if they then neglect prayer, they will assuredly be lost.
2. The Infant Jesus - Your younger children should be animated with a special devotion to the Infant Jesus. Explain to them in simple language that the Son of God became a little child for their sake, to teach them how to be good children. Relate to them how He was born in a stable in great poverty and destitution, beginning then already to suffer for the sins of mankind.
Tell them how He grew up in age, grace, and wisdom before God and men; how He was obedient, patient, industrious, kind, and charitable towards all, and how He loved prayer Do not fail to explain to them how they can best imitate so great a Model.
3. Our Saviour’s Passion - In the next place, inspire your children with a tender love for Jesus Crucified. Read to them or make them read aloud out of the Gospels, especially on Fridays and during Lent, the history of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Explain the crucifix to them, telling them how it teaches them three principal lessons.
First, speak to them of the enormity and malice of mortal sin, which is so grievous and so offensive to God, that not even all men and all the angels combined could, by any amount of penance, sufficiently atone for a single mortal sin, and that the horrible and endless pains of hell itself are insufficient to appease the divine justice for a single mortal sin, but that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, innocence itself, alone could do so, and that He did it by taking our sins upon Himself and dying on the cross after shedding all His blood. Tell them, secondly, that the crucifix teaches us the value of our soul, which is, indeed, worth more than the whole world, since Jesus Christ, who well knew its value, paid for it an infinite price,—every drop of His most precious blood, by which He redeemed our souls. Showing the crucifix to your children, say to them: "Behold, my children, how much your soul is worth; do not, then, sell it to the devil for a trifle, for a momentary pleasure, but save it at any and every cost, for what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?" (Matt. xvi. 26). In the third place, say to your children that the crucifix urges them to love Jesus Christ, who has loved them so much as to die for their sake the most cruel and disgraceful of deaths. Say to them: "Children, Jesus died for you because He loved you so much; He could not have done more to show His love for you, love Him, then, in return, for He de-
sires your love; love Him truly by seeking to please Him, by avoiding sin, which so greatly displeases Him. Go to Jesus on the Cross in all your troubles and sufferings, and suffer a little for Him who has suffered so much for you. Go to Jesus on the Cross when you are sorely tempted, and beseech Him most earnestly not to suffer to fall into sin and be lost that soul of yours for which He has died: if you do this, Jesus will surely hear your prayer."
4. The Blessed Eucharist, the Sacred Heart and the Holy Face - One of the most necessary devotions with which you should inspire your children is the devotion towards the Blessed Eucharist. Teach them to genuflect to our dear Lord present in the sacrament of His love when they enter and leave the church, and to behave in His presence with the utmost propriety and reverence. Send them regularly and punctually to holy Mass on all Sundays and holy-days of obligation.
Provide them with a suitable prayer-book, and see that they make use of it whenever they assist at Mass, and whenever they go to confession and holy communion. If possible, send them to hear Mass every day. Inspire them with an ardent desire to receive holy communion, and leave nothing undone to dispose them well for the reception of so great a sacrament, especially when they are to receive their dear Lord for the first time. It is advisable for you to receive holy communion with them on this latter happy and ever memorable occasion.
Accustom them to go to Vespers and Benediction, and to salute, at least interiorly, our Lord Jesus Christ, whenever they pass before a church. To the devotion to Jesus in the sacrament of His love we should join the beautiful and salutary devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—to that Heart which has sacraments loved men so much, and which will be stow so great favors on all who honor it. Endeavor to introduce into your family the praiseworthy and most useful custom of approaching the On the first Friday of every month, or on the Sunday following, in honor of the Sacred Heart. Nowadays many insults are offered to God by blasphemy, by false, unjust, and unnecessary oaths, by cursing and other profanations. In atonement for these outrages introduce into your family the devotion to the Holy Face of our loving Redeemer.
5. The Blessed Virgin Mary - St. Alphonsus justly maintains that a true servant of Mary cannot be lost. You should, therefore, consider it one of your most important duties to leave no means untried to instill into the hearts of your children, from their very infancy, a deep and tender devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It would be well if, after the example of many pious parents, you would dedicate your children, even before their birth, or at least from their baptism, to this most holy of virgins, and thus place their innocence and purity under her special protection.
Teach your children to look upon Mary as their loving Mother, to invoke her aid with all fervor and confidence, in all their temptations, in all their trials, in all their wants, and to prepare for her feasts by novenas of prayer and good works, and to receive holy communion on all her principal feasts. Cause them to wear a medal and the scapulars in her honor, and daily to recite the beads. If you succeed in inspiring them with a true and tender devotion to this purest of virgins, to this most powerful and loving of mothers, you will have secured the preservation of their purity and their eternal salvation, for Mary is, indeed, the Mother of perpetual help and of final persevere.
Recommend to them also devotion to Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows, and teach them to sympathize with her in her sorrows, especially with the grief and anguish which she endured at the foot of the cross, when she became our Mother by the last will of her dying Son, Jesus Christ. Mary, says St. Alphonsus, will extend her special protection in life and death to all who sympathize with her in her sorrows.
6. St. Joseph - Since every one of us shall die one day," says St. Alphonsus, "we should all have a great devotion to St. Joseph, especially that we may through his intercession obtain the grace of a good death." St. Teresa used to declare that she had never in vain invoked the assistance of St. Joseph in either temporal or spiritual wants.
Strive then to inspire your children with a great devotion to St. Joseph, so that they may be assisted by him in all their temporal and spiritual wants, and especially that they may obtain through him the inestimable grace of a good death.
7. The Guardian Angel - Frequently remind your children, from their very infancy, that each of them has a guardian angel constantly near them to protect them, to advise them, to help them to save their souls, and to witness all their actions. Inculcate on their minds that it is their duty to revere and love him, to avoid doing in his presence what they would be ashamed to do before their fellow-men, to pray daily to him to assist and protect them, and to have all confidence in him, especially in all dangers of both soul and body.
8. The Patrons of Youth - Teach your boys to honor, love, and imitate St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Stanislaus Kostka, those youthful saints and patrons of youth, and to pray frequently to them to guard and preserve them from all danger of losing their faith and purity. In like manner, endeavor to inspire your daughters with a great devotion to St. Agnes, that young virgin who, to preserve her faith and her purity, underwent martyrdom.
Have your daughters to place the priceless treasures of their faith and purity under her protection, and often to invoke her to obtain for them the grace to preserve both their faith and purity amid the many dangers that may beset their path in this life.
9. The Souls in Purgatory - Since "it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins" (2 Mach. xii. 46), you should endeavor to inspire your children with a tender compassion for the suffering souls in purgatory. Teach them how to relieve these holy souls by their prayers, by acts of self-denial, by the offering up of good works, and especially of holy Mass and holy communion, by the gaining of in indulgences, and by alms from their savings to the poor and the needy.
10. Pious Confraternities - Be sure to induce your children to join pious sodalities, confraternities, and societies, according to their age and means, and to keep faithfully the rules thereof. This is especially necessary for your grown-up children.
You should leave no means untried to keep them out of not only forbidden and dangerous societies, but even all purely worldly associations, where they may meet with companions whose worldly mindedness and religious indifference may prove dangerous to their faith and their morals.
Chapter Eight - Submission to Authority
The chief defect of the modern system of education is that it is restricted to the intellect, and ignores all that regards the will and the true principles of morality. The modern instructor directs his efforts solely to the understanding and memory of his pupil, and, if we may so express it, endeavors to cram the pupil's mind with a multitude of disjointed facts, suppositions, and theories. The natural result of this is that the majority of our youth on leaving school or college know a little of everything except how to save their soul; even their profane knowledge lacks depth and consistency. No effort is made by our modern educators, so called, to educate the will, which most stands in need of proper training, since it is the mistress and ruler of all the human faculties.
Just as the uneducated intellect is liable to be the sport of every kind of error and absurdity, so, in like manner, the uneducated will usually become the sport and slave of the animal passions, and is liable to fall into the most shocking and degrading vices. The rule or law of the intellect is truth. The rule or law of the will is right and justice. The intellect is right when its ideas, judgments, and reasoning accord with truth. The will is right when it acts according to the principles of right and justice. The intellect is a speculative faculty destined to guide man in his actions by pointing out to him what is
right and just. The will is a practical faculty that needs the light of the intellect as its guide.
Just as the intellect is not free to think, judge, and reason as it pleases, but must be regulated by truth, so, in like manner, the will is not free to act as it pleases, but is subject to the principles of right and justice, or, in other words, to law and authority. Just as the intellect needs to be educated in order always to be able to conform to truth, so also the will needs to be educated in order to be able always to conform to what is right and lawful. Hence no system of education is complete or deserving the name unless it includes the will as well as the intellect. In fact, the will, being a practical faculty, stands even in greater need of education than the intellect, for, as experience proves, the will, when it has begun to deviate from the principles of right and virtue, soon draws the intellect into error, using it as a means of justifying its evil doings.
The education of the will consists principally in training it to act in accordance with the principles of right and justice, and to submit to law and legitimate authority. Both law and authority, to be genuine, must come from God, for no man, no creature, as such, has any natural right or authority over other men.
God alone, the Author of nature, possesses authority in His own right and can delegate authority to His creatures; but such delegated authority is necessarily limited and dependent on the divine will. He who submits to lawful authority does not renounce his liberty or give up any of his rights; for he thereby submits to God Himself, before whom man has no other liberty, no other rights, than a perfect submission to His most holy and adorable will. He who refuses to submit to lawful authority abuses his liberty, infringes on the absolute rights of God, and rebels against His supreme authority, and is, therefore, deserving of condign punishment.
The great political, anti-Christian, and irrational heresy of our country is that "the people" rule, "the people" make laws, "the people are sovereign," are the source of all authority.
The natural results of this false principle are: the weakening of authority, the lack of respect for authority, the hatred of every kind of restraint, the spirit of absolute independence and unbridled license. This accursed spirit has invaded the sacred precincts of the family, loosened the domestic ties, and threatens totally to crush all parental authority, and extinguish in the children all respect for and submission to superiors.
All this shows the necessity of educating the will, of training the children, from their earliest infancy, to revere and obey authority. You should, therefore, teach your children to hold all legitimate authority as sacred and binding on the conscience, and to regard it as morally wrong and sinful to resist or despise authority, whether it be in thought, word, or deed. Your children ought to be frequently reminded that God's authority is ever supreme, and that no earthly power or authority can be legitimate when it is in opposition to the divine law, for, as St. Peter remarks, "we must obey God rather than men."
It behooves you to teach your children to respect the civil authority and to obey all just civil laws; to respect and obey their teachers and all other superiors in all that pertains to their authority. You should explain to them that the highest authority on earth is the Church of God, for she is divinely commissioned to teach and lead mankind in the way of salvation, and that, in matters of faith and morals, her authority is supreme, and therefore superior to every human authority. Impress well on their minds that our Holy Father, the Pope, is Christ's Vicar on earth, and deserves all our reverence, love, and submission. Teach them to show a special reverence to the bishop of the diocese and to all priests, and particularly to their pastor. Children must especially taught to honor their parents; to love them next to God and above all in this world as the authors of their being, their best friends and greatest benefactors; to show them on all occasions profound respect, deference, and esteem; to obey them in all that is not opposed to the divine law as strictly as they should obey God Himself; to be grateful to them, being mindful that they can never sufficiently repay them for what they owe them; to be patient with them, and conceal their shortcomings from strangers; always to wish them well; to speak respectfully to them and of them; to seek their counsel in all matters, to aid them in their work and assist them in all their wants; to sympathize with them in their sorrows; to omit nothing that may help them to live and die as good Christians; religiously to fulfill their last will, and both during their life and after their death never to let a day pass without offering fervent prayers to God for them.
Just as the uneducated intellect is liable to be the sport of every kind of error and absurdity, so, in like manner, the uneducated will usually become the sport and slave of the animal passions, and is liable to fall into the most shocking and degrading vices. The rule or law of the intellect is truth. The rule or law of the will is right and justice. The intellect is right when its ideas, judgments, and reasoning accord with truth. The will is right when it acts according to the principles of right and justice. The intellect is a speculative faculty destined to guide man in his actions by pointing out to him what is
right and just. The will is a practical faculty that needs the light of the intellect as its guide.
Just as the intellect is not free to think, judge, and reason as it pleases, but must be regulated by truth, so, in like manner, the will is not free to act as it pleases, but is subject to the principles of right and justice, or, in other words, to law and authority. Just as the intellect needs to be educated in order always to be able to conform to truth, so also the will needs to be educated in order to be able always to conform to what is right and lawful. Hence no system of education is complete or deserving the name unless it includes the will as well as the intellect. In fact, the will, being a practical faculty, stands even in greater need of education than the intellect, for, as experience proves, the will, when it has begun to deviate from the principles of right and virtue, soon draws the intellect into error, using it as a means of justifying its evil doings.
The education of the will consists principally in training it to act in accordance with the principles of right and justice, and to submit to law and legitimate authority. Both law and authority, to be genuine, must come from God, for no man, no creature, as such, has any natural right or authority over other men.
God alone, the Author of nature, possesses authority in His own right and can delegate authority to His creatures; but such delegated authority is necessarily limited and dependent on the divine will. He who submits to lawful authority does not renounce his liberty or give up any of his rights; for he thereby submits to God Himself, before whom man has no other liberty, no other rights, than a perfect submission to His most holy and adorable will. He who refuses to submit to lawful authority abuses his liberty, infringes on the absolute rights of God, and rebels against His supreme authority, and is, therefore, deserving of condign punishment.
The great political, anti-Christian, and irrational heresy of our country is that "the people" rule, "the people" make laws, "the people are sovereign," are the source of all authority.
The natural results of this false principle are: the weakening of authority, the lack of respect for authority, the hatred of every kind of restraint, the spirit of absolute independence and unbridled license. This accursed spirit has invaded the sacred precincts of the family, loosened the domestic ties, and threatens totally to crush all parental authority, and extinguish in the children all respect for and submission to superiors.
All this shows the necessity of educating the will, of training the children, from their earliest infancy, to revere and obey authority. You should, therefore, teach your children to hold all legitimate authority as sacred and binding on the conscience, and to regard it as morally wrong and sinful to resist or despise authority, whether it be in thought, word, or deed. Your children ought to be frequently reminded that God's authority is ever supreme, and that no earthly power or authority can be legitimate when it is in opposition to the divine law, for, as St. Peter remarks, "we must obey God rather than men."
It behooves you to teach your children to respect the civil authority and to obey all just civil laws; to respect and obey their teachers and all other superiors in all that pertains to their authority. You should explain to them that the highest authority on earth is the Church of God, for she is divinely commissioned to teach and lead mankind in the way of salvation, and that, in matters of faith and morals, her authority is supreme, and therefore superior to every human authority. Impress well on their minds that our Holy Father, the Pope, is Christ's Vicar on earth, and deserves all our reverence, love, and submission. Teach them to show a special reverence to the bishop of the diocese and to all priests, and particularly to their pastor. Children must especially taught to honor their parents; to love them next to God and above all in this world as the authors of their being, their best friends and greatest benefactors; to show them on all occasions profound respect, deference, and esteem; to obey them in all that is not opposed to the divine law as strictly as they should obey God Himself; to be grateful to them, being mindful that they can never sufficiently repay them for what they owe them; to be patient with them, and conceal their shortcomings from strangers; always to wish them well; to speak respectfully to them and of them; to seek their counsel in all matters, to aid them in their work and assist them in all their wants; to sympathize with them in their sorrows; to omit nothing that may help them to live and die as good Christians; religiously to fulfill their last will, and both during their life and after their death never to let a day pass without offering fervent prayers to God for them.
