VIII
Duties to Parents
The oldest, firmest, and most enduring social unit in this world is the family. It has, in some form or other, weathered every storm, and therefore, seems to be a divine and indestructible organization. All other social bodies, tribes, nations, church even, are but agglomerations of families. The very word family, has something of a sacred character about it. From the various complex relations of its members, all duties arise. Even those we owe to God are first probably awakened by the practise of duty to parents. Nothing gives a higher or more tender idea of God, than to say that He is the common Father of all. Hence the most inspiring of all prayers is the Our Father. Devotion and loyalty, and a keener perception of their influence on our lives, are imparted by the application to our Lady and the Church the endearing title of mother.
Having spoken of the special duties we owe to almighty God, it is but natural, then, that we should next deal with those we owe our parents, who, in a manner, shadow forth to us and represent “Our Father in Heaven.”
As we observed, the spring or well-head, of all duty, is the law of God, summed up in the Ten Commandments. Parental authority, therefore, derives its force and sanction from divinity. Wherever there is a right, there is a corresponding duty to respect that right. God’s right to our duty comes first, and hence the first table of the law contains the duties we owe to Him, in three Commandments. The remaining seven point out the duties we owe our neighbor. Now, the nearest to us, in kin and rank, come our parents; our duties toward whom hold the first place in the second table of the law, “Honor thy Father and thy Mother.”
Never, perhaps, was it more necessary to insist on parental rights and filial duties than at present. What with growing loose views on marriage, and the consequent weakening or breaking of family ties; the advance of Socialism; the invasion by the State of parental rights and other causes, the just authority of parents over their children seems declining; while filial piety is disappearing. And yet, the rights of parents are inalienable. They are but a transfer of God’s, so that the duties of children, to love, respect and obey their father and mother are unquestionable.
I. Duty in the abstract, is vague. It seems to hang in the air, till specifically applied. A concrete rule of conduct, indicating a single point of duty, with time, place and manner of fulfilment come home to us impressively. Such is the duty of children to their parents. Though it occupies a vast space in the field of ethics, and has a wide range of application, yet in its primitive sense, as we use it here, it is limited to the practical, every-day duties we owe to our father and mother in the flesh, by virtue of the fourth Commandment of God.
To understand the actual force of this precept, before indicating the duties it imposes in detail, it may be observed that the whole idea of duty in the infancy of the human race, just as in our own infancy, was summed up and limited to what parents exact in their homes. In patriarchal days, all law imposing duty sprang from the parental will. The head of the family was father, king, priest and teacher, all in one. The complex distinctions since introduced by the spread of the race were quite unknown. Family relationship was the source of all duties. Divine authority, so to say, centered in parents. What we now name codes of law, whether civil, ecclesiastical, municipal or military—all duties, in fact, pressing upon us by rules of conduct not originating in self, had their roots in the authority granted by God to parents. Hence, the sins we commit by rebellion against our lawful superiors, whether in school, Church or State, are sins against the fourth Commandment. The word father has enlarged its meaning, and embraces all to whom a share in parental right is extended, and to whom, consequently, a share of filial duty is owing. All terms signifying rulers, such as masters, teachers, pastors, governors, and the rest, were all once implied in the word parent, whose authority they shared. But the real and ultimate fountain of all authority is God, hence named “Father Almighty.” His will, formulated in His law, is the basis of all duty.
Coming to the Commandment that occupies us to-day, we are ordered by God to honor father and mother. Now what is honor? Broadly speaking, it is the esteem or value set upon worth or merit. To be genuine it must spring from the inward conviction of something in the object deserving of our esteem. Without it mere outward tokens of respect are hollow. It is our duty to render supreme honor to almighty God—calling it adoration in the highest and most restricted sense, owing to His infinite and superlative worth. All the duties of religion laid down in our previous discourse are but rendering to God due honor.
