Part 4 (2/2)
St. Alphonsus Liguori, who is said to have always preserved his baptismal innocence, was so brilliant a student that at the age of sixteen he had obtained two degrees in the University of Naples.
Entering on the practice of the law, he one day in a trial before the court, by an oversight, misstated the evidence. His attention being called to his error, he was so overwhelmed with shame and confusion at his apparent lack of truthfulness, that on returning home he exclaimed, ”World, I know you now, Courts, you shall never see me more.” And for three days he refused food. He then determined to become a priest, and in the ministry he attained great sanct.i.ty. He founded the well-known Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, commonly called the Redemptorists; and for his voluminous doctrinal writings, Pius IX declared him a Doctor of the universal Church.
The story of the entrance of St. Stanislaus Kostka into religion reads like a romance. His father, a Polish n.o.bleman, had placed him and his older brother, Paul, at the Jesuit College in Vienna. When Stanislaus was fifteen years of age he applied for admission into the Jesuit Order, but as he had not the consent of his father, the superior feared to take him. An illness supervened, and the Blessed Virgin came to cure him, and giving the child Jesus into his arms, said to him, ”You must end your days in the Society that bears my Son's name; you must become a Jesuit.”
Notwithstanding the vision, poor Stanislaus was again refused by the Jesuit superior. Not knowing what other step to take, he thought that by traveling four hundred miles to Augsburg, in Germany, the Jesuit Provincial of that province, who at the time was Blessed Peter Canisius, might receive him, for his jurisdiction seemed beyond the influence of Senator Kostka. If again rejected in Augsburg, he was determined to walk eight hundred miles farther to Rome, where he felt sure of securing his heart's desire. Accordingly, one August morning he rose early and telling his servant that he was going out, bade him at the same time inform his brother Paul not to expect him for dinner.
With light and joyous heart he started on his journey, and at the first opportunity exchanged his fine clothes for the disguise of a pilgrim's staff and tunic.
When Paul awoke and learned that Stanislaus was gone for the day, he was surprised, but attributed it to some new pious freak. But as the day wore on, and the shades of evening gathered, with no tidings of his brother, consternation seized Paul, for he realized that his irascible and powerful father would hold him responsible for the safety of the younger boy, whom he loved with a pa.s.sionate and unbounded affection. Accordingly servants were dispatched in every direction to seek for the truant, but no tidings could be obtained.
The conclusion gradually forced itself upon all that Stanislaus had fled, and Paul determined to pursue him and bring him back. For some reason, suspicion was aroused that the runaway had taken the road to Augsburg, and a carriage with two stout horses was ordered for early dawn on the morrow.
Along the highway to Augsburg flew the equipage containing Paul and three companions. Meanwhile, little Stanislaus was trudging bravely along, putting all his confidence in G.o.d, when he suddenly heard the rapid beat of horses' hoofs behind him. Suspecting what it meant, he quickly entered a by-lane, and the occupants of the carriage rushed by without seeing, or at least, recognizing, him in his disguise.
Stanislaus continued his pilgrimage in peace, begging his way, for he had no money, and after two weeks, he saw, with inexpressible joy, the roofs and spires of Augsburg gleaming in the setting sun. At last he had reached the haven of rest, and with a bounding heart, the weary boy knocked at the door of the Jesuit college. But alas, for all his hopes! the provincial had gone to Dillingen. The Fathers urged him to stay and rest with them until the provincial's return, but Stanislaus would brook no delay. At once he wended his way toward Dillingen, which he soon reached, and when he knelt at the feet of Blessed Canisius, two saints were face to face. The superior pressed the boy to his heart, and kept him in the college for a few weeks. But as both the elder and younger saint thought Germany still too near the influence of his father for safety, Stanislaus, in company with two religious, set out on a further exhausting walk of eight hundred miles to Rome, where he was received as a Jesuit novice by the General of the Order, St. Francis Borgia.
The angelic boy had at last finished his long pilgrimages, he had entered the earthly paradise for which he had yearned, and for which he had forsaken home, rank and country. But the happiness of religion he soon exchanged for the joys of heaven, for before completing his eighteenth year, and while still a novice, he closed his eyes on this world to open them in company with Mary and the angels on the Beatific Vision.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PARENTS' PART
The home is the nursery of vocations. Most religious can trace the beginnings of their resolve to leave all to the influence of saintly parents and a Christian home. If the parents cultivate faith, charity and industry the fragrance of these virtues will cling round the walls of their dwelling, and perfume the lives of their children.
