The Infant Saint John with the Lamb (detail), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1660

HERE ARE timely thoughts on this midsummer day dedicated for centuries with prayer and festivity to the birth of St. John the Baptist, that most extraordinary child, conceived by a seemingly barren, older couple, a child who retired early in life to the lonely desert, feeding on honey and locusts, later going out into the world to play his role as the “Precursor,” one of history’s most important prophets, preachers and martyrs. Fr. Leonard Goffine explains why children should be prepared by their parents not only for happiness, success and likeableness, but for holiness, with all the sacrifices and struggle for understanding that entails. Today’s parents, in a way, must feed on honey and locusts to bring this miracle about. From Fr. Goffine:

Whence does it come that so many parents are deceived in the expectations they entertained in regard to their children, that their advancing youth, notwithstanding all the education bestowed upon it, becomes more and more disorderly and impious? It is because parents so seldom observe that which is written of the young Tobias: From his infancy he (his father) taught him to fear God, and to abstain from all sin; (Tob. i. 10.) because they regard not the apostle’s admonition: And you fathers, bring up your children in the discipline and correction of the Lord; (Eph vi. 4.) because they forget that every child is like a young tree that must be carefully guarded, straightened, bound to a post, trimmed and protected against insects, wind and frost; because they remember no longer the wise man’s counsel: Instruct thy children, and bow down their necks from their childhood, (Ecclus. vii. 25.) and, thou shalt beat thy child with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell; (Prov. xxiii. 14.) because they pay no attention to the words: The child that is left to his own will, bringeth his mother to shame, (Prov. xxix. I5.) and, he that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him, that he may rejoice in his latter end, and not grope after the doors of his neighbors, (Ecclus. xxx. 1.) that is, for protection, consolation and help against the rebellious child. They do not bring the child early to Jesus, the divine Friend of children; they do not teach it to fear God and abhor sin above all things; they rejoice in the many talents of the child, but do not seek to direct them to God, their only end; they do not remove from the child all that which poisons and corrupts the innocent heart open to every impression; they neglect to make it pray in early childhood, to make it exercise the necessary Christian virtues, the love of God and their neighbor, humility, obedience, meekness, peacefulness and modesty; in a word, they educate their children for anything rather than for God, the Church and their country. God, the Church, and the country are not satisfied with an education in which attention is paid only to those things which will enable the child to do well in this world, or that will make a great show, and receive power, honor and praise. This false and pernicious education causes so many parents to complain of their grown children; causes God to punish them severely even here on earth, more terribly in the other world; causes the Church to lament, and good men to be filled with fear.

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Woe to the parents who do not educate their children for God and heaven! What fear and terror will come upon them on the Judgment Day, when God will demand pure and unharmed, the children He confided to them, when parents must acknowledge that through their fault their children have been excluded from heaven and are lost forever!

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