Chapter Nine - Purity
Purity should be the Christian's most precious treasure. "No price," says the Holy Ghost, "is worthy of a continent soul" (Ecclus. xxvi. 20.) Purity renders man similar to the angels meant to behold God's infinite beauty; but impurity degrades man to the level of the brute. Whatever remarkable qualities your children may otherwise possess, it they be not pure and chaste, they are, like a costly vase that is broken or cracked, useless or even worse than useless.
From their very infancy children should be taught to love and appreciate chastity as their greatest treasure and their most lovely and ennobling ornament. They should be often told how much God delights in pure and chaste souls, who alone are worthy of beholding the God of infinite holiness, beauty, and loveliness. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God," says our divine Redeemer. They ought to learn to detest and abhor not only the vice of impurity, but even everything that may endanger the virtue of chastity. They should be carefully trained to have a most tender conscience in all that pertains to holy purity in thought, word, and deed; to be modest and pure in private as well as in public; to prefer a thousand deaths rather than sully their purity by the least unchaste thought, look, word, or act.
You ought to teach your children to keep a constant watch over their thoughts and affections, lest these lead them into danger; to observe the strictest modesty of the eyes, never allowing them to gaze on unbecoming objects, or to indulge in dangerous reading; never willfully to listen to unchaste discourse; to restrain their tongue, lest it utter impure words or make indecorous allusions; to shun with the greatest horror all companions and amusements that may prove to them a source of temptation; to avoid carefully all that may render them an occasion of temptation to others; to dress with the strictest propriety, discarding all the fashions that accord not with the rules of the most rigid modesty; and ever to behave with the utmost propriety and reserve in presence of persons of a different sex.
You ought to impress on the minds of your children that they are carrying the inestimable treasure of holy purity in a most fragile vase, and that this angelic virtue is so sensitive as to be tarnished by the slightest willful, immodest thought.
They should guard against all vain curiosity, and not wish to see or hear everything that is going on. They will not long remain pure if they frequent the company of the light-minded and irreligious, or indulge in reading novels or love stories, or do not shun the detestable sin of idleness, which is appropriately termed the parent of vice. Most religiously keep your children out of all occasions dangerous to their purity and innocence.
Teach them to love holy purity above all earthly wealth and beauty, and to be willing to die a thousand times rather than ever willfully think, say, do, or permit anything contrary to that angelic virtue, or to imperil it by their levity or dangerous associations.
Teach them to have immediate recourse to prayer when tempted against purity, and to invoke with fervor and earnestness the holy names of Jesus and Mary. Procure for them good and pious books and periodicals. Induce them to go at least monthly to confession and holy communion. Inspire them with the most tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the purest of virgins, and persuade them to have recourse with fervor and confidence to her powerful protection in all dangers and temptations. Woe to you, parents, if through your worldliness or neglect the purity of your children is endangered or lost! It were better that a millstone were hung about your necks, and that you were thus cast into the sea, than that the purity and innocence of your children were endangered or lost through your fault!
To inspire your children with a love for holy purity, and at the same time to secure for them the special protection of the most blessed Virgin Mary in time of temptation, you ought to accustom them to recite every morning and every night the "Hail Mary" three times in honor of the purity of Mary. This pious exercise is recommended by St Alphonsus as a sure and infallible means of obtaining that angelic virtue. That great doctor of the Church maintains that he who remembers having sincerely invoked during temptation the holy names of Jesus and Mary, or even only the name of Mary, may rest assured that he has not yielded to the temptation.
By carefully teaching these pious practices to your dear children you will enable them to avoid the abominable vice of impurity, and to lead a chaste and virtuous life.
From their very infancy children should be taught to love and appreciate chastity as their greatest treasure and their most lovely and ennobling ornament. They should be often told how much God delights in pure and chaste souls, who alone are worthy of beholding the God of infinite holiness, beauty, and loveliness. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God," says our divine Redeemer. They ought to learn to detest and abhor not only the vice of impurity, but even everything that may endanger the virtue of chastity. They should be carefully trained to have a most tender conscience in all that pertains to holy purity in thought, word, and deed; to be modest and pure in private as well as in public; to prefer a thousand deaths rather than sully their purity by the least unchaste thought, look, word, or act.
You ought to teach your children to keep a constant watch over their thoughts and affections, lest these lead them into danger; to observe the strictest modesty of the eyes, never allowing them to gaze on unbecoming objects, or to indulge in dangerous reading; never willfully to listen to unchaste discourse; to restrain their tongue, lest it utter impure words or make indecorous allusions; to shun with the greatest horror all companions and amusements that may prove to them a source of temptation; to avoid carefully all that may render them an occasion of temptation to others; to dress with the strictest propriety, discarding all the fashions that accord not with the rules of the most rigid modesty; and ever to behave with the utmost propriety and reserve in presence of persons of a different sex.
You ought to impress on the minds of your children that they are carrying the inestimable treasure of holy purity in a most fragile vase, and that this angelic virtue is so sensitive as to be tarnished by the slightest willful, immodest thought.
They should guard against all vain curiosity, and not wish to see or hear everything that is going on. They will not long remain pure if they frequent the company of the light-minded and irreligious, or indulge in reading novels or love stories, or do not shun the detestable sin of idleness, which is appropriately termed the parent of vice. Most religiously keep your children out of all occasions dangerous to their purity and innocence.
Teach them to love holy purity above all earthly wealth and beauty, and to be willing to die a thousand times rather than ever willfully think, say, do, or permit anything contrary to that angelic virtue, or to imperil it by their levity or dangerous associations.
Teach them to have immediate recourse to prayer when tempted against purity, and to invoke with fervor and earnestness the holy names of Jesus and Mary. Procure for them good and pious books and periodicals. Induce them to go at least monthly to confession and holy communion. Inspire them with the most tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the purest of virgins, and persuade them to have recourse with fervor and confidence to her powerful protection in all dangers and temptations. Woe to you, parents, if through your worldliness or neglect the purity of your children is endangered or lost! It were better that a millstone were hung about your necks, and that you were thus cast into the sea, than that the purity and innocence of your children were endangered or lost through your fault!
To inspire your children with a love for holy purity, and at the same time to secure for them the special protection of the most blessed Virgin Mary in time of temptation, you ought to accustom them to recite every morning and every night the "Hail Mary" three times in honor of the purity of Mary. This pious exercise is recommended by St Alphonsus as a sure and infallible means of obtaining that angelic virtue. That great doctor of the Church maintains that he who remembers having sincerely invoked during temptation the holy names of Jesus and Mary, or even only the name of Mary, may rest assured that he has not yielded to the temptation.
By carefully teaching these pious practices to your dear children you will enable them to avoid the abominable vice of impurity, and to lead a chaste and virtuous life.
Chapter Ten - The Schooling of Children
Send your children to a good Catholic school, and to no other. Your children cannot receive a Christian education unless they are taught both theoretically and practically all that is necessary to enable them to save their immortal souls. You can perform this sacred duty only by imparting to them a thorough knowledge of their duties towards God, towards themselves, and towards their fellow-men, and at the same time by insuring their faithful discharge of these obligations.
Besides all the ordinary prayers, your children are bound to learn the catechism thoroughly, and to observe the commandments of God and the precepts of the Church.
Not many Catholic parents are fully competent to discharge this sacred obligation, and among the really competent only a few have the leisure and disposition to devote themselves to this most important task; hence the necessity of good Catholic schools for the requisite religious education and training of Catholic children.
Religion is a science,—a science very difficult to acquire, and still more difficult to put into practice. Long and constant application and exercise are required to learn the profane sciences or to master the various trades. Many years, and sometimes a whole life, must be devoted to them before one can become proficient in them. But of all sciences none is so difficult to acquire and practice as the science of religion. Religion is not only both a theoretical and practical science, but it is also supernatural. Its knowledge and practice are especially difficult on account of our fallen nature's aversion to restraint and its propensity to evil. Experience shows that usually there is greater difficulty in teaching children to learn and practice their holy religion, than in imparting to them a knowledge of the profane sciences.
From this we may infer that a longer time and greater pains are required to teach children the knowledge and practice of their religion than to teach them any other science.
The religious training of your children, as we have said, should begin from their very infancy, because from the time they have attained the use of their reason which is about the age of seven years—they are bound to labor for their own salvation. But they are incompetent to do so unless they are already acquainted with the principal religious mysteries and obligations. It is therefore very sinful for you to defer their religious education until they are old enough to prepare for their first holy communion. They stand in need of a long, practical, and thorough course of religious instruction to enable them, after they have grown up, to pass unharmed through the numberless dangers of the world, which abounds in heretics, unbelievers, and godless people. It behooves you, then, to begin their religious training from their earliest infancy, when their minds and hearts are as impressible as wax. Let their first impressions be those of their faith and its practice. And as a child's first impressions are usually indelible, religion and its duties will become like a second nature to your children, so that they will never forget its teachings or trample its sacred obligations under foot.
To accomplish this, you should, moreover, send your children to none but good Catholic schools, where the study of profane sciences goes hand in hand with the study and practice of our holy religion. Man is something more than mere intellect, for he has also a heart and a free-will. If the mind needs instruction, the heart and the will need it none the less, but rather the more.
Profane learning, moreover, instructs the mind only partially, and the will and heart not at all! It belongs to religion to complete the instruction of the mind by religious truths, to enable the reason to guide the will in its actions. Hence religion is needed to perfect the instruction of the intellect and to train both the heart and the will. Profane learning, then, cannot prove really beneficial to your children if it is separated from religious training. The greater your children's progress in secular science, the more they need a thorough knowledge of our holy religion. A sad experience testifies that when profane learning greatly exceeds religious knowledge, it is liable to lapse into unbelief and even into vice. You cannot, therefore, in conscience send your children to any but good Catholic schools, where such are to be had.
Besides all the ordinary prayers, your children are bound to learn the catechism thoroughly, and to observe the commandments of God and the precepts of the Church.
Not many Catholic parents are fully competent to discharge this sacred obligation, and among the really competent only a few have the leisure and disposition to devote themselves to this most important task; hence the necessity of good Catholic schools for the requisite religious education and training of Catholic children.
Religion is a science,—a science very difficult to acquire, and still more difficult to put into practice. Long and constant application and exercise are required to learn the profane sciences or to master the various trades. Many years, and sometimes a whole life, must be devoted to them before one can become proficient in them. But of all sciences none is so difficult to acquire and practice as the science of religion. Religion is not only both a theoretical and practical science, but it is also supernatural. Its knowledge and practice are especially difficult on account of our fallen nature's aversion to restraint and its propensity to evil. Experience shows that usually there is greater difficulty in teaching children to learn and practice their holy religion, than in imparting to them a knowledge of the profane sciences.
From this we may infer that a longer time and greater pains are required to teach children the knowledge and practice of their religion than to teach them any other science.
The religious training of your children, as we have said, should begin from their very infancy, because from the time they have attained the use of their reason which is about the age of seven years—they are bound to labor for their own salvation. But they are incompetent to do so unless they are already acquainted with the principal religious mysteries and obligations. It is therefore very sinful for you to defer their religious education until they are old enough to prepare for their first holy communion. They stand in need of a long, practical, and thorough course of religious instruction to enable them, after they have grown up, to pass unharmed through the numberless dangers of the world, which abounds in heretics, unbelievers, and godless people. It behooves you, then, to begin their religious training from their earliest infancy, when their minds and hearts are as impressible as wax. Let their first impressions be those of their faith and its practice. And as a child's first impressions are usually indelible, religion and its duties will become like a second nature to your children, so that they will never forget its teachings or trample its sacred obligations under foot.
To accomplish this, you should, moreover, send your children to none but good Catholic schools, where the study of profane sciences goes hand in hand with the study and practice of our holy religion. Man is something more than mere intellect, for he has also a heart and a free-will. If the mind needs instruction, the heart and the will need it none the less, but rather the more.
Profane learning, moreover, instructs the mind only partially, and the will and heart not at all! It belongs to religion to complete the instruction of the mind by religious truths, to enable the reason to guide the will in its actions. Hence religion is needed to perfect the instruction of the intellect and to train both the heart and the will. Profane learning, then, cannot prove really beneficial to your children if it is separated from religious training. The greater your children's progress in secular science, the more they need a thorough knowledge of our holy religion. A sad experience testifies that when profane learning greatly exceeds religious knowledge, it is liable to lapse into unbelief and even into vice. You cannot, therefore, in conscience send your children to any but good Catholic schools, where such are to be had.
Chapter Eleven - The Schooling of Children - Continued
Your obligation to send your children to none but good Catholic schools becomes still more evident if you call to mind the sad fact that, outside of the Catholic Church, the spirit of unbelief is making great headway, and is accompanied by its natural fruits—vice and corruption.
It is an unquestionable truth that "without religion there can be no effective moral restraint, and without adequate moral restraint morality is impossible."
What is it that makes an act good or evil in itself? What is it that constitutes the essential difference between right and wrong, lawful and unlawful, virtue and vice? An act is good when it is in accordance with the divine law; if contrary to it, it is evil. Obedience to the divine law constitutes what is right, lawful, and virtuous, whilst disobedience to it constitutes what is wrong, unlawful, and vicious. He who ignores or rejects God and His law ignores or rejects all essential difference between good and evil, between right and wrong, between lawful and unlawful, between virtue and vice. If he admits any difference at all between them, it is only an arbitrary and variable difference, depending on his own whims and caprice! He who ignores God's authority and power necessarily denies all lawful authority and power, because, as St. Paul says, "there is no power but from God." He who discards religion, if he be consistent, acknowledges no other authority, no other law, no other obligation, than himself, his own feelings, his own interest. Why, then, should he perform what people call right, and refrain from what they call wrong, if his own interest, his own feelings, his own animal passions, prompt him to defraud his neighbor or his country's government, to murder an enemy, to violate a woman's chastity, or to commit what other men look upon as heinous crimes?
Only godless people are guilty of such crimes, because they have no effectual restraint on their evil passions. The fear of God and respect for His law are the only effectual restraints on man's evil inclinations.
No moral restraint can be effectual unless it reaches man's thoughts and desires, for these, as Our Lord declares, are the source and primary cause of evil-doing. The thought always precedes the deed. But our thoughts and desires are wholly interior, and are therefore beyond the sphere and sanction of human laws. The only possible and effective restraint on evil thoughts and desires is the fear of God, who sees and knows all things, who is the supreme and most just Judge of man's thoughts, words, and actions, and will forever reward or punish man according to his works. "The fear of the Lord," says the Royal Prophet, "is the beginning of wisdom." This wholesome fear, as experience testifies, is the only universal and effectual restraint against all evil-doing. The fear of the Lord, however, cannot be instilled into the heart of man except by a good religious training. But in the present public school system, from which religious instruction is carefully banished, a religious training is an impossibility. It is therefore evident that such a system is unable to impart sound moral principles, or to furnish an effective moral restraint on one's evil inclinations and animal passions.
Such a system is, then, in itself erroneous, and, if alone followed, highly dangerous to the real welfare of the individual, of the family, and of society.
