p. 19The Model Christian Father

We have thus far given several features of this model; we will now, on account of its great importance, present them in a more complete manner.

The Sketch¹1Before the painter enters on the execution of a picture he makes the general outlines of it; he makes a sketch.

Who is a Christian father? In general the answer is very simple. A father is a Christian father when he is a good (Catholic) Christian. But who is a good Catholic Christian? Every one knows the answer. He is a Catholic Christian who, co-operating with the grace of faith, not only accepts and firmly holds the doctrines taught by our holy religion, but whose thoughts, words, acts, and whole life are regulated by the doctrines and precepts of the faith.

To be a Catholic Christian it is not enough to know the teachings of our holy religion and believe them, a man must make those teachings operative in his life; he must publicly profess them in word and act, and make manifest by his public conduct that he is a Catholic Christian.

Thus should every one act, whether a father or not. It is the condition of being in reality a Catholic Christian, and not being merely a so-called one; it is a condition of salvation. But the father is bound more imperatively in this matter on account of his children, because it is a condition without which the children cannot become good Catholic Christians. He is a truly Christian father who so acts and lives. The Christian father has certain parental duties to fulfil towards his children, but as a good Christian he would perform these duties for his own sake, for these particular duties belong also to the duties of the Christian faith and are among the holiest of them.

Here is another outline of the sketch:

A father in whom the picture of a good Christian father is presented to the eyes of his children is one in whom they can see what a Catholic Christian is, how he judges, what he loves, what he shuns, how he speaks, how silent, what he avoids, what he does, and how he does it.

Does it not appear clearly from this what it signifies to be a truly Christian father? From the example of such a father a twofold advantage arises; we only indicate it here:

First, the children learn in the simplest manner their holy religion, its teachings and precepts, and the various relations of a right Christian life. These are daily presented to their eyes in a series of living pictures by their father and mother. How much better does a child understand this practical application of Christian teaching than it comprehends bald and naked instruction? It is easier to see and imitate than it is to understand, easier to show how to act than tell how to act. This fact is appreciated even in our schools, where pictures are made use of that the child may see with its eyes what it is taught by words, and by this means it understands its lesson much easier and better.

Secondly, the children, on the supposition that the parents not only know and believe the Christian religion, but also practise it, have before their eyes the acts and lives of the father and mother, and will thereby be led, in a simpler and better way, to Christian practice and life than they could be by mere verbal teaching. How much more forcibly are we all, but particularly children, impressed by what is daily set before us than by mere verbal instruction. And here it must be observed that children have a strong inclination to imitate what they observe in their father and mother. This inclination or impulse was put into their hearts by God himself.

Therefore, we repeat, it would be surprising if a child that has before its eyes, in its father and mother, a picture of a good Catholic Christian, would not also become a good Catholic Christian.

While writing this the consciousness arises in our heart most vividly and strikingly how exceedingly important it is for a father to be a good Christian; and the more we have the sad knowledge that many are not Christians the more we are here impelled, before giving the details of the father’s picture, to preface it with a warning.

A Word to the Heart of the Father

You love your children. The wish to see them happy has grown with your heart. We therefore repeat, your wish will never be realized if you do not bring them up good Christians—never. Be assured if you do not bring them up good Christians you place a cause that will destroy their happiness, a cause that will bring them to eternal misery. You must make your children good Christians if you wish to secure their welfare.

Again, your desire for the happiness of your children will never be realized if you yourself are not a good Catholic Christian—never. Can a tradesman who does not practise his trade or who does not understand it instruct an apprentice to become a master of the trade? Can you teach a young man to be the master of an art if you are ignorant of it yourself? Much less can a father bring up his children to be good Christians if he is not one himself.

Here is the way it stands with you. You should make your children happy, and you wish to do so from your innermost heart; you cannot make them happy if you do not see to it that they grow up good Christians; and you cannot do this if you yourself are not a good Christian, or if you do not strive earnestly to be one. That is the way it stands, whether you believe it or not; whether you forget it or not, it does not alter the case; so it is, and so it remains; the happiness of your children depends on your being a good Catholic Christian.

But are you? Alas, no! An evil, sinful youth lies behind you—full of levity, indiscretion, and sin. Your past life has warred against your Christian heart, against your conscience, and perhaps even against your faith. You have thrown yourself into the arms of sin, impurity, and intemperance. You have had the misfortune of intercourse with dissolute young people. You were perhaps a soldier in our late war, and from your companions you acquired many bad habits. The grand campaigns you have gone through, and of which with reason you are proud, have perhaps loosened your conscience and weakened your fervor. Add to this the bad books and bad newspapers that carry you away, drifting like a straw in the tide. O, how have these writings which you have devoured filled your soul and your life with poison!

