Explanation of Catholic Morals Part 16

HE who has a heart, and has it properly located, will not fail to love that which is good; he will have no difficulty in so doing, it will require neither command nor persuasion to make him do so. If he proves refractory to this law of nature, it is because he is not like the rest of mortals, because he is inhuman; and his abnormal condition is due, not to nature's mistakes, but to his own. And no consideration under heaven will be equal to the task of instilling affection into a stone or a chunk of putty.

That is good which is desirable, or which is the source of what is desirable. G.o.d alone is absolutely good, that is to say, good in Himself and the cause of all good. Created things are good in the proportion of their furnishing us with things desirable, and are for that reason called relatively good. They confer benefits on one and not perhaps on another. When I say: this or that is good, I mean that it is useful to me, and is productive of comfort, happiness and other desirable things. Because we are naturally selfish, our appreciation of what is good depends on what we get out of it.

Therefore, it is that a child's first, best and strongest love should be for its parents, for the greatest good it enjoys, the thing of all others to be desired, the essential condition of all else, namely its existence, it owes to its parents. Life is the boon we receive from them; not only the giving, but the saving in more than one instance, the fostering and preserving and sustaining during long years of helplessness, and the adorning of it with all the advantages we possess. Nor does this take into account the intimate cost, the sufferings and labors, the cares and anxieties, the trouble and worriment that are the lot of devoted parenthood. It is life spent and given for life. Flesh and blood, substance, health and comfort, strength of body and peace of soul, lavished with unstinted generosity out of the fulness of parental affection--these are things that can never be repaid in kind, they are repaid with the coin of filial piety and love, or they remain dead debts.

Failure to meet these obligations brands one a reprobate. There is not, in all creation, bird or beast, but feels and shows instinctive affection towards those to whom it owes its being. He, therefore, who closes his heart to the promptings of filial love, has the consolation of knowing that, not only he does not belong to the order of human beings, but he places himself outside the pale of animal nature itself, and exists in a world of his own creation, which no human language is able to properly qualify.

The love we owe to our parents is next in quality to that which we owe to G.o.d and to ourselves. Love has a way of identifying its object and its subject; the lover and the beloved become one, their interests are common, their purpose alike. The dutiful child, therefore, looks upon its parent as another self, and remains indifferent to nothing that for weal or for woe affects that parent. Love consists in this community of feeling, concern and interest. When the demon of selfishness drives grat.i.tude out of the heart and the ties of natural sympathy become strained, and love begins to wane; when they are snapped asunder, love is dead.

The love of G.o.d, of course, primes all other love. "He who loves father or mother more than me," says the Saviour, "is not worthy of me."

Filial love, therefore, must not conflict with that which we owe to G.o.d; it must yield, for it draws its force from the latter and has no meaning without it. In normal conditions, this conflict never occurs; it can occur only in the event of parents overriding the law that governs their station in life. To make divine love wait on the human is criminal.

It may, and no doubt does, happen that parents become unlovable beings through disregard for the moral law. And because love is not a commodity that is made to order, children may be found who justify on these grounds their absence of affection or even their positive hatred for such parents. A drunken parent, one who attacks the life, virtue or reputation of his offspring, a low brute who has neither honor nor affection, and whose office it is to make home a living h.e.l.l, such a one can hardly be loved.

But pity is a form of love; and just as we may never despise a fallen parent, just so do we owe him or her, even in the depths of his or her degradation, a meed of pity and commiseration. There is no erring soul but may be reclaimed; every soul is worth the price of its redemption, and there is no unfortunate, be he ever so low, but deserves, for the sake of his soul, a tribute of sympathy and a prayer for his betterment. And the child that refuses this, however just the cause of his aversion, offends against the law of nature, of charity and of G.o.d.

CHAPTER LVIII.

AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE.

AUTHORITY means the right to command; to command is to exact obedience, and obedience is submission of one's will to that of another, will is a faculty that adores its own independence, is ambitious of rule and dominion, and can hardly bear to serve. It is made free, and may not bend; it is proud, and hates to bend; some will add, it is the dominant faculty in man, and therefore should not bend.

Every man for himself; we are born free; all men are equal, and no one has the right to impose his will upon another; we are directly responsible to G.o.d, and "go-betweens" are repudiated by the common sense of mankind,--this is good Protestant theory and it is most convenient and acceptable to the unregenerate heart of man. We naturally like that kind of talk; it appeals to us instinctively. It is a theory that possesses many merits besides that of being true in a sense in which only one takes it out of fifty who advocate it.

But these advocates are careful--and the reason of their solicitude is anything but clear--to keep within the religious lines, and they never dare to carry their theory into the domain of political society; their hard common sense forbids. And they are likewise careful to prevent their children from practicing the doctrine within the realm of paternal authority, that is, if they have any children. Society calls it anarchy, and parents call it "unnatural cussedness;" in religion it is "freedom of the children of G.o.d!"

