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SAINT PAUL PREACHING - 1515 AD
CATHOLIC STUDIES
Saint Charles Borromeo says that training children means bringing them to Christ. The Christian Faith comprises all the doctrines of the Catholic Faith. He who willfully disbelieves a single doctrine of the Catholic Church has no true faith, for he who receives some of the words of Christ and rejects others, does not really believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He guides the Catholic Church. Although it is necessary to faith that all the teaching of the Catholic Church should be believed, yet it is not necessary to be acquainted with every one of her doctrines.
Parents must instruct their children in the law of God, as Tobias did. He taught his son from his infancy to fear God and to abstain from sin (Tobias I:10), and when he thought his death was near, he gave him godly admonitions (Tobias IV). They should endeavor to stifle evil propensities in their children, and bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord (Ephesians VI:4). They should teach them to pray, beginning with the sign of the cross and the invocation of the holy name, and proceeding to the Our Father, Hail Mary, and the Creed. He who has an opportunity of being instructed must also understand the Apostles' Creed, the commandments of God and of the Church, and also he must have some knowledge of the doctrines of grace, of the sacraments and of prayer, as set forth in the Catechism.
When God bestows upon a person the gift of faith, He employs one of the ordinary means of grace. The ordinary means are preaching, reading and personal instruction. Saint Augustine was converted by the preaching of Saint Ambrose in the Cathedral of Milan, Saint Ignatius of Loyola by reading the lives of the saints, the Ethiopian Eunuch by his conversation with Saint Philip. As these saints did before us, we must live our Faith; that is, we must add to it good works and must be ready to confess it openly.
-- Rev. Francis Spirago (1899)
Professor of Theology
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