"God," writes Miss Hilda Graef, "has manifested the power and beauty of the Godindwelt soul in His saints. When we turn our gaze from the easygoing, world without God of cinema and newssheets to the transfixed ecstatic of Mount Alvernia whom even the mute creation obeyed, we realize a change of spiritual climate more staggering than the difference between the atmosphere in a coalpit and the clear air on an Alpine peak. Yet both are `air,' only the one is polluted and the other wonderfully pure. So it is with the souls of men. In many, sin has obscured the Image almost beyond recognition; but in some it is dearly visible, bright and glorious, for they have been perfectly purified, even in this life."
To bring this "Image" to ever greater perfection is the sacred task of the Catholic educator, parent or teacher. Living as we do in the midst of the twentieth century, knowing the ways and fashions of the atmosphere we breathe, we have no illusions about the violence, at times seemingly irresistible, with which the world can appeal and push its wares. Young people have to be trained, from infancy, to erect barriers against the encroachments of a world that assumes that pleasure and wealth and comfort are the only things to live for. It is true they are not responsible for the world they are facing, and therefore it can reasonably be argued that they will certainly find the grace they need to resist it. But, if this is to happen, their young minds and hearts must, from the start, be captured for God.
We are surrounded by artificiality and unreality. Our cinema is a makebelieve, our pretensions are unreal, artificiality has invaded everything even woman's effort to improve her appearance. In the midst of so much vicissitude and superficiality, there is one lasting, enduring reality: it is the God we know as Catholics, it is the Church He has founded and the divineguaranteed message He has entrusted to her to give to the world.
It is wonderful how soon this appetite for God and divine truth can be awakened in the youthful soul. And to awaken it and feed and strengthen it and shield it round about, as far as possible, from harmful influences, is the work God deigns to put in the hands of the Catholic educator. Pope Pius XI reminds us that this is so when he teaches that our aim should be, in the words of the Apostle, "to form Christ, in the child. "My little children, for whom I am in labor again, till Christ be fashioned in you."
A father was standing in the porch of a church, holding his little son, aged four, by the hand. Before them hung a life-sized crucifix, and that excellent father explained, in the simplest possible words, the significance of it all. The child stood mesmerized, drinking it all in, wanting this, thirsting and hungering for God. The calamity that Catholic parents will place in their children's hands so much literature that is, at best, innocuous, and rarely if ever take the trouble to tell them the most amazing love story of all!
An excellent book, published in Dublin, makes much of "correlation" in the training of the child. Basing its teaching on the authoritative pronouncements of the Holy See, the author shows that the whole atmosphere of the school, and a fortiori of the home, must be impregnated with religion. "For a school to be, thoroughly Christian," wrote Pope Pius XI, "it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and of its teachers, syllabus and textbooks in every branch be regulated by the Christian spirit." This implies not endless moralizing and exhortation, but that each subject be given its "right place and orientation in view of our ultimate educational purposethe fostering of Christian wisdom." A Guide for Catholic Teachers, by M. T. Marnane, M.A. (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son).
Is not this principle easily derivable from a study of the methods of the Great Educator? Our divine Lord took every circumstance in which He found Himself and turned it - instinctively, you would say - into an instrument for the praise and glory of His Father. We have only to recall the sower sowing his seed, the rich man and his barns, the ten virgins, the birds singing God's praises, the flowers of the field swaying in the summer breeze, the fishes caught down at the shore. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."
When the eye begins to recognize divine truth and beauty and the ear begins to catch the refrain of creation's hymn of praise of the Creator, there is immense gladness of soul. God gives joy to our youth in this way, and He renews along the same lines the youth of those who, by the standards of men, are old.
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within thee bless His holy name . . . Who satisfieth thy desire with good things. Thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle's." Lord, the surest antidote to the encroachments of sin and the world, for me as for those You bid me train for You, is the knowledge of the truth of Your promises and the love of You that results. Give me this knowledge, this conviction; give me this personal love; give me the means to impart to others this conviction and this love.
Summary:
1. The privilege and responsibility of the Catholic parent.
2. Childlike acceptance of divine truth.
3. Awakening and satisfying in the child the appetite for God.
Thought:
"Take this child and nurse him for ME."