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Saint of the day - St Raymund of Nonnatus

8/31/2013

This Raymund is commonly called Nonnatus, or Unborn, because his was one of the rare cases in which the child is not brought into the world in the course of nature, but by a surgical operation after the death of the mother. He was the son of godly and noble parents, at Portel in Catalonia. The tokens of his holy after-life appeared even in his childhood. The things that delight children, and the attractions of the world, had no charm for him. He was so earnest in godliness that all men marvelled at his habits of premature old age. As he grew older, he gave himself to the study of letters, but, at the command of his father, turned to farming. He went often to the Chapel of St. Nicholas, in the suburbs of Portel, to visit the sacred image of the Mother of God, which is still sought with great tenderness by the faithful. There he poured forth his soul in prayer, and earnestly entreated the Mother of God herself to be pleased to take him for her son, to shew him the way wherein it should be safe for him to walk, and to teach him the science of the Saints.
And the most gracious Maiden was not deaf to his prayers. From her he understood that it would please her right well, if he would join the Religious Order which had just been founded at her own inspiration, styled Of Ransom or Of Mercy, for buying up and freeing slaves. As soon as he had received this intimation from her, he went to Barcelona, and entered the Institute so nobly dedicated to love for our neighbour. Once enlisted in the Regular Army, he guarded unspotted for ever the virginity which he had already consecrated to the Blessed Virgin for ever. But he was a bright and shining light of all other good words and works, especially of tender compassion for Christians who were passing a life of grievous bondage in the possession of unbelieving masters. To free such he was sent into Africa, and delivered many. But his money ran short, and as there were still many in imminent danger of denying the faith, he pawned himself. He was enkindled with a most vehement longing for the salvation of souls, and by his exhortations brought divers Mohammedans to Christ. The Moors therefore threw him into close prison, and put him to divers tortures, at last making holes through his lips and locking them together with an iron padlock, which horrid cruelty he long endured

Our Lady of Ransom

On account of these, and other brave things that he did, he got the name of a Saint far and wide. Gregory IX was moved thereby to make Raymund a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, but in this place of honour the man of God shrank from all outward shew, and clung ever tightly to the lowliness that beseemeth a Religious man. He had started for Rome, but had only got as far as Cardona, when he was seized with his last illness, and earnestly called for the strengthening Sacraments of the Church. But his position became critical, and the Priest had not arrived. Then Angels came unto him, clad in the habit of his own Order, and ministered unto him the wholesome Provision for the last journey. When he had taken it, he gave God thanks, and departed hence to be ever with the Lord. It was the last Lord's Day in August 1240. After his death there was some dispute arose as to where his body should be buried; so they shut it up in a box, and laid it upon a blind mule, and the beast was guided by God to carry it to the chapel of St. Nicholas, that he might be buried where he had laid the foundations of his nobler life. There was built there a Convent of his Order, and the faithful come together thither from all parts of Catalonia to honour him, and he is famous for divers signs and wonders.

Eleison Comments - CCCXX (320)

8/30/2013

31st August 2013

MILAN EDICT

In our days when liberalism taking over the Society of St Pius X looks like merely the last in a long line of defeats of the Catholic Church, it is difficult to imagine that there was once a time when the Church scored one victory after another. Nevertheless this year we celebrate the 1700th anniversary of one of those victories, the Edict of Milan, dating from 313 AD.

The Roman Emperor Constantine, known as “Constantine the Great”, was born in 272 and he was baptised Christian only shortly before his death in 337, but he had been seriously sympathetic to Christianity for many years beforehand. When in 312 he marched on Rome to fight his rival, Emperor Maxentius, Our Lord promised him victory if he would put on his battle standards the “labarum”, the X with a P imposed on it, the first two Greek letters of the word Christ. Constantine did what Our Lord said, and defeated Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. Once in firm control of Rome, Constantine issued the following year the Edict of Milan.

In the course of the previous 250 years, worshippers of Christ had suffered ten bloody persecutions under the Roman Emperors, from Nero (37-68) to Diocletian (243-316). Christians had refused the pagan State religion, so the State had banned Christianity. What the Edict of Milan did was to make Christianity for the first time legal alongside other religions allowed in the Empire. It was the decisive step in the conversion of Rome to Christianity. In 325 Constantine endorsed the orthodoxy of the dogmatic Council of Nicaea. In 380 the Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of Rome, and in 392 Theodosius forbade pagan worship.

