293. Слово по освящении храма Святой равноапостольной Марии Магдалины при коммерческом училище

(Said on March 21; published in the Works of the Holy Father, and the Provincial Gazette, 1854 and in the collection of 1861) Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and teaching of the Lord (Eph.6:4). Isn’t that what is being done here that the holy Apostle Paul commanded in the saying he has just spoken? This house is designed to gather children of one of the social classes in order to educate them through teaching that meets the requirements of their rank, so that parental care is partly supplemented, partly replaced by the care of mentors and schoolmasters. And that there is also an intention to “educate” these “children in the discipline and teaching of the Lord,” the church of the Lord created at the house of teaching can testify to this. What should I say after this? Praise and shut up? “I don’t think that my duty was fulfilled.” A good intention is a good basis for a good deed. But when a good foundation is laid, then everything is not yet built. A good intention must be followed by concern for its correct execution. Caring should provoke reflection. In our time, the importance of education for the entire subsequent life is understood and recognized more than in other times. The number of schools, as instruments of education, and the number of students, under the patronage of an enlightened government, with the competition of private people, is increasing from day to day. For a united multitude of those being educated, many mentors are united: and often many mentors are called to one person being educated. The most pious Autocrat shrewdly pays special attention to moral education, and, as the basis for this, to pious upbringing. But is everyone following this direction fairly correctly? A learned upbringing, a business upbringing, an elegant upbringing, don’t the concerns of some educators and those being educated attract too much attention to themselves by the types of outward advantages, benefits, fame, pleasure? