Translation:Motherly Education

by Josep Torras i Bages

Motherly education Pastoral letter by the venerable doctor Josep Torras i Bages _ Us, Dr. Josep Torras i Bages, by the grace of God and the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Vic

To mothers and other faithful of the Diocese, greetings and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Surrexerunt filii eius et beatiimam praedicaverunt; vir eius et laudavit eam: Multae filiae congregaverunt divitias; tu supergressa es universas.

“Standing, their children proclaimed her fortunate; her husband praised her saying: Many are the women who have become rich, but you win them all.”

(Proverbs 31:28-30)

I MEN MAKE LAWS, WOMEN MAKE CUSTOMS

Even though it may seem that during Holy Lent, the soul pastor should address his instructions to all faithful, we would specially like to address you, beloved mothers, because you are the ones that form the people; and, therefore, in addressing you, we work for the formation of the people, that will be as you make it to be. The ministry of mothers is of a high dignity and transcendence, for God has made you his cooperators, and it depends on you that the people be worthy, virtuous, and God and neighbor loving. Most often it is said, and Plato already said that, and very true it is, that men make laws and women make customs; and what is interesting, what is practical, what is real, what determines the worth of a people, are its customs, which constitute the practice of human life, which show virtue, intelligence and merit, which are, in one word, the living and praying humanity. Moreover, each one has to provide for his own salvation, and salvation or damnation come from the good or bad customs of man, who is saved by virtue, and damned by vice. Laws are paper-written formulae, most often sealed inside codes, and do not pierce into the heart; and if men are not willing to receive them, they must be forced on the people through violence and then, according to divine wisdom, the letter kills,1 the conflict arises between law and people, and the government of men does not follow the path, as it should, of the government of God, that gently disposes everything.2 So that, women, are necessary to the legislator, for without your influence he could nothing, or would be useless, because it would not come to fulfillment. And all the plans and projects of his science would be dead letter. Through you human life comes to the world and through you it is perfected. The Spring of Life, of the body as of the soul, is God; but He communicates it through you, and even immortal life, the immortality of perfect life, was transmitted to the world through a Woman, the Immaculate Virgin Mary, glory of your sex, to whom all us Christians must regard as Mother; and you look her as your model, your consolation, your fortitude, your protector in troubles, that, naturally, as everyone, you have to endure fulfilling your ministry, while going through this vale of tears. It is convenient, beloved daughters, to lift the spirit, to broaden the heart, to brighten your mind, to strengthen your will with the great truths of holy Religion, and to understand your purpose in the world, the role you must take in the complicated drama of human relations, your duties and responsibilities, of which you will be held accountable before the eternal Judge after departing this life, to your confusion, if deceived by the world, dazed by the vane complacence of the senses, when time comes to stand trial before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, were to be found unprepared; to glory, consolation and eternal salvation, if alive and active, are found, as the wise virgins of the Gospel, awaken and diligent in the fulfillment of your obligations, always ready to be held accountable, in any hour it may be, stocked up with the oil of mercy, so easily available in the hearts of women, and lit the light of faith, which has to guide us through the paths of life, which has to enlighten us to see the door through which we have to enter eternal Glory, the house of the great Father of families of all the human lineage, who has prepared for us the never ending repose and happiness of his ineffable company. And even if this letter is specially addressed to mothers, take it, all the women of our bishopric, as addressed to all of you, for the influence in the people's formation, even if the highest degree is bestowed upon mothers, all women have part in it, all women have a certain dominion, all of you can and must be cooperators in the sanctification of the people endeavor by the christian grace; and as with the letters of Saint Paul it is seen that this apostle made use of various women for the propagation of the Gospel that he preached, also Us expect from your faith and your piety, that each one of you, in the circle of her influence, as wives, sisters of daughters, will fulfill what Saint Paul expressed when he said3 that the christian wife sanctified the not yet christian husband. And so the daughter, the sister, even the maid can contribute to the sanctification of the family to which they belong, as we see it has happened many times, because the influence of women, kind and gentle, is so strong that an ancient pagan poet said that as nature had given the bull the strength in its horns, the horse in its legs and so on to other animals, to women it gave an influence more powerful than any other animal: the grace typical of your condition. And the holy christian religion has augmented that grace of the woman, and as such the christian woman has a much greater influence, as is evident in centuries of the greatest Christianity, when women were more respected, more highly-regarded and more socially influential. Without a doubt, women know instinctively the influence of dignity and grace that the religion of our most loving Jesus communicates them, and because of that, them, in the current estrangement from faith of many men, keep faithfully the divine teachings of our adorable Savior.

II THE MOTHER, GOD'S COOPERATOR, TEACHER AND PRIESTESS OF HER CHILDREN

When Religion declines among men, in social relations, force substitutes love, and the weak are sacrificed; the children, the elderly, the poor, the sick are seen as useless; means to get rid of them are sought; and the woman suffers from the same depression, and so we see how the great Saint Paul4, preaching to those elegant and educated Greeks, has to remember them man and woman are essentially the same. Divine Law, restored to the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, placing love as the substance of human relations, has given dignity and consideration to the woman, who is vilified wherever rules a purely human law, informed of brute force. Therefore, you, with your faithfulness to Jesus Christ, manifest not only a gratitude to the one who has taken you away from the slavery in which you were before his coming to the world, and still are where the Gospel has not yet pierced, but demonstrate to feel what it would be of you the day in which divine influence, disappeared from society, only men were to determine your fate: you would be slaves again, again subjected to the despotic aberrations of human sensuality. Without a doubt, the appearance of feminism, with all its exaggerations, is the result of the diminishing influence of Religion in current society. Jesus, truly God and truly man, is the only one capable of preserving human balance. If He were to cease to be at the helm of humanity, men would be left in the confusion in which those men who have estranged themselves from his divine teachings are. But you, christian mothers, have the sacred mission of preserving love in human relations, preparing your children from the most early childhood to the fulfillment of that sublime law of love that, as the finishing touch of all his preaching, Jesus told his disciples, the night before his most sacred Passion: "A new commandment I give you: That you shall love each other as I have loved you, that as such you may love each other."5 But this love, which, as a precious treasure, God has placed in your hearts, must lifted to the supernatural order, deify it, sublime it, identify it with the love of God, the true spring of human love. Even gold, which earth breeds in its entrails, has to be purified by fire, in the melting pot, to become a precious metal and be ready to be used to make elegant and exquisite jewelry. God wants man and woman cooperating in the work of creation so as to give them a participation of his sovereign dignity. It is true that the soul and the body of a child that comes into this world are created by God, but the mother has an important role in the rearing of the body and the soul of her child. Divine Providence has made the mother its auxiliary, that makes the body of the child grow with the nourishment of her breasts, substance of the body of the mother, and she unfolds the faculties of the soul, lovingly exercising them until he reaches full knowledge. The dignity of a mother comprises several trades, and one of the main is teacher, priestess in some way, of her child. And the trade to establish a relationship between the young child, who she has begotten, with his omnipotent Creator, God our Lord, must began early on. There are holy women who, still carrying the child in her womb, already offer him to God; who, coming to the light of life, dedicate him to the Lord, because that is the right direction to take for every rational creature, that does not have a worldly purpose, that is not given life for some time until it rots in the cemetery, but has an eternal destination, and his purpose is the very Omnipotent Creator God, united with whom he has to live full of life for all eternity. This is why the christian mother takes care of the body as well of the soul of her little child and every day prays for him; she sprinkles him with holy water, she crosses him over his little limbs and puts over his chest the scapular of the heavenly Mother, our Lady, the Virgin Mary. Consecrated the child to God in his baptism, his sense anointed by the priest with holy oils, as consecrating a living temple to God our Lord, the mother continues that consecration and is considered, rightfully, a continuation of the priest, in the same way as the angel destined by God guards the infant, she, the mother, communicates to him those heavenly influences that religion approves and our Mother Church sanctifies. Imitating the Virgin Mary, who presented her Son Jesus in the temple of Jerusalem, the christian mother, when leaving the house, pays her first visit to the temple, carrying in her arms her child, holding a lit candle with her hand, and there she is received by the priest who blesses her, and presents the child she has begotten to the Lord and dedicates it to his service. All those ceremonies and religious acts, those sweet blessings of which Sacred Scriptures talk about, are the ones that protect man and dispose him to the love of God, the substance of Christianity. And those heavenly blessings and graces that the christian mother provides for her child, unite mother and child in such an intimate way, tie them with a bond so gentle and tight, that mother and child look like the same thing, that it is not possible to separate them but with violence, and they establish between mother and child a union that, began by nature and completed by grace, is the relation of love more alive, durable and pure known on earth. To the love of the christian mother no other human affection compares, no feeling is so sublime nor of such transcendence to our lineage.