"No man," says Christ, "can serve two masters.'' No one can serve God and the devil. If you are not on God's side, you are siding with the devil, for you cannot remain neutral. "He who is not with Me," says our divine Redeemer, "is against Me." That system of education, then, from which religion and religious instruction are excluded is not with God,—the Author of religion,—but is godless, anti-religious, and destructive of the basis of morality, and the education it imparts is injurious to salvation, for "a bad tree," says Christ, "cannot produce good fruit." Just as our bodies may be killed not merely by poison, but quite as surely by want of nourishment, so also our souls may be spiritually killed, not only by heretical doctrines, but even more surely and insidiously by the want of religion, that is, by infidelity.
There is now a general conviction that wickedness and the lack of moral principles are to be found among all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest. We need not be astonished at this, for a large proportion of the present generation, brought up in schools from which all religious instruction is excluded, have received no religious training even at home, and, consequently, have not had the wholesome fear of the Lord instilled into their hearts from their infancy. Being destitute of this salutary fear, they have but little fear of man or respect for human authority and law, because the instructions they have received have made them, not good and virtuous, but smart and godless, capable of devising a thousand ways of escaping or defeating human justice.
One instance among many will suffice to illustrate our position. Statistics show that, in late years, ten thousand persons are murdered annually in the United States, and hardly one murderer in twenty is punished. The general lack of conscience, the dishonesty and immorality of the present generation, are mainly attributable to the want of religious education and to godless training. The only safeguard for your dear little ones against this torrent of corruption is the God fearing spirit acquired by a thorough religious education in a good Catholic school.
You ought to bear in mind that it is not a matter of choice with you; that you are not at liberty to send your children to any school you like. Wherever there are good Catholic schools it is your sacred duty to send your children to them, and to no other schools, unless you have serious reasons approved by the bishop of the diocese. Such is the decision given by our Holy Father the Pope to the bishops of the United States. And when Rome has spoken the case is finally settled and is no longer appealable, as St. Augustine declared fifteen centuries ago. This is likewise the decision of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, which prescribes, wherever feasible, the erection of Catholic schools in every parish, and requires Catholic parents to send their children to Catholic schools.
The enemies of the Catholic Church are everywhere doing all in their power to wrest the control of education from her, and it behooves every true Catholic to stand by the Church in this momentous question, on which depends the preservation of future generations in the true faith. In this vital question every man must choose his side; no one can remain neutral. You cannot serve two masters. Under which banner will you fight? Will it be under that of Christ and His Church? If so, you must send your children to none but good Catholic schools, and do all in your power to contribute to the erection and maintenance of such schools. But if, without reasons approved by your bishop, you send your children to non-Catholic schools, you are actually fighting under the banner of the devil, and you are helping Satan and his imps to destroy the Church, your mother!
“If any man," says St. Paul" hath not care of his own, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." To take proper care of your children, it behooves you to send them to none but good Catholic schools. Send them regularly, for otherwise they will not be able to learn much. Do this at least for the sake of your little ones, who ought to be so dear to you. In these times our young people, in order to earn a living, are obliged to mingle with a corrupt and unbelieving society. They ought to be well acquainted with their religion, not only to defend their faith, but also to secure themselves from the danger of losing it altogether. To resist the seductions and allurements of the world, and to withstand faithfully the fierce assaults of their own fiery passions, they should from their very infancy have grown so accustomed to the faithful discharge of their religious duties as to find these indispensable for their happiness. You cannot bring about this desirable result in your dear children, unless you send them to schools where they will get a good religious training.
Some parents object to sending their children to Catholic schools under the erroneous pretext that their children will learn more in the public schools and be better fitted to earn a living. This is not true; and, even if it were, is it not better for your children to be good and virtuous, than to have learning without virtue or religious principles? But what does experience testify? It testifies that the secular education given in Catholic institutions is not only equal, but even superior, to that imparted in the public schools. Whenever a competitive examination takes place between pupils of various schools, the palm is usually carried off by the pupils of Catholic schools!
Another very powerful means of promoting the religious education of your children is to adorn every apartment of your house with a crucifix or some pious pictures, and to procure for your own use and that of your children some good Catholic books and papers. Every family ought to subscribe and pay for at least one Catholic paper—the paper having the approval of the bishop of the diocese.
It is an unquestionable truth that "without religion there can be no effective moral restraint, and without adequate moral restraint morality is impossible."
What is it that makes an act good or evil in itself? What is it that constitutes the essential difference between right and wrong, lawful and unlawful, virtue and vice? An act is good when it is in accordance with the divine law; if contrary to it, it is evil. Obedience to the divine law constitutes what is right, lawful, and virtuous, whilst disobedience to it constitutes what is wrong, unlawful, and vicious. He who ignores or rejects God and His law ignores or rejects all essential difference between good and evil, between right and wrong, between lawful and unlawful, between virtue and vice. If he admits any difference at all between them, it is only an arbitrary and variable difference, depending on his own whims and caprice! He who ignores God's authority and power necessarily denies all lawful authority and power, because, as St. Paul says, "there is no power but from God." He who discards religion, if he be consistent, acknowledges no other authority, no other law, no other obligation, than himself, his own feelings, his own interest. Why, then, should he perform what people call right, and refrain from what they call wrong, if his own interest, his own feelings, his own animal passions, prompt him to defraud his neighbor or his country's government, to murder an enemy, to violate a woman's chastity, or to commit what other men look upon as heinous crimes?
Only godless people are guilty of such crimes, because they have no effectual restraint on their evil passions. The fear of God and respect for His law are the only effectual restraints on man's evil inclinations.
No moral restraint can be effectual unless it reaches man's thoughts and desires, for these, as Our Lord declares, are the source and primary cause of evil-doing. The thought always precedes the deed. But our thoughts and desires are wholly interior, and are therefore beyond the sphere and sanction of human laws. The only possible and effective restraint on evil thoughts and desires is the fear of God, who sees and knows all things, who is the supreme and most just Judge of man's thoughts, words, and actions, and will forever reward or punish man according to his works. "The fear of the Lord," says the Royal Prophet, "is the beginning of wisdom." This wholesome fear, as experience testifies, is the only universal and effectual restraint against all evil-doing. The fear of the Lord, however, cannot be instilled into the heart of man except by a good religious training. But in the present public school system, from which religious instruction is carefully banished, a religious training is an impossibility. It is therefore evident that such a system is unable to impart sound moral principles, or to furnish an effective moral restraint on one's evil inclinations and animal passions.
Such a system is, then, in itself erroneous, and, if alone followed, highly dangerous to the real welfare of the individual, of the family, and of society.
"No man," says Christ, "can serve two masters.'' No one can serve God and the devil. If you are not on God's side, you are siding with the devil, for you cannot remain neutral. "He who is not with Me," says our divine Redeemer, "is against Me." That system of education, then, from which religion and religious instruction are excluded is not with God,—the Author of religion,—but is godless, anti-religious, and destructive of the basis of morality, and the education it imparts is injurious to salvation, for "a bad tree," says Christ, "cannot produce good fruit." Just as our bodies may be killed not merely by poison, but quite as surely by want of nourishment, so also our souls may be spiritually killed, not only by heretical doctrines, but even more surely and insidiously by the want of religion, that is, by infidelity.
There is now a general conviction that wickedness and the lack of moral principles are to be found among all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest. We need not be astonished at this, for a large proportion of the present generation, brought up in schools from which all religious instruction is excluded, have received no religious training even at home, and, consequently, have not had the wholesome fear of the Lord instilled into their hearts from their infancy. Being destitute of this salutary fear, they have but little fear of man or respect for human authority and law, because the instructions they have received have made them, not good and virtuous, but smart and godless, capable of devising a thousand ways of escaping or defeating human justice.
One instance among many will suffice to illustrate our position. Statistics show that, in late years, ten thousand persons are murdered annually in the United States, and hardly one murderer in twenty is punished. The general lack of conscience, the dishonesty and immorality of the present generation, are mainly attributable to the want of religious education and to godless training. The only safeguard for your dear little ones against this torrent of corruption is the God fearing spirit acquired by a thorough religious education in a good Catholic school.
You ought to bear in mind that it is not a matter of choice with you; that you are not at liberty to send your children to any school you like. Wherever there are good Catholic schools it is your sacred duty to send your children to them, and to no other schools, unless you have serious reasons approved by the bishop of the diocese. Such is the decision given by our Holy Father the Pope to the bishops of the United States. And when Rome has spoken the case is finally settled and is no longer appealable, as St. Augustine declared fifteen centuries ago. This is likewise the decision of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, which prescribes, wherever feasible, the erection of Catholic schools in every parish, and requires Catholic parents to send their children to Catholic schools.
The enemies of the Catholic Church are everywhere doing all in their power to wrest the control of education from her, and it behooves every true Catholic to stand by the Church in this momentous question, on which depends the preservation of future generations in the true faith. In this vital question every man must choose his side; no one can remain neutral. You cannot serve two masters. Under which banner will you fight? Will it be under that of Christ and His Church? If so, you must send your children to none but good Catholic schools, and do all in your power to contribute to the erection and maintenance of such schools. But if, without reasons approved by your bishop, you send your children to non-Catholic schools, you are actually fighting under the banner of the devil, and you are helping Satan and his imps to destroy the Church, your mother!
“If any man," says St. Paul" hath not care of his own, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." To take proper care of your children, it behooves you to send them to none but good Catholic schools. Send them regularly, for otherwise they will not be able to learn much. Do this at least for the sake of your little ones, who ought to be so dear to you. In these times our young people, in order to earn a living, are obliged to mingle with a corrupt and unbelieving society. They ought to be well acquainted with their religion, not only to defend their faith, but also to secure themselves from the danger of losing it altogether. To resist the seductions and allurements of the world, and to withstand faithfully the fierce assaults of their own fiery passions, they should from their very infancy have grown so accustomed to the faithful discharge of their religious duties as to find these indispensable for their happiness. You cannot bring about this desirable result in your dear children, unless you send them to schools where they will get a good religious training.
Some parents object to sending their children to Catholic schools under the erroneous pretext that their children will learn more in the public schools and be better fitted to earn a living. This is not true; and, even if it were, is it not better for your children to be good and virtuous, than to have learning without virtue or religious principles? But what does experience testify? It testifies that the secular education given in Catholic institutions is not only equal, but even superior, to that imparted in the public schools. Whenever a competitive examination takes place between pupils of various schools, the palm is usually carried off by the pupils of Catholic schools!
Another very powerful means of promoting the religious education of your children is to adorn every apartment of your house with a crucifix or some pious pictures, and to procure for your own use and that of your children some good Catholic books and papers. Every family ought to subscribe and pay for at least one Catholic paper—the paper having the approval of the bishop of the diocese.
Chapter Twelve - Prudence and Tact
It sometimes happens that good and virtuous parents have unruly and wayward children, who are a source not only of annoyance to them, but also of grief and sorrow. They are at a loss to account for this, for they know that they are not sparing of good example, of kind admonitions, and even of severe corrections, but nevertheless all their efforts to bring up their children in virtue and piety are unavailing. The principal reason why such parents are unsuccessful in the bringing up of children is because they lack the necessary prudence and tact. Some parents are too lenient altogether, others are too severe, and others again go from one excess to the other. Excessive leniency, on the one hand, by failing to place sufficient restraint on the passions of the children, naturally tends to make the children despise authority and have their own way in everything.
On the other hand, excessive severity begets hypocrites. Children who are restrained only by a servile fear of punishment will seek and find means of deceiving their parents whilst appearing to be good and virtuous; but so soon as they have outgrown this fear of their parents, or have escaped from their control, they will show themselves in their true colors, i.e., insubordinate, and the slaves of the basest passions.
Prudence requires that kindness and firmness be so combined in the bringing up of children that the children be induced to practice virtue through a loving, childlike fear. Kindness should never be separated from firmness, and firmness should always be mingled with kindness. Kindness without firmness is culpable weakness, whilst firmness without kindness degenerates into harmful harshness and severity.
Always be kind in your manner, even when you have to correct, reprove, and punish your children. Show them that you have a parental heart, and not the hard-heartedness of severe masters. But never let your kindness lead you to fail in the necessary firmness. Whenever there is question of something that will endanger the health, life, or eternal salvation of your children, you must be as firm as a rock, you must be inexorable, but in all kindness and without harshness. Give all the necessary commands and prohibitions, but avoid useless ones: and when you have commanded or forbidden something, and the children have disobeyed, do not fail to give the necessary sanction to your orders by inflicting reasonable punishment.
Punish them, however, without passion, as will be shown in a separate chapter. To command and threaten punishment in case of disobedience, and not to inflict punishment when disobeyed, is a sign of weakness, and will lead the children to despise both you and your authority.
A great help in the bringing up of the children is to have order in the house. There should be a place for everything, a time for everything, and everyone should have a task or duty assigned to him and be held responsible for its proper performance. Where disorder reigns in a household there the spirit of obedience is lacking, and it is no wonder if the children become unmanageable.
Prudence is necessary for both the establishing and the maintaining of order. It is prudence which teaches us how to govern, how to direct the affairs of the family, how to discover and use the most appropriate means for the attainment of an object. Prudence dictates what to allow, what to forbid; how to treat the children according to their age, to their dispositions, and to the circumstances in which they are placed. Prudence directs when and how to admonish and reprove, when and how to punish, when and how to reward. Prudence enables one to make a good choice of amusements and companions for the children. Hence it behooves you often to repeat the prayer of Solomon, to obtain the prudence so indispensable for you in the proper bringing up of your children:
"Give us, O Lord, an understanding heart to judge . . . and discern between good and evil" (3 Kings iii. 9).
Teach your children to reflect, to use their reason, to be guided in all their actions, not by feeling or passion, but by reason and conscience.
Teach them always to listen to the voice of their conscience and to heed its dictates, and never to act in opposition thereto. Explain to them how, in all their actions, they should be impelled by a sense of duty, and place their duty to God above everything else. Teach them not to be over-confident and conceited, but in all difficult and important matters to seek the counsel of their elders and their betters. In warning them against certain dangerous friendships, teach them how to discern between true and false friendship, between real friendship and flattery. Explain to them that the aim of true friendship is to make the friends more virtuous, more perfect; that true friendship consists not in sweet words and loving protestations; that it is obliging, self-sacrificing, and, above all, truthful; whilst flattery has an oily tongue and smooth ways, and is misleading and deceitful. Warn them against trusting any friendship, however polished and apparently sincere, which would lead them to act out their faults to them, and warn them against relapse.
It would be well if, after the boys have left school, the father were to accompany them every month to the reception of the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. The mother should do likewise with the girls. Such conduct on the part of the father and the mother would confirm the children in the practice of their faith, in leading a virtuous life, and at the same time would tend to cement more closely their union with their parents and increase their affection for them. Strive by your tact and prudence, by your earnest efforts in carrying out the foregoing directions, to gain so great an ascendency over your children that they may always look upon you as their best friends and advisers. The father should have so brought up his son that when the boy has become a young man he may be like a loving companion to his father. In like manner the mother should have so trained her daughter, that when the daughter has become a young woman she should consider her mother as her best friend and companion, and should never have any secrets to conceal from her own beloved mother.
On the other hand, excessive severity begets hypocrites. Children who are restrained only by a servile fear of punishment will seek and find means of deceiving their parents whilst appearing to be good and virtuous; but so soon as they have outgrown this fear of their parents, or have escaped from their control, they will show themselves in their true colors, i.e., insubordinate, and the slaves of the basest passions.
