Let experience speak for those who know
if it is not so; it would seem in the nature of things that so it must
be. When it is given over to voluntary study (beyond the diocesan
requirements which are a stimulus and not a blight) it catches, not
like wild fire, but like blessed fire, even among young children, and
is woven imperceptibly into the texture of life.
Lastly, what may be asked of Catholic children when they grow up and
have to take upon themselves the responsibility of keeping their own
faith alive, and the practice of their religion in an atmosphere which
may often be one of cold faith and slack observance? Neither their
spiritual guides, nor those who have educated them, nor their own
parents, can take this responsibility out of their hands. St. Francis
of Sales calls science the 8th Sacrament for a priest, urging the
clergy to give themselves earnestly to study, and he says that great
troubles have come upon us because the sacred ark of knowledge was
found in other hands than those of the Levites. Leo XIII wrote in one
of his great encyclicals that "Every minister of holy religion must
bring to the struggle the full energy of his mind and all his power of
endurance." What about the laity? We cannot leave all the battle to
the clergy; they cannot defend and instruct and carry us into the
kingdom of heaven in spite of ourselves; their labours call for
response and correspondence.
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