Parents are Bound by God to Lead Children to Heaven

All Christians, especially parents, through their obligations to their children must combat against strong temptations to neglect their duties, which will ultimately offend God.

Parents are first obligated to:

• Instruct their children in all things which are necessary to salvation

• Train them from their infancy to habits of virtue

• Make them frequent the Sacraments

• Make them observe the Commandments of God and of the Church

• Teach them to abstain from Vice

Second:

• Parents are obligated to give their children good example

Third:

• Parents are obligated to correct, and when necessary, to chastise their children for their faults, particularly as often as they hear them speak blasphemies, impurities, or have a lying tongue.

Fourth:

• Parents are obligated to keep their children away from the "Near Occasion of Sin".

For example, parents must forbid their children from going out at night, especially to any place or with any person in which their children's Virtue may be exposed to sin, as bad companions or bad examples will destroy a child's innocence.

Parents should not only remove the Near Occasion of Sin for which they might witness, but they should also enquire after the conduct of their children, and seek information about each person or place their children have had or will have contact to determine whether it will be a place or person of Virtue or Vice.

Many parents pay little attention to the Near Occasion of Sin or whether their children are exposed to people or places of Virtue or Vice, and, yet, when sin has occured or their child's innocence has been ruined, they complain, as if they expected that rope thrown into the fire should not burn.

Fifth:

• Parents should prohibit anything that may cause or lead to the loss of innocence of their children, especially scandalous comedies, adult-natured conversations, and parties that only serve to satisfy the flesh without giving any Glory to God.

Sixth:

• Parents should keep out or remove from the house all bad books, films, theater shows, games, romance novels, etc., or anything that could lead their child to sins of thought, word, and deed.

Seventh:

• Parents should not permit their daughters to be alone with men, whether young or old.

Some may say, "that boy is nice or he is a nice young man." Perhaps, but all people on earth have a decision to choose between Virtue and Vice, and if that nice boy, in a moment of weakness chooses Vice in the company of your daughter, then he just became an enemy of her soul.

Likewise, if any parent causes the scandal by willingly placing their child in a "Near Occasion of Sin," in the company of bad examples, or to be exposed to anything that causes or could lead their child away from God, especially hearing blasphemies, seeing impurities, or exposure to false worship... may God lead them to repentance and an amendment of life!

For many mothers and fathers will be condemned on the day of judgement, who have not yet confessed their scandal or wilful failure to fulfill these duties bound by God for the welfare of His children.

Duty of Parents Towards their Children

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Source of Meditation

The Prodigal Son

Original 1875 Publication

Fr. Michael Muller, 1825 - 1899

CSSR or the Redemptorists founded by St. Alphonsus Liguori