Prudence requires that kindness and firmness be so combined in the bringing up of children that the children be induced to practice virtue through a loving, childlike fear. Kindness should never be separated from firmness, and firmness should always be mingled with kindness. Kindness without firmness is culpable weakness, whilst firmness without kindness degenerates into harmful harshness and severity.
Always be kind in your manner, even when you have to correct, reprove, and punish your children. Show them that you have a parental heart, and not the hard-heartedness of severe masters. But never let your kindness lead you to fail in the necessary firmness. Whenever there is question of something that will endanger the health, life, or eternal salvation of your children, you must be as firm as a rock, you must be inexorable, but in all kindness and without harshness. Give all the necessary commands and prohibitions, but avoid useless ones: and when you have commanded or forbidden something, and the children have disobeyed, do not fail to give the necessary sanction to your orders by inflicting reasonable punishment.
Punish them, however, without passion, as will be shown in a separate chapter. To command and threaten punishment in case of disobedience, and not to inflict punishment when disobeyed, is a sign of weakness, and will lead the children to despise both you and your authority.
A great help in the bringing up of the children is to have order in the house. There should be a place for everything, a time for everything, and everyone should have a task or duty assigned to him and be held responsible for its proper performance. Where disorder reigns in a household there the spirit of obedience is lacking, and it is no wonder if the children become unmanageable.
Prudence is necessary for both the establishing and the maintaining of order. It is prudence which teaches us how to govern, how to direct the affairs of the family, how to discover and use the most appropriate means for the attainment of an object. Prudence dictates what to allow, what to forbid; how to treat the children according to their age, to their dispositions, and to the circumstances in which they are placed. Prudence directs when and how to admonish and reprove, when and how to punish, when and how to reward. Prudence enables one to make a good choice of amusements and companions for the children. Hence it behooves you often to repeat the prayer of Solomon, to obtain the prudence so indispensable for you in the proper bringing up of your children:
"Give us, O Lord, an understanding heart to judge . . . and discern between good and evil" (3 Kings iii. 9).
Teach your children to reflect, to use their reason, to be guided in all their actions, not by feeling or passion, but by reason and conscience.
Teach them always to listen to the voice of their conscience and to heed its dictates, and never to act in opposition thereto. Explain to them how, in all their actions, they should be impelled by a sense of duty, and place their duty to God above everything else. Teach them not to be over-confident and conceited, but in all difficult and important matters to seek the counsel of their elders and their betters. In warning them against certain dangerous friendships, teach them how to discern between true and false friendship, between real friendship and flattery. Explain to them that the aim of true friendship is to make the friends more virtuous, more perfect; that true friendship consists not in sweet words and loving protestations; that it is obliging, self-sacrificing, and, above all, truthful; whilst flattery has an oily tongue and smooth ways, and is misleading and deceitful. Warn them against trusting any friendship, however polished and apparently sincere, which would lead them to act out their faults to them, and warn them against relapse.
It would be well if, after the boys have left school, the father were to accompany them every month to the reception of the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. The mother should do likewise with the girls. Such conduct on the part of the father and the mother would confirm the children in the practice of their faith, in leading a virtuous life, and at the same time would tend to cement more closely their union with their parents and increase their affection for them. Strive by your tact and prudence, by your earnest efforts in carrying out the foregoing directions, to gain so great an ascendency over your children that they may always look upon you as their best friends and advisers. The father should have so brought up his son that when the boy has become a young man he may be like a loving companion to his father. In like manner the mother should have so trained her daughter, that when the daughter has become a young woman she should consider her mother as her best friend and companion, and should never have any secrets to conceal from her own beloved mother.
Chapter Thirteen - Watchfulness
It is your sacred duty constantly and unremittingly to watch over your children. But you should so watch that they may not be aware of this constant vigilance on your part, for it would tend to make them hypocrites. Teach them to be always truthful and sincere.
Strive always to know whither your children go, with whom they associate, and what they are doing. Fail not to require of them a strict account of all these points. Woe to you if you are ignorant of their whereabouts, of their actions, of the company they keep, or of the dangers to which their innocence is exposed. Some children repeatedly play truant from school and habitually neglect hearing holy Mass on Sundays and festivals, and their parents, because they are not watchful over them, never find it out! Keep your children away from the streets, especially at night. Those children over whom there is little or no restraint soon lose their innocence, become vicious, and will at one time or another disgrace their parents and break their hearts, for, says St. Paul, "everyone reaps what he has sown."
Accustom your children to go to bed early and to rise early. Keep them from all bad and dangerous companions, from all sinful and dangerous amusements, and from whatever may prove injurious to your house be the worthy dwelling of a true Catholic, capable of inspiring yourselves, your children, and your visitors with sentiments of devotion and the love of virtue.
This will be a great help to you in the discharge of your sacred duty of constantly watching over your children.
Let each of your children have, as far as possible, a separate bed; at least you must never allow those of different sexes to sleep promiscuously together. This is a most important point. Carefully watch over the private actions of your children, lest they practice or contract some immoral secret habit which will bring on them both spiritual and corporal ruin. How often is this all-important duty neglected by even religious parents!
Do all in your power to bring up your children in perfect sobriety, and accustom them to control their appetites, and never to transgress the bounds of moderation in eating and drinking. It were even advisable and very desirable that the parents themselves should practice, and cause their children also to practice, total abstinence, as a safeguard against the frequent and abominable vice of intemperance, which is the cause and occasion of so much misery and crime. You should also strain every nerve to preserve your children from vanity, from all worldly spirit, from human respect, and from a fondness for sinful and dangerous amusements.
Strive always to know whither your children go, with whom they associate, and what they are doing. Fail not to require of them a strict account of all these points. Woe to you if you are ignorant of their whereabouts, of their actions, of the company they keep, or of the dangers to which their innocence is exposed. Some children repeatedly play truant from school and habitually neglect hearing holy Mass on Sundays and festivals, and their parents, because they are not watchful over them, never find it out! Keep your children away from the streets, especially at night. Those children over whom there is little or no restraint soon lose their innocence, become vicious, and will at one time or another disgrace their parents and break their hearts, for, says St. Paul, "everyone reaps what he has sown."
Accustom your children to go to bed early and to rise early. Keep them from all bad and dangerous companions, from all sinful and dangerous amusements, and from whatever may prove injurious to your house be the worthy dwelling of a true Catholic, capable of inspiring yourselves, your children, and your visitors with sentiments of devotion and the love of virtue.
This will be a great help to you in the discharge of your sacred duty of constantly watching over your children.
Let each of your children have, as far as possible, a separate bed; at least you must never allow those of different sexes to sleep promiscuously together. This is a most important point. Carefully watch over the private actions of your children, lest they practice or contract some immoral secret habit which will bring on them both spiritual and corporal ruin. How often is this all-important duty neglected by even religious parents!
Do all in your power to bring up your children in perfect sobriety, and accustom them to control their appetites, and never to transgress the bounds of moderation in eating and drinking. It were even advisable and very desirable that the parents themselves should practice, and cause their children also to practice, total abstinence, as a safeguard against the frequent and abominable vice of intemperance, which is the cause and occasion of so much misery and crime. You should also strain every nerve to preserve your children from vanity, from all worldly spirit, from human respect, and from a fondness for sinful and dangerous amusements.
Chapter Fourteen - Correction
It is your duty to correct your children whenever they do anything wrong. All children have their faults, and yours are no exception to the rule. You are bound in conscience to correct and punish your children whenever they deserve it. You must do this from their very infancy, otherwise they would soon become unmanageable. The correction may consist in a simple sign of disapprobation; in a word, a rebuke, a severe reproof ; the privation of some delicacy, of some amusement, or even of a meal. Sometimes their temper or obstinacy may require even the infliction of bodily pain. It is absurd to say that you can always manage or control your little ones by talking to them and reasoning with them, and that you never need to use the rod; your children are neither angels nor prodigies of virtue.
The younger they are, the less apt are they to be influenced by mere reason or a sense of duty and honor. Just as colts need to be broken, so also must young children, to a certain extent, be subdued by the dread of bodily pain. Some parents fail in their duty by constantly scolding, threatening, and abusing their children, without; however, inflicting actual punishment. Others very frequently beat them in anger amidst a volley of abuse; and others again go to the other extreme, for they entirely neglect to reprimand and punish them, and allow them to have their own way and do as they please. Excessive severity begets hypocrisy, and too great leniency produces license.
You should guard against showing partiality or favoritism towards any of your children, but should correct them all alike when they do wrong. Let your correction be proportionate to the gravity of their fault, especially if it proceeds from malice.
Strive to inspire them with the hatred and horror of sin. Correct them with prudence, with firmness, with a loving kindness, carefully avoiding all display of passion, harshness or bitterness, and all angry and abusive words. So correct them as to convince them that you punish them, not because you are angry, but because they have done wrong (or because they have hurt Our Lord, emphasis mine.) and it is your painful duty to punish them. If you act thus, your correction, even when most severe, will bind your children more closely to yourself. Having punished them, do not spoil the effect of your correction by petting them immediately after. You ought, on the contrary to endeavor to make them sensible of their fault and of the displeasure it gave you, by being, for a time, a little cold and distant towards them.
Beware of listening to their tales or of taking their part against everybody, and especially against their teachers. Whenever you find out that they have received punishment in school, be sure to punish them for it at home also, for it is always to be presumed that the punishment inflicted at school is really deserved.
Beware, then, of condemning and abusing the teacher for punishing your child; and especially abstain from doing so in your child's hearing.
Since you do not relish being condemned by others without a hearing, it is meet that you should refrain from condemning the teacher on the bare report of a faulty and, perhaps, untruthful and deceitful child. Your readiness to accept tales concerning the teacher or anybody else will encourage your children to manufacture them whenever it may serve their purpose, and will tend to make them both deceitful and untrustworthy.
In correcting the children both the father and the mother should act in concert. You ought both to follow the same line of conduct and uphold each other's authority, for if you do not your children will soon become uncontrollable, and lose all respect for you and your authority. The father should always maintain the mother's authority, and the mother should not fail to inspire the children with the utmost respect for their father. The mother's simple threat "to tell father" about their misconduct should suffice to recall them at once to a sense of duty.
It behooves you, moreover, not to fail to encourage your children when they do well. You should even, at times, reward them for their good conduct. It is not advisable to give them money for their arbitrary use, except perhaps in rare cases and only in small sums. And whenever you have given them money, be sure cautiously to inquire how they have spent it. Although you are strictly obliged to teach them how to economize and appreciate the value of the money, which it costs you so much to earn, you should, nevertheless, consider it a sacred duty to inspire them with sentiments of true Christian charity and the spirit of generosity towards the poor, the Church, and all works of spiritual and corporal mercy.
The younger they are, the less apt are they to be influenced by mere reason or a sense of duty and honor. Just as colts need to be broken, so also must young children, to a certain extent, be subdued by the dread of bodily pain. Some parents fail in their duty by constantly scolding, threatening, and abusing their children, without; however, inflicting actual punishment. Others very frequently beat them in anger amidst a volley of abuse; and others again go to the other extreme, for they entirely neglect to reprimand and punish them, and allow them to have their own way and do as they please. Excessive severity begets hypocrisy, and too great leniency produces license.
You should guard against showing partiality or favoritism towards any of your children, but should correct them all alike when they do wrong. Let your correction be proportionate to the gravity of their fault, especially if it proceeds from malice.
Strive to inspire them with the hatred and horror of sin. Correct them with prudence, with firmness, with a loving kindness, carefully avoiding all display of passion, harshness or bitterness, and all angry and abusive words. So correct them as to convince them that you punish them, not because you are angry, but because they have done wrong (or because they have hurt Our Lord, emphasis mine.) and it is your painful duty to punish them. If you act thus, your correction, even when most severe, will bind your children more closely to yourself. Having punished them, do not spoil the effect of your correction by petting them immediately after. You ought, on the contrary to endeavor to make them sensible of their fault and of the displeasure it gave you, by being, for a time, a little cold and distant towards them.
Beware of listening to their tales or of taking their part against everybody, and especially against their teachers. Whenever you find out that they have received punishment in school, be sure to punish them for it at home also, for it is always to be presumed that the punishment inflicted at school is really deserved.
Beware, then, of condemning and abusing the teacher for punishing your child; and especially abstain from doing so in your child's hearing.
Since you do not relish being condemned by others without a hearing, it is meet that you should refrain from condemning the teacher on the bare report of a faulty and, perhaps, untruthful and deceitful child. Your readiness to accept tales concerning the teacher or anybody else will encourage your children to manufacture them whenever it may serve their purpose, and will tend to make them both deceitful and untrustworthy.
In correcting the children both the father and the mother should act in concert. You ought both to follow the same line of conduct and uphold each other's authority, for if you do not your children will soon become uncontrollable, and lose all respect for you and your authority. The father should always maintain the mother's authority, and the mother should not fail to inspire the children with the utmost respect for their father. The mother's simple threat "to tell father" about their misconduct should suffice to recall them at once to a sense of duty.
It behooves you, moreover, not to fail to encourage your children when they do well. You should even, at times, reward them for their good conduct. It is not advisable to give them money for their arbitrary use, except perhaps in rare cases and only in small sums. And whenever you have given them money, be sure cautiously to inquire how they have spent it. Although you are strictly obliged to teach them how to economize and appreciate the value of the money, which it costs you so much to earn, you should, nevertheless, consider it a sacred duty to inspire them with sentiments of true Christian charity and the spirit of generosity towards the poor, the Church, and all works of spiritual and corporal mercy.
Chapter Fifteen - Good Example
It is one of your most important and indispensable obligations to give a good example to your children. Parents frequently complain of the want of obedience and submission on the part of their children. They would have fewer occasions of complaint if their own conduct was always exemplary.
Unfortunately, not all parents so conduct themselves as to inspire their offspring with respect, veneration, and unbounded confidence. Many parents even undo at home what has been accomplished by the good education given in Catholic schools.
How many parents are selfish, untruthful, dishonest, intemperate, and devoid of all patience, meekness, and charity! They break the laws of abstinence, neglect their prayers, holy Mass, the hearing of the word of God, the reception of the sacraments, the reading of good books and Catholic papers, and, nevertheless, they expect their children to be models of virtue. But, says St. Paul, we can reap only what we have sown. In many cases the father is fond neither of his home nor of his family, and the mother shows neither respect nor submission towards the father. These, and sometimes far worse things, cause the children to lose all respect for their parents, and even to despise them. It were better for such parents that a millstone were hung about their necks and that they were thus cast into the deep sea, than that they should scandalize their little ones by breaking the divine commandments and neglecting their religious duties.
Example is more powerful than precept. It is therefore your sacred obligation so to conduct yourselves that your children may be able to look up to you as models both in the social life and in the practice of the Christian virtues. They should be able to discover in you sufficient grounds for believing that there is nobody in the world so industrious, so temperate, so upright, so truthful, so virtuous, and so worthy of their respect and confidence as their own dear father and mother. But your children, who, in their childhood, are more acute than they are supposed to be, must actually perceive in you good reasons for forming so exalted an opinion of you. Your conduct ought, then, to be such as to win and deserve their good opinion and esteem, and convince them that you really are their worthy models, their best friends, their most disinterested advisers, in whom they may place all confidence, to whom they may securely and advantageously entrust all their most hidden secrets, and whose advice they may safely ask and follow.