Every Christian home should be a convent in miniature, filled with the same spirit, productive of the same virtues. It should be a cloister, forbidding entrance to the world and its vanities, and harboring within gentle peace and happiness. Poverty should dwell there, not in the narrower meaning of distress and want, but in the wider acceptation of simplicity, frugality and temperance as opposed to extravagance, display and ostentation. Purity, too, should reign as queen of the hearth, regulating the glance of the eye, the conversation, and even the thoughts of the occupants. And union and harmony of wills, without which the idea of home is inconceivable, can come only through obedience which binds the children to parents, wife to husband, and all to G.o.d.
But, unfortunately, this is not always the case. From many domiciles peace and tranquillity have fled, giving place to frivolity, vanity and worldliness and all their attendant train of vices. How many parents, deceived by the wisdom of the flesh, seek their own gratification in all things, and denying their children nothing that luxury or extravagance craves, pamper and spoil them by indulging their every whim. To train up the young to the steady and uncompromising fulfilment of duty is the only means to produce a hardy and st.u.r.dy generation of men and women, whose fidelity can be relied on in the trials and emergencies of after-life.
But some fathers and mothers, when their children call for bread, reverse the parable by giving them a stone, and when they ask for an egg, give them a scorpion. We can imagine with what righteous indignation Our Lord would have denounced such a mode of action.
Foolish parents even of limited means dress their girls in expensive and gaudy apparel, which not only offends against taste and economy, but sometimes transgresses the laws of modesty and decency.
Familiarity between the s.e.xes is permitted and encouraged by doting and foolish mothers, who introduce their sons and daughters to juvenile society functions, receptions, parties and unbecoming dances; so that children who should be at their lessons or playing healthful games with suitable companions, are taught to affect society manners after the most approved fas.h.i.+on of their silly elders. Persons of this stamp may prepare for a rude awakening, for the day of reckoning for themselves and children will be sure and terrible.
Many parents, while indeed quite solicitous according to their lights, for the temporal good of their offspring, training them to a trade or profession, or settling them in marriage, devote but little thought to their spiritual welfare. They dread a vocation in their family as a catastrophe. It would be well, indeed, for persons of this character to ponder the words of the Pastoral Letter of the Second Council of Baltimore: ”We fear that the fault lies in great part with many parents, who instead of fostering the desire so natural to the youthful heart, of dedicating itself to the service of G.o.d's sanctuary, but too often impart to their children their own worldly-mindedness, and seek to influence their choice of a state of life by unduly exaggerating the difficulties and dangers of the priestly calling, and painting in too glowing colors the advantages of a secular life.”
How much better it were for parents to propose to the young the promise of Our Lord, ”And every one that hath left house, or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my name, shall receive a hundredfold, and possess life everlasting.”
(Matt. xix: 29.) Many a one, whose wayward child has brought dishonor and shame to the family, realizes when all too late the happiness that might have been his had such a child only elected the religious state.
Instead of throwing obstacles in the way of a vocation, those who are appreciative of spiritual things feel honored that G.o.d has chosen one of their family circle for His special service. Persons whose sons obtain high position in the army, court or government employ, take a just pride in the distinction thus attained, but such temporal honors cannot be compared with the singular privilege of serving in G.o.d's own courts, and dwelling within His sanctuary. Bishop Schrembs, of Toledo, aptly advises pastors ”to teach young parents that the service of G.o.d is even more glorious than that of country, for as St. Jerome says, 'Such a service establishes ties of relations.h.i.+p between the family and Jesus Christ Himself.'”
Nor do parents, as they sometimes fear, lose a son or daughter who enters religion. One who marries is in a certain sense lost to the parent, for the responsibilities of his new state of life so absorb his energies as to leave him but little opportunity to concern himself about his old home. And frequently distance entirely severs his connection with it. But one who enters G.o.d's house does not contract new family alliances, his heart remains free, and though separated from parents, his affection is always true to them, he thinks of them as in his childhood days, and he never ceases to importune the blessings of heaven upon them.
In fact, we may say that a vocation is not strictly an individual, but rather a family possession. A call to G.o.d implies sacrifice on the part of the family, as well as of the individual, for while he gives up parents, brothers and sisters, they, too, must part with him. And as they share in the renunciation, they partic.i.p.ate also in its merit and reward. In G.o.d's household the religious represents his family, he works and prays by proxy for them, and they share in his graces and good deeds. Is it not a matter of daily experience that the family of a religious, particularly the parents, receive abundant graces, that G.o.d leads them in various ways to greater fidelity in His service, to a love of prayer and higher perfection? Parents of religious frequently become religious themselves at heart, and though not clothed with the habit, they share in the ”hundredfold” promised to the child.
”It is the glory of a large and happy Catholic family to produce a vocation,” says Rev. Joseph Rickaby, S.J. ”A sound Catholic is glad to have brother or sister, uncle or aunt, or cousin or child, 'who has pleased G.o.d and is found no more' in the ordinary walks of life, because G.o.d hath taken and translated him to something higher and better.”
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