E-books - Audio - Video

read online click here

Though every child, speaking generally, is born into this 

world stained with Original sin, we do not speak of the child 

as personally wicked ; nor again after it has been cleansed in 

the waters of baptism, is it yet called a saint. These terms 

we are accustomed to reserve till the child has grown to reason 

and proved itself by its own responsible action, either by 

following its corrupt nature on the one hand, or by subjecting 

it to the influences of grace on the other. The course of 

development taken by each child will, therefore, depend in 

part upon the interior principle of self-government, but also 

largely, perhaps more largely, upon environment, upon 

training. For this reason the devil who rules over the kingdom of this world has his schools of wickedness in which he 

trains his scholars to evil ; and Christ also has His schools of 

virtue in which His scholars are trained to holiness. 

The natural school of sanctity is the Christian home. How 

many saints have been formed and trained in that school ! 

Examples readily occur to mind. In the Old Testament we 

have the school initiated by Abraham and carried on through 

Isaac to the third generation in the person of Jacob, extending 

over a period of more than 300 years, and embracing many 

other souls which came under the influence of these holy 

Patriarchs. In Christian times innumerable instances occur. 

There is for example the remarkable school of saints founded, 

as one may say, by St. Macrina the elder. She trained her 

son, St. Basil the elder in holiness. St. Basil and his wife, 

St. Emmelia were blessed with ten children, and they trained 

them all to eminent virtue, four of them attaining to the title 

of saint, viz., St. Macrina their eldest daughter, St. Basil the 

Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Peter of Sebaste.