Strive always to act in such a manner that your children may so revere and cherish you as never to undertake anything of importance without your consent, and to be always ready to make any sacrifice rather than displease or disappoint you, or cause you pain.
Unfortunately, not all parents so conduct themselves as to inspire their offspring with respect, veneration, and unbounded confidence. Many parents even undo at home what has been accomplished by the good education given in Catholic schools.
How many parents are selfish, untruthful, dishonest, intemperate, and devoid of all patience, meekness, and charity! They break the laws of abstinence, neglect their prayers, holy Mass, the hearing of the word of God, the reception of the sacraments, the reading of good books and Catholic papers, and, nevertheless, they expect their children to be models of virtue. But, says St. Paul, we can reap only what we have sown. In many cases the father is fond neither of his home nor of his family, and the mother shows neither respect nor submission towards the father. These, and sometimes far worse things, cause the children to lose all respect for their parents, and even to despise them. It were better for such parents that a millstone were hung about their necks and that they were thus cast into the deep sea, than that they should scandalize their little ones by breaking the divine commandments and neglecting their religious duties.
Example is more powerful than precept. It is therefore your sacred obligation so to conduct yourselves that your children may be able to look up to you as models both in the social life and in the practice of the Christian virtues. They should be able to discover in you sufficient grounds for believing that there is nobody in the world so industrious, so temperate, so upright, so truthful, so virtuous, and so worthy of their respect and confidence as their own dear father and mother. But your children, who, in their childhood, are more acute than they are supposed to be, must actually perceive in you good reasons for forming so exalted an opinion of you. Your conduct ought, then, to be such as to win and deserve their good opinion and esteem, and convince them that you really are their worthy models, their best friends, their most disinterested advisers, in whom they may place all confidence, to whom they may securely and advantageously entrust all their most hidden secrets, and whose advice they may safely ask and follow.
Strive always to act in such a manner that your children may so revere and cherish you as never to undertake anything of importance without your consent, and to be always ready to make any sacrifice rather than displease or disappoint you, or cause you pain.
Chapter Sixteen - Vocation
Beware of bringing up your children in indolence. Strive to render them competent to earn a decent living. Send them to school, but not too long; it is not necessary to make every boy a first-class bookkeeper and every girl a schoolteacher.
In most cases it is preferable that your children learn a trade. Train them to render themselves useful, wherever they may be. For this purpose give them some occupation at home, as soon as they are able to be of service to you. Do not, however, make them work as slaves. Though you may have it in your power to bestow such ample means on your daughters that they may not be required to earn their living by their own labor, you should, nevertheless, not only to accustom them to lend a helping hand in the daily housework, but also have them learn how to sew, cook, wash, iron, etc.; for whatever may be their future station in society, it behooves them at least perfectly to understand such work.
Do not imbue your children with the prevalent spirit of vanity and ostentation, by bestowing on them too fine clothing, costly jewelry, or rich presents. Beware of educating them above their natural spheres in life, and of providing them with all the luxuries and accomplishments that are accessible only to the more wealthy. Endeavor, as far as circumstances permit, to bestow a higher and appropriate education on those of your children who may display a remarkable talent for some of the liberal arts, or manifest a vocation for some one of the professions.
As soon as your children have finished their schooling put them to work at once. It is often dangerous to let them taste even for a single day the baneful sweets and allurements of idleness. Until they have attained their majority, oblige them strictly to bring all their earnings to their mother, who may give them a small weekly allowance as pocket-money. Nothing more surely ruins a boy than to let him do what he likes with his earnings.
When your children have attained their majority require them to contribute a monthly sum as their share of the family expenditures. Do all in your power to train them to habits of economy and sobriety.
Whilst your children are growing up, carefully and closely study their natural dispositions and inclinations, that you may discover their vocation and help them to follow it. Bear in mind that their salvation depends on their embracing that state of life to which God calls them. You have no right to prescribe what state of life your children should embrace: that belongs to God alone. "Every one," says St. Paul, "hath his proper gift from God: one after this manner, another after that. As the Lord hath distributed to everyone, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk" (1 Cor. vii. 7, 17). Pray much that God may enlighten you and your children as to their vocation.
Teach them often to repeat: "Make known to me, O Lord, the way in which I should walk" (Ps.cxlii. 8).
If you discover in one of your boys the signs of a vocation to the priesthood, consider it as the greatest honor God can bestow on your family, and humbly thank Him for it, for the priestly dignity is the highest in the gift of God. According to St. Ambrose, the priest is a second Christ, because he continues Christ's ministry and the work of man's redemption.
If any of your sons and daughters are called to the religious state thank God for the honor He confers on your family in choosing one of its members as His own loved spouse. Beware of obstinately opposing or of endangering the ecclesiastical or religious vocation of your children, for you would thereby greatly offend God, and expose yourselves to fearful punishments for thwarting His designs. Parents who succeed in preventing their children from consecrating themselves to God's service are usually, sooner or later, ill-treated or disgraced by those very children, or meet with some terrible divine punishment, or have the grief and sorrow to see those children overtaken by some horrible fate. You should therefore not only not seek to hinder your children from responding to the divine call, but you ought rather to do all in your power to help them to be faithful to it. Such a conduct on your part will secure for you and yours the choicest of heaven's blessings.
The greater part of mankind however, are called to the state of matrimony. Unfortunately, comparatively few parents understand the full extent of their duty towards those of their children who are called to this most responsible state; and among those who understand it there are some who have not courage to perform it. Certain parents, and especially certain mothers, do not want their children to get married, for fear of being deprived of their help; some, out of prejudice or from some selfish motive, would even rather see their sons plunge into vice than consent to their contracting an honorable marriage. Many others, on the other hand, through culpable negligence and indifference, allow their children to be wholly guided by their own fancy and folly in all that regards matrimony. Others, again, are bent on marrying off their children, and especially their daughters, by all means and at the earliest opportunity.
To catch husbands for their marriageable daughters they take them to balls, theatres, parties, and other more or less dangerous amusements, and even to some church more fashionable than their own parish church, using every imaginable trick and device to insure success to their plans. It does not seldom happen, however, that such mothers, whilst they are secretly congratulating themselves on their ingenuity and cunning, are, together with their unhappy daughters, made the subject of popular merriment, and become the laughing-stock of society. The aforesaid parents are not infrequently the cause of their children's unhappy and even disgraceful marriages!
In most cases it is preferable that your children learn a trade. Train them to render themselves useful, wherever they may be. For this purpose give them some occupation at home, as soon as they are able to be of service to you. Do not, however, make them work as slaves. Though you may have it in your power to bestow such ample means on your daughters that they may not be required to earn their living by their own labor, you should, nevertheless, not only to accustom them to lend a helping hand in the daily housework, but also have them learn how to sew, cook, wash, iron, etc.; for whatever may be their future station in society, it behooves them at least perfectly to understand such work.
Do not imbue your children with the prevalent spirit of vanity and ostentation, by bestowing on them too fine clothing, costly jewelry, or rich presents. Beware of educating them above their natural spheres in life, and of providing them with all the luxuries and accomplishments that are accessible only to the more wealthy. Endeavor, as far as circumstances permit, to bestow a higher and appropriate education on those of your children who may display a remarkable talent for some of the liberal arts, or manifest a vocation for some one of the professions.
As soon as your children have finished their schooling put them to work at once. It is often dangerous to let them taste even for a single day the baneful sweets and allurements of idleness. Until they have attained their majority, oblige them strictly to bring all their earnings to their mother, who may give them a small weekly allowance as pocket-money. Nothing more surely ruins a boy than to let him do what he likes with his earnings.
When your children have attained their majority require them to contribute a monthly sum as their share of the family expenditures. Do all in your power to train them to habits of economy and sobriety.
Whilst your children are growing up, carefully and closely study their natural dispositions and inclinations, that you may discover their vocation and help them to follow it. Bear in mind that their salvation depends on their embracing that state of life to which God calls them. You have no right to prescribe what state of life your children should embrace: that belongs to God alone. "Every one," says St. Paul, "hath his proper gift from God: one after this manner, another after that. As the Lord hath distributed to everyone, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk" (1 Cor. vii. 7, 17). Pray much that God may enlighten you and your children as to their vocation.
Teach them often to repeat: "Make known to me, O Lord, the way in which I should walk" (Ps.cxlii. 8).
If you discover in one of your boys the signs of a vocation to the priesthood, consider it as the greatest honor God can bestow on your family, and humbly thank Him for it, for the priestly dignity is the highest in the gift of God. According to St. Ambrose, the priest is a second Christ, because he continues Christ's ministry and the work of man's redemption.
If any of your sons and daughters are called to the religious state thank God for the honor He confers on your family in choosing one of its members as His own loved spouse. Beware of obstinately opposing or of endangering the ecclesiastical or religious vocation of your children, for you would thereby greatly offend God, and expose yourselves to fearful punishments for thwarting His designs. Parents who succeed in preventing their children from consecrating themselves to God's service are usually, sooner or later, ill-treated or disgraced by those very children, or meet with some terrible divine punishment, or have the grief and sorrow to see those children overtaken by some horrible fate. You should therefore not only not seek to hinder your children from responding to the divine call, but you ought rather to do all in your power to help them to be faithful to it. Such a conduct on your part will secure for you and yours the choicest of heaven's blessings.
The greater part of mankind however, are called to the state of matrimony. Unfortunately, comparatively few parents understand the full extent of their duty towards those of their children who are called to this most responsible state; and among those who understand it there are some who have not courage to perform it. Certain parents, and especially certain mothers, do not want their children to get married, for fear of being deprived of their help; some, out of prejudice or from some selfish motive, would even rather see their sons plunge into vice than consent to their contracting an honorable marriage. Many others, on the other hand, through culpable negligence and indifference, allow their children to be wholly guided by their own fancy and folly in all that regards matrimony. Others, again, are bent on marrying off their children, and especially their daughters, by all means and at the earliest opportunity.
To catch husbands for their marriageable daughters they take them to balls, theatres, parties, and other more or less dangerous amusements, and even to some church more fashionable than their own parish church, using every imaginable trick and device to insure success to their plans. It does not seldom happen, however, that such mothers, whilst they are secretly congratulating themselves on their ingenuity and cunning, are, together with their unhappy daughters, made the subject of popular merriment, and become the laughing-stock of society. The aforesaid parents are not infrequently the cause of their children's unhappy and even disgraceful marriages!
Chapter Seventeen - Preparation for Marriage
When your children are nearing the marriageable age it behooves you seriously to impart to them the necessary advice and instruction concerning the dignity and sanctity of the Sacrament of Matrimony, the importance of finding out the will of God in their regard, and of making due preparation for its worthy reception. You should also carefully instruct them concerning the very grave duties and responsibilities of the married state. Far from seeking, as some do, the counsel of fortune-tellers, you ought yourselves to pray, and to cause your children to pray, constantly and fervently, that they may discover God's holy will, and meet the partners He Himself may have destined for them. If you have acquired, as you should, perfect control over them and gained their entire confidence, they will not undertake anything in so serious a matter without your advice. Counsel them in all love and kindness, and without selfishness. If your views do not coincide with theirs, do not yield to passion or prejudice, but be sure to give good reasons for your advice, otherwise it will be unheeded and despised.
Watch carefully over your children, lest they begin to keep company with persons whom they should not marry. To this class belong all married persons, all those who are divorced, all relatives, unbelievers, Protestants, Jews, irreligious persons, members of secret societies; as well as all who are physically or morally unfit to discharge properly the duties of the married state, such as those who are too young, too frivolous, the idle, the dissipated, the intemperate, gamblers, and other worthless characters. Moreover, an undutiful son usually makes a bad husband, and an undutiful daughter will be a bad wife.
Do all you can to impress on the minds of your children that none of the aforesaid are fit to be their partners in life, or competent to help them to save their souls, or to bring up a family of children in a Christian manner. Remind them that no reliance is to be placed on the promises of such persons before marriage, for these promises are usually broken after marriage.
Seriously warn your sons against private company keeping, using all the gentle means in your power to induce them to heed your advice on this important point. As to your daughters, do not allow them to receive the visits of young men, except in your own house and in your own presence, or at least in the presence of some very respectable person. Too great importance cannot be attached to this point. It is very sinful for you to leave your daughter alone at night with a man, whether in your own house, or promenading about the streets, or frequenting places of amusement. There is always danger, and even great danger, though both were as pure as angels; and the danger is much the greater on account of their youth, their inexperience, and their growing mutual affection. Careless parents, when you are saying your night prayers, when you have retired to rest, where are your sons and daughters? What are they doing? Perhaps their souls are in danger, and you are sleeping quietly! Barbarous and cruel parents, you would watch and use every precaution to save your house, your furniture, your jewelry, your money from danger, and yet you quietly leave your own dear daughter exposed to seduction, disgrace, and eternal perdition, without making the slightest effort to protect her! How many other girls more pure, more innocent, more virtuous than your daughter, have been utterly ruined through the sinful and damnable neglect of parents like yourselves! Beware lest a similar fate befall your own daughter!
You ought to follow the noble example of that truly Christian mother in Paris whose daughter was engaged, with her consent, to marry a young physician. The young man had never even for a moment seen his intended out of her mother's presence and hearing.
About ten days previous to the day appointed for the wedding he called to see the young lady, saying he had some important private communication to make. The good mother kindly but firmly told him that he could not, under any consideration, see her daughter in private.
“Why, madam,” he said, “are we not soon to be married?”
“True,” replied the mother, “but she is not yet your wife, until then she remains entirely under my charge, and I am wholly responsible for her, and I will never allow her to converse with any man in private. If you have anything to say to her, you must say it in my presence; if what you have to communicate to her is right and proper, you cannot reasonably object to my hearing it.”
The young physician, who was endowed with piety and commonsense, then informed the lady that, having directed a novena of masses to be celebrated in the parish church to draw down the divine blessing on their marriage, he desired to apprise his intended of it, and request her to assist at the masses, and thus prepare for the worthy reception of the Sacrament of Matrimony. The mother at once called her daughter, who in her presence was made acquainted with all this, and acquiesced in all the arrangements. Would that all mothers were as prudent as this truly Christian mother!
Watch carefully over your children, lest they begin to keep company with persons whom they should not marry. To this class belong all married persons, all those who are divorced, all relatives, unbelievers, Protestants, Jews, irreligious persons, members of secret societies; as well as all who are physically or morally unfit to discharge properly the duties of the married state, such as those who are too young, too frivolous, the idle, the dissipated, the intemperate, gamblers, and other worthless characters. Moreover, an undutiful son usually makes a bad husband, and an undutiful daughter will be a bad wife.
Do all you can to impress on the minds of your children that none of the aforesaid are fit to be their partners in life, or competent to help them to save their souls, or to bring up a family of children in a Christian manner. Remind them that no reliance is to be placed on the promises of such persons before marriage, for these promises are usually broken after marriage.