If there is authority, there must be obedience; if one has the right to command, there arises in others the correlative duty and obligation to submit. There is no question of how this will suit us; it simply does not, and will not, suit us; it is hard, painful and humiliating, but it is a fact, and that is sufficient.

Likewise, it is a fact that if authority was ever given by G.o.d to man, it was given to the parent; all men, Protestants and anarchists alike, admit this. The social being and the religious being may reject and repudiate all law, but the child is subject to its parents, it must obey. Failing in this, it sins.

Disobedience is always a sin, if it is disobedience, that is, a refusal to submit in things that are just, to the express command of paternal authority. The sin may be slight or grievous, the quality of its malice depending on the character of the refusal, of the things commanded and of the command itself. In order that the offense may be mortal, the refusal must be deliberate, containing an element of contempt, as all malicious disobedience does. The command must be express, peremptory, absolute. And nothing must be commanded done that may not reasonably be accomplished or is not within the sphere of parental jurisdiction or is contrary to the law of G.o.d.

An order that is unreasonable or unlawful is invalid. Not only it may, but it should be, disregarded. It is not sufficient for a parent, wishing to oblige under pain of grievous sin, that he ask a thing done, that he express his mind on the matter; he must order it and leave no room to doubt that he means what he says. There may be disobedience without this peremptoriness of command, but it cannot be a serious fault. It is well also to make certain allowance for the levity and thoughtlessness of youth, especially in matters whose importance is beyond their comprehension.

It is generally admitted that parental authority, exercised in things that concern good morals and the salvation of the soul, can scarcely ever be ignored without mortal offending. This means that besides the sin committed--if the prohibition touches matters of sin--there is a sin specifically different and a grievous one, of disobedience; by reason of the parental prohibition, there are two sins, instead of one.

This should be remembered by those who, against the express command of their parents, frequent bad companions, remain on the street at night, neglect their religious duty, etc.

Parents have nothing to say in the choice their children make of a state in life, that is, they may suggest, but must not coerce. This is a matter that depends on personal tastes and the inner voicings of the spirit; having come to the age of manhood or womanhood, the party interested knows best what walk of life will make him or her happy and salvation easier. It is therefore for them to choose, and their choice must be respected. In this they are not bound to obey the will of their parents, and if disinclined to do so, should not.

CHAPTER LIX.

SHOULD WE HELP OUR PARENTS?

THERE are few things more evident to natural reason than the obligation children are under to a.s.sist their parents when necessity knocks at their door, and finding them unable to meet its harsh demands, presses them with the goad of misery and want. Old age is weak and has to lean on strength and youth for support; like childhood, it is helpless.

Accidentally, misfortune may render a parent dependent and needy. In such contingencies, it is not for neighbors, friends or relatives to come in and lend a helping hand; this duty devolves on the offspring, on them first and on them alone.

Charity is not alone to prescribe this office of piety. A stronger law than charity has a claim in the matter, and that is the law of justice.

Justice demands a "quid pro quo," it exacts a just compensation for services rendered. Even though there be no agreement between parents and offspring, and the former gave without a thought of return, nature records a contract, by the terms of which parents in want are ent.i.tled to the same support from their children as the latter received from them in the days of their helplessness.

Those who do not live up to the terms of this natural contract stand amenable to the justice of Heaven. The obligation follows them during life, wherever they go; and they can no more shirk it than they can efface the characters that declare it, graven on their hearts. Nothing but sheer impossibility can dispense them.

So sacred and inviolable is this obligation that it pa.s.ses before that of a.s.sisting wife and children, the necessity being equal; for filial obligations enjoy the distinction of priority. Not even engagements contracted before G.o.d hold against the duty of relieving parental distress and want, for vows are of counsel and must yield to the dictates of natural and divine law.

Of course, the gravity of this obligation is proportionate to the stress of necessity under which parents labor. To const.i.tute a mortal sin of neglect, it is not necessary that a parent be in the extreme of privation and beggary. It is not easy to draw the line between slight and grievous offending in this matter, but if some young men and women examined their conscience as carefully as they do their new spring suits and hats, they would find material for confession the avowal of which might be necessary to confessional integrity.

It has become the fashion with certain of the rising generation, after draining the family exchequer for some sixteen or eighteen years, to emanc.i.p.ate themselves as soon as their wages cover the cost of living, with a little surplus. They pay their board, that is to say, they stand towards their parents as a stranger would, and forgetting the debt their younger years have piled up against them, they hand over a miserable pittance just enough to cover the expenses of bed and board.

This might, and possibly does, make them "feel big," but that feeling is a false one, and the "bigness" experienced is certainly not in their moral worth, in many cases such conduct is a prevarication against the law of G.o.d. This applies with equal force to young women whose vanity overrides the claims of charity and justice, and who are said to "put all their earnings on their backs," while they eat the bread that another earns.