III EDUCATION MUST BEGIN AT THE EARLIEST AGE

One may think that we are overreaching regarding the education and formation of children, for at the earliest stage of life it seems that an infant is not susceptible to true impressions; however, it is nothing like that, and so the subject must be prepared so that later on it may be conveniently disposed for the definitive determination of the child's character. An ancient and famous pagan writer tells us how important it is to prepare from childhood the one bound to be an orator, how he must be disposed to the oratorical aptitude; in military life, to become a perfect soldier, the one whose profession is such, direction and preparation must begin early on. Christian life is like a kind of militia, and the christian a soldier of Christ. Miles Christi, that is what the disciple of Christ is called, already in antiquity, the one who follows the standard of the holy Cross. And christian militia, which does not only consists in exterior life, but spirit as well, interior life, ideas, feelings, power of the will and habits, needs an early preparation, from the beginning of life. Each one must be reared to become what he must be, even more so when he is to be dressed with a difficult superiority, as the christian profession is. Moral influence from the mother to the child, as young as it may be, is extraordinary. Because of that, fervent mothers, who love their children with supernatural love, even before they talk, infuse in their spirits, according to the child's capability, the great ideas of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The young child points with his tender fingers of his hand and graceful movements of his eyes and face, that God is one, that in Him there are three Persons, that heaven is a sublimity, and sin an abomination. And then, divine grace, the most impressive sight in human nature, is made even more graceful, for grace, when manifest in childish manners, is a sublime and tender manifestation of God. The Church venerates some infants among the blessed in glory, but we would like to talk, christian mothers, about one of them, not only because he is venerated in our diocese, and even more in many of France, but because it is and interesting story about the power of motherly love in children's hearts, when the mother is influenced by divine grace. We are talking about the acts of martyrdom of Saint Cyricus and Saint Julitta, which the authoritative Ruinart includes in his Authentic Acts. Julitta was a noble and rich woman form one of the regions in Greece, who had a three year old son, when Diocletian's brutal persecution began. She had nourished him in her breasts, and she had infused him the love to Jesus Christ. The greatest concern of the mother was to save the faith of her child, who, as young as he was, was exposed to lose his faith. She went from one city to another, fleeing persecution, with her child and two faithful maids, but finally she was arrested for being a christian. Presented before the praetor, she was tortured to make her renounce her faith. She had her child tightly embraced in her arms, who was tightly embraced to her mother as well. The tormentors violently take him from her, and the praetor holds him in his arms and puts him on his hips while caressing him; but the child wants to break free, and does not look away from his mother. The mother, while tormented, repeatedly cries: "I am Christian!", and the child as well with her: "I am Christian!". The praetor's caresses are to no avail: the child keeps repeating: "I am Christian!". The praetor, furious, throws the little child to the floor, who dies instantly, and with his blood seals the Gospel of the divine Lamb, Jesus, the lover of children. The heroic mother offers to God the sacrifice of her child, and she reunites with him for all eternity in the heavenly homeland; and in our temples today we venerate the sacred image of Julitta and of her little son Cyricus, as a grand monument to christian motherhood. I have given you this example, beloved daughters, to lead you to the fulfillment of your mission, that you received from divine Providence in giving you children. An ancient pagan poet said that as pots preserve for a very long time the taste of its first meal, young souls preserve for a very long time its first impressions. Think, mothers, about your great responsibility before God regarding the rearing of your children. They are like soft ax that will take the shape of the form in which you will pour them: you must make them christian, not worldly. And many times there are mothers who, not understanding their missions, nor the gravity and transcendence of their obligations, see their little child as a toy, a doll, a reason of expansion and distraction, or even as a reason to unfold their worldly vanity, dressing it with exaggerated luxury, inoculating her own vanity to the child, deepening him into an unhealthy atmosphere, so that he grows in an environment, not of moderation and truth, but of imbalance and illusions, which are not a good foundation and starting point of the difficult and rough path of real life.