Seriously warn your sons against private company keeping, using all the gentle means in your power to induce them to heed your advice on this important point. As to your daughters, do not allow them to receive the visits of young men, except in your own house and in your own presence, or at least in the presence of some very respectable person. Too great importance cannot be attached to this point. It is very sinful for you to leave your daughter alone at night with a man, whether in your own house, or promenading about the streets, or frequenting places of amusement. There is always danger, and even great danger, though both were as pure as angels; and the danger is much the greater on account of their youth, their inexperience, and their growing mutual affection. Careless parents, when you are saying your night prayers, when you have retired to rest, where are your sons and daughters? What are they doing? Perhaps their souls are in danger, and you are sleeping quietly! Barbarous and cruel parents, you would watch and use every precaution to save your house, your furniture, your jewelry, your money from danger, and yet you quietly leave your own dear daughter exposed to seduction, disgrace, and eternal perdition, without making the slightest effort to protect her! How many other girls more pure, more innocent, more virtuous than your daughter, have been utterly ruined through the sinful and damnable neglect of parents like yourselves! Beware lest a similar fate befall your own daughter!
You ought to follow the noble example of that truly Christian mother in Paris whose daughter was engaged, with her consent, to marry a young physician. The young man had never even for a moment seen his intended out of her mother's presence and hearing.
About ten days previous to the day appointed for the wedding he called to see the young lady, saying he had some important private communication to make. The good mother kindly but firmly told him that he could not, under any consideration, see her daughter in private.
“Why, madam,” he said, “are we not soon to be married?”
“True,” replied the mother, “but she is not yet your wife, until then she remains entirely under my charge, and I am wholly responsible for her, and I will never allow her to converse with any man in private. If you have anything to say to her, you must say it in my presence; if what you have to communicate to her is right and proper, you cannot reasonably object to my hearing it.”
The young physician, who was endowed with piety and commonsense, then informed the lady that, having directed a novena of masses to be celebrated in the parish church to draw down the divine blessing on their marriage, he desired to apprise his intended of it, and request her to assist at the masses, and thus prepare for the worthy reception of the Sacrament of Matrimony. The mother at once called her daughter, who in her presence was made acquainted with all this, and acquiesced in all the arrangements. Would that all mothers were as prudent as this truly Christian mother!
Chapter Eighteen - Marriage
Parents, as well as their children, should bear well in mind that company-keeping is a most serious matter. Do not tolerate flirtation, for it is a sign of extreme levity; it is foolish, uncharitable, and unjust, and will sooner or later meet with condign punishment. Do all in your power to prevent long courtships, because long acquaintance and frequent visits are apt to breed dangerous familiarity. Young people should not be permitted to keep company until they are prepared to contract an early marriage. They, after a few interviews, aided by the information derived from their respective parents or discreet and trustworthy friends, do not need a long time to make up their minds whether they want each other. If they do not want each other, all courting between them should forthwith cease, each of them seeking some other more suitable partner. If the young people want each other, let them, after consulting their respective confessors and parents, be at once engaged to each other. Do not oppose their engagement unless you have solid reasons for so doing, and these reasons you should make known to your child. It would have been far better had you made those reasons known before your child's affections were too deeply engaged. In case of doubt as to the course you ought to pursue, it is your duty to consult your pastor or your confessor.
When the young people, with your consent, make this engagement to marry each other, their marriage should be fixed at once at no very distant date; the reason is, that long engagements are even more dangerous than long courtships. Your watchfulness and solicitude should now redouble until the wedding has taken place. Never leave them alone together, either out of your sight or out of your hearing. Bear well in mind, and impress it well on your child's mind, that the parties engaged have no right to any familiarities whether in public or in private.
Before the final arrangements for the wedding are made, go with the parties engaged to your pastor, that he may direct them how to comply with the laws of the Church concerning the reception of the great Sacrament of Matrimony. Your pastor will enable you to fix the proper date and hour of the marriage. The banns of matrimony should be thrice published in the parish church of each party. This publication not only renders the engagement more solemn, but also enables the impediments to the marriage, if any exist, to be discovered and even removed in time, and, moreover, will secure prayers for the divine blessing on the marriage. No true Catholic will seek, without serious reasons, dispensation from this important law of the Church. Its non-observance has been fraught with great evils, and has occasioned many unlawful, invalid, and scandalous marriages, which have proved the source of irreparable injury both in time and in eternity.
See that your children prepare for marriage by a good confession. Be far more solicitous about the purity of their soul and its spiritual adornments than about the fine and expensive dresses they are to wear, etc. A few days before the marriage give your child, with all possible gravity and modesty, the necessary practical instructions concerning the reciprocal duties of married people. Induce them to choose as groomsmen and bridesmaids such persons as will be able to receive Holy Communion with them at the Nuptial Mass. Do not fail to join them yourselves in this great act, offering up your holy communion to obtain the divine blessing on their union.
Let the young people enjoy on their wedding-day a little feast and some innocent amusement, according to the advice of St. Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice” (Phil. iv. 4). Do not, however, make too great a display, or incur too heavy an expense. Be sure to banish from the feast all intemperance, all obscene conversation and remarks, and all unbecoming conduct, for all such things draw down God's curse instead of His blessing.
After the marriage of your children, carefully abstain from all interference in their domestic affairs, unless it be necessary to come to their assistance, or to restore peace and harmony between husband and wife. Beware of sowing seeds of discord in the family. Your children, when married, should keep house for themselves, and earn their own living, and ought not to depend on you for anything except good advice and consolation in time of trouble and sickness. Treat them always in a friendly and loving manner, earnestly recommending to them patience, meekness, mutual forbearance, and the leading of a truly Christian life.
Those parents who heed and put in practice the advice we have given them in these pages will not fail to draw down the divine blessing both on themselves and on their children in this life, and to merit an eternal reward in heaven. Amen.
When the young people, with your consent, make this engagement to marry each other, their marriage should be fixed at once at no very distant date; the reason is, that long engagements are even more dangerous than long courtships. Your watchfulness and solicitude should now redouble until the wedding has taken place. Never leave them alone together, either out of your sight or out of your hearing. Bear well in mind, and impress it well on your child's mind, that the parties engaged have no right to any familiarities whether in public or in private.
Before the final arrangements for the wedding are made, go with the parties engaged to your pastor, that he may direct them how to comply with the laws of the Church concerning the reception of the great Sacrament of Matrimony. Your pastor will enable you to fix the proper date and hour of the marriage. The banns of matrimony should be thrice published in the parish church of each party. This publication not only renders the engagement more solemn, but also enables the impediments to the marriage, if any exist, to be discovered and even removed in time, and, moreover, will secure prayers for the divine blessing on the marriage. No true Catholic will seek, without serious reasons, dispensation from this important law of the Church. Its non-observance has been fraught with great evils, and has occasioned many unlawful, invalid, and scandalous marriages, which have proved the source of irreparable injury both in time and in eternity.
See that your children prepare for marriage by a good confession. Be far more solicitous about the purity of their soul and its spiritual adornments than about the fine and expensive dresses they are to wear, etc. A few days before the marriage give your child, with all possible gravity and modesty, the necessary practical instructions concerning the reciprocal duties of married people. Induce them to choose as groomsmen and bridesmaids such persons as will be able to receive Holy Communion with them at the Nuptial Mass. Do not fail to join them yourselves in this great act, offering up your holy communion to obtain the divine blessing on their union.
Let the young people enjoy on their wedding-day a little feast and some innocent amusement, according to the advice of St. Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice” (Phil. iv. 4). Do not, however, make too great a display, or incur too heavy an expense. Be sure to banish from the feast all intemperance, all obscene conversation and remarks, and all unbecoming conduct, for all such things draw down God's curse instead of His blessing.
After the marriage of your children, carefully abstain from all interference in their domestic affairs, unless it be necessary to come to their assistance, or to restore peace and harmony between husband and wife. Beware of sowing seeds of discord in the family. Your children, when married, should keep house for themselves, and earn their own living, and ought not to depend on you for anything except good advice and consolation in time of trouble and sickness. Treat them always in a friendly and loving manner, earnestly recommending to them patience, meekness, mutual forbearance, and the leading of a truly Christian life.
Those parents who heed and put in practice the advice we have given them in these pages will not fail to draw down the divine blessing both on themselves and on their children in this life, and to merit an eternal reward in heaven. Amen.
Various Prayers for the Use of Parents
PRAYER OF PARENTS FOR THEMSELVES
O God of infinite wisdom and goodness, vouchsafe to bestow on us the graces which we need for the faithful performance of our numerous duties towards our children.
Grant us the necessary light to know these obligations, the requisite fortitude to discharge them with a firmness tempered with a loving kindness, and the indispensable prudence and tact to make use of the most suitable means to bring up our children in Thy holy fear and love, and in the observance of Thy commandments.
Deign, O Lord, to enable us also to provide plentifully for all their temporal wants, and so direct us through life that we and our children may one day all meet in heaven to praise and love Thee for ever and ever. O Mary, our dearest Mother, deign to obtain for us all these graces through thy all powerful intercession. Amen.
PRAYER FOR THE YOUNG CHILDREN
O most holy Child Jesus, deign to bless and protect our little ones. Watch over their innocence, fill their young hearts with Thy holy love, and preserve them from every evil influence. Remove far from them all danger of soul and body, and grant that they may imitate the virtues of Thy holy childhood, and grow up in age, virtue, and piety, so that they may afterwards be able to lead a truly Christian life. Rather take them out of this world in their innocence and purity than suffer that they should ever stray away from the path of Thy divine commandments. O Mary, our good and loving Mother, be pleased to bless our little children, and to be always a true mother to them.
PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN WHO HAVE NOT YET MADE THEIR FIRST COMMUNION
O Virgin Mary, sweet Mother and protectress of the young, deign to watch in a special manner over those of our children who are still too young to make their first holy communion, and yet are old enough to be liable to offend God by sin. Remove from them all evil occasions and all dangerous companions. Do not allow their innocence to suffer shipwreck through evil conversations, and, if they have the misfortune of falling into sin, O deign to obtain for them the grace to make a good confession, and ever after to avoid sin and its occasions. Amen,
PRAYER FOR THE CHILD WHO IS ABOUT TO MAKE ITS FIRST HOLY COMMUNION
Our divine Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, deign to pour forth Thy grace plentifully into the heart of our son [daughter] who is soon to receive Thy sacred Body and Thy precious Blood for the first time, and to grant that his [her] first holy communion may give Thee glory and be useful to his [her] spiritual welfare. Vouchsafe, O Lord, to preserve our dear child from the terrible misfortune and heinous crime of an unworthy communion. Grant him [her] the grace to make a sincere and sorrowful confession. Inflame him [her] with Thy holy love and with an ardent desire to receive Thee, so that he [she] may approach Thee for the first time with a pure and loving heart, and that his [her] first holy communion may be to him [her] the pledge of eternal life. O dearest Mother Mary, help our son [daughter] to receive worthily thy divine Son, Jesus, not only for the first time, but every time he [she] receives holy communion. Amen.
PRAYER FOR THE CHILD ABOUT TO BE CONFIRMED
Deign, O Holy Ghost, to descend with the abundance of Thy gifts into the soul of our son [daughter], who is about to receive the sacrament which is to make him [her] a perfect Christian. So enlighten, strengthen, and direct his [her] soul, that he [she] may be until death a true disciple of Jesus Christ, conquering the world, the devil, human respect, and his [her] evil inclinations.
O Mary, our dearest Mother, deign to help our son [daughter] to receive the sacrament of confirmation with holy dispositions. Amen.
PRAYER TO KNOW THE VOCATION OF ONE'S CHILDREN
O God of infinite wisdom, who hast from all eternity designated the state of life in which every man is to walk in order to reach heaven, do not suffer any of our children to choose a vocation other than that which Thou Thyself hast destined for them. Mercifully vouchsafe to enlighten us and our children, that we may clearly know Thy holy will concerning them; grant to them the grace faithfully to follow it, whatever it may be, for Thy greater glory and for their and our salvation.
O our own most loving Mother Mary, be pleased to assist us in discerning and carrying out the designs of divine Providence over our children. Amen.
PRAYER FOR THE SON [DAUGHTER] ABOUT TO BE MARRIED
O glorious patriarch St. Joseph, foster-father of Jesus Christ our Saviour, and chaste spouse of the ever Virgin Mary, model and patron of truly holy unions, deign to take under thy special protection our son [daughter] who is about to enter the responsible state of matrimony.
Obtain for him [her] the grace to receive this sacrament worthily and out of truly Christian motives. Secure for him [her], by thy powerful intercession, all the blessings necessary to enable him [her] to discharge faithfully the onerous duties of that state, and to bear the trials inseparable from it with true Christian fortitude, so that he [she] may save his [her] soul therein. Amen.
PRAYER FOR A WAYWARD CHILD
O Mary, the Mother of mercy and the Refuge of sinners, cast a look of compassion on our son [daughter] who has strayed away from the path of duty and is living in enmity with God. Do not allow him [her] to perish, but deign to obtain for him [her] the grace of a sincere and lasting conversion, for thou art the Queen of mercy and the Refuge of sinners, and art, moreover, all-powerful with thy divine Son, Who cannot refuse thy prayers. Be a compassionate mother to our son [daughter], and bring him [her] from the road of perdition to the way of salvation. Amen.
PRAYER FOR A SICK CHILD
O most holy Virgin Mary, Mother of sorrows, deign to succor our son [daughter] who is a prey to disease and infirmity. If it is conformable to God's holy will, be pleased to obtain his [her] speedy and perfect recovery, and the grace always to love and serve God faithfully. But
if health were to prove dangerous for his [her] salvation, obtain for him [her] patience and resignation in suffering, the grace to turn bodily pain into spiritual profit, and, if this sickness is to terminate fatally, secure for him [her] the consolation,of receiving the last sacraments with holy dispositions, and for us the grace of perfect conformity with the divine will. Amen.
PRAYER FOR A DECEASED CHILD (over seven years of age)
Eternal rest give unto him [her], O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him [her]. May he [she] rest in peace. Amen.
O Mary, Mother of sorrows, we beseech thee by the inexpressible grief which thou didst endure in beholding thy divine Son, whom thou didst love with a love greater than any other created love, to deign to have pity on us and to obtain for us perfect resignation to the adorable will of God, and for our dear departed one the consolation of a speedy release from pain and of being soon in possession of heavenly bliss. May we, under thy protection, O Mother of perpetual help, have the happiness of being one day reunited in heaven with our son [daughter], there to praise and love God and thee for all eternity. Amen.
PRAYER IN ADVERSITY
O God of infinite goodness and bounty, who chastisest us only for our own welfare, to enable us to atone to Thy divine justice for our manifold and oft-repeated shortcomings, vouchsafe to succor us in our trials and misfortunes. May they be the means of detaching us from the world and its vain goods and fleeting pleasures, of bringing us nearer to Thee and of enriching us with merit for eternity. And, if it be not injurious to our spiritual welfare, deign, O Lord, to lighten and sweeten our crosses and trials, and to bestow on us for our children's sake such temporal blessings as will not interfere with our salvation. O Mary, Mother of perpetual help, obtain for us perfect conformity with the divine will, and if it so please God, also a certain amount of temporal prosperity. Amen.
DEDICATION OF THE FAMILY TO THE HOLY FAMILY
O Jesus, our most amiable Redeemer, who didst condescend to come down from heaven, not only to redeem and save us, but also to be our model by Thy example, Thou didst deign to spend the greater part of Thy life in obscurity at Nazareth, where Thou wast subject to Mary and Joseph, thus sanctifying the Christian family and becoming the model thereof.
We now consecrate ourselves wholly to Thee. Vouchsafe to accept this our consecration, and to protect us and maintain us all through life in Thy holy fear and love, and in mutual concord and charity, so that we may ever be on earth one in heart and soul, and obtain eternal glory in heaven.
