p. 76Filial Reverence

A Child is obliged to love its parents, because they represent to it God’s infinite goodness and love: and so too, it is obliged to reverence them, because they are the highest natural representative, and the most intimate natural revelation it has of His infinite power and authority over all things visible and invisible. To bring home this idea to the young, they must be told in simple, interesting words of the majesty and greatness and glory of God; and then they must be instructed in the necessity of always having a deep, reverential awe for these attributes, and also for every thing that represents them and calls them to mind. Now, parents are given to children for this purpose among others, that they may be to them “so many images of the immortal God;” that they may represent His authority over them, and call to their minds the reverence which they owe Him. These truths lead easily and naturally to the conclusion, that parents themselves are to be honoured and reverenced with a certain reflection of the honour and reverence given to Him whom they represent. Hence, filial reverence must be an internal disposition of the mind and heart of a child bowing down before the divine authority which it sees mirrored in the authority of its parents. Hence, also no parent can ever wholly forfeit his right to the reverence of his child. He may be a drunkard; he may be cruel to the extent of savagery; he may be the slave of the worst vices of a father and of a husband; still the child must force itself to see in him the deputy of its Father in Heaven, and honour him as such. I am fully conscious of the great difficulty experienced in the fulfilment of this duty; but with divine grace all things are easy; and free access to divine grace is open to every one through prayer. “I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me,” says St. Paul (Phil. iv. 13); and our divine Master Himself gives us the promise, that “every one that asketh, receiveth: and he that seeketh findeth: and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” (Matt. vii. 8). Let a child, then, make an earnest effort to be respectful to its parents, in spite of every obstacle; and let it pray confidently for help in the discharge of this duty; and it may be assured, that the help will be given it in full, generous measure.

Many children fail in interior reverence towards their parents, by censuring their ordinary actions, slighting their views and opinions, thinking them slow, and behind the age, and dotards, despising them, in fact, in their hearts, notwithstanding a certain outward show of respect. This failing is by no means uncommon in our day; and many of our home-evils may be traced to it. Many sons and daughters think they know much better than their fathers and mothers what is right for them to do. Hence, when they are told of this or that duty; when they are cautioned against this or that danger; when they receive parental advice of any kind; they listen perhaps silently and submissively, but if their thoughts were to be written, they would run most probably some way thus: “what nonsense he talks! I know myself what to do quite as well as he can tell me. He thinks the world has been standing still since he was a child, and that I am to be ruled according to the notions of my grandfather. He does not remember that he was himself once young, and perhaps, he was not so strict then as he wants to appear now. Danger in doing so and so; such an idea! why everyone is in danger in that case. What young person is there who is not a milksop, who does not read such books, go to such theatres, remain out in the evening, keep company, &c., &c.” These thoughts all help each other in destroying that interior reverence for the authority of parents that a child should have. They therefore help in making it set itself up as its own master and guide and director; and they soon lead to external contempt of parental authority, and to deliberate and habitual disobedience.

There is another kind of interior filial irreverence committed by children against which they must be carefully guarded. When they are corrected or chastised, or when they are labouring under a sense of some fancied injustice they speak to themselves violent, irreverent words against their parents; nay more, they sometimes curse them in their hearts, and the curse is likely to be all the more malignant, inasmuch as, being interiorly formed, it may be uttered with impunity, as far as parental authority is concerned. This irreverence, indeed, is sometimes so passionate and uncontrollable, that it breaks out into acts of malicious spite vented on any object that comes within reach, and that can be injured or destroyed without exposure to fresh blame. Of course all these acts become, from the motive with which they are done, so many external acts of gross filial disrespect.

Children, then, must be taught to avoid every temptation that would lead them to despise interiorly the authority of their parents; and it should be pointed out to them, that unless the honour enjoined by the fourth Commandment spring from the heart, and be grounded in the belief, that it is a conscientious duty, God will reward no mere outward show of it; nor will He accept any spoken expressions of it, as a fulfilment of His law in this matter.

I come next to speak of those external manifestations of filial reverence which ought to result from the interior dispositions of which I have just spoken. And first, as to words. A child is always bound to address its parents respectfully. It ought indeed to speak to them affectionately and familiarly; but the affection and familiarity must be tempered with respect, and they must never lead the child to be forward or pert, or self-assertive. There is no way perhaps in which more sins are committed against the fourth Commandment than by disrespectful language; and yet, I do not think that the world of our day is improving much on the past in its efforts to stamp it out. Impertinence to parents is indeed fostered rather than checked by our modern system of education; for one of the first principles of this system is to teach children the habit of thinking and acting for themselves, or of self-reliance, as it is called; and they take kindly to this teaching, and carry it out at home in asserting their own judgments and opinions against the authority of their fathers and mothers. We, Catholics, however are saved, thank God, from this source of home-evil. We protest against the rejection of parental authority implied in the first principles of modern school-systems; and in support of our protest, we maintain our own schools, as far as we are allowed, in which we teach indeed self-reliance, as an useful and desirable business-quality in temporal matters; but we do not permit it to interfere with legitimate authority, nor to make our children insolent or self-conceited.

