Covenanted Happiness: Love and Commitment in Marriage (Third Edition, 2009) by Burke Msgr. Cormac

Author:Burke, Msgr. Cormac [Burke, Msgr. Cormac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Marriage — Religious aspects — Catholic Church, Catholic Church — Doctrines, Catholic Church
ISBN: 9781889334158
Amazon: 1889334154
Publisher: Scepter Ltd.
Published: 2011-07-09T23:36:12+00:00

11. Parents, Children, and the Rules of Life

Thu, 07/21/2011 - 08:10 — Msgr. Cormac Burke 11. Parents, Children, and the Rules of Life

It was years ago in Washington, D.C. The comment came from a girl recently converted to Catholicism. In a mixture of relief and joy she said to me, "The thing is, Father, you just have no idea how tough it is when you don't know the rules of life. Now at last, I know them ..."

Her comment often comes back to me when I look at so many people today, especially so many young people, who really don't seem to know the rules of life. I suppose that, deep down inside, they must find the going very tough (however much they may try to hide it).

Their lives certainly don't seem to offer much hope of working out well. How could they? - lives lacking in faith, in ideals, in purity, in love; lives lacking, above all, in criteria, in the ability to distinguish between good and evil, between right and wrong.

Many parents - all of those at least who really love their children - are frightened at this panorama. Their fear is understandable. And it is understandable too that when they think of their own children (who are still perhaps very young), they ask themselves: How can we avoid this happening to our children?

How can it be avoided? By forming them! By forming their conscience; so that they have standards, so that they know the rules, so that they can distinguish between right and wrong. And by forming their will, so that they can fight.

CONSCIENCE IN CHILDREN

A four- or five-year-old child is already able to realize that some things are right or wrong - for instance, that is wrong to do something displeasing to persons whom he knows are good. If his parents are good, he knows he does wrong if he does something they do not like. Here we see how the groundwork is already being laid for his moral life.

The next step is very important and, if the parents are good, is easily taken. It is so important, for it relates this incipient moral conscience to the supernatural world. It helps the child see that life implies a personal relationship towards an ever-present God - who wants to be our Friend - and that moral living means keeping friendship with that God.

We are speaking of the case of children whose parents are good (that is, who want to be good and who are fighting to be good, which is the only practical way we have of "being good" in this life). If such parents teach their child that God is good - and if the child can see, from his parents' way of acting, that they really believe this - then he will immediately know he does wrong if he does something that the good God does not want. He will realize too that he must struggle - as his parents are struggling - to behave well, to please the good God, precisely because he is good.

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