In like manner we fulfil the duties we owe our parents, by tendering them due honor. God, the supreme Father of all, has transferred to them a share in His paternal rights; and on these transferred rights is founded our duty. It matters not that parents are unworthy, vicious, utterly neglectful of their own duties. They never lose their inherently divine right to honor. As a parent can not be divested of his title of parent, so neither can he be deprived of his right to this honor. A king is ever a king, even though a bad one. The divine authority is seen to shine through all duly appointed authorities, even as the sun ever shines by day, though maybe obscured by mist or fog. Indeed, we are told in Scripture, to honor all men, just because they are men, bearing their maker’s image, though dimmed and blurred through low and vicious living. They can not part with intelligence and free-will, and our common brotherhood imposes a duty of honor toward all who share those God-like powers. What more degrading sight than a fallen specimen of womanhood, sunk to the depths through drink and lewd living; and yet, our common humanity dare hardly refuse a meed of honor, mingled, though it be, with pity and disgust.
A mansion in decay, an old ruined temple to the false gods—a battered coin, with the defaced image of some old dead ruler—inspire a sort of respect akin to honor; and shall we question the right to honor of living parents, whose claims to it are the purport of the oldest command imposed by God on the race? “Cursed be he that honoreth not his father and mother” (Deut. xxxii, 16). “Honor thy father and mother, as the Lord thy God hath commandeth thee, that thou mayest live a long time, and it may be well with thee in the land” (Ibid. v, 16). “Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is just . . . the first Commandment with promise” (Eph. vi, 1-2).
Now, this honor, this filial reverence, so rare nowadays owing to the conceit, frivolity and shallowness of modern youth, is really the straining of a reverent soul toward ideal fatherhood in God. We lose or forget the sordid representatives of paternity we often see on earth, in the ever-receding vision of our Father in heaven, whose will it is, notwithstanding, we should honor Himself in the beings, imperfect though they be, who bear the names, and whose hearts beat with the love of father and mother. Personal unworthiness affects neither their rights nor our duties. It is the office, not the bearer, that we must look up to and honor in this case. Indeed, the compelling motive of obedience, a branch of this duty of honor, should ever be the divine authority represented to us in all lawful superiors, our parents more than others.
But apart altogether from any express command to honor our parents, it is to them, under God, that we owe everything. We owe them life, food, clothing, care. Indeed, God alone knows the sacrifices that most parents make to see their children better off, happier, richer and more prosperous than themselves. The parental instinct is the source of untold and often unrecognized heroism. Neither tongue nor pen has yet exhausted what parents do out of love for their offspring. Honor, therefore, to whom honor is due. It is the cry of nature, as well as the voice of God, and duty. One of the oldest monuments in the hoary East is Absalom’s tomb, standing in the Valley of Jehosaphat just outside of Jerusalem; but to this very day the people as they pass cast stones at it, because it is raised to a son who failed grievously in the duty—the honor he owed to his parents. Various forms of religion, politics, civilization, and philosophy have arisen and perished, yet one thing remains ever firm amidst the wreckage, and that is the belief by all men that filial piety is a duty—that all, in the words of the fourth Commandment of God, are strictly bound “to honor father and mother.”
II. We next come to examine the precise meaning attached to the word honor in this precept. The duty of honor to parents may be arranged under three headings—love, respect and obedience.
If love is ever a duty, and the founder of our holy religion tells us it is the fulfilling of the law, surely it must be strictly due to the earthly authors of our being whom God has chosen to impart the spark of life. If every heart is a center of love, which, like fire, its symbol must spread, surely the first to catch its rays must be those nearest and dearest to us—part of ourselves—our own dear parents on earth. Love is the law and condition of life; let it cease and death reigns supreme. But love must have an object, and next to God, what worthier than our parents. The wildest and fiercest beasts apparently made for hate and war and slaughter, yet show love to their parents; witness how the cubs of the lion and the tiger gambol round and fondle their dam.
In children when instinct gives place to reason, love is and must be an essential element of the honor due to parents. To cover the requirements of duty this love must be heartfelt and sincere. True love comes from within. Filial love must show itself in a feeling of affection, gratitude, and desire for their well-being and happiness, as well as in a life-long desire to avoid wounding their feelings or causing them pain. Children often expect everything from their parents and give nothing in return—not even the easy duty of love. They look only at their faults without a thought of their virtues, and sacrifice; and yet all true love, and above all, true filial love, is blind—blind, I mean, to defects inseparable from everything human. Moreover, love, like all earnest feelings, never hides itself in the breast; but proves its reality, by act and being. It is seen not merely in kind thoughts, but in kind words and kind deeds. A dutiful son who loves father and mother in the true, Christian spirit, will pray for them, help them spiritually and bodily in time of need, sickness and old age. It is a duty to see they are attended by priest and doctor, and have all the care that true filial love can afford. The duty of love should not stop short at the grave, but see that a parent’s last wishes are carried out; and due respect paid to his or her mortal remains.