There are other causes of disrespectful language in children; one of them is the difference of opinion frequently displayed by parents in the management of their domestic affairs. Divided authority is not calculated to command respect; and, moreover, a child must take the side either of its father or of its mother in case of such difference; and therefore must be in opposition to one or other of them. It will naturally feel itself justified in asserting this opposition, having the sanction of one of its parents; and the consequence is pretty sure to be, that it will be led into rude, impertinent expressions towards the other. I have already recommended fathers and mothers carefully to avoid all disputes in presence of their children; but as I am now speaking specially for the latter, I wish to point out to them how they are to act when such disputes arise. First of all, they should, as a rule, never interfere. They are not bound generally, either in charity or justice, to do so; as, on the one hand, they have no right to judge between their parents; and on the other, they can scarcely do any good, but are most likely to do much harm by their interference. They are placed in a painful, difficult position, and they ought to pray earnestly for light and strength to do their duty in it. They ought to pray also, and with like earnestness, for their parents, thinking reverently of them, taking no scandal from them, but rather considering them face to face with a great temptation, namely, that of forgetting their duty to each other, and to their family.

But there are cases in which parents break out into angry recriminations against each other; and their children have to hide their faces and stop their ears in pain and sorrow; and the words grow louder and louder; and the trembling little fingers are unable to shut out the sounds; and there is one sound especially that they cannot shut out—the savage blow to which such recriminations only too often lead. Oh poor little ones! from my heart I pity you. I pity you for the bitter cup of sorrow that you are made to taste while you are yet so young. I pity you for the scandal you receive and which you are in such imminent danger of taking; I pity you for the effects of that scandal on your future lives. Yet do not lose your respect for the one who struck that blow, or for the other who provoked it. Think of them, dear children, not as they stand now face to face, glowering on each other; but as they stood one bright happy day, some years ago, before God’s Altar, vowing love and fidelity to each other, in weal and woe, until death should part them. Think of them trying to keep that sacred promise with honesty of purpose, until Satan came to sow discord between them. Think of them in their better nature, as you think of the sun, which, although often clouded, is still the type of all that is bright and dazzling to your mind. Let them also be still honoured and reverenced by you as the reflection, though momentarily dimmed, of the divine authority which they represent. Pray for them too, that the division made by that blow may be quickly removed; and pray that you and your brothers and sisters may be saved from the scandal of ever again seeing it repeated.

I may mention here that prayer for our parents is laid down by the Catechism of the Council of Trent, as “a duty of respect that ought to be conferred” on them. These are its words: “There are, besides, other offices of honour which ought to be conferred on parents, for we then also honour them, when we suppliantly beg of God that all things may turn out to them well and happily; that they may be in the greatest favour and honour amongst men; that they may be most acceptable to God Himself, and to His Saints who are in Heaven.” This pious act of respect, coming from the gratitude and love of a child’s pure, innocent soul, must be most pleasing to God and will surely obtain the blessings it invokes. But it will also reflect to the child’s own good: for it will deepen and strengthen the feelings of reverence and love from which it springs; and it will render more easy the discharge of all other filial duties.

We should show reverence to our parents, not only in speaking to them, but also in speaking of them. This follows as a natural consequence from the internal respect of which I have spoken already: for if we honour them in our hearts, we are sure to honour them outwardly, in their absence, as well as in their presence; and it is only a child who is hastening to become that very mean and unworthy thing, a hypocrite, that is at all capable of putting on a submissive, dutiful look, and of speaking reverently before its father and mother, while, behind their backs, it mocks and ridicules them, and laughs with those who speak ill of them, and censures their conduct, and calls them cant names. Brothers and sisters when by themselves are very liable to irreverence of this kind. There is no external restraint on their conversation, and their fondness for each other and their artlessness, joined perhaps to a certain natural love of gossip, make them speak out their inmost thoughts, whether of praise or censure, about everyone that has been kind or unkind to them, and especially about their fathers and mothers. Now in cautioning children against all backbiting, they should be told of the special evil of backbiting their parents, on account of the irreverence it contains and the evil consequences to which it leads; for it should be impressed on them, that they who slight their parents in their absence will gradually lose respect for them in their presence, and are almost certain to end in dishonouring them by some positive, deliberate act of irreverence.