IV THE LAW OF HEREDITY IN THE COMMUNICATION OF FAITH

And so it is necessary for you to be prepared to fulfill the great motherly duty. There was an ancient legislator who ordered that young maids be educated manly so that, when married, would beget strong and powerful children. Pagan antiquity abounds in doctrines and examples about the excellence of modest and austere education for the woman, so that from her a generation of formal and worthy men may result, capable of overcoming the struggles of life and forming a respectable people. Little pots, says our proverb, resemble big pots. Great men, generally, have had grave, virtuous, active mothers, careful of their household and children. The mother, we said, is the first teacher of her child, and the most powerful in men's formation; and the teacher, to really be one, must breath the wisdom it teaches with all its being and in all times. It should teach with word and example. As there is communication of evil, there is communication of good as well; it is suggested, it pierces, like a smell, the good as well as the bad; by touching an object we acquire the smell, pleasing or disgusting, that it spreads. Christians, says Paul,6 should be the good smell of Christ. You, mothers, surely transmit what you are to your children: your spirit, your customs, your ideas, your virtues, your vices, in one word, the tenor of your life. You have communicated them bodily life; you have given them your flesh, your blood; you have formed their bodies, and you must communicate your spirit as well. Of course there are bad children to good parents, and good children to bad parents; but this is not the general and ordinary occurrence. The Church, in its prayer book, the breviary, writes a summary of the lives of saints that we venerate in our altars, and we nearly always read of them, and the Church wisely notices it, that they were born to honest and pious parents. Transmission of the spirit is a special diffusion, is a communication of life; it is not as someone teaching some science or art, the principles of which are learned by memory; religion must seize memory, intelligence and will. Man must be all religious, because all him is of God. That is why the mother is the ordinary tool that Providence uses for the transmission of spiritual life, as it uses her for the transmission of bodily life. Saint Paul himself, writing to his disciple Saint Timothy, already a bishop, manifests the confidence he has in the sincerity of his faith, hinting that, the proof of this conviction lays on the faith that Timothy's mother and grandmother had.7 If a man who has abandoned the faith reads this Letter, he should not say that faith is irrational, for it is communicated by heredity. Because heredity is the law of life, without which there would be no life in the world, both in the spiritual and corporeal order. One communicates it to the other, no other way is possible; for not only faith, but also science, virtue, art, fortune and all other human excellencies, which nobody is born with, nor are the work of one man, but of a succession of men. Humanity's heritage is an accumulation that is transmitted from one to the other, from generation to generation; and the one who thinks he does not need the others, that he is born learned, that he does not need a teacher, that with his own intelligence can pierce the mysteries of life and seize them, does not know himself. You, mothers, are more wise than he is. You have formed many human generations, you have illuminated many minds, you have lit many hearts, you have communicated life's discretion, you have taught virtue, and the arrogant who scorns the humble communication of faith, which comes from God, which Jesus commended as a treasure to one mother, the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, will never do anything worthy; not only he will not form a people, but he himself will lack a solid foundation for his life. Nowadays it appears to prevail among certain people the idea that religious sense should not be influenced on children, that religion is something each one has to choose, according to his preferences, and, therefore, following this doctrine, parents should not teach religion to their children, and should let them be without any spiritual education. Those who speak such are enemies of religion, who would like it to disappear from human spirits. They would not want religion to be taught to boys and girls, because they would like them not to have it. And this doctrine of not teaching religion, which many modern schools are founded on, under pretext of letting boys freely choose one, is even against a now prevailing principle, of much use among current people, specially those of advanced ideas. Life is a great topic nowadays, they say things should be lived; and if there is a human thing which is life, that is religion. So that Saint John apostle identifies the Word of God made flesh, Jesus, with life, and wants that in Him all of us be life. And nobody gives life to himself: we have to receive it from others; our conscience demands it, our spirit seeks it, but him alone would never find it; that is why Jesus came to the world to teach it, and He is and will eternally be the teacher of religion of the sons of men. Religion has to come from heaven; it is not a product of earth and if it was from earth, our spirit would be greater than it, because it is not from earth; and so our most holy religion was taught by the Word of God; He communicated it to the world, and you, mothers, have the noble mission of transmitting it to your children, teaching them the doctrine of our Lord Jesus, rearing them not for the few days that man lives on earth, but for that life that will not end and for which all us Christians long. Your motherhood would not be complete if not as such; you would not be daughters of Christ if not worthy mothers of Christians, if not placing high in your heart the duty of providing a christian education to your children. Church confers the sacrament of baptism to your children because it has confidence you will teach them christian life. You would commit, therefore, a kind of sacrilege if you were to neglect christian education to the children God has given you and that you have taken to baptismal springs; if you have made them Christians when born, you must complete the work, and you have to make them grow in the supernatural life of grace through the teaching of the fundamental truths of faith, and the practice of christian virtue. The Holy Fathers notice how Sacred Scripture uses "mother" not only to refer to the woman who by the disposition of divine Providence bears children to life, but also to that great mother of the human lineage, of God's people on earth, that is the holy Church. So as to save and transmit to all generations the treasure of divine Truth, the eternal Word made flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not found an academy, he did not choose a philosophical school, he did not trust a group of wise men: he founded the holy Mother Church, he established a mother who would rear and educate children; and the spiritual offspring of Jesus Christ is perpetuated on earth by a generation that never breaks.