Thus Constantine began that union of (Catholic) Church and State which was the foundation of Christendom, better known today as “Western civilisation”. Whatever may have been down the ages the abuse of that union in practice, it is in principle immensely fruitful for the salvation of souls. One need only think of how any township even today will profit from a sane priest and a sane policeman complementing one another. For 1600 years the Catholic Church held to that principle of the union of Church and State, whereas for the last 200 years Revolutionary liberalism has constantly sought to undermine it. Only with Vatican II did the Church at last give way and repudiate the doctrine of the Catholic State by its teaching on religious liberty in Dignitatis Humanae. A ringleader of the neo-modernists at the Council, Fr Yves Congar rejoiced that the Council had put an end to the “Constantinian Church”.

Now it is true that the churchmen being linked to the worldly authorities will bring temptations of worldliness with it, but any State is bound to enforce laws that correspond to some religious or anti-religious view of God and man. To see how difficult it is to lead a Catholic life when that view of the State accords with the anti-religion of secular humanism, just look around you. It was the all-surrounding pressure of modern irreligious States upon the bishops of Vatican II that made them want to change the Catholic Church to fit the modern world. The same pressure is now making the leadership of the Society of St Pius X go the way of the Revolution.

Constantine on the contrary must down the ages have contributed to the salvation of millions of souls, an achievement for which he is surely in Heaven. Emperor Constantine, pray for us.

Kyrie eleison.

© 2011-2013 Richard N. Williamson. All Rights Reserved.

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St. Fiacre - Patron Saint of Vegetable Gardens

8/30/2013

Abbot, born in Ireland about the end of the sixth century; died 18 August, 670. Having been ordained priest, he retired to a hermitage on the banks of the Nore of which the townland Kilfiachra, or Kilfera, County Kilkenny, still preserves the memory. Disciples flocked to him, but, desirous of greater solitude, he left his native land and arrived, in 628, at Meaux, where St. Faro then held episcopal sway. He was generously received by Faro, whose kindly feelings were engaged to the Irish monk for blessings which he and his father's house had received from the Irish missionary Columbanus. Faro granted him out of his own patrimony a site at Brogillum (Breuil) surrounded by forests. Here Fiacre built an oratory in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a hospice in which he received strangers, and a cell in which he himself lived apart. He lived a life of great mortification, in prayer, fast, vigil, and the manual labour of the garden. Disciples gathered around him and soon formed a monastery. There is a legend that St. Faro allowed him as much land as he might surround in one day with a furrow; that Fiacre turned up the earth with the point of his crosier, and that an officious woman hastened to tell Faro that he was being beguiled; that Faro coming to the wood recognized that the wonderworker was a man of God and sought his blessing, and that Fiacre henceforth excluded women, on pain of severe bodily infirmity, from the precincts of his monastery. In reality, the exclusion of women was a common rugin the Irish foundations. His fame for miracles was widespread. He cured all manner of diseases by laying on his hands; blindness, polypus, fevers are mentioned, and especially a tumour or fistula since called "le fic de S. Fiacre".

His remains were interred in the church at Breuil, where his sanctity was soon attested by the numerous cures wrought at his tomb. Many churches and oratories have been dedicated to him throughout France. His shrine at Breuil is still a resort for pilgrims with bodily ailments. In 1234 his remains were placed in a shrine by Pierre, Bishop of Meaux, his arm being encased in a separate reliquary. In 1479 the relics of Sts. Fiacre and Kilian were placed in a silver shrine, which was removed in 1568 to the cathedral church at Meaux for safety from the destructive fanaticism of the Calvinists. In 1617 the Bishop of Meaux gave part of the saint's body to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and in 1637 the shrine was again opened and part of the vertebrae given to Cardinal Richelieu. A mystery play of the fifteenth century celebrates St. Fiacre's life and miracles. St. John of Matha, Louis XIII, and Anne of Austria were among his most famous clients. He is the patron of gardeners. The French cab derives its name from him. The Hôtel de St-Fiacre, in the Rue St-Martin, Paris, in the middle of the seventeenth century first let these coaches on hire. The sign of the inn was an image of the saint, and the coaches in time came to be called by his name. His feast is kept on the 30th of August.