Frequently children leave home and leave all their obligations to their parents behind them at home. If their letters are rare, enclosed checks are still rarer. They like to keep the old folks informed of the fact that it costs a good deal to live away from home. They sometimes come home on a visit; but these are visits; and visitors, even if they do stay quite a while, do not pay board.

But pecuniary a.s.sistance is not all; it is occasionally care and attention an aged parent requires, the presence of a daughter who prefers the gaiety of the city to the quiet of the old homestead that is imperiously demanded. If the parent be feeble or sick, the undutiful child is criminally negligent; the crime is still greater if there be danger through that absence of the parent's dying without religious consolation.

I have said nothing of that unnatural specimen of humanity, sometimes called a "loafer," and by still more ign.o.ble names, who, to use a vulgar term, "grubs" on his parents, drinks what he earns and befouls the home he robs, with his loathsome presence and scandalous living.

The least said of him the better. He exists: 'tis already too much said.

CHAPTER LX.

DISINTERESTED LOVE IN PARENTS.

LOVE seems to resume all the obligations of parents toward their offspring; certainly, it directs all their actions, and they fulfil these obligations ill or well according to the quality of that love.

But love is not sufficient; love is of two kinds, the right and the wrong; nothing good comes of an affection that is not properly ordered.

In itself, parental love is natural, instinctive; therefore it is not meritorious to any high degree. But there is much merit in the proper kind of parental affection, because it requires sacrifice.

There may be too little love, to the neglect and misfortune of children. There may be too much, to their spoiling and utter perversion. Again there may be affection that is partial, that singles out one for caresses and favors to the exclusion of the others; hence discord and dissensions in the family. The first two forms of inordinate affection are equally bad, while the last combines both and contains the double evil thereof. It is hard to say which is the worse off, the child that receives too much or the one that receives too little of that love which to be correct should avoid extremes.

Parents are apt, under the sway of natural affection, to overlook the fact that G.o.d has rights over the children, and that the welfare and interests of the children must not be left outside all consideration: herein lies the root of all the evil that befalls the family through degenerate love. What is commonly, but improperly, called love is either pagan fondness or simon-pure egotism and self-love.

When a vain person looks into a mirror, she (if it be a "she") will immediately fall in love with the image, because it is an image of herself. And a selfish parent sees in his child, not another being, but himself, and he loves it for himself. His affection is not an act of generosity, as it should be, but an act of self-indulgence. He does not seek to please another, he seeks to please himself. His love, therefore, is nothing but concentrated vanity--and that is the wrong kind.

Such a parent will neglect a less favored child, and he will so far dote on the corporal and physical object of his devotion as to forget there is a soul within. He will account all things good that flatter his conceit, and all things evil that disturb the voluptuousness of his attachment. He owns that child, and he is going to make it the object of his eternal delights, G.o.d's rights and the child's own interests to the contrary notwithstanding. This fellow is not a parent; he is a pure animal, and the cub will, one day make good returns for services rendered.

A parent with a growing-up family, carefully reared and expensively educated, will often lay clever plans and dream elaborate dreams of a golden future from which it would almost be cruelty to awake him. He sees his pains and toils requited a thousand fold, his disburs.e.m.e.nts yielding a high rate of interest and the name his children bear--his name--respected and honored. In all this there is scarcely anything blameworthy; but the trouble comes when the views of the Almighty fail to square with the parental views.

Symptoms of the malady then reveal themselves. Misfortunes are met with complaints and murmurings against Providence and the manner in which it runs the cosmic machine. Being usually self-righteous, such parents bring up the old discussion as to the justice of the divine plan by which the good suffer and the wicked prosper in this world. Sorrow in bereavement is legitimate and sacred, but when wounded love vents its wrath on the Almighty, the limit is pa.s.sed, and then we say: "Such love is love only in name, love must respect the rights of G.o.d; if it does not, it is something else." The Almighty never intended children to be a paying investment; it belongs to Him to call children to Himself as well as parents themselves, when He feels like it. Parents who ignore this do not give their children the love the latter have a right to expect.

Intelligent and Christian parents, therefore, need to understand the true status of the offspring, and should make careful allowance for children's own interests, both material and spiritual, and for the all-supreme rights of G.o.d in the premises. Since true love seeks to do good, in parents it should first never lose sight of the child's soul and the means to help him save it. Without this all else is labor lost.

G.o.d frowns on such unchristian affection, and He usually sees to it that even in this world the reaping be according to the sowing.

The rearing of a child is the making or unmaking of a man or woman.

Love is the motive power behind this enterprise. That is why we insist on the disinterestedness of parental love, before touching on the all-important question of education.

CHAPTER LXI.

EDUCATE THE CHILDREN.