V THE "STRONG WOMAN" AND DOMESTIC LIFE

You, mothers, are cooperators of the Church in the formation of the new generations that come to life. Realize your dignity and dress yourselves with the virtues that a ministry so high demands. Goodness and divine wisdom teach what the mother of families has to be; Sacred Scriptures, inspired by the same God, contain the description of the strong woman, and the Church makes us read it in the feasts of the holy matrons, an Us, in this Letter, want to place it under your consideration and meditation, so that if you are strong women, you will rear children as strong in virtue and dignity of life. The strong woman Sacred Scriptures talks about is the one with a plenitude of spiritual life: "she is a non-womanly woman" as Saint Therese of Avila says somewhere, who has spiritual vigor and, therefore, strength to communicate it to others. Religion, most beloved daughters, will give you that vigor, which is not learned from books, but through God's communication, who is the spring of fortitude and the beginning of all virtue. The ideal picture that Sacred Scripture gives of the strong woman is a little poem that, even though, logically, is in accordance to the customs of that country and time, is applicable to housewives of all centuries, to all mothers of the world. The woman is the soul of family life. "The strong woman is worth more than all pearls; she has won the heart of her husband because she looks after the household wealth and does always good, and never evil, every day of her life. She manages housework and the chores of her maids. She does not put out the light all night long; works by herself; reaches out to the needy and favors the poor. Because of her the husband is praised in city assemblies. Dressed with fortitude and grace, what is to come does not frighten her, for she has a well provided house. Her speech is prudent and her tongue only says good things. Her children rise to proclaim her fortunate, and her husband speaks of her with praise. -- Cuteness is deceitful and beauty, vane: the praised woman is the one who fears God."8 This lesson of domestic life, that we read in Sacred Scriptures, in which the woman is the queen of the household, will never be abolished; and modern deviations that would like to erase the distinction between man and woman, are a utopia opposed to the reality of life that will not prevail, remaining permanently the great mission of mothers, which is household administration and children education. We have stopped at this point because nowadays women take the streets: ones for vanity and others by necessity, they leave the house; and domestic administration, and children education, in all social classes, becomes disrupted, and the family nearly dissipated. Many women of rich classes spend their life in worldly meetings, in shows, in dressing themselves elegantly and needlessly spending to draw the attention of the world, and entrust the education of the children God gave them to mercenaries, because them, carefree and vane, are incapable of leading the path of virtue that they themselves do not follow. Maybe you will think, beloved daughters, that we are exaggerating and are too demanding of you; but it is not only christian wisdom, Church doctrine, the one that talks as We do; our lesson was given by a noble lady even before Christianity. Roman Cornelia, one day, was visited by some women who were proudly showing off their jewels and precious garments, and they asked her to show them hers; then, Cornelia, calling her children, who were to become someday glories of the Republic, said to her friends: "Here there are my jewels and precious garments." And working class mothers, thrown away from home and forced to the workshop or the factory to provide her subsistence, separated by force from her children and husband; even if they want to, it becomes difficult for them to consecrate themselves to the formation of the children, who grow like the wild trees of the mountain; and even worse, because they are exposed to the seduction of vices that so shamelessly are present in modern society. The working class family is at the brink of extinction in industrial towns, and this is one of the great sorrows of christian souls, and a great shame and responsibility of modern society: a sin that clamors vengeance before God and that someday society will bitterly pay. Therefore Us, by virtue of our spiritual authority that, although unworthily exercised, we address you in the current Lent, mothers, to exhort you to think about your dignity and social mission. We wanted to talk about women and their social mission, because never before were women's social activities so discussed about as is today. It seems as they should become men. They are taken from home and thrown everywhere, even municipalities and political parliaments; and the household without the woman becomes empty. The household is the kingdom of the woman. The true, solid, effective influence of women is not exercised in public life, political relations or social activities; it is exercised happily and fruitfully in domestic life, family life, because family is the base, foundation and principle of society. Therefore you, women, are not exalted nor lifted by being given political rights, nor placing you running social life, but staying at home, where you are like a queen on her throne. That is the place Providence has destined you, organizer of human society; that is your mission, which holy Mother Church teaches and that Saint Paul9 was already preaching when teaching the first christian women modesty in life, household seclusion, care of husband and children, and ordered them to be silent in public meetings. That such is the purpose of women is shown not only by nature, which has given her the proper faculties and aptitudes to fulfill it, but religion as well, for all christian revelation, all Sacred Scripture, laws of Church and doctrines of Holy Fathers, point to the same direction: that women is an assistant to man, his consolation, that she must manage the household and rear and educate her children. Any alteration of natural things results in an imbalance, and alteration of woman's character, the non fulfillment of the offices bestowed by nature, to take her away from her core duties, separate her from home, from taking care of her husband and children, all but annihilates the family, therefore unbalancing society, which is left without its true foundation: the perfectly organized family. The dismissal of the family that we are now here witnessing is a sad scene, for our country was considered,10 by one of the most eminent modern sociologists,11 as one of the most excellently organized, socially and family, places in Europe.

VI RELIGION HAS TO GET INTO CHILDREN THROUGH MOTHERLY LOVE

Therefore, following the appeal made by our most Holy Father Pius X, to restore all things in Christ, and wanting to cooperate, as is our duty, with his apostolic endeavors, we address you, mothers, for you are the ones who form the coming society by educating your little sons and daughters. And just as the formation of children is the work of mothers, it is as well, in part, the formation of the christian people. Do not dismiss the sacred obligation of educating your children in a christian way, telling yourselves that it is enough to send them to christian schools and parish lessons. You have to establish the basis of the educational building of your children, for without this basis, in spite of how well teacher and priest may perform, it will be difficult to achieve results. It is sad to see so many children that do not know the most simple prayers nor the easiest of Catechism questions. The christian mother cannot forget such a sacred obligation, but with constancy and care teach her children the first notions of religion. Nobody will teach them better than her. Communication between mother and child is the gentlest and, therefore, the easiest of all. If they go to the parish or school doctrine lessons, even those run by monks or nuns, without knowing the principles of religion, they will learn it as a study lesson, not with love, maybe even with disgust; from mother lips christian substance enters the spirit of the child, when while taking him to bed or waking him up you make him repeat prayers, with the same delight and benefit the little chick receives the meal from its mother's beak. Religion, then, to become beneficial to the soul, is to be learned with love, for by love it exists: Christianity is the son of love, and so it follows that its most natural and effective transmission is made through the ministry of the mother, who knows how to sweeten all things, even the most difficult and high, which our poor and weak nature is barely able to reach. And as true love is strength, we see in the history of the Church different examples of heroism that have its origin, as its spring, in motherly love. Because true love is not weak, its gentleness does not mean weakness, it is like a wine both sweet and strong, is pure and enemy of all corruption, is selfless, and the most selfless love is that of a mother. Solomon, the wise king of Israel, by the selflessness of love, discovered the true mother, for she preferred to lose the child to the woman claiming him than for the child to be split in half between the two of them. Saint Louis, king of France, when young, was told by his mother "Son, I would rather see you fall dead before my feet than you to commit a mortal sin", and basing his education on that principle, she made Saint Louis the most glorious king France has ever had. Knowledge of God and aversion to sin corresponds to the mother to infuse it to her child from the dawn of reasoning: the mother is the first to awaken in her child moral conscience. She has given him the physical being, and has to form the moral being as well. What greater glory could you possibly want over this one? What mission more glorious could mothers have? What greater dignity could mothers have received from God's Providence than to make you his cooperators in the formation of Christians and, therefore, in the salvation of your children's souls? Love to God, to good Jesus and to his most Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary, the practice of prayer, the aversion to sin, you, mothers, have to infuse it to your children. This is the milk of the spirit that will make them grow healthy in spiritual life; through the one from your breasts the body grows, and to the growth of the body should correspond the growth of the soul. How sad it is to witness such great number of boys and girls, who, without any notion of religion, without knowing the existence of God, the Lord's prayer nor the Credo, as if they had no mother; and to witness so many mothers worried about dresses, hairdressing and jewels, who do not think about adorning the souls of their little children by educating them with the only religion that saves! Poor mothers will be more excused before God's court than rich mothers: the poor ones must make a living and most often lack time; the rich ones however are possessed by vanity and love of comfort, and prefer their jewels, dresses and joys to their children. They think that by paying someone to take care of children they are fulfilling their duties, that money exempts them from duty. Money cannot replace love, and the formation of children, we insist, is a mission of love, that only a mother can perfectly fulfill. Because love is fire, religious teachings from a mother are more deeply stamped, and forever stamped in the child's soul. We have witnessed cases while exercising our ministry that clearly show so. We have found elderly people who, at time of death, in the last grave moments of life, with a marvelous spontaneity have addressed God with simple and fervent prayers that her mother taught them in childhood. These were there, in a corner of the soul, alive, preserving the aroma of innocence, and at the supreme time they overpowered the spirit, soon to meet God; and so here it is the fulfillment of that Gospel quote that says: "If you do not become little ones, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." It is the heavenly miracle of innocence reappearance; piety taught by the mother is like an essential fragrance, sealed in the child's heart, and throughout the spiritual convulsions of life, that precious essence is put in motion, its aroma is spread all over man and it brings him closer to God. Oh mothers! If only you would consider the savior influence you have over your children, and the mission God himself has given you, Creator of all things, how much would you struggle to infuse in those tender souls the principles of christian faith, that afterwards the Church, through his ministers, will explain and complete, to make them worthy children of the heavenly Father!

