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Father! Mother! What names sound more sweetly in our ears! On hearing these names the heart of every dutiful child, of every good daughter, thrills with joy and happiness. But these beloved names should not merely awaken such sentiment of the heart. They ought also to influence your will, leading you to fulfill your duty to your parents with scrupulous exactness. Your catechism has already taught you the nature of these duties. I desire, however, to impress them upon you somewhat more in detail.
Father! Mother! What a world of tenderness and anxious care, of joy and sorrow, do these words imply! Parental affection is faithful and tender, full of the purest and most unselfish devotion. If you seek for two other human hearts to love you in a manner as disinterested and sincere, you will not find them under the sun. All that a young girl dreams, and sings, and says about love in friendship and courtship, indicates, in too many instances, but a fire of straw, which blazes brightly for a brief pace and then as quickly dies down again, leaving nothing but ashes behind. The love of a father, of a mother, is most genuine and enduring, independent of all conditions of time and distance.
Of what constant self-sacrifice is not this love capable! What is it that often causes the hair of the father of a family to turn prematurely gray? What is it that impresses furrows upon his brow and causes his once strong and stalwart form to appear bent and broken? It is his wearing toil and anxiety, his efforts to promote the temporal happiness and well-being of his children. Ask your mother to tell of the mortal anguish she has endured on your account, the hours she has spent in watching beside your bed, the cares and anxieties she has experienced through you. Truly a mother’s love never dies. It is renewed with each day.
How can you ever repay such affection, how ought you to repay it? By filial love, respect, devotedness, and obedience; by honoring your father and mother; by speaking of them in terms of respect at all times and in all places; by never allowing them to hear from your lips a rude or insolent expression; by never making merry over their natural defects or moral deficiencies. Let your whole behavior to your father and mother be respectful. Even if clouds obscure the sun—I mean even if real and grave faults detract from the dignity appertaining to their position—strive to see the sun shining behind the clouds, and in spite of your parents’ failings, remember the respect which is due from vou. For in the fourth commandment God does not say that you are to honor a good father and a good mother. He says: “Honor thy father and thy mother.” The Blessed Thomas More, who was Lord Chancellor of England, and on this account second in rank only to the king himself, constantly had his aged father with him in his own house and always assigned to him the place of honor. This dutiful son never left home to attend to business of state without asking upon his knees for his father’s blessing and reverently kissing his hand. You ought to model your conduct to your parents after the example of this holy man, and to show yourself as affectionate and amiable as he was.
Love your father and mother, love them from the depth of your heart, with true, filial affection. Always take delight in the society of your parents, and thus give external proof of the love you bear them. It is scarcely necessary to remind you of this in a special manner while you are still so very young. But later on—for instance, when married or in a distinguished position—the mater may assume a widely different aspect. In that case you must be on your guard, and never cease to show the customary regard for your father and mother, and continued pleasure in their society.
Give further proof of your love by never occasioning them sorrow. Imitate the youthful Tobias, whose parents called him the light of their eyes, the staff of their age, their hope, the solace of their days.
Give a further proof of your love for your father and mother by tending and cherishing them with special and unselfish devotion in their weakness and old age. You can never repay the whole sum, that is to say, the entire capital of the affection they have lavished upon you, but you may at least return the interest of it by contributing to their support as far as lies in your power. See that you give proof of your love for your parents by never allowing a day to pass without praying earnestly for them. It has been said that the prayer which a mother utters on behalf of her child is the sweetest music in the world, a sound which reaches to the highest heaven; and the same words apply to the petitions which a pious child breathes forth for its parents.
Finally, see that you obey your father and mother. Look into the lowly dwelling at Nazareth. There you will find Jesus Christ, your Saviour and your Lord, your Exemplar, at the same age as you now are. What did He do, what did He teach during the whole of the thirty years He spent under that humble roof? The evangelist St. Luke expresses it in one word where he says: “He was subject to them” (His parents). Thus we see that Jesus was submissive and obedient until He was thirty years old! How disgraceful it is to hear a young girl who is sixteen, eighteen, or perhaps twenty, say: “I am no child to be dragged about in leading-strings. I want my liberty.” Alas for the girl who speaks in this way! Her language is all the more shocking the older she is, for then she cannot be excused on the score of mere childish folly. She is perfectly right in asserting that she is no longer a child. She is indeed no longer a child of God, a child according to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but she is a child of pride. Do you, dear child, remain always a docile, obedient daughter of your father and mother. Your fulfillment of the fourth commandment will be as a sweet odor before the Lord, and will make you one day a partaker in the bliss of heaven.
And when sooner or later the heart of kind father or of your loving mother will have ceased to beat, or in case you have already lost your parents, beware lest they should descry any stain upon the surface of your soul, now open to their sight. Such conduct will be the best monument you can raise to their memory. For, as it has been well said: “he mourns the dead, who lives as they desire.” And if sorrow or suffering overtake you, causing you to feel more bitterly than ever the loss of your beloved parents and to sigh for the days now forever past, when you could lean your weary head on a tender, maternal bosom, when a mother’s hand was always ready to wipe away your tears, then remember that you are not altogether forsaken, for
Each child of man one God alone
Hath; yet he hath parents twain:
And when those parents both are gone
His God doth still remain.