I come now to speak of the last duty of filial reverence, of that, namely, which consists in the reverential action or conduct of children towards their parents. Interior reverence and reverence in words should lead up to this, as their culminating point and perfection. How then is a child to fulfil this last duty? Chiefly in three ways: first, by conforming itself to their teaching and authority and accepting their views and advice in all that relates to its guidance and to its future welfare: secondly, in consulting them before taking any important step in life; and thirdly, in imitating their example, as far as that example is good and holy.

I shall speak in the next chapter of the first of these acts of reverence. As to the second: no one except a parent himself can tell the pain and humiliation caused by a child taking stealthily some important step, unknown to him; a step on which, perhaps, its future happiness depends, and which therefore, on the occasion of taking it, should have all the light thrown on it that only the love and the experience, and the anxious care of a father or a mother could throw. Of course I refer chiefly to grown-up children entering the married state without the knowledge of their parents. In doing so, children are, as a rule, guilty of filial ingratitude, of filial disrespect, and, implicitly, of filial disobedience. They sin against the love, the reverence, and the obedience they owe in the moral order to those to whom they owe everything they possess. But I am very far from wishing to take exclusively a parent’s view in this, or indeed, in any other matter in which children form views of their own. Let us hear then what is the defence usually put forward by young people who make up their minds to marry without their parents’ knowledge. They say, first of all, that their future earthly happiness depends on their marrying the person of their choice. Let us examine this reason seriously, for it does no good to disregard it, or to term it silly and romantic. Young people are convinced by it and act on it; and if their parents believe them to be deceived, they can only undeceive them by reasoning, not by ridicule. It is alleged that a young person’s lifelong happiness depends on a certain marriage; and that there is no irreverence, ingratitude, or disobedience implied in contracting that marriage, unknown to parents, simply because, if these knew of it, they would do all in their power to put a stop to it. Let me ask that young person, however, whom I will suppose to be a young lady, what she means by lifelong happiness. Does she mean that the partner of her choice will always appear to her what he now appears; and that their mutual love can never wear out, or become less, or be other than it is at present, if not deeper and more perfect? Or does she mean, that this special marriage will secure her against all suffering and sorrow; and that it will make her life uniformly bright and happy, as is sometimes described in novels, but is never found to exist in real life? In either case, she cruelly deceives herself: she acts rashly and presumptuously: she commits herself to the guidance of a fancy fed to an unhealthy and unnatural growth probably by the reading of romances: she hushes to silence the voice of her better judgment and nature that tells her it would be more safe for her future welfare, more grateful and respectful to her parents, who are her natural guardians and protectors, as well as her kindest and truest friends—in a word, more honourable and upright in every way, to consult them and reveal to them the secret of her life, than, on her own responsibility, to take so decisive and irrevocable a step as marriage.

But does this young lady think it unnecessary to attach any weight to the opposition of her parents, or to the reasons on which it is grounded. There surely is, at least, a presumption that they have her true welfare at heart, and that they know best what is necessary to secure it. Has she any convincing evidence to the contrary? And if not, why should she fear to take them into her confidence? Let her openly say what reasons she has for her choice, and that she does so from her sense of honour, as well as from her sense of gratitude and duty. In almost every case, they will admire the spirit that dictates such confidence; and the young lady herself may be assured, that if there be any thing selfish in their opposition, it will be set aside; and if it be in any way compatible with her future happiness, they will give up their own views to comply with hers. If they do not do so, then she may be equally assured that she is about to take a false step that, in all likelihood, will end in unavailing regret.

But young people put forward other reasons for entering the married state secretly, the principal of which reasons is the mercenary views entertained by some parents, who seem to look on their children as so many bales of merchandise to be sold to the highest bidder. It cannot be denied that there are such parents, and that their conduct towards their children, in forcing them to marry men of wealth, for the sake of money, is short-sighted, worldly, and uncharitable. But they are by no means so numerous as many of the poets and novelists of our day would give us to understand. Indeed I may remark here, that those poets and novelists who write such beautiful sentimental nonsense about the cruelty of parents or guardians, and the thwarted affections of children, mistake their vocation and betray their duty to the public. They make no distinction between the sordid avarice of the few who sell their children for gold, and the prudent anxiety for the future of the greater number of parents who, knowing the want of judgment and the inexperience of those under their charge, try to do their duty to them faithfully by directing and, if necessary, by controlling them in a choice so intimately connected with their future interests and happiness. Many of our popular writers, making no distinction between these two classes of parents, lead children naturally to think that their own case is identical with a case, like the following, of a distressed, ill-treated heroine of whom they read that:—

“Her father, livid with rage, and holding Miss——, the governess’s letter in his trembling hand, rang the bell violently and ordered the servant who answered the summons to tell Miss Arden’s maid to say to Miss Arden that her father wished to speak to her at once in his study.”