VII ON EDUCATING CHILDREN ABOUT SACRIFICING THEIR OWN DESIRES

For, because of that, you have to use your little ones to self-sacrifice; you have to teach them not to always and blindly follow their desires and instincts, because this is how perdition begins. The one who does not learn to control himself, is not his own master, and becomes a slave to his own inclinations. From childhood you must teach them that delight is not the law of life, practically, by not letting them blindly follow their instincts. The one who takes delight as the law rule of life becomes the most unhappy and falls down the cliff of passions, and is placed by himself in the insatiable throat of vices. Today, unfortunately, children education can be said to be founded mainly on pleasure, on delight, on doing not what must be done but what fancies you. And many christian mothers fall in this error, contrary to the doctrine of Jesus Christ. Jesus said: "He who wants to follow me, let him take the cross." Christian education, therefore, must be based on that principle, coming not only from the doctrine of Christ, but from natural experience as well. It is clear that there cannot be divergence between nature and its Author. Plants and trees, to grow and bear fruit, must be trimmed; if not, all becomes a useless exhibition, that disfigures the tree until it perishes. Our instincts and desires must also be trimmed; it is true they should remain in men, for they are a powerful motor of our activity, but they must be trimmed and lead; if not, the make a man useless, who, when blindly ruled by his desires, is bound to a miserable end. And so, mothers, you have to begin from the beginning of your children's childhood, amending irrational desires, which are the beginning of vices. A Spanish novelist, solid christian, tells of a case that will serve you as an example. He tells of a child of a powerful household, reared with every delight, used to be satisfied of every desire, even strange ones, used to get all pleasures as expensive as they may be, that became ill, maybe a victim of such education, founded on the satisfaction of all pleasures and desires. He became very ill, and to feed him they looked for every requisite, but none satisfied his extravagant taste: he wanted cherries, but it was winter. They searched for them everywhere; but, naturally, they found none; they tried everything to please the little picky patient, but could not calm the ire from not satisfying his irrational wishes, and he died of rage. This tale is a very significant symbol of the consequences of an education founded on satisfying all pleasures, and not on self-sacrifice, as it must be in christian education. To satisfy irrational desires, to satisfy the pleasures of our senses is a misleading appearance of happiness. He who wants to be happy in this world must begin to learn self-sacrifice; whoever may flee from self-sacrifice will fall in disgrace, and his life will be a fabric of misadventures. Criminals are not but like us, who have not been able to sacrifice themselves, to restrain their desires and suppress their concupiscence. Sacred Scriptures12 already tell us about the effects of the seduction of exciting worldly appearances: "The charm of trifles overshadows the true good, and the dizziness of passions perverts the soul that has no malice." What divine Wisdom says, we see it confirmed in human experience. A boy and a girl that do not leave well educated from home, when entering the world is left amazed, dazed by all the excitements of every concupiscence, today so powerful because of the advancement of material civilization, and falls defeated by his own passions, that he was not taught to overcome. To the son of the poor, poverty is in itself a school of self-sacrifice; but the sons of the rich are more needy to learn to overcome their desires, due to the great ease they have in satisfying them. A material step forward demands a spiritual step forward, for, if not, the spirit is left surrendered before the powerful teasing of sensuality. And this is what happens today with so many youths, to whom parents did not properly prepare for life struggles. Sybarite customs will never produce men and women of that christian balance, that teaches to subordinate the senses to the thought, and the thought to the law of life. And that balance is not acquired by listening to an explication, but with a steadfast education, that is to began by the mother, gently correcting the defects of his little child with the means most according to his age, and not to get him used to the satisfaction of every childish extravagance. That is, introducing him to the law of life, that is not the law of pleasure, but of one's own right direction, the only mean the man has to achieve peace and consolation of spirit, the relative happiness of this world, that is to be completed in the other one. Jesus is the typical man, in which we always have to put our eyes onto, for he is the eternal Wisdom manifested to the world as the light of life, and the law of his life was self-sacrifice, and such great lesson must be learned by all, for there is no greater fecundity than that of self-sacrifice. Through Jesus self-sacrifice the world is saved, and without his adorable sacrifice nobody would be saved. Every perfection demands a mortification, even in the natural order of things: knowledge demands study, wealth demands work, victory demands struggle. And in the supernatural order mortification is a basic element: the Gospel began to be preached to he cry: "Do penance!" and every saint and ascetic doctor teach that, without mortification of the self, holiness becomes impossible; as peace and spiritual delight, that Jesus Christ promises to his disciples, have to be bought with such coin. Many parents believe they are making their children happy if they leave them a great sum; if they leave them rich in money and poor in virtue, they make them miserable, for wealth will serve them, as we see everyday, to muddy themselves in vices and sink themselves in the abyss of perdition, both temporal and eternal, dissipating the fortune, leaven by parents, in an ignominious manner. Without the habit or custom of self-sacrifice there cannot be a superior man or woman, a character worthy and ready to overcome the difficulties of life. Activity, in which virtue consists; energy, which is its substance; right direction of oneself during complicated accidents of life, that are necessary conditions of a christian and rational behavior, must be prepared, in both boys and girls, from childhood already; and you, mothers, with a firm and serene education, founded on the principles of our religion, and with the help of divine grace, that we receive through prayer and holy sacraments, and that you must get your children used to, as soon as they are capable of them; correcting them opportunely: teaching them practically the subordination, that we all must have, to a superior rule; showing them the cross of Christ, that the Church continuously places before our eyes; talking them about the most sacred Passion of Jesus, through which he won us the glory, and of which we must all partake if we want to be glorious: working with constancy and piety those tender souls, you will place the solid foundations of christian life in your children, and you will prepare their eternal salvation and the improvement of society, which is like the members who form it. But care, above all, to cultivate their christian conscience. Nowadays there are lots of talks about character formation, and really, character is what personifies a man; but character is the manifestation of conscience: as the conscience is, character will be, for according to conscience is the man, and the essential base and foundation of a solid conscience, capable of resisting the earthquake of passions, that does not surrender over difficulties, is the knowledge and holy fear of God. Without this conscience has no base, for conscience is the law of our will, and God is the law of conscience. That is why you have to arrange the spirits of your children with holy fear and love of the heavenly Father. It is clear that, in the formation of character, the main influence is the moral law that rules conscience, and that law is proposed by reason; but it is also true that, to strongly engrave in the soul the law of conscience, feelings must cooperate. If ideas do not go beyond reason they will have very little effect on the moral regime of man; it is needed for them to be interesting to the heart, to be consolidated with the feelings which are part of human nature, that idea and feeling be welded together as a single piece, it is then that the law which must rule life prevails in man. Lack of formality, nowadays so noticeable in so many characters is due to the fact that the principles of intelligence, even those of faith, are not tied to feelings, affections and soul's noble passions; and, with the interior man lacking unity, also constancy and uniformity in practical behavior are lacking as well. Only what is loved is practiced and followed. We read Saint Joan Francis of Chantal, who wrote over her breast the name of Jesus with a red-hot iron rod. This is both real and symbolic, and teaches mothers that the principles of the holy catholic faith, that the Church teaches, must be carved to the consciences of their children with the fire of natural love, transformed to a supernatural one under the influence of divine grace. The mystery of love, God has mainly trusted it to women: the Church itself, in its liturgy, expresses so,13 and, therefore, you, beloved daughters, must cooperate to extent the gospel among men, always leaded by that sublime affection that determined the eternal Word of God to come down from heaven to earth and dress itself in our humble nature, taking human flesh. And so both sexes contribute to the propagation of our lineage, bodily and spiritually; and the social perfection that Christianity proposes, that is the preparation of eternal happiness, must be collaborated by both man and woman.