Saints for today - Sts. Felix and Adauctus

8/30/2013

The Glorification of St. Felix and St. Adauctus

Felix was arrested in the reign of the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, on the charge of having embraced the Christian Faith, and was brought to the temple of Serapis. When he was ordered to offer sacrifice, he spat in the face of the brazen idol, which thereupon fell down. When this happened a second and third time in the temples of Mercury and Diana, he was accused of impiety and magic, and tortured upon the rack. It was not long, however, before he was led out to the second mile-stone upon the road to Ostia, to be smitten with the axe. As they were on their way thither, they chanced to meet a certain Christian, who, when he knew that Felix was going to finish his testimony, said aloud: I live by the same law as he doth; I worship the same Christ Jesus. And therewith he kissed Felix, and they were beheaded together, upon the 30th day of August. What the name of the second person was the Christians never knew, and he is therefore honoured under the title of Adauctus, that is, Himself-who-was-added; as he was added to the company of the Holy Martyr Felix in winning of the crown.

Saint for Today - St. Rose of Lima

8/30/2013

The first flower of holiness which came to full blossom in South America, was the maiden Rose. She was born at Lima, of a Christian father and mother, and was remarkable from her childhood for marks of saintliness. The occasion of her name was a strange likeness to a rose, which her face assumed when she was a babe. To this name she afterwards added that of the Virgin Mother of God, desiring to be called St. Mary's Rose. At the age of fifteen years she uttered a vow of perpetual virginity. As she grew older, lest her parents should force her to marry, she polled her head of all her hair, which was very beautiful. She fasted to a degree almost superhuman, passing whole Lents without taking bread, and eating day by day only five pips of a lime.
She took the habit of the Third Order of St. Dominic, and then doubled her former severities. She wore a long and very rough hair-cloth, into which she inserted small pins. She wore day and night under her veil a crown, the inner side of which was armed with pricks. In imitation of the hard steps of St. Catherine of Siena, she girded her loins with a threefold iron chain. She made to herself a bed of knotty sticks, and filled the gaps with broken bits of potsherd. She built herself a very small hut in the farthest corner of the garden, where she gave herself up to thoughts of heavenly things, and to punishing her body with often scourging, starvation, and sleeplessness. But she waxed strong in spirit, and though she often had to fight with evil ghosts, she conquered them, fearlessly prostrated them, and triumphed over them.
She suffered greatly from painful illnesses, from the maltreatment of the servants, and from slanderous accusations, but still complained that she did not suffer as much as she deserved. For fifteen years she pined in misery from desolation and dryness of spirit, bravely enduring torments worse than any form of death. After this period she began to overflow with consolation, to be enlightened by visions, and to melt with love like a Seraph's. She attained, by the frequency of visions, to a strange personal familiarity with her Guardian Angel, with St. Catherine of Siena, and with the Virgin Mother of God, and she earned from Christ the words, Rose of my Heart, be thou my bride. She was famous for many miracles, both before and after she departed hence, and was happily transplanted into the Bridegroom's garden. Pope Clement X, with solemn pomp inscribed her name in the list of holy maidens.

Saint for Today - St. Sabina

8/29/2013

At St Seraphia's grave

Sabina was a Roman lady, the wife of a distinguished nobleman named Valentine. The Christian faith was taught to her by a maiden named Seraphia. After the martyrdom of this holy virgin, Sabina gathered together her relics, and buried them with godly service. For this cause she was in a little while arrested, under the Emperor Hadrian, and brought before the Judge Elpidius. Art thou, said he, the same Sabina who is so distinguished for her blood and her marriage? She answered: I am; but I give thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ for having delivered me through the prayers of his hand-maiden Seraphia from the troubling of the devils. Divers attempts were made to make her change her mind, but when they proved in vain, the Prefect passed sentence of death upon her for despising the gods. The Christians laid her body in the same grave in which she had herself laid that of Seraphia, her teacher in the faith.

The Beheading of St. John the Baptist

8/29/2013

The Lesson is taken from the Treatise concerning Virgins by St. Ambrose the Bishop

We must not hurry past the record of blessed Baptist John. We must ask what he was; by whom he was slain; and why and how. He was a righteous man, murdered for his righteousness by adulterers. He was a judge, who suffered condemnation to death by the guilty ones because he had justly judged their guilt. He was the prophet whose death was a fee paid to a dancing-girl for a lascivious dance. And lastly a thing from which even savages would shrink his head was served up as a dish at a banquet. For the order to commit the atrocity was given amid the merriment of a dinner-party; and the servants of the murderer introduced the murder amid the courses of the meal, running from banquet to prison, and from prison to banquet! See how many infamies are contained in this one crime.

