Part 14 (2/2)
He wishes that every one should hold thereat honor: ”See that you despise not one of these little ones” Why not? ”For I say to you, that their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven”--(Matt
xviii 10)
He wishes every one to be on his guard, lest he should scandalize a little child: ”It were better for him that a mill-stone were put about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones”--(Matt xviii 6)
He says that the love, attention, and respect paid to a child, is paid to Himself ”And Jesus took a child and said to them: Whosoever shall receive this child in My name, receiveth Me”--(Luke ix 48)
He rebuked those who tried to prevent little children froht bless theht touch theht them; whom, when Jesus saw, He was much displeased, and saith to them: Suffer the little ones to codom of God Adom of God as a _little child_, shall not enter into it And e His hands upon them, He blessed them”--(Mark x 13-16)
The motives, then, that should induce every priest to devote himself zealously to the spiritual welfare of youth, are: First, the great interest which Jesus Christ takes in children; and second, the more abundant fruits reaped fro
The Son of God came into the world to redeem all ere lost But do children profit by His abundant rederaces that are open to all? Will they be marked with the seal of Divine Adoption, and be nourished with His own Flesh in the Sacrament of His love? Will they be counted, in the course of their career, a the enedom? Will they be excluded? Is it heaven or hell that will be their lot for all eternity? It is we priests, and almost we only, that are expected to solve these problems
Children are the noblest portion of the flock that is confided to our care Their fate is in our hands If our zeal is not active in their salvation, Jesus will lose, in thes and death How ht and possession of God, because they have not received a good Catholic education Who is to blame? Has the pastor sufficiently instructed, warned, and watched over them? How many lose their baptis it, grow up in vicious habits, grow old in sin, and die ilected in early youth, were not subjected to the aum ab adolescentia sua”--(Thren iii 27) If the first years of life are pure, they often sanctify all the after life; but if the roots of the tree are rotten and dead, the branches will not be more healthy ”Adolescentes, cum semel a malitia fuerint occupati, quasi incaptivitatem essent adducti, quoquo diabolus jusserit eunt”--(S
Chrys Hom 19 in Gen) Education is the ious character is fore, what education made him in his youth ”Adolescens juxta viam suam, etiam cum senuerit, non recedet ab ea”--(Prov xxii 6) All is a snare and seduction for youth If the fear of God, the horror of evil, the raven in the soul, what is to protect young people fro man who has never heard of the happiness of virtue, the hopes of the future life, and the blessings or the woes of eternity? Noill give the Christian education, if not the pastor? Can we rely on the parents? on Sunday-school teachers? Oh, priests! we are al, as we do, how n ourselves to leaving thes of the earth have their favorites,” said St
Augustine The favorites of Jesus Christ are innocent souls What is more innocent than the heart of a child whoinal stain, and who has not, as yet, contracted the stain of actual sin? This heart is the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost Who can tell hat delight He makes of it His abode? Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum Look at the mothers who penetrated the crowd that surrounded the Saviour, in order to beg Him to bless their children They are at first repulsed; but soon after, what is their joy when they hear the good Master approve their desires, and justify what a zeal, little enlightened, taxed with indiscretion! Ah! let us understand the desires of the Son of God ”Suffer,” says He to us, ”suffer little children to come to me” What! You banish those who are dearest to Me? They who resedolect not My lanos meos Despise not one of My little ones ”Videte ne conteard as done to Myself, all that is done to them ”Qui susceperit unum parvulum talem, in nomine meo, me suscipit”--(Ibid 5) O Saviour of the world! the desire to be beloved by Thee, and to prove es me to devote reat and consoling are not the fruits of zeal, when it has youth for its object! The good pastor never despairs of the salvation of his sheep, whatever race, and the infinite mercy of the Lord But what difficulties does he not encounter when he undertakes to bring back to God persons advanced in age! Children, on the contrary, oppose but one obstacle to his zeal--levity All he needs with them is patience Their souls are like new earth, which waits only culture to produce a quadruple They are flexible plants, which take the foriven to them Their hearts, pure from criminal affections, are susceptible of happy iious instinct leads them to the priest They adopt with confidence the faith and the sentiments of those who instruct the of a God Who has made Himself a child, and Who died for us! to awaken the fear of the Lord, coratitude, divine love, in souls predisposed, by the grace of baptism, to all the Christian virtues! Ask the most zealous pastors, and all will tell you that no part of theirthan that which is exercised for youth, because the fruits are incoh all my efforts for the sanctification of an old man, ever unfaithful to his duties, should be croith success, they could not help his long life being frightfully void of ainst heaven But if there be a child in question, erood that he will do, and I shall participate in all the good works hich his career will be filled All believers have coht up, a whole generation of true Christians can proceed In this little flock that surrounds me, God sees, perhaps, elect souls on whons--pious instructors, holy priests, ill carry far the knowledge of His na millions of souls In what astonishment would the first catechists of a St Vincent de Paul, of a Francis Xavier, be thrown, had they been told ould become of those children, and what they would one day acco that all those confided to me follow the co my parish To-day they receive the ive it They will transood principles, happy inclinations to their own children, ill transmit them in their turn Behold, it is thus that holy traditions are established, and a chain of solid virtues perpetuated; ages will reap what I have sown in a few days It is by these considerations that the greatest saints, and the finest geniuses of Christianity, became so ory Pope, St Augustine, St
Vincent Ferrier, St Charles Borromeo, St Francis de Sales, St Joseph Calasanctius, Gerson, Bellarmin, Bossuet, Fenelon, M Olier, etc, believed they could never better e the ”It is considered honorable and useful to educate the son of a monarch, presumptive heir to his crown But the child that I form to virtue, is he not the child of God, inheritor of the kingdom of heaven?”--(Gerson) ”Believe els of little children love those with a particular love who bring them up in the fear of God, and who plant in their tender souls holy devotion” Have ays coood that we can do to children by our humble functions?