VIII THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH

In the most solemn steps of human life on earth we always see the intervention of women. She contributed to the fall of our lineage, she induced us to sin; but she also contributed to its restoration, and through her, divine grace is spread among the children of Adam. In the history of Religion, first in the ancient people of God as well as then the christian people, the restoring influence of women, her fecundity of action, is evident. The ancient people of Israel are a prophetic figure of the christian people, and that symbolic people, image of the human lineage, was many times saved through the mediation of a woman. Sacred Scriptures, inspired by God, contain books dedicated to tell the salvation of Israel through the mediation of a woman. One woman cuts the head of the general of a formidable army that was about to destroy the people, and so the army scatters and disbands. Another woman wins the heart of a most powerful and absolute monarch, and makes him change the sentence of extermination against the chosen people, placing them from then on under the protection of his supreme authority. Another time we see the influence of a woman in the salvation of the people of God, and this one is even more suitable for you, mothers. Israel was in a very dangerous crisis. A powerful monarch wanted to abolish the divine laws ruling them, and executed anyone resisting his tyranny. Seven brothers are made prisoner by order of the tyrant, and martyred with great cruelty before his mother. They exhort among themselves to courage and constancy, remembering that faithfulness to divine law always have its reward; but the voice of the mother is the most expressive and eloquent, she encourages all of them to suffer martyrdom. Under great pain they praise God and confess his law. All of the brothers are admirable, but even more so the mother. To strengthen the spirit of their children, she says: "I do not know how were you formed in my insides; for I did not give you the soul, the spirit and the life, nor was I who arranged the members of each one of your bodies; but the Creator of the world, who formed man in his origin, and gave beginning to all things; and He himself, by his mercy, will return you the spirit and life, for now, for the love of his laws, you despise earthly existence."14 And after all of them is also killed the heroic mother who helped all her children die holy, to whom, she, then, joined in eternal glory. And this cooperation of the woman in the salvation of the people of God is even more manifest in the Law of grace. I will not talk you, beloved daughters, about the Immaculate Virgin Mary, to whom our mystic doctors call Co-Savior of the human lineage, for Her, through her Son gave us our redemption. All of you are her devotees and know how much do we Christians owe her; but you have to think also that she is the example to all mothers, and as she saved the world through his Son, you have to contribute to this endeavor of eternal salvation as well, through the children that Providence sends to the world through your ministry. Inside the Church founded on earth by our Lord Jesus Christ there is, as well, a cast spiritual generation, that perpetuates in the world a state of men and women that dedicate themselves to the service of the Lord, to their own sanctification and to do good to their neighbor in the works of mercy, bodily and spiritually. Those institutions are called, and really are, religious families, and inside the Church of God they have had a honorable existence, and have practiced a beneficial influence in christian civilization in all aspects of life. They are called religious families because they are an image of the natural family, and because of that, the founders are called father or mother by their disciples. And so, even for this spiritual generation, the influence of woman is needed. In the first place, in all of them there may have been a powerful intervention from the Virgin Mary: the great founders have been loving devotees of Our Lady, have had intimate communications with Her, and have placed her as protector of their institutions, so that all religious families call her our Mother. But, even together with many founders we see a woman who completes the religious family; and in every institution there is the cooperation of the woman. And so it must be, for thus God has made the human lineage: Masculum et feminam creavit eos!15 By the side of Saint Benedict shines his virginal sister Scholastica, and from them two descends the enormous monastic family of men and women who kept civilization during the iron centuries of the middle ages. There has not been in the world a more numerous and beneficial offspring for the human lineage that the one from Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica. We see, afterwards, Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi appear, destined by Providence to scatter evangelic love throughout the world, and the Church, considering their love like that of the angels of the most high hierarchy, calls them Seraphic. That is, love examples. And as every period of the world means another human generation, Francis and Clare are reproduced, adapting themselves to the new ways of the world, in Saint Francis of Sales and Saint Joan Francis of Chantal, heirs and successors, in their manner, of the patriarch and matriarch of Assisi. Modern times have not lacked the spiritual fecundity of the woman either, for it may be the time when the strong woman has been more manifested, with her intervention in the many maternal ministries that the Church has trusted her, and that all society admires. Saint Vincent of Paul has as cooperator the work of the Daughters of Charity, Mlle. Le Gras; and those daughters are spread throughout the world and are the mothers of the helpless, the poor, the sick, the prisoners and of everyone who needs help from others. This so admirable spiritual generation, this cooperation to the work of spiritual formation of the christian people, that we see practiced by so many distinguished women, you, mothers, must fulfill it in a more eminent way regarding the children that Providence has placed in your hands so that you lead them the right way.