Who is there that, on seeing the messenger hasten from the dinner-table to the prison, would not have forthwith concluded that he carried an order for the prophet's release? If anyone had heard that it was Herod's birthday, and that he was giving a great feast, and that he had offered a damsel the choice of whatever she wished, and that thereupon a messenger had been sent to John's dungeon―if anyone, I say, had heard this, what would he have supposed? He would have concluded that the damsel had asked and obtained John's freedom. What hath merry-making in common with cruelty? or pleasure-seeking with death-dealing? While the banquet was in progress, the prophet was hurried to his doom, by an order from the reveller whom he had not troubled even by a prayer for release. He was slain with the sword, and his head was served up in a charger. This was the new dish demanded by a cruelty which the banquet had been powerless to glut.

Look, O cruel king, and see a decoration which suiteth well thy banquet! Stretch forth thine hand, and touch the head of death at thy feast. So as to lose no part of the luxury of cruelty, let the streams of his sacred blood run between thy fingers. Thine hunger the dinner hath been unable to satisfy; thy cups have not been able to quench thine inhuman thirst; drink the blood still flowing from the palpitating veins of this sacred head. Look at the eyes! Even in death they remain the witness of thine uncleanness, albeit they have made haste to close themselves upon the spectacle of thy pleasures. Those eyes are closing, but, as it were, not so much from death, as from horror at thine enjoyment. That golden mouth, whose bloodless lips are silent now, can repeat no more the denunciation which thou couldest not bear to hear! But even yet thou art afraid of their unspoken judgments!

St Hermes - August 28th

8/28/2013

Martyr, Bishop of Salano (Spalato) in Dalmatia. Very little is known about him; in Romans 16:14, St. Paul says: "Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, and the brethren that are with them." This last name is supposed by many to refer to the subject of his article, who is also said to have succeeded Titus as Bishop of Dalmatia, and to have been martyred. A passing mention is made of a Hermas in the Acta SS. Bolland., April 8, under Herodion; and Pape says he was one of the seventy-two disciples of Our Lord. Hermes was a very common name among slaves. Migne (P.G., 4 November) says he was one of the seventy disciples, along with Patrobas, Linus, Gaius and Philologus; and Canisius talks of a "Hermæus presbyter" . . . who converted many from idols to Christ, suffered for his faith with Nicander, Bishop of Myra, and was "lacerated and hanged."

From Wikipedia
His existence is attested by his early cult. However, his Acts, included in those of Pope St. Alexander I, are legendary. They state that Hermes was a martyr with companions in Rome, who were killed at the orders of a judge named Aurelian. Hermes was a wealthy freedman.

Some of his relics were given to Spoleto by Gregory the Great. Other relics went to Lothair I by Pope Leo IV; Lothair brought them first to Cornelismünster, near Aachen. The relics later came to Ronse in the 9th century. During those times, Viking raids forced the monks to flee the town more than once, and the monastery was burnt by the Normans in 880. The relics were recovered in 940 and housed in a Romanesque-style crypt in 1083. The church of Saint Hermes, which was later built on top of the crypt, was consecrated in 1129. A pilgrimage in honour of the saint, who had by then be known to cure mental illnesses, sustained the local economy. There is still a French saying today which translates as "Saint Hermes cures the area's madmen but keeps the Ronse dwellers as they are".

In past centuries, St. Elmo's Fire was sometimes called "St. Hermes’ Fire.

Although he is recognized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, the commemoration of Saint Hermes in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints was removed in 1969 (as usual, ed.) because of the paucity of information about him.

Saint for Today - St. Augustine

8/28/2013

Augustine was born of honourable parents at Tagaste in Africa. As a boy his great intelléctual sharpness caused him to distance all his companions in learning. When he was living at Carthage as a young man, he fell into the heresy of the Manicheans. He afterwards went to Rome, and was thence sent to Milan to teach rhetorick. At Milan he often went to hear the sermons of Bishop Ambrose, by whose labours he was drawn to the Catholic Church, and by whom he was baptized at the age of thirty-three. After his return to Africa, Valerius, the illustrious and saintly Bishop of Hippo, finding him to unite holiness of life with Catholic profession, made him a Priest. At this time he founded a sort of family of godly men, who lived and worshipped in common with him, and whom he earnestly formed upon the model of the Apostolic life and teaching. The Manichean heresy flaming forth with violence, he began strongly to attack it, and confounded the arch-heretic Fortunatus.