But if ish for the end, we must also wish for the means--for Catholic schools They are the nurseries of the Church, as novitiates are the nurseries of religious orders The chief pastoral work of the Church is to be done in the school The school must be the chief solicitude of the priest He reat, no sacrifice of tiood attendance and efficiency in the school Neither sick calls, nor any other ecclesiastical duties, should be allowed to interfere with the school He must be the life and character of the school, and it is principally he who must administer correction The authority of the priest, his interest in the school, and his relation towards the parents, are far s and penances inflicted by the master and mistress
It seems to me that we cannot insist too much upon the vital importance of the Catholic school A priest's time is never better employed than when three or four hours of it are daily spent in school--and that so regularly, that his presence in the school is looked for alike by teachers, children, and parents--and when he then occupies another portion of his day in looking after the defaulters, and in talking with parents over the school duties, and the future prospects of their children Thus the parents feel that in sending their children to be educated there, they are not turning them over to a number of paid teachers, nor even to Brothers and Sisters, but to the clergy themselves, for their education This personal interest and solicitude of the priest reacts upon the parents as well as upon the children
A pastor, then, wishi+ng to secure the salvation of the best part of the flock of Jesus Christ, ood Catholic schools, and oblige parents to send their children to therave of Catholicity It is _then_, also, and not till then, that we shall see ious orders as devote themselves especially to the education of youth In Europe, the bishops and priests, together with the laity, fight for the liberty of educating the children according to Catholic principles and custoreat as it possibly can be Now not to profit by this liberty, is for the shepherds of the flock of Jesus Christ to incur the greatest guilt; it is to be like that unGodly Bishop of Burgos, who, on being told by Las Casas that seven thousand children had perished in three months, said: ”Look you, what a queer fool! what is this to ?” To which Las Casas replied: ”Is it nothing to your Lordshi+p that all these souls should perish? Oh, great and eternal God! And to whom, then, is it of any concern?”--(Life of Las Casas, by Arthur Helps)
To be destitute of ardent zeal for the spiritual welfare of children, is to see, with indifferent eyes, the Blood of Jesus Christ trodden under foot; it is to see the ie and likeness of God lie in the mire, and not care for it; it is to despise the Blessed Trinity; the Father, who created them; the Son, who redee to that class of shepherds, of whom the Lord commanded Ezekiel to prophesy as follows: ”Son ofthe shepherds of Israel: prophesy and say to the shepherds: Thus saith the Lord God: Wo to the shepherds of Israel My flock you did not feed The weak you have not strengthened; and that which was sick, you have not healed: that which was broken, you have not bound up; and that which was driven away, you have not brought again; neither have you sought that which was lost: and My sheep were scattered, because there was no shepherd: and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field, and were scattered My sheep have wandered in every h hill: and there was none, I say, that sought them
Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Behold, I Myself come upon the shepherds I will require My flock at their hands”--(Ezek xxxiv 2-10) To be destitute of this zeal for the Catholic education of our children, is to hide the five talents which the Lord has given us, instead of gaining other five talents Surely the Lord will say: ”And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness There shall be weeping and gnashi+ng of teeth”--(Matt xxv 30)
What a shame for pastors of souls to know that the devil, in alliance with the wicked, is at work, day and night, for the ruin and destruction of youth, and to be so little concerned about their eternal loss; just as if it was not true what the holy Fathers say, that the salvation of one soul is worth more than the whole visible world! Since when is it, then, that the price of the souls of little children has been lessened?