IX SPIRITUAL MOTHERHOOD OF ALL CHRISTIAN MOTHERS

And your mission does not end with the childhood of your children, for it has to endure all live long, even though in a different manner. When leaving childhood, great dangers begin for your sons and daughters, and the most sweet insinuations of motherly love with which you have infused the principles of religion, holy fear and love of God, aversion to sin, affection to virtue, frequent prayer and rudiments of christian doctrine, as they get older, must be completed with the discreet vigilance and careful study so that he does not fall stray from the right path of christian Law, the only path that leads to peace and dignity of life and the eternal salvation of the soul. You must continue to work on the spiritual formation of your children, on his education, and fulfill your mission, that consists in making men. You must not to be satisfied in making boys and girls: you must make men and women; and if it seems to you that this is superior to the strength of a woman, see the example of Saint Monica. One may think that the influence of the mother over the child does not go beyond childhood, and if it does, is because the child is of a pusillanimous character, or a limited intelligence, for it is an easily dominated spirit. But it is not like that. The fecundity of a mother lasts all life long, and her influence over the child never ends. The sacred psalmist16 tells of a fertile old age, of a multiplication power that lasts until the end of life; and the mother possesses such treasure, trusted by Providence, of an effective influence over their children. Sacred Scriptures compare it to the vine, which shadows and bears plentiful of fruit well into its years, and the olive tree, which, even very old, always lives surrounded by the sprouts it creates. We all have known men of eminent positions in society, who, nonetheless, were under the great power of their mothers. Sometimes even too much. And above all the Church has an admirable example of the influence of a mother over child in glorious Saint Monica, testified by Saint Augustine himself. The great Church Doctor confesses himself spiritual son of his mother, who begot him to the supernatural life of grace, and the medieval age sang in Saint Monica's day: She begets her son in the catholic faith. Already a great man of letters, the pious mother would not leave him: from Africa to Italy, from Rome to Milan; she trusts him to the great bishop Saint Ambrose; weeps and prays for him; and, lastly, as she had bodily begotten him, is an instrument of God for the new idea of christian and saint doctor, teacher of all christian generations. And the pious mother, once her son has converted, already away from heretical darkness and broken the chains of violent passions, Monica acknowledges herself as spiritual mother of Augustine, declaring that his mission on earth has been fulfilled. And speaking to her son, she says:17 "A single thing made me wish to remain in this world: to witness you as a christian catholic before dying; God as bestowed me that wish in abundance, for right now I see that, to serve him, you disdain all earthly happiness. What am I still doing here on earth?" A certain spiritual motherhood can be attained by all women, all of them can contribute to the diffusion of the spirit of Jesus Christ in the world. Right now, in the Church of God, lay women form associations and leagues of charity and catechetical education, blessed by apostolic authority, that bear beneficial spiritual results, as they are the realization of evangelical doctrine. To women, even to maidens, God has given them a heart of mother, feelings for the diffusion of goodness towards the neighbor. In Spain we have an admirable case in Saint Teresa of Avila. Their old disciples say that, when she was filled by the Spirit of God, she wished to have children, and they compare her to Rachel, the old matriarch, who, bitterly feeling her infertility, asked crying, to have children or to die: and so Saint Teresa, Spanish matriarch, asked to her heavenly husband, our most sweet Jesus, to have children or to die. And the Lord gave her a numerous and distinguished offspring. All women can have that noble fertility of the diffusion of the spirit, of communicating to others the divine grace of christian faith. The diffusion of the Gospel has not been trusted by God to science nor to weapons, but to love. To Saint Peter, before trusting him the office of universal Pastor, was requested to confess, three times in a row, his love. Jesus conquered men with love; and in the principles of Christianity, when Jesus personal action is still felt, the pagans not virtuous enough to embrace his heavenly doctrine, nonetheless, when talking about Christians, said: "Look how much they love each other!" Catholic France owes its spiritual existence to the love of Clotilde, who induced Clovis to worship Christ; of Saint Teresa and her daughters of the monasteries of Flanders it is said that their prayers contributed to the preservation of the catholic Faith in the Low Countries, in times of the Lutheran revolution, more than the fearsome Spanish armies, that were in those times the first in the world. Devote, then, beloved daughters, the love God has given you, to do good to the neighbor: each one has to use the aptitudes received from Providence to communicate truth and good to others; angels lead and illuminate us in the paths of life; you must be angels to so many men strayed from the path of salvation as there are now in the world. Saint Vincent of Paul already instituted women associations dedicated to help the needy, and those associations, inspired by piety and love, have given God lots of children that human malice and feebleness had estranged from the heavenly Father. The Catholic Church is an immense association of all the human lineage to worship God and serve the neighbor, and your associations are members of that immense association, and participate of the sap of love that runs through the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is his holy Church. Such associations are nowadays a necessity. The communication of the good must be made orderly, and needs a mindful management. The good we individually do is easily strayed, when following more our personal preferences, our own feelings, than common good and true needs. Love is neither meager nor huddled, does not stop with what surrounds us, but expands to the last corner of earth; and being a participation of the love of Jesus, who was born and died in the world for all the human lineage, you, beloved daughters, Savior cooperators in the salvation of the fellow man, do your good not only to the needy next to you, friend or relative, but also to the wild natives of Africa, or to the helpless and motherless children of the Far East. And so you get a kind of maternity sending your spiritual children to glory. Your christian love has contributed in giving them the immortal life of grace. And such doctrine, that through christian love achieve a kind of motherhood, is the doctrine of the Gospel,18 for in him Jesus says that whoever does the will of the heavenly Father, will be as his mother, and the will of the heavenly Father is that we should love and do good to each other.