Such then is your life. Besides, through an excess of worldly striving, you have been estranged from God—given to sins, and many even of the worst kind. They still weigh on your conscience all too heavily; for you have never seriously undertaken by that repentance and confession, which such a life makes necessary, to reconcile yourself with God, and you stand before him in disgrace.

And what of your faith? Has it not been weakened by all those sinful excesses of your life, by dissolute and frivolous conversations and bad examples, by all the bad books and papers you have read?

But if you are not as yet so far gone, how is it with your Christianity? How is it that everything that concerns God, religion, and your soul’s salvation is so far from you, so strange to you, and why are you so indifferent about these things? You do not pray, or your prayer is an idle repetition of memorized formulas. You do not love the Church or divine service; how reluctantly you go to church, how seldom, and then without heartfelt sympathy or participation. As for confession and communion, you have an aversion to them and avoid them as much as possible. And when you do go, alas! the pen refuses to give full expression to the thoughts. And your daily life, how full of disorder, irregularity, perverseness, and sins of many kinds—of anger and impatience, severity and unkindness to wife, children, and household. Add to this intemperance in eating and drinking, the violation of holy purity; and is there not also dishonesty, lies, and frauds in business and traffic, and unjust possession of property?

And you are a father! Poor children who have such a father! Who will bring you up good Catholic Christians? And yet without this you will never be happy. Will it be otherwise with you, will you in time be better than your father? O, how much it is to be feared that his example will have more influence over your young hearts than all the instruction which you may elsewhere receive. With bleeding heart we see it coming, you will also in time follow in the wicked footsteps of your father, you also will give yourselves up to frivolities and sin, you also will lead an unchristian life and lose your faith. You will be unhappy. Poor children!

O father, does not the impending fate of your children move you?

Then have mercy! Become what you must be to make them happy, become what thus far you have not been, from this time forth become a good father.

Whatever your past life may have been, howsoever full of sin and evil it may be at present, now at least will earnestly, will to become a good Christian father. Look upon your children and say to yourself: “They can never be truly happy if I do not become a good Christian father.” Then may your love for your children and your desire for their happiness develop its full power in your heart and bring you to the firm resolution: “Yes, I will henceforth be a good father.”

Be assured such a resolution will cause joy in heaven. The great Father in heaven will meet such a resolution with mercy and grace. Be assured that as he has the salvation of your children and your own so much at heart, and as he desires that you become a good Christian father, he is disposed and prepared to exercise mercy towards you and to forgive your sins if you appeal to him with an humble and contrite heart. He is ready to assist you with every grace that you may become a good Christian father. Surely, if there is joy in heaven over one sinner who does penance, there will be a twofold joy over a father who does penance and resolves to become a good Christian father; yes, as many rejoicings as he has children; yes, as he may have children’s children. His reformation is their deliverance, his salvation their salvation. Up, then, and henceforth be a good Christian father.

On this your own welfare for time and eternity depends. Or say, have you then in all your former acts and inclinations ever found what your heart desired? Come, acknowledge. If you will testify to the truth and lay open the inmost recesses of your soul you must confess that you never found true peace of soul in all your former unchristian life.

Christian faith and Christian life—that is the divinely appointed way of salvation for time and eternity. In it, and only in it, is found peace and true happiness in this life and in the next. In it “you will find rest for your souls.” Outside of it, and in wandering from it in sin and perversity, lies the loss of true peace and happiness; yes, still more, their destruction, woe, distress, suffering, ruin. “Tribulation and distress in the soul of every one who does evil.”

You must then be a true Christian in order to be happy yourself, and in order to make your children happy. If you are a good Christian you will also be a good father and secure the happiness of your children, for you will not only perform your paternal duties to them, but you will also present to them by the course of your life a picture of a good Christian father, and thereby with the grace of God make sure that they also will become good Christians and be happy; for every true, good Christian is happy.

The Full Picture

Let us now complete the picture of such a Christian father in its individual traits as they appear to the eyes of the children.

From his conversation, actions, and conduct it is evident that he is a true son of the holy Catholic Church; that all her teachings, precepts, and customs are holy in his eyes; that he is firm in the Catholic faith, and ready, when occasion requires, to declare it without reserve.