Valerius, moved by the godly zeal of Augustine, joined him with himself as an assistant in his duties of Bishop. He was lowly and pure in the highest degree. His furniture and dress were plain, and his food of the commonest sort, which he always seasoned when at table by either reading some religious book, or arguing upon some religious subject. His tenderness to the poor was such that, failing all other resources, he broke up the hallowed vessels to relieve their wants. It was his rule not to dwell or be very close friends with any woman, a rule which he did not relax even in the case of his sister and niece, for he was accustomed to say, that although no scandal could arise in the case of such near kinswomen, yet it might arise concerning the women friends who sought their company. He never ceased to preach the Word of God, until he was disabled by heavy sickness. He was always an hard follower after heretics, and by his words and his writings never them suffered them to rest anywhere. In great measure he purged Africa of the Manicheans, Donatists, Pelagians, and other heretics.

He wrote so much, and that with such godliness and understanding, that he is to be held among the very chiefest of them by whom the teachings of Christianity have been shewn forth. He is one of the first of those whom later theologians have followed, in method, and in argument. He fell sick of a fever what time the Vandals were laying Africa waste, and when they were busy in the third month of besieging Hippo. When he understood that his departure from this present life was at hand, he caused the Psalms of David which most speak the language of repentance to be placed before him, and read them with tears, for he was wont to say that even if a man's conscience were to accuse him of no sin, he should not dare to leave this world except as a penitent. His senses remained vigorous to the last, and it was while rapt in prayer, in the presence of the brethren whom he had exhorted to love, godliness, and all goodness, that he departed for heaven. He lived 76 years, whereof he had been a Bishop nearly thirty-six. His body was first carried to Sardinia, but Luitprand, King of the Lombards, afterwards bought it for a great price, and took it to Pavia, where it is honourably buried.

Family Life and the Dangers of Today - V

8/27/2013

...previous article
The Australian Catholic Truth Society Record
May 20, 1953 (No. 520)
Fr J W Gleeson

THE ADOLESCENT

Because of the special difficulties that many parents experience with their adolescent children, I think it is profitable to devote some attention to this particular age group.

With the onset of adolescence comes a period that is essentially one of trouble and of problems for the individual. Accordingly, it is usually a period of unrest and uncertainty. The reliability of things and of persons vanishes, not because these persons or things have become different, but because the adolescent's relations towards them have changed. This change of relations is due to the change in the individual himself, or rather, to the consciousness or awareness he has of himself. The happy unconsciousness of his early childhood is lost for ever. Within himself and in his personality, there are rapid changes going on. To him the world and the people in it present an ever-changing aspect.

Nobody can ever hope to understand the adolescent mind and even less to influence it somewhat, unless he is fully aware of the fact that uncertainty is the very basic feature of this age.

Yet we frequently meet with adults who judge the growing generation with impatience or even with harshness. They have left their own youth behind them, and distance lends enchantment to many things. They have forgotten that the frivolity, the heedlessness and the simple efforts towards adjusting themselves, which they now find so irritating in the adolescent, were equally galling to their elders when they were young.

THE MAIN PROBLEM

This brings me to the fact that we need to remember each individual who is growing up, and must not place all adolescents in one and the same mould.

The central phenomenon and the real problem of adolescence is the formation of the definite self. All other features and factors, such as sexual growth and awareness, are aspects of this one central process. One can never hope to attain a real understanding of the adolescent mind unless one fully acknowledges the central and fundamental importance of this process of formation and consolidation of self. This process is revealed in uncertainty, which becomes the very characteristic of adolescence.

The dawning consciousness that he is 'becoming a distinct person' makes the adolescent feel that he ought to be able to rely on himself, that he ought to be independent in his decisions, that he ought to become fully responsible for his actions. From this arises the longing for independence, a tendency for self-assurance, the unwillingness to listen to advice and the repugnance of blind obedience. In simpler and less dignified language, we see arise in these young people the "don't fence me in" attitude.

Little children in the average good home develop an unquestioning confidence in their parents. With adolescents, this attitude vanishes quickly and so it is important that the infantile attitudes of parents be replaced by ones adequate to the individual stages of development. This replacement often fails to take place on the part of the parents because they do not understand what is happening with their child. They do not notice, or very often, they do not want to know, that their child is no longer the little, helpless and implicitly trusting being he was but a few months before. They are shocked or disappointed to see the charming traits of childhood disappear.

