CHILDREN AND THE RELIGIOUS STATE.
Q. At what age may children enter the religious state?
A. The Council of Trent teaches that young persons are permitted to
take their vows in the religious state at the age of sixteen, after
making at least one year's novitiate.
The mind and the spirit of the Church show that youth is the best time
to make this agreeable sacrifice to God; and even the Holy Ghost
Himself testifies to the same: "It is good for a man when he hath
borne the yoke from his youth."
Q. Do not a larger percentage persevere when subjects enter the
religious state late in life?
A. No; the superiors of several of the largest and best organized
communities testify that a larger percentage persevere of those who
enter young.
The young are more easily formed to religious discipline. When persons
are twenty years of age, or older, their minds and characters are less
pliable; it is harder to unbend and remould them: "A young man,
according to his way, even when he is old, lie will not depart from
it."
Q. Is it, then, a mistaken principle to try the vocations of young
persons by permitting them to acquire experience in the ways of the
world before entering the religious state?
A. Yes; because "he that loveth danger shall perish in it." As
reasonably might you place enticing liquors before a man struggling
against intemperance.
When these youth are left to the mercy of so many enticing and
dangerous influences, with their passions growing within them, and an
enchanting world smiling upon them; when others around them are
"marrying and giving in marriage;" when all are speaking of the world
and thinking of the world, they will naturally be influenced by the
moral atmosphere in which they live.
Facts confirm this doctrine; for if, through their own fault, or
through the fault of their parents, those having vocations to the
religious state remain in the outer world until the end of their
"teens" a large percentage of them lose their vocations and stay in
the world.
Persons having thus lost their vocations usually live worse lives than
other Christians, on account of the abuse of grace.
Q. What is to be done when subjects cannot enter religion at an early
age?
A. In given instances, when children are unable to pursue a religious
vocation at an early age, the greatest precaution should be taken,
both by themselves and by their parents and confessors, to keep alive
those higher and holier inspirations which the Holy Ghost diffuses
more liberally at the age of First Communion, and for about two or
three years afterwards.
Q. Does not the Holy Ghost diffuse such special graces with equal
liberality later in life?
A. If such special graces have not already been abused, the Holy Ghost
may offer them at any time; but later in life this divine seed does
not usually find such well-prepared soil in the heart. The early
lessons of faith and piety, and of the fear and love of God, easily
become effaced by contact with the world.
Religious vocations often share the fate of the seed that fell by the
wayside and the seed that fell among thorns: "And the cares of the
world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts after other
things entering in, choke the word, and it is made fruitless."
Q. Does Our Lord manifest any special preference for the young?
A. Yes; He makes the conduct of children the standard for all who
would be saved: "Unless you be converted, and become as little
children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Again Our
Lord says: "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid
them not; for of such is the kingdom of God."
Q. What practical conclusion may drawn from these words of Our Lord?
A. Commenting on these words of the Gospel, St. John Chrysostom says:
"If children are driven from Christ, who will deserve to go near Him?
Now it is evident that we get near Jesus Christ mainly by the practice
of the counsels. Children, therefore, should not be kept from Christ
by hindering them from practising these counsels."
Q. What is the doctrine of St. Thomas with regard to religious
vocations in the young?
A. On this matter St. Thomas says: "This teaching is clearly the
outcome of what occurs every day among men. For do we not see children
put early to those avocations, arts, or trades which they are to
follow in after life? Candidates for the sanctuary begin in youth to
acquire the knowledge which will help them later; those destined for a
military career are trained to arms from their early years; and the
future tradesman is apprenticed when only a boy. Why, then, should a
rule so well observed in other spheres be neglected in the case of a
religious life? I say even more: when a state of life is attended with
many difficulties, the greater is the need to habituate one's self
from youth to overcome them. Hence we read in Jeremias: 'It is good
for a man when he hath borne the yoke from his youth.'"
Q. Are children obliged to obey their parents in the choice of a state
of life?
A. St. Liguori says: "It is certain that in the choice of a state of
life children are not bound to obey their parents; thus St. Thomas and
the other Doctors teach unanimously." Both parents and children should
remember the reply of the apostles to the unjust rulers who had
forbidden them to preach Christ crucified: "We ought to obey God
rather than men."
_Example._
When St. Bernard and his brothers were bidding a final adieu to their
home and their father, they saw their youngest brother at play with
other children in the castle yard. The oldest brother embraced him,
saying: "My little brother Nivard, do you see this castle and these
lands? Well, all these will be yours--yours alone." "What!" replied
the child with more than a child's thoughtfulness, "are you going to
take heaven for yourselves and leave earth for me? The division is
unequal." From that moment little Nivard could not be restrained
either by his father, his relatives, or any human influence. He joined
St. Bernard, who, with his brothers and companions to the number of
thirty, set out for the monastery of Citeaux.