The children see the days of fasting and abstinence observed by their father; they see him make with reverence the sign of the cross; they see him revere things blessed by the Church; he disdains not to adorn his house with religious pictures. He is—they see it daily—given to prayer. He offers prayer before and after meals; there is prayer morning and evening and on many other occasions. The Sundays and feast-days are observed with reverence; there is no work except what is necessary. He loves to spend some time in church, not merely at a low mass, but at high mass, preaching, and vespers. He takes pleasure in conversing at home, to speak of the solemnities of the Church and what has been said in the sermon. He takes an interest in the Church and her fortunes, in her head, the holy father, and in everything that concerns her, and likes to speak of all these things; the children hear them from his lips and are edified; he explains to them the affairs and occurrences of the day and gives them salutary instructions, explanations, and suggestions. They see him going more than once a year to confession and communion, and with what holy earnestness he performs these duties.

In his house the priests receive due honor and respect; the children see and remark that the father treats them according to their dignity and holds their office in honor. The same is the case with the teachers; the same with the civil authorities, according to the maxim “Honor to whom honor is due.”

The family has its history; events take place, happy or otherwise, and they receive the consecration of the Church. Everything is begun with God—according to its importance with greater or less solicitude—with prayer, devotion, solemnity.

Thus everything in the life of the family receives in the consecration of the Church a religious coloring, not in an ostentatious, pharisaical way, but in a simple manner and according to the Catholic spirit.

With this religious forming and Catholic coloring of the family’s life goes hand in hand the corresponding moral tendency. The whole life is Catholic in thought, word, and work.

Before all there is the relation of the father to the mother, to the children, and to the other members of the household. A Christian relationship of love, concord and peace produces gentleness, tranquillity, and composure, savored by mutual service and complaisance. And if now and then, through human weakness, misunderstandings occur, they are but light clouds which momentarily overshadow the clear rays of the sun of peace. All this is beautifully expressed in the words of the Psalmist: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity; it is like the precious ointment on the head, that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron; which ran down the skirt of his garment, as the dew of Hermon, or that which descended upon Mount Sion.”²2Psalm cxxxii. 1-3.

Charity, that distinguishing mark of the true Christian, is here domestic; no one is exempt from it. The father has—the children constantly see new proofs of it—he has a heart for all; therefore no uncharitable talk about others, no fault-finding, no calumny, no detraction or slander; away with jealousy and envy, dislike, hatred, and revenge; away with mortifying or injuring neighbors. As far as in him lies such a father realizes the words of the Apostle: “Follow peace with all men.”

Again, it belongs to the order of the house to be obliging and render service to our neighbors and fellow-men; the poor and needy find an attentive ear and a heart willing to afford all possible assistance. Need it be added that in this house offences against Christian propriety, intemperance and gluttony are unknown—not tolerated.

To conclude: the father—such was our supposition—is a good Catholic Christian, and for that reason a good father. The mother is a truly Christian mother. What follows? The spirit which animates the father and mother by degrees pervades the whole house; this spirit nourishes in both parents and children those precious fruits which the Apostle calls the fruits of the Holy Ghost. “They are,” he says, “charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.”

They fill the whole house with their sweet fragrance and rejoice the heart with their grateful savor; they promote the increase of the Christian spirit and the growth of every virtue in the hearts and lives of the children; they are a sweet savor before the Lord, and his grace rules over such a house and its inmates.

Happy children who grow up in such a house! Happy children who have such a father!

How May This Picture Be Realized?

But do we not expect too much of the father—the man? Is not the piety, described in the foregoing picture, the business of the mother—the woman—and not to be required of the man?

Nothing is farther from our intention than to require from the father anything that is impossible to him, or only possible at the expense of his masculine character. We require nothing more of him than what his character as a Christian demands of him as a father, nothing that would wound his masculine character, nothing that he, as a man, could be ashamed of; on the contrary, what we require of him would the more ennoble his masculine nature and make him what God designed he should be—a true man.

What, then, is required of a man in order to be a good Christian father? First and most important, he must be devout; he must accept and hold the doctrines of our holy religion as taught by the Church, and the truths which God has revealed. What is there here unworthy of a man or impossible to him? Can we imagine that any one of sufficient intelligence who calmly examines religion could fail to accept it as true? How, then, has it happened, that in all times men who have made themselves conspicuous by their talents and wisdom, and who had the best opportunities to examine and weigh the reasons for and against, have found no reason to doubt the doctrines of our holy religion, but on the contrary have embraced them with devout confidence and joy? It is true there are and always have been many conspicuous for their intelligence and ability, who felt themselves justified in rejecting the faith; but let us be assured, it was not because of their intelligence or because they had found nothing in the faith, it was because by the misuse of their talents and their sinful degeneracy they had lost the sense of the teachings of faith as well as the grace of faith.