O Mary, the most beloved Mother of Jesus Christ, and our own most loving Mother, deign, by thy compassionate mercy and love, to obtain from Jesus, thy Son, a ready acceptance of our consecration and all the graces we need to become a truly Christian family.
O dear St. Joseph, holy and faithful protector of Jesus and Mary, help us, by thy powerful influence with them, in all our corporal and spiritual wants, and especially at the hour of our death, so that we may one day all be united in heaven with thee to praise and love Jesus and Mary for ever and ever. Amen.
DEDICATION OF ONE'S SELF TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O most holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, I, , although most unworthy of being thy servant, yet, moved by thy wonderful compassion for poor sinners and by my desire to serve thee, I now choose thee, in presence of my guardian, angel and of the whole heavenly court, for my own Lady, Advocate, and Mother; and I firmly purpose always to love and serve thee for the future, and to do all in my power to induce others also to love and serve thee. I beseech thee, O Mother of God and my most compassionate and loving Mother, by the blood which thy Son shed for me, to receive me among the number of thy servants, that I may be forever thy loving child and devoted servant. Assist me in all my thoughts, words, and actions at every moment of my life, so that my every step and my every breath may be directed to the greater glory of God, and, with the aid of thy most powerful intercession, that I may never more offend my beloved Jesus, but may glorify Him and love Him in this life, and love thee also, my most beloved and dear Mother; and may I thus obtain the grace to love thee and enjoy with thee the happiness of heaven for all eternity. Amen.
My own dear Mother Mary, I recommend my soul to thy care now, and especially at the hour of my death. Amen.
DEDICATION OF A FAMILY TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O most blessed Virgin, immaculate Queen, and our Mother Mary, the refuge and consolation of all the wretched, prostrate before thee with my whole family, I choose thee for our Lady, our Mother, and our advocate with God. I dedicate myself and all mine forever to thy service, and I beseech thee, O Mother of God, to receive us among the number of thy servants by taking us all under thy protection, and by extending to us thy help in life, but more especially at the hour of our death. O Mother of mercy, I choose thee as the lady and ruler of my whole house, of my children, of all who are dear to me, of my interests, and of all that concerns me. Disdain not to take charge of them all and to dispose of them as it may please thee.
Deign to bestow thy blessing on me and on my whole family, and do not suffer that any of us should ever grievously offend thy divine Son.
Do thou defend us in temptations; do thou deliver us from dangers, both spiritual and corporal; do thou provide for us in all our wants; do thou counsel us in doubt and comfort us in our trials; do thou assist us in our infirmities and sufferings, but especially in the sorrows of death. Never allow the devil to glory in having in his power any of us who are now consecrated to thee; but obtain for us by thy all-powerful intercession the grace that we may all go to heaven to thank thee, and together with thee to praise and love Jesus our Redeemer for all eternity. Amen. Thus may it be.
PRAYER TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN TO BE RECITED BY THE PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN AT THE END OF NIGHT PRAYERS
(By St. Alphonsus.)
Most holy immaculate Virgin and my Mother Mary, to thee, who art the Mother of my Lord, the Queen of the world, the advocate, the hope, and the refuge of sinners, I, who am the most miserable of all, render thee my most humble homage, O great Queen, and I thank thee for all the graces which thou hast conferred on me until now, particularly for having delivered me from hell, which I have so often deserved.
I love thee, O most amiable Lady, and for the love which I bear thee I promise to serve thee always and to do all in my power to make others love thee also. I place in thee, next to Jesus, all my hopes; I confide my salvation to thy care.
Accept me for thy servant and receive me under thy mantle, O Mother of mercy. And since thou art so powerful with God, deliver me from all temptations, or rather obtain for me the strength to triumph over them until death. Of thee I ask a perfect love for Jesus Christ. Through thee I hope to die a good death. O my Mother, by the love which thou bearest to God, I beseech thee to help me at all times, but especially at the last moment of my life.
Leave me not, I beseech thee, until thou seest me safe in heaven, blessing thee and singing thy mercies through all eternity. Amen. So I hope. So may it be.
PRAYER TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY TO OBTAIN A GOOD DEATH
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O Mary, sweet refuge of sinners and my own loving Mother, I beseech thee by the grief which thou didst experience in being present at the death of thy divine Son on the cross to assist me with thy mercy when my soul must depart from this world. Banish then from me the infernal enemies; come then to take my soul and to present it as the soul of thy own child to the Eternal Judge. O my Queen, do not then forsake me, for it is thou who, after Jesus, must be my help at that dreadful moment on which my eternity depends. Beseech thy divine Son to grant me in His goodness the grace to die under thy protection, and to breathe forth my soul into His sacred wounds whilst repeating: Jesus and Mary, I give you my heart and soul. Amen.
PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH TO OBTAIN A GOOD DEATH
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O great St. Joseph, my holy protector, who hadst the inestimable favor of dying in the arms of Jesus and Mary! Thou hadst a just claim to so holy a death, because thy whole life was holy. As for me, I justly deserve an unhappy death on account of my numerous sins.
But, O dear St. Joseph, if thou dost protect me I shall not be lost. Thou hast been not only a great friend of Him who is to be my Judge, but thou hast also been His guardian and protector, His foster father. If thou wilt recommend me to Jesus He will show me mercy.
I choose thee, after Mary, for my principal advocate and protector. I promise to honor thee every day by some special devotion and by placing myself under thy care. I am unworthy of being thy servant; but, through the love which thou bearest to Jesus and Mary, deign to accept me as thy perpetual servant.
Through the sweet company of Jesus and Mary, which thou didst enjoy during life, protect me during my whole life, that I may never be separated from God by committing a grievous sin. And, through the assistance which Jesus and Mary gave thee at death, deign to protect
me at the hour of my death, that, dying in the company of thee, of Jesus and of Mary, I may go to thank thee in paradise, and in thy company praise and love God for all eternity. Amen.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul with you in peace.
[One hundred days' indulgence for each invocation.]
PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS, PRAYER TO OBTAIN FINAL PERSEVERANCE.
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O sovereign and eternal God, I thank Thee for having created me; for having redeemed me by means of the passion and death of Thy Son and my Lord Jesus Christ; for having made me a Christian by calling me to the true faith, and for giving me time to repent after the many sins I have committed. O infinite Goodness, I love Thee above all things, and I repent with all my heart of all my offences against Thee. I hope that Thou hast already pardoned me; but I am still in constant danger of again offending Thee. For the love of Jesus Christ, I beseech Thee to grant me holy perseverance until death. Thou knowest my weakness and inconstancy; help me, then, and permit not that I should ever again separate myself from Thee by relapsing into sin. Rather let me die a thousand times than ever again to lose Thy grace. O Mary, my own dear Mother, obtain for me holy perseverance. Amen.
O God of infinite wisdom and goodness, vouchsafe to bestow on us the graces which we need for the faithful performance of our numerous duties towards our children.
Grant us the necessary light to know these obligations, the requisite fortitude to discharge them with a firmness tempered with a loving kindness, and the indispensable prudence and tact to make use of the most suitable means to bring up our children in Thy holy fear and love, and in the observance of Thy commandments.
Deign, O Lord, to enable us also to provide plentifully for all their temporal wants, and so direct us through life that we and our children may one day all meet in heaven to praise and love Thee for ever and ever. O Mary, our dearest Mother, deign to obtain for us all these graces through thy all powerful intercession. Amen.
PRAYER FOR THE YOUNG CHILDREN
O most holy Child Jesus, deign to bless and protect our little ones. Watch over their innocence, fill their young hearts with Thy holy love, and preserve them from every evil influence. Remove far from them all danger of soul and body, and grant that they may imitate the virtues of Thy holy childhood, and grow up in age, virtue, and piety, so that they may afterwards be able to lead a truly Christian life. Rather take them out of this world in their innocence and purity than suffer that they should ever stray away from the path of Thy divine commandments. O Mary, our good and loving Mother, be pleased to bless our little children, and to be always a true mother to them.
PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN WHO HAVE NOT YET MADE THEIR FIRST COMMUNION
O Virgin Mary, sweet Mother and protectress of the young, deign to watch in a special manner over those of our children who are still too young to make their first holy communion, and yet are old enough to be liable to offend God by sin. Remove from them all evil occasions and all dangerous companions. Do not allow their innocence to suffer shipwreck through evil conversations, and, if they have the misfortune of falling into sin, O deign to obtain for them the grace to make a good confession, and ever after to avoid sin and its occasions. Amen,
PRAYER FOR THE CHILD WHO IS ABOUT TO MAKE ITS FIRST HOLY COMMUNION
Our divine Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, deign to pour forth Thy grace plentifully into the heart of our son [daughter] who is soon to receive Thy sacred Body and Thy precious Blood for the first time, and to grant that his [her] first holy communion may give Thee glory and be useful to his [her] spiritual welfare. Vouchsafe, O Lord, to preserve our dear child from the terrible misfortune and heinous crime of an unworthy communion. Grant him [her] the grace to make a sincere and sorrowful confession. Inflame him [her] with Thy holy love and with an ardent desire to receive Thee, so that he [she] may approach Thee for the first time with a pure and loving heart, and that his [her] first holy communion may be to him [her] the pledge of eternal life. O dearest Mother Mary, help our son [daughter] to receive worthily thy divine Son, Jesus, not only for the first time, but every time he [she] receives holy communion. Amen.
PRAYER FOR THE CHILD ABOUT TO BE CONFIRMED
Deign, O Holy Ghost, to descend with the abundance of Thy gifts into the soul of our son [daughter], who is about to receive the sacrament which is to make him [her] a perfect Christian. So enlighten, strengthen, and direct his [her] soul, that he [she] may be until death a true disciple of Jesus Christ, conquering the world, the devil, human respect, and his [her] evil inclinations.
O Mary, our dearest Mother, deign to help our son [daughter] to receive the sacrament of confirmation with holy dispositions. Amen.
PRAYER TO KNOW THE VOCATION OF ONE'S CHILDREN
O God of infinite wisdom, who hast from all eternity designated the state of life in which every man is to walk in order to reach heaven, do not suffer any of our children to choose a vocation other than that which Thou Thyself hast destined for them. Mercifully vouchsafe to enlighten us and our children, that we may clearly know Thy holy will concerning them; grant to them the grace faithfully to follow it, whatever it may be, for Thy greater glory and for their and our salvation.
O our own most loving Mother Mary, be pleased to assist us in discerning and carrying out the designs of divine Providence over our children. Amen.
PRAYER FOR THE SON [DAUGHTER] ABOUT TO BE MARRIED
O glorious patriarch St. Joseph, foster-father of Jesus Christ our Saviour, and chaste spouse of the ever Virgin Mary, model and patron of truly holy unions, deign to take under thy special protection our son [daughter] who is about to enter the responsible state of matrimony.
Obtain for him [her] the grace to receive this sacrament worthily and out of truly Christian motives. Secure for him [her], by thy powerful intercession, all the blessings necessary to enable him [her] to discharge faithfully the onerous duties of that state, and to bear the trials inseparable from it with true Christian fortitude, so that he [she] may save his [her] soul therein. Amen.
PRAYER FOR A WAYWARD CHILD
O Mary, the Mother of mercy and the Refuge of sinners, cast a look of compassion on our son [daughter] who has strayed away from the path of duty and is living in enmity with God. Do not allow him [her] to perish, but deign to obtain for him [her] the grace of a sincere and lasting conversion, for thou art the Queen of mercy and the Refuge of sinners, and art, moreover, all-powerful with thy divine Son, Who cannot refuse thy prayers. Be a compassionate mother to our son [daughter], and bring him [her] from the road of perdition to the way of salvation. Amen.
PRAYER FOR A SICK CHILD
O most holy Virgin Mary, Mother of sorrows, deign to succor our son [daughter] who is a prey to disease and infirmity. If it is conformable to God's holy will, be pleased to obtain his [her] speedy and perfect recovery, and the grace always to love and serve God faithfully. But
if health were to prove dangerous for his [her] salvation, obtain for him [her] patience and resignation in suffering, the grace to turn bodily pain into spiritual profit, and, if this sickness is to terminate fatally, secure for him [her] the consolation,of receiving the last sacraments with holy dispositions, and for us the grace of perfect conformity with the divine will. Amen.
PRAYER FOR A DECEASED CHILD (over seven years of age)
Eternal rest give unto him [her], O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him [her]. May he [she] rest in peace. Amen.
O Mary, Mother of sorrows, we beseech thee by the inexpressible grief which thou didst endure in beholding thy divine Son, whom thou didst love with a love greater than any other created love, to deign to have pity on us and to obtain for us perfect resignation to the adorable will of God, and for our dear departed one the consolation of a speedy release from pain and of being soon in possession of heavenly bliss. May we, under thy protection, O Mother of perpetual help, have the happiness of being one day reunited in heaven with our son [daughter], there to praise and love God and thee for all eternity. Amen.
PRAYER IN ADVERSITY
O God of infinite goodness and bounty, who chastisest us only for our own welfare, to enable us to atone to Thy divine justice for our manifold and oft-repeated shortcomings, vouchsafe to succor us in our trials and misfortunes. May they be the means of detaching us from the world and its vain goods and fleeting pleasures, of bringing us nearer to Thee and of enriching us with merit for eternity. And, if it be not injurious to our spiritual welfare, deign, O Lord, to lighten and sweeten our crosses and trials, and to bestow on us for our children's sake such temporal blessings as will not interfere with our salvation. O Mary, Mother of perpetual help, obtain for us perfect conformity with the divine will, and if it so please God, also a certain amount of temporal prosperity. Amen.
DEDICATION OF THE FAMILY TO THE HOLY FAMILY
O Jesus, our most amiable Redeemer, who didst condescend to come down from heaven, not only to redeem and save us, but also to be our model by Thy example, Thou didst deign to spend the greater part of Thy life in obscurity at Nazareth, where Thou wast subject to Mary and Joseph, thus sanctifying the Christian family and becoming the model thereof.
We now consecrate ourselves wholly to Thee. Vouchsafe to accept this our consecration, and to protect us and maintain us all through life in Thy holy fear and love, and in mutual concord and charity, so that we may ever be on earth one in heart and soul, and obtain eternal glory in heaven.
O Mary, the most beloved Mother of Jesus Christ, and our own most loving Mother, deign, by thy compassionate mercy and love, to obtain from Jesus, thy Son, a ready acceptance of our consecration and all the graces we need to become a truly Christian family.
O dear St. Joseph, holy and faithful protector of Jesus and Mary, help us, by thy powerful influence with them, in all our corporal and spiritual wants, and especially at the hour of our death, so that we may one day all be united in heaven with thee to praise and love Jesus and Mary for ever and ever. Amen.
DEDICATION OF ONE'S SELF TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O most holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, I, , although most unworthy of being thy servant, yet, moved by thy wonderful compassion for poor sinners and by my desire to serve thee, I now choose thee, in presence of my guardian, angel and of the whole heavenly court, for my own Lady, Advocate, and Mother; and I firmly purpose always to love and serve thee for the future, and to do all in my power to induce others also to love and serve thee. I beseech thee, O Mother of God and my most compassionate and loving Mother, by the blood which thy Son shed for me, to receive me among the number of thy servants, that I may be forever thy loving child and devoted servant. Assist me in all my thoughts, words, and actions at every moment of my life, so that my every step and my every breath may be directed to the greater glory of God, and, with the aid of thy most powerful intercession, that I may never more offend my beloved Jesus, but may glorify Him and love Him in this life, and love thee also, my most beloved and dear Mother; and may I thus obtain the grace to love thee and enjoy with thee the happiness of heaven for all eternity. Amen.