“Edith, with a presentiment of coming evil for which she could not account, hastened to the ever-dreaded presence. There she found her stern, unbending parent rapidly pacing the apartment, and at each step bringing down his heel as if he wished some human heart were under it to crush it,” &c., &c.

Imagine a young lady, who herself has been prohibited on the grounds of ordinary propriety from carrying on a certain dangerous correspondence, reading nonsense like this. Her first idea will be to compare her own father with the cruel father in the novel, and to transfer to him every harsh term and every repulsive characteristic she finds applied or attributed to the latter. Discontent, irreverence, and ultimate disobedience are thus fostered by our popular literature; the child is alienated from the parent by it; the home is made unhappy on account of its pernicious teaching; and the domestic virtues, that took so much time and care to develop, are affected by its influence, as tender flowers are affected by frost against which they had not been secured.

I have permitted myself this digression for two reasons: first, because it points to novel-reading, nowadays so common among young people, as the ordinary source of their opposition to their parents’ views of their settlement in life. In the second place, it illustrates the distinction I wish to draw between mercenary parents, and parents who are prudently anxious to secure their children’s happiness according to the light of their own experience. All fathers and mothers know the misery that comes from unequal marriages; they know also that a comfortable income, when it can be secured, is most desirable for a young married couple; and although, in the selection of a wife or husband for their son or daughter, they should not let wealth blind them to defects or faults that would make the future of their child a gilded sorrow; yet, they are not only justified, but they are bound, to provide as far as they possibly can for the temporal comfort of their children, and to see that the objects of their choice possess those sterling virtues and dispositions which, although generally unvalued by the young, wear better in the end than showier and more superficial qualities.

If, then, parents are bound to provide for the future welfare of their children, there must be a corresponding obligation on the part of children to take no step seriously affecting that future welfare, unknown to their parents. This is a rule that admits of no exception, unless in the very rare case where an evidently unworthy, sordid marriage is forced on a child, whose father and mother think nothing of the certain misery it will bring, in view of the temporal advantages attached to it. Yet, even in this case, caution and prudence are necessary; a sincere friend should be sought out and consulted; direction from one’s Confessor or Priest ought to be asked for and listened to with respect; and recourse ought to be also had to prayer. Above all, it should be remembered, that no opposition to parental control in this or any other matter, even in extreme cases, should ever be grounded on one’s own unaided judgment, particularly if that judgment is biassed by a strong predilection on one’s own part.

It is not necessary to say much on the imitation of the good example of parents, as the discharge of another duty of reverence towards them. Children are inclined to grow up naturally in the moral form of their parents’ lives; and if they be shaped into that form by wise, loving direction reverently followed, they are sure with God’s grace to bring out line by line every characteristic trait of those lives, and they will thus pay implicitly, perhaps the highest mark of respect in their power to those whom they imitate.

But there is another kind of imitation to which children are at least equally inclined, and against which it is most essential to warn them. This is the imitation of their parents’ moral defects or vices. I have already said much on the dreadful evils caused by the bad example of parents; but where those evils are ignored, and the bad example is deliberately and systematically given, how is its influence on children to be counteracted? I can only advise the means common to every one placed in spiritual danger that must be confronted. These means are prayer and personal effort. We must pray earnestly and constantly that we may be saved from the danger; and we must use every effort in our power to second our prayer. We must try to close our eyes to the faults or vices in our parents that scandalize us; we must try to excuse to ourselves those that we cannot shut out; if they are inexcusable, we must still keep this truth before our minds, that if we allow ourselves to be led away by the bad example given to us, our divine Judge will hold us accountable for our sin, notwithstanding that it was caused morally by the bad example of our parents.

I shall conclude this chapter by mentioning the grossest irreverence of which a child can be guilty against its parent. I mean the irreverence of raising its hand against him and striking him. The simple thought of such an impious act makes one shudder, and seek relief in the hope that it is scarcely ever committed. Well; as far as my experience extends, it is, thank God, scarcely ever committed, except where all that is spiritual in man, and even his higher animal instincts, have been crushed out of him by the vice of drunkenness. In such a case, it is not indeed frequent; but neither can it be said to be altogether rare. When it does happen that a child commits this terrible crime, the avenger, Remorse, with its scourge of scorpions, takes its stand beside the wretched being, and begins in life the torture of the soul, that only a sincere repentance can prevent from continuing through all eternity. It is unnecessary to say more on a matter that can scarcely have any practical interest for those who are likely to read this work.