The Catholic bulletin., 1916-01-15

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honor, homes to which the Saviour
turns for comfort, as to Martha's home
in the days of old, fathers and mothers
must train the hearts of their chill
dren, as Mary and Joseph, be it said
in all reverence, trained the Heart of
the growing Christ. Who is to teach
baby lips the holy names hut the par
ent? Who is to accustom faltering
steps to walk in the ways that lead
unto life, and accustom him to bear
for his Lord the days burden and
heat, and to recognize His yoke for
what it is, a yoke that is sweet and
light? Who indeed but the parent?
If Catholic homes were more like
the home at Nazareth, if Catholic
parents we're more like Mary and Jo-
seph, Catholic children would be more
like the Child Jesus, and would live
in subjection and increase in the only
true wisdom and in the only true
grace, the grace and wisdom of the
Holy Ghost; fewer children would be-
Judgment on their parents, fewer
hearts would be in ashes, fewer hopes
would be in vain. Catholic men of
wealth, to their shame be it said, are
striving to make their children the
slaves of gold Catholic women of
fashion are bartering their children's
eternal interests for the smile of a.
social set 1t was not so at Nazareth.
Catholic men of honest toll are giving
the sweat of their brows and the blood
of their hearts that their children may
rise by their labors and be better off
than themselves; Catholic women of
humble means have their needles ever
at work that their children may wear
the clothes of a decent responsibility
and move with people of modest COM
petence. This is not wrong. st. Jo-
seph toiled for the Boy Jesus, and
Mary wove His seamless robe. The
wrong is in this, that though poor,
they are thoroughly worldly, no less
so in fact than the rich, for they fix
their thoughts on the things of time,
and have scarcely thought for the
things that endure, the things of
WORTH the things of eternity. 1t was
not so in the homes of the Sacred
Heart.
No family can hope for happiness
i except in the measure of its likeness
to the Holy Family; and no family
can be like the Holy Family unless it
knows and loves Jesus Christ, unless
it makes Him the centre of it's hopes,
the framer of it's laws, the teacher of
it's ideals, and the model of it's virtues.
But oh, the Joy that is in store for
those homes in which the Sacred Heart
is in honor! They will not indeed see
the blood mantling with pleasure in
the cheeks of the Boy of twelve, as
He turns His face homewards after
His brief exile in the Temple; but
they will experience joy like His, as
they close the door on world whose
law is self and enter sanctuary
where all is love. They will not have
the privilege of sitting down to table
with the Son of God and ministering
to His needs; but they will feel His
/ benign presence and will have the
consolation of knowing that He takes
as done to Himself what they do for
His friends. They will not have
Christ in the full flower of His man.
hood to take the instruments of toll
from their hands as He did from the
hands of st. Joseph when he was tired
and old; but they will have other
helpers to relieve them, generous with
filial love that they have learned from
the example of the most devoted of
sons. Christ will not be there in
visible form to smooth their pillows
and ease their pain, and to light up
the passage that leads to death; but
they will have the Sacraments of His
love within their breasts, and they
will see Him with the eye of faith,
beckoning from beyond the grave and
calling them home Who would fear
to go hand in hand with Christ up to
the White Throne of God, to go from
home where Christ has been King
here on earth to home where He is
King in His Fathers Kingdom? Yet
strange though it seems and almost
passing belief, such is the happiness
that awaits all those who make their
i homes, homes of the Sacred Heart.