What is required of a Christian father? He is required to practice certain exercises of the Christian life; he is required, in proportion to his personal, domestic, and other circumstances, to devote some time to prayer, to attendance at divine service, to receiving the sacraments, and to afford his children the example of a faithful Catholic life.

What is there in this unworthy of or unbecoming a man? We have admitted that all these are not to be done precisely as the mother performs them, although that, according to circumstances, is in order and to be recommended; but we can always mitigate these requirements in the supposed cases without fearing that the father will thereby suffer in his Christian character. In the duties referred to let the father always maintain his masculine character, but in the right way. But to understand how it can be in any way unworthy of a father to practise those exercises which the spirit of religion and the precepts of the Church impose on him, or that it would injure his masculine dignity, surpasses our comprehension. Unfortunately, the number of those fathers who are zealous in this matter is not so very large; but there is no doubt that among those who belong to this number are to be found the genuine, true men. Who would dare to question the manhood of the leaders of the Centre in the chamber of deputies at Berlin? The whole Catholic world looks upon them as models of true manhood; even their opponents admit it. Well, then, it is known that they are true and devout members of the Church; that they are particularly zealous in the practice of those pious exercises.³3One of the best of them, after the death of his wife, and as long as her remains were unburied, went every morning to holy communion, in order to obtain consolation and strength in his great affliction. Or is it impossible for a man, according to his condition in life, to prove himself a good Christian father by a proper zeal in these religious exercises? He who asserts this is directly refuted by the fact that there are, and always have been, in all classes and conditions of life, fathers who have practised these exercises and fulfilled all the requirements of their Christian and paternal vocation. Why should it be impossible to a father? It is the same as to say that it is impossible to lead a Christian life. They are the same. It may, we admit, be sometimes difficult to a father, and require some effort, perseverance, and sacrifice. But he who on that account thinks himself justified in giving up, renounces that future reward which can be obtained only by great effort. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent alone bear it away.”

Lastly, what is required of a Christian father? It is required that he scrupulously avoid that which our holy faith condemns and forbids; that he study to fulfil the duties of a Christian life, and practise virtue. This every Christian must do if he wishes to work out his salvation. But if a father does this he is, from the fact, a good Christian father, and he does only what, as a Christian, he must do. Is this not possible to him? Is it, then, not possible for him to be a good Christian? Who, then, can excuse himself? who plead impossibility?

But Let Us Be Just

We must insist that every father should be a truly Christian father. To say that the piety which is required of a father is not practicable or becoming in a man is to contend against reason and faith.

It cannot, however, be denied that the father, in the practice of the piety required of him, meets very often with many difficulties. We have in view here not those general difficulties which are met with in the Christian life at all times, we speak here of the particular difficulties which, more or less, meet the father. They are found partly in his masculine nature and partly in the particular duties and circumstances of his life.

While the mother is led to the practice of piety by her natural inclination, with the father this is much seldomer the case. He is governed more by cold reason. He does from calculation and a sense of duty what the mother does from impulse and inclination. His way is certainly the more difficult. He does not generally in the practice of a Christian life find so much satisfaction as the mother experiences; this again makes it more difficult for him. He is generally more occupied in the labors and cares of life; it is therefore often difficult enough for him to persevere in his devotion to God, to maintain a sense of higher things and the fervor of a Christian life. To this it must be added that the life of the man is generally more subject to dangers and temptations of many kinds than that of the mother in her more limited and secluded sphere. Will his exposed life not lead him too much to the enjoyment of pleasures, to unseasonable visits to public houses, to intemperance in drinking, to offences against Christian justice, to offences against purity? And then the danger to his faith! These dangers consist in the undue preponderance of mere intellect, and still more in the injurious influence which the unavoidable intercourse with men indifferent in the faith or given to unbelief exercises over him; add to this the reading of bad books, newspapers, and other writings.

All these are circumstances which are calculated to lead men by degrees to become indifferent to God and careless in religious exercises, and to induce them to give themselves up to worldly pursuits, worldly-mindedness, perverseness and sins of all kinds, by which their faith is injured or lost. What, then, is to be done?