The Education of Catholic Girls | Page 6

without
interest. Companionship in loneliness, comfort in trouble, relief in
distress, endurance in pain are all to be found in them. With Jesus and
Mary what is there in the whole world of which a Catholic child should
be afraid. And this glorious strength of theirs made perfect in
child-martyrs in many ages will make them again child-martyrs now if
need be, or confessors of the holy faith as they are not seldom called
upon, even now, to show themselves.

There is a strange indomitable courage in children which has its deep
springs in these Divine things; the strength which they find in Holy
Communion and in their love for Jesus and Mary is enough to
overcome in them all weakness and fear.
6. Eight thoughts of the faith and practice of Christian life. And here it
is necessary to guard against what is childish, visionary, and exuberant,
against things that only feed the fancy or excite the imagination, against
practices which are adapted to other races than ours, but with us are
liable to become unreal and irreverent, against too vivid sense
impressions and especially against attaching too much importance to
them, against grotesque and puerile forms of piety, which drag down
the beautiful devotions to the saints until they are treated as inhabitants
of a superior kind of doll's house, rewarded and punished, scolded and
praised, endowed with pet names, and treated so as to become objects
of ridicule to those who do not realize that these extravagances may be
in other countries natural forms of peasant piety when the grace of
intimacy with the saints has run wild. In northern countries a greater
sobriety of devotion is required if it is to have any permanent influence
on life.
But again, on the other hand, the more restrained devotion must not
lose its spontaneity; so long as it is the true expression of faith it can
hardly be too simple, it can never be too intimate a part of common life.
Noble friendships with the saints in glory are one of the most effectual
means of learning heavenly-mindedness, and friendships formed in
childhood will last through a lifetime. To find a character like one's
own which has fought the same fight and been crowned, is an
encouragement which obtains great victories, and to enter into the
thoughts of the saints is to qualify oneself here below for intercourse
with the citizens of heaven.
To be well grounded in the elements of faith, and to have been so
taught that the practice of religion has become the atmosphere of a
happy life, to have the habit of sanctifying daily duties, joys, and trials
by the thought of God, and a firm resolve that nothing shall be allowed
to draw the soul away from Him, such is, broadly speaking, the aim we

may set before ourselves for the end of the years of childhood, after
which must follow the more difficult years of the training of youth.
The time has gone by when the faith of childhood might be carried
through life and be assailed by no questionings from without. A faith
that is not armed and ready for conflict stands a poor chance of passing
victoriously through its trials, it cannot hope to escape from being tried.
"We have laboured successfully," wrote a leading Jewish Freemason in
Rome addressing his Brotherhood, "in the great cities and among the
young men; it remains for us to carry out the work in the country
districts and amongst the women." Words could not be plainer to show
what awaits the faith of children when they come out into the world;
and even in countries where the aim is not so clearly set forth the
current of opinion mostly sets against the faith, the current of the world
invariably does so. For faith to hold on its course against all that tends
to carry it away, it is needful that it should not be found unprepared.
The minds of the young cannot expect to be carried along by a Catholic
public opinion, there will be few to help them, and they must learn to
stand by themselves, to answer for themselves, to be challenged and
not afraid to speak out for their faith, to be able to give "first aid" to
unsettled minds and not allow their own to be unsettled by what they
hear. They must learn that, as Father Dalgairns points out, their position
in the world is far more akin to that of Christians in the first centuries
of the Church than to the life that was lived in the middle ages when
the Church visibly ruled over public opinion. Now, as in the earliest
ages, the faithful stand in small assemblies or as individuals amid cold
or hostile surroundings, and individual