My own dear Mother Mary, I recommend my soul to thy care now, and especially at the hour of my death. Amen.
DEDICATION OF A FAMILY TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O most blessed Virgin, immaculate Queen, and our Mother Mary, the refuge and consolation of all the wretched, prostrate before thee with my whole family, I choose thee for our Lady, our Mother, and our advocate with God. I dedicate myself and all mine forever to thy service, and I beseech thee, O Mother of God, to receive us among the number of thy servants by taking us all under thy protection, and by extending to us thy help in life, but more especially at the hour of our death. O Mother of mercy, I choose thee as the lady and ruler of my whole house, of my children, of all who are dear to me, of my interests, and of all that concerns me. Disdain not to take charge of them all and to dispose of them as it may please thee.
Deign to bestow thy blessing on me and on my whole family, and do not suffer that any of us should ever grievously offend thy divine Son.
Do thou defend us in temptations; do thou deliver us from dangers, both spiritual and corporal; do thou provide for us in all our wants; do thou counsel us in doubt and comfort us in our trials; do thou assist us in our infirmities and sufferings, but especially in the sorrows of death. Never allow the devil to glory in having in his power any of us who are now consecrated to thee; but obtain for us by thy all-powerful intercession the grace that we may all go to heaven to thank thee, and together with thee to praise and love Jesus our Redeemer for all eternity. Amen. Thus may it be.
PRAYER TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN TO BE RECITED BY THE PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN AT THE END OF NIGHT PRAYERS
(By St. Alphonsus.)
Most holy immaculate Virgin and my Mother Mary, to thee, who art the Mother of my Lord, the Queen of the world, the advocate, the hope, and the refuge of sinners, I, who am the most miserable of all, render thee my most humble homage, O great Queen, and I thank thee for all the graces which thou hast conferred on me until now, particularly for having delivered me from hell, which I have so often deserved.
I love thee, O most amiable Lady, and for the love which I bear thee I promise to serve thee always and to do all in my power to make others love thee also. I place in thee, next to Jesus, all my hopes; I confide my salvation to thy care.
Accept me for thy servant and receive me under thy mantle, O Mother of mercy. And since thou art so powerful with God, deliver me from all temptations, or rather obtain for me the strength to triumph over them until death. Of thee I ask a perfect love for Jesus Christ. Through thee I hope to die a good death. O my Mother, by the love which thou bearest to God, I beseech thee to help me at all times, but especially at the last moment of my life.
Leave me not, I beseech thee, until thou seest me safe in heaven, blessing thee and singing thy mercies through all eternity. Amen. So I hope. So may it be.
PRAYER TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY TO OBTAIN A GOOD DEATH
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O Mary, sweet refuge of sinners and my own loving Mother, I beseech thee by the grief which thou didst experience in being present at the death of thy divine Son on the cross to assist me with thy mercy when my soul must depart from this world. Banish then from me the infernal enemies; come then to take my soul and to present it as the soul of thy own child to the Eternal Judge. O my Queen, do not then forsake me, for it is thou who, after Jesus, must be my help at that dreadful moment on which my eternity depends. Beseech thy divine Son to grant me in His goodness the grace to die under thy protection, and to breathe forth my soul into His sacred wounds whilst repeating: Jesus and Mary, I give you my heart and soul. Amen.
PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH TO OBTAIN A GOOD DEATH
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O great St. Joseph, my holy protector, who hadst the inestimable favor of dying in the arms of Jesus and Mary! Thou hadst a just claim to so holy a death, because thy whole life was holy. As for me, I justly deserve an unhappy death on account of my numerous sins.
But, O dear St. Joseph, if thou dost protect me I shall not be lost. Thou hast been not only a great friend of Him who is to be my Judge, but thou hast also been His guardian and protector, His foster father. If thou wilt recommend me to Jesus He will show me mercy.
I choose thee, after Mary, for my principal advocate and protector. I promise to honor thee every day by some special devotion and by placing myself under thy care. I am unworthy of being thy servant; but, through the love which thou bearest to Jesus and Mary, deign to accept me as thy perpetual servant.
Through the sweet company of Jesus and Mary, which thou didst enjoy during life, protect me during my whole life, that I may never be separated from God by committing a grievous sin. And, through the assistance which Jesus and Mary gave thee at death, deign to protect
me at the hour of my death, that, dying in the company of thee, of Jesus and of Mary, I may go to thank thee in paradise, and in thy company praise and love God for all eternity. Amen.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul with you in peace.
[One hundred days' indulgence for each invocation.]
PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS, PRAYER TO OBTAIN FINAL PERSEVERANCE.
(By St. Alphonsus.)
O sovereign and eternal God, I thank Thee for having created me; for having redeemed me by means of the passion and death of Thy Son and my Lord Jesus Christ; for having made me a Christian by calling me to the true faith, and for giving me time to repent after the many sins I have committed. O infinite Goodness, I love Thee above all things, and I repent with all my heart of all my offences against Thee. I hope that Thou hast already pardoned me; but I am still in constant danger of again offending Thee. For the love of Jesus Christ, I beseech Thee to grant me holy perseverance until death. Thou knowest my weakness and inconstancy; help me, then, and permit not that I should ever again separate myself from Thee by relapsing into sin. Rather let me die a thousand times than ever again to lose Thy grace. O Mary, my own dear Mother, obtain for me holy perseverance. Amen.
Appendix -Frederick the Second of Prussia and a Christian System of Education
FREDERICK II, or the Great, King of Prussia in the middle of the eighteenth century, was an unbeliever, and the friend of Voltaire and other unbelievers. Nevertheless he had no confidence in men of his class, for he frequently said that he would not trust himself to servants who had no religion, since he could not consider his life secure in their hands. He was well aware that a thoroughly religious training is necessary to make virtuous men and good citizens. He therefore promulgated a school law for the whole kingdom of Prussia on Aug. 12, 1763, under the title of "General Landschul-Reglement" i.e., a General School Law for the Land.
This remarkable law remained in full force until the year 1872, and may be considered as one of the chief causes which raised Prussia so high among the great powers. Since its partial repeal in 1872 the Protestant portions of Prussia have been invaded by Socialism, which threatens sooner or later to disrupt the Prussian Empire. We will now give a few extracts from this excellent law of Frederick the Great, to show in what consists religious training in school.
Throughout the whole of the aforesaid document Frederick insists on the necessity of a Christian education. Before all else, he says, "the true fear of the Lord must be cultivated in the heart of the child. Other useful things,'' such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, " are to hold only a secondary place in the school." "The children are bound to go to school so long as they do not know the essentials of the Christian religion." After leaving school they shall still be obliged to "assist both in the church and in the school at the repetitions which the teachers and the pastors are to make to them on Sundays."
There shall be daily six hours of school—three in the morning and three in the afternoon. The first morning hour shall be devoted to religious instruction. The teacher shall open school by making the pupils sing a hymn, and then shall follow "the morning prayer, which shall be recited by the teacher himself or by a pupil appointed by him.
All the children shall recite devoutly, in the presence of God, the formulas of the prayers which they have learned by heart. The pupils who come late shall remain at the door lest they disturb the others in their prayers." The prayers being over, the teacher shall explain a passage of the catechism, and shall show the children how they should put into practice the truths which they have learned. At the end of the morning session he shall again exhort the pupils to prayer, and after the prescribed prayers and the monthly psalm have been recited he shall dismiss the pupils for dinner. The afternoon session, like that of the morning, shall begin with a hymn and the monthly psalm. The first hour shall be devoted to the explanation of the Bible, the second hour to the study of the Christian doctrine, and the third hour to reading and arithmetic.
On Saturdays during the first hour the children shall repeat the sentences, psalms, and hymns which they learned during the week; then the teacher shall relate some biblical anecdotes, and read' to the pupils the epistle and gospel which the pastor is to explain on Sunday in the church during divine service. In fine, "he shall exhort them to employ the Sunday well, to be quiet and respectful in church, and to listen attentively to the Word of God." This ordinance furthermore requires that "the teacher shall strive to be by his whole conduct a model for the parish, and shall beware of destroying by any misconduct on his part the fruits of his teachings.He shall cultivate true piety, and shall carefully shun whatever might scandalize his pupils or their parents.
He should, before all, be careful to acquire the science of God and of Christ. Thus will he lay the foundations of an honest life, and become competent to discharge all his duties as teacher; and he will, both by his zeal and example, greatly contribute to his pupils' welfare in this life, and to their endless happiness in the next."
"Before opening their classes," continues the ordinance, "the teachers shall prepare themselves by fervent prayer, beseeching the Dispenser of all divine gifts and blessings to grant them wisdom and patience. Moreover, they shall pray the Lord to give them a paternal heart, in which severity is tempered with love. Thus they shall cheerfully fulfill all the obligations incumbent on Christian teachers. They shall bear in mind that without the aid of Jesus, the Friend of children, they can effect nothing, and cannot even win the hearts of their pupils.
They shall also during class raise their hearts to God, that He may bless their zeal and grant the increase to what they sow and water, for in children all good is achieved only through the grace of God and the agency of His Spirit.
"The teacher," says the ordinance in another place," shall cause the children to understand that selfishness is the source of all sin. He shall point out the deformity of sin; he shall crush stubbornness and obstinacy, punish lying, insults, disobedience, anger, etc., as often as he shall be convinced that such faults have been committed. In punishing the pupils he shall carefully avoid getting into a passion and uttering violent language; on the contrary, he shall then proceed with quite a paternal moderation, shunning equally effeminate leniency and excessive severity. In serious cases he shall not inflict punishment without previously consulting the pastor. On Sundays the teacher shall assemble the children and lead them to church; there he shall watch over them. He shall note the absentees, and cause all present at divine service to behave respectfully, sing piously, and listen attentively to the sermon, so as to be able to give an account of it in school on the following day." It was in this admirable manner that Frederick the Great intended the school-teacher to complete the work of the parents, and to help the clergy in the Christian education of the children.
The foregoing ordinance was drawn up for the Protestant schools of Prussia. On Nov. 3, 1765, Frederick II published a similar ordinance for the Catholic schools of his kingdom, with, of course, the necessary changes to suit the Catholics. In it he, among other things, speaks as follows: "We designedly enter into no details concerning the Christian doctrine which the priest and the teacher shall teach the children: we refer this point to the directions which the Vicar-General of Breslau will publish." Thus the great Frederick, though an unbeliever himself, intended that the statutes of the ecclesiastical authority regarding Catholic schools should have the force of law, and that the education of the children should, above all, be Christian in its very nature. Some Catholic parents would do well to reflect seriously on this.
This remarkable law remained in full force until the year 1872, and may be considered as one of the chief causes which raised Prussia so high among the great powers. Since its partial repeal in 1872 the Protestant portions of Prussia have been invaded by Socialism, which threatens sooner or later to disrupt the Prussian Empire. We will now give a few extracts from this excellent law of Frederick the Great, to show in what consists religious training in school.
Throughout the whole of the aforesaid document Frederick insists on the necessity of a Christian education. Before all else, he says, "the true fear of the Lord must be cultivated in the heart of the child. Other useful things,'' such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, " are to hold only a secondary place in the school." "The children are bound to go to school so long as they do not know the essentials of the Christian religion." After leaving school they shall still be obliged to "assist both in the church and in the school at the repetitions which the teachers and the pastors are to make to them on Sundays."
There shall be daily six hours of school—three in the morning and three in the afternoon. The first morning hour shall be devoted to religious instruction. The teacher shall open school by making the pupils sing a hymn, and then shall follow "the morning prayer, which shall be recited by the teacher himself or by a pupil appointed by him.
All the children shall recite devoutly, in the presence of God, the formulas of the prayers which they have learned by heart. The pupils who come late shall remain at the door lest they disturb the others in their prayers." The prayers being over, the teacher shall explain a passage of the catechism, and shall show the children how they should put into practice the truths which they have learned. At the end of the morning session he shall again exhort the pupils to prayer, and after the prescribed prayers and the monthly psalm have been recited he shall dismiss the pupils for dinner. The afternoon session, like that of the morning, shall begin with a hymn and the monthly psalm. The first hour shall be devoted to the explanation of the Bible, the second hour to the study of the Christian doctrine, and the third hour to reading and arithmetic.
On Saturdays during the first hour the children shall repeat the sentences, psalms, and hymns which they learned during the week; then the teacher shall relate some biblical anecdotes, and read' to the pupils the epistle and gospel which the pastor is to explain on Sunday in the church during divine service. In fine, "he shall exhort them to employ the Sunday well, to be quiet and respectful in church, and to listen attentively to the Word of God." This ordinance furthermore requires that "the teacher shall strive to be by his whole conduct a model for the parish, and shall beware of destroying by any misconduct on his part the fruits of his teachings.He shall cultivate true piety, and shall carefully shun whatever might scandalize his pupils or their parents.
He should, before all, be careful to acquire the science of God and of Christ. Thus will he lay the foundations of an honest life, and become competent to discharge all his duties as teacher; and he will, both by his zeal and example, greatly contribute to his pupils' welfare in this life, and to their endless happiness in the next."
"Before opening their classes," continues the ordinance, "the teachers shall prepare themselves by fervent prayer, beseeching the Dispenser of all divine gifts and blessings to grant them wisdom and patience. Moreover, they shall pray the Lord to give them a paternal heart, in which severity is tempered with love. Thus they shall cheerfully fulfill all the obligations incumbent on Christian teachers. They shall bear in mind that without the aid of Jesus, the Friend of children, they can effect nothing, and cannot even win the hearts of their pupils.
They shall also during class raise their hearts to God, that He may bless their zeal and grant the increase to what they sow and water, for in children all good is achieved only through the grace of God and the agency of His Spirit.
"The teacher," says the ordinance in another place," shall cause the children to understand that selfishness is the source of all sin. He shall point out the deformity of sin; he shall crush stubbornness and obstinacy, punish lying, insults, disobedience, anger, etc., as often as he shall be convinced that such faults have been committed. In punishing the pupils he shall carefully avoid getting into a passion and uttering violent language; on the contrary, he shall then proceed with quite a paternal moderation, shunning equally effeminate leniency and excessive severity. In serious cases he shall not inflict punishment without previously consulting the pastor. On Sundays the teacher shall assemble the children and lead them to church; there he shall watch over them. He shall note the absentees, and cause all present at divine service to behave respectfully, sing piously, and listen attentively to the sermon, so as to be able to give an account of it in school on the following day." It was in this admirable manner that Frederick the Great intended the school-teacher to complete the work of the parents, and to help the clergy in the Christian education of the children.
The foregoing ordinance was drawn up for the Protestant schools of Prussia. On Nov. 3, 1765, Frederick II published a similar ordinance for the Catholic schools of his kingdom, with, of course, the necessary changes to suit the Catholics. In it he, among other things, speaks as follows: "We designedly enter into no details concerning the Christian doctrine which the priest and the teacher shall teach the children: we refer this point to the directions which the Vicar-General of Breslau will publish." Thus the great Frederick, though an unbeliever himself, intended that the statutes of the ecclesiastical authority regarding Catholic schools should have the force of law, and that the education of the children should, above all, be Christian in its very nature. Some Catholic parents would do well to reflect seriously on this.