WHAT PARENTS CAN DO

Instead of adjusting themselves to the new situation, instead of trying to understand this new personality of their child, parents often reproach him for things for which he should not be held responsible. Sometimes they try to treat him as if he were still a little child.

This is a most unhappy and dangerous situation. Parents should try to observe and follow carefully the gradual changes in their child and adjust their attitude and their measures to them. They should avoid all behaviour which undermines the original trusting love of the child. Their neglect in these matters may have no immediate effect, but impressions keep on rankling in some secret place in the child's mind and they become influential the very moment .problems arise within the child—problems which make confidence difficult, obedience loathsome, tenderness repulsive. Parents should be happy to be able to help their children to grow up, to be able to depend upon and to be able to control themselves.

Because of his uncertainty, the adolescent may not know what is really wrong with himself, or why he needs help, and even if he has some vague idea of these things, he frequently does not know how to express it because all his experiences are new and different. With the slowly growing consciousness of being a distinct
person, having to live his own life, the adolescent mind develops a natural reluctance to disclose itself. What makes the parents, who have been accustomed to the open-mindedness of the child, call the adolescent reticent, secret and impenetrable is, in truth, the first manifestation of a normal and even necessary quality of an adult mind. One may give to this quality the name of discretion, meaning the right discernment of things to be told and things to be withheld. The adolescent, because of his essential uncertainty, does not as yet know how to steer a middle course. Accordingly, he may be very outspoken one day and become utterly reticent the next. For this reason, it is well to make use of every opportunity he offers of getting to know him and his problems better. It will never do with adolescents to put them off, because we can never be sure that tomorrow they will be as willing to confide and to listen as they are today.

UNCERTAINTIES

This state of uncertainty to which I have referred is at the bottom of what is so often alluded to as the fickleness of the adolescents. They are fickle, no doubt; their interests change rapidly; they form friendships that do not last; they get enthusiastic about things that bore them soon afterwards; they are meek today and stubborn tomorrow, willing to work for a short spell and soon disgusted with everything concerned with work; they may be friendly, considerate and then cross, egotistic, impossible to approach. All these things and many similar things are true. But all the changes made, all the difficulties caused by them, all the trouble at school and at home, are but external signs of the inner uncertainty.

If you add to all this the question of the end of school days, the selection of the kind of work that they want, the new problems of work and environment, you can see that those who are responsible for adolescents are faced with a situation in which they must give tremendous help and never-ending sympathy and understanding.

It is well to mention here that much of the modern increased understanding of youth and of its problems fails to benefit the adolescent as it should because the one force, that can protect him and counteract the very dangers to which he is exposed, is invoked but very little and, in some quarters, it is not invoked at all. I mean the force of supernatural religion. It is a regrettable fact that much of the literature on adolescence is frankly naturalistic and materialistic. We must keep in mind the fact that in our Catholic Faith and in the sacramental helps supplied by it, we have the answer to our needs.

RELIGION IN THE HOME

Here again right attitudes are very important. In the home there must be respect for God, there must be prayer, must be talk about God and what God wants, and His goodness and His kindness, His Providence. Threats about God's punishments should not be necessary. God should be presented to the children as a loving Father, exemplified to the children in their own loving father and mother.

Religious practices will present problems in the home. Let us consider, e.g., the Rosary. This is long and tiring for little children, and if they get into an awful argument because they wriggle a little or if they giggle occasionally, they will start to dislike the Rosary. The same can happen if children are lined up for Confession and Communion on every possible occasion without their first being given the opportunity of deciding to receive the Sacraments of their own accord. This may particularly apply in the families of very devout parents. Perhaps later on the children will say, "I'm sick of religion. I'm finished with it."

Again, a danger is coming into the lives of these children from within the family itself not from neglect of religion, but from a mistaken attitude on the part of parents in the religious life of their children.

WITHIN THE HOME—A SUMMING UP

In the above pages you can see my reasons for stressing that the greatest dangers that can come to young people are frequently the dangers from within their own family. But, if the family is firmly grounded in the love of God, relying on His Providence, and the other points to which I have referred are remembered, it doesn't matter so much about the other dangers with which I shall now deal. The children will have the right approach and will be equipped and strengthened by their Faith and their family to face them.

Next....
II. OUTSIDE THE HOME

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