X THE CHRISTIAN MOTHER AND THE GODLESS SCHOOL

But you, mothers, have to mainly look after the management of your household and the education of your children. Never, to do good to outsiders, forget your own. Saint Paul apostle19 wanted even bishops to manage their household properly, so much that he considered the one not able to manage his household not apt to become a bishop. What will be, then, about mothers? Somewhere Saint Francis of Sales says that a person must not take on more prayers, good habits and deeds than what his strength and the obligations of this state can withstand. For the christian never is to loose the serenity and balance that are necessary conditions of an orderly and beneficial life. Heroism is left to a few only; extraordinary virtues are only of saints; that is why the majority of Christians must focus around an smaller circle: to properly fulfill the assigned duties of our state and the circumstances Providence has bestowed upon us. Therefore, mothers, let not be fooled by that restless and excessive activity, so common nowadays, that bears nothing beneficial. The law of nature is not precipitation, but order and tranquility. Plants and animals grow slowly. Mountains and forests are dressed and undressed of their proud greenness, according to seasons, in a slow pace; cold and heat, ordinarily, come little by little; and so such behavior of the Creator must be a rule for you as well. It is usually said that the fruits and vegetables that grow too fast are less wholesome and tasteful; and so your life has to be ruled by these rules as well, if you want your house and your children to benefit from your management, and the family to become worthy, formal and respected. Life is not a big show comedy, but an eternally transcendent reality; in it we must not look for emotions, but positive spiritual benefits. And if caring for children has always been the main obligation for a mother, and a life dedicated to their formation has always been worth of the greatest praise a woman can receive, how much more today, when the perils of youth are so many, so difficult to avoid and so seducing, and cause so many victims of temporal and eternal perdition? Somewhere in this Letter we have suggested how in certain parts, the doctrines of the Sacred Scriptures regarding the holy Mother Church can be applied also to christian mothers. After the first sin, to which the woman, fooled by the devil, enticed Adam, the Lord, speaking to the inducer, said: "I will make enmity between you and the woman, and between her offspring and yours, and She will step on your head."20 And truly the woman who introduced sin to the world, who was the first victim of the devil, has been ever since the most God faithful of both sexes, the devote sex, as it is called in sacred Liturgy; and christian transmission from one generation to the other is made in large part by the ministry of the woman, who is the instrument of God for human multiplication on earth. However, the evil spirit does not rest in his effort to ruin the offspring of the woman. There is an amazing vision in the book of Revelations, that symbolizes the everlasting struggle that Satan has had to seize the children of the woman, but it specially tells of what is happening in our times. The admirable Seer saw a woman birthing, and a monstrous dragon spying on her to devour the son she was bearing to the world. Such figure, mothers, is to be considered seriously, because without a doubt impiety and vice are always looking to devour your children. And impiety and vice are more dangerous, for in the outside they are not monstrous; on the contrary, are fashionably dressed, seem cool and elegant and are presented as the human ideal, as perfection and progress, speak loudly about culture, and treat Christians, the ones who believe and practice the doctrine of Jesus our Lord, as ignorant, backwards, unfit to form a perfect society. They say that in the world Jesus is a nuisance, and so they want to expel it from school, rejecting him as the teacher of the human lineage. And Jesus, essentially, is a teacher, and Christians are his disciples; so that whoever rejects him as teacher and wants to expel him from school, is not a Christian. And they reject the teachings of Jesus, even if they do not say so, because they do not want God. If Jesus was only a man, a philosopher, a poet or a legislator, as any other man, they would make of Him a honorable mention in their books and their school; they do not want him because he is God, and they rebel against God. And all anarchism has here its root and basis. All power comes from God,21 says Saint Paul, and, therefore, without God there is no power, because the spring from which they come dries up, and men can do whatever they want. Consider, now, most beloved daughters, how such schools and doctrines cannot produce a good education; but, on the contrary, destroy the christian education you give your children from the moment you begot them. Such a school is the dragon of Revelations that wants to devour the son that the woman has bore to the world. They want to take your children, for there are political sects that state that children neither belong to parents nor to God, but to the State, and that it has the right to educate them as it feels; but it does not want to tell them about Jesus, nor for him to be mentioned, as if he was a dishonorable man, or a bad example, or a teacher of false doctrines. They say by word that they respect religion, but at the same time they suppress it everywhere: from school, from courts, from marriage, from births and from deaths. They say they love him, but they do not want to hear from him. Look carefully, then, the mother, how much is convenient to be the strong woman of which Sacred Scriptures talk about, to save her child in this world and the other. Think about how illicit it is to let their children go to the school where their christian conscience is to be killed, where is to be extinguished the holy light of faith that Jesus, eternal Word of God, spread all over the world and that the holy Mother Church maintains to communicates it to all generations by the ministry of christian mothers, who are not only instruments of Good for the bodily life, but for the spiritual life of their children as well. Such a tyranny from school of wanting to took over children and educate them against the feelings of their parents is the more abhorrent because it goes mainly against the poor. The rich mother will have the means to educate her child without the risk of losing religion: she will be able to provide private teachers, teachings different from those of school; but the poor mother does not have the economical means, and has to trust her child to the school, and if this is without religion, her child will lose the faith; and the christian conscience that she had formed in him will vanish, and will be a godless man with a lost soul. And, what consolation could you hope from a son who does not believe in God, nor rewards, nor punishments for the actions of his life? There is a passage in the Holy Gospel that can be applied, directly, to those teaching doctrines contrary to those of Jesus Christ, that should make tremble with fear those who work or cooperate to establish secular or neutral schools, which are more or less the same. The most sweet Jesus, the sweetest among the sons of the human lineage, threw at them a terrible sentence, that We would not dare to pronounce if not done before by the divine Teacher, full of mercy and love, but also infinite justice. Some day, Jesus called a child and laid his holy hands on him, then, with a solemn voice told his disciples: "Verily I say to you... that whoever may scandalize one of those little ones that believe in Me, it would be better for him to be tied by the neck to a millstone and thrown to the bottom of the sea."22 And who are those little ones who believe in Jesus, but your children, to whom you, mothers, from when they utter their first word, teach them to pronounce devoutly the most holy Name of Jesus the Savior? And who are the ones scandalizing them, but the ones propagating secular and neuter teachings to erase, like with a sponge, from the tender spirit of children of christian families, the principles and basis of the doctrine of salvation, that the Gospel of Jesus brought to the world, and that the holy Mother Church perpetually teaches? What are these schools of perdition, but the mysterious and symbolic Dragon of Revelations, who spies the proper time to devour the christian soul of tender sons and daughters, whom you, mothers, have born to the world to live eternally with Christ? Is convenient, then, mothers, and every christian woman, to whom God has given such effectiveness in communicating the faith to new generations that come to life, to diligently look over the schools that boys and girls attend, to complete the received education in the household. Men, today, absorbed by their businesses, industries and professions, and in political matters, have mostly abandoned domestic life, and even the care of children; and direction of the household and the family, familiar education, is almost left to the woman; so that if she is careless, too kin of social life and worldly frivolity, and does not take care of children, they will follow paths of perdition; and if they get lost, hardly will the mother be saved, for God, in due date, will held her accountable for the children He placed in her hands. But we do not want to end this Letter, beloved daughters, without talking about a great danger for youth in these days. Of all good things malice can make a bad use of. Press, that should only serve to spread good, is nowadays an instrument of vicious and corrupting propaganda, and meddles everywhere. There is a fornicator literature, that, as a novel, poem, drama or journal, keeps polluting the youth, killing the soul with the death of corruption, the most ignominious one. Watch over your household and your children. The loving watchfulness of the mother, the discreet influence on customs and life of children, is the complement of the education she has to give them, the finishing touch to the work of forming men, that so much depends on the woman. Ancient philosophy as well as christian philosophy have acknowledged the woman as more influential than the man in the formation of customs, and education consists of nothing else but the formation of the habits of intelligence, will and body of the man. Customs are the law of life, and a man is like his customs; what does not belong to customs is something exceptional, abnormal, accidental to life. That is why We have wanted to address mainly you, mothers, to exhort you to the upright and christian education of your children, and of your young dependents and servants, for all of these, according to the doctrine of our holy Mother Church, form the family. The Church, when praying for its pastors, asks the Lord for them to be able to rule the people with word and example. Let it be this way also with you, christian mothers, who are like pastors to your family. We will not get tired of repeating that the first element of your educative mission is to have an exemplar life: your modesty, the care of the household, the superiority of your character, not fooled by worldly vanities, the love to the poor, the love for all neighbor and the domestic worship of God. This way you will make your household worthy, and will obtain those universal blessings that Sacred Scriptures bestow on the strong woman. You will be blessed by your children, in the heart of which you will live even after death; blessed by your husband, who will consider himself fortunate of your worthy life; blessed by the people, that will be elevated by your virtue, and, above all, you will be blessed by God with the eternal blessing of glory. And to help you achieve it, we call upon you the protection of the great Mother of all christian family, our Lady, Virgin Mary, sending to you, and to all our beloved faithful, Our pastoral Blessing in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Vic, 26 of January, Holy Family day, 1913