The next element in the duty of honor to parents, is respect. In the language it comes from, respect means to look back. It implies in dutiful children a regard, a looking to the wishes and views of parents in the regulating of one’s conduct. Respect of parents implies a feeling of fear, mingled or rather tempered with reverence and esteem. It is a feeling somewhat akin to veneration. In its highest degree we both respect and venerate the very name of God, and all sacred things. So in the name parent there is a sacred element of fear, mingled with love and confidence. Well-bred children entertain a sort of reverential awe toward their parents. Even the tender love of a mother does not remove this. When they fly to her, and cling to her, it is as if she were to them a divine being. This feeling of respect accompanies a dutiful child all through life—urging him or her according to the circumstances of age, time and place, to speak and act respectfully, even in the intimacy of family life, receive correction rightly and consult them in all matters of importance. Hence, no child out of respect for his parents will dare to mock, ridicule, or despise them, much less threaten violence, or, what is worse, actually raise hand or foot to strike those to whom they owe the gift of life.
But of the three branches of duty involved in the honor we owe our parents, obedience is the best and surest test of its reality. Duty is the preservation of moral order. Now, obedience is the soul of this order. The peace and ordered life of families and nations depends entirely on how authority is obeyed. Socially and morally, disobedience spells disorder. The very test and touchstone, therefore, of filial duty is obedience to parental authority. “Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord” (Coll. iii, 20) is the sweeping command summing up this point of duty, as given by St. Paul. Indeed, unqualified obedience is the hinge of all community life. Anarchy and misrule follow its cessation. Utter lack of it makes a man either a savage or a criminal, or both, and if we don’t practise it early in the loving atmosphere of home, under the mild rule of fathers and mothers who love us even in correction, we shall have to learn it in the hard life-school of a cruel and selfish world.
To carry out this measure of filial duty our obedience must be prompt, willing and exact. A truly obedient son and daughter will be only too pleased to afford proof of their filial love, by promptly complying with all the just and reasonable commands of their parents, without alleging endless objections and indulging in irritating delays, which mar, if they do not utterly take away, the merit of obedience. Fancy a soldier, or a sailor, or a servant, or anyone under authority, obeying, as many so-called good children do. Discipline would fall to pieces. The work of the various State services would collapse. And yet why should worthy children obey less perfectly, less promptly from love than those moved only by fear, force or self-interest.
Next, our duty of obedience should be discharged willingly. “God loves the cheerful giver” in obedience, as in other things. Our manner of obeying our parents should manifest the ready heart from which it springs. A work of duty should be a work of love, even when involving a high degree of self-sacrifice. Murmurs of unwillingness, or volleys of excuses, prove that we have not yet learned the alphabet of the duty of obedience.
Lastly, obedience to parents must be exact. Right is on their side. It is doing what we are ordered to do, and not what we wish to do, that will enable us to say, “I have done my duty,” “I have rendered to my parents the tribute of obedience due to them.” Exactness is the soul of obedience; and exact obedience is discipline, without which the whole moral world would fall to pieces. It is the soul of law, order, life we may say, for life depends on absolute obedience to blind laws.
Home is the best school; and one of the most needful lessons that we can practise is exact obedience. It fits children for the after discipline of life. All life’s training is a breaking of our will into submission to that of God, and to accomplish this, obedience under the name of discipline, must be strictly and sternly upheld. We can not escape obedience. We meet it at every turn in life. We must submit necks to the yoke. The only thing left us is a choice of masters. Let us, therefore, begin by obeying the voice of God speaking to us through the just and saving commands of our parents, and let that obedience ever be prompt, willing and exact. Let us begin by being obedient in small things, and we shall be faithful also in the greater and larger things, “in which our whole life’s happiness often hinges.”