Ah, as long as the price of the Blood of Jesus Christ re the price of souls will remain the same also!
Heaven and earth will pass away, but this truth will not The devil knows and understands it but too well Oh! how he delights in a priest who is called, by Jesus Christ, ”the hireling, because he has no care for the sheep, and who seeth the wolf co and leaveth the sheep and flieth”--(John x 12)
On the Day of Judgment, such a priest will be confounded by that poor man of e read, in the life of St Francis de Sales, as follows: One day this holy and zealous pastor, on a visit of his diocese, had reached the top of one of those dreadful ue and cold, his hands and feet cole parish in that dreary situation; while he was viewing, with astonishment, those immense blocks of ice of an uncommon thickness, the inhabitants, who had approached toafter a strayed sheep, had fallen into one of these tremendous precipices They added that his fate would never have been known if his companion, as in search of hie of the precipice The poor ht be still relieved, or, if he should have perished, that he ht be honored with a Christian burial
With this view he descended, by the means of ropes, this icy precipice, whence he was drawn up, pierced through with cold, and holding in his arms his companion, as dead, and al this account, turned to his attendants, ere disheartened with the extreues which they had every day to encounter, and availing hie theine that we do too much, and we certainly do far less than these poor people You have heard in what manner one has lost his life in an attempt to find a strayed anier of perishi+ng, in order to procure for his friend a burial, which, under these circuht have been dispensed with These exae; by this charity we are confounded, ho perform much less for the salvation of souls intrusted to our care, than those poor people do for the security of anie” Then the holy Prelate heaved a deep sigh, saying: ”My God, what a beautiful lesson for bishops and pastors! This poor shepherd has sacrificed his life to save a strayed sheep, and I, alas! have so little zeal for the salvation of souls The least obstacle suffices to deter me, and ive ood shepherd! Ah, how e!” Alas! how just and how true is this remark Ifour very enemies surrounded by fire, ould think of er; and noe see thousands of little children, redeemed at the price of the blood of Jesus Christ, on the point of losing their faith, and with it their souls; and shall we be less concerned and less active for these ies and likenesses of God than for their fra, and we at once try to console it; we hear a little dog whining at the door, and we open it; a poor beggar asks for a piece of bread, and we give it; and we hear the Mother of our Catholic children--the Catholic Church--cry in lamentable accents: ”Let ood Christian education”--and we do not heed her voice We hear Jesus Christ cry, ”Suffer the little ones to come unto Me,” by means of a Catholic education; we hear him say: ”Woe to him who scandalizes a little child”--whoit to Godless schools; we see Him weep over Jerusalem, over the loss of so many Catholic children, and we hear Him say: ”Weep not over me, but for _your children_”; and neither His voice nor His tears make any impression We say with the man in the Gospel, ”Trouble me not, the door (of our heart) is now shut, I cannot rise and give thee”--(Luke xi) If an ass, says our Lord, falls into a pit, you will pull him out even on a Sabbath-day; and an innocent soul, nay, thousands of innocent children, fall away froels, and becoreat cruelty, what hardness of heart, nay, what great impiety! If ere blind, we should not have sin; but as Jesus Christ has spoken to us on the subject of education through His Vicar on earth, through so h many of those who are outside the Church, we have no excuse for our sin of suffering devilish wolves to devour our youth in our country ”My watchs_, not able to bark, seeing vain things, _sleeping_, and loving dreams”--(Isa lvi 10) Truly the curses and maledictions of all those who led a bad life, and were dalected to give them, will come down upon us! What shall we answer? ”And he was silent”--Matt xxii
Marvellous, indeed, have been God's gracious dealings with this poor land of ours, so very far above e could have dreao, that we er of God has touched us That touch has quickened Catholic life in our land to a wonderful extent; not, indeed, as yet, with the great exuberance of Catholic European countries, but nevertheless with alladness; for to-day there are few indeed of our cities and towns in which at least the pulse of Catholic life does not beat strongly
But why have these great things been done for us? Why has our Catholic life been increased and strengthened so wonderfully, except to winmore of the American people into closer union with God? If this be so, then we must not leave our Lord to work alone; we rowth of holiness, the progress of the spiritual life, the poverty of the Cross, the spreading of His Spirit in opposition to the fore, and this by every st us Catholic schools and institutions What the future may have in store for the Church in America we cannot tell; whether, when more of God's Spirit has been poured out upon us, our sons and our daughters shall prophesy, and our young men shall see visions, and our old men shall dream dreams, as in the days of old; but of this we y exert thatfaith that overcomes the world, in order to leaven the hout the length and breadth of the land, temples and schools to God's holy name, and altars to His honor, will be the dom of God with power and rasp of God's Church upon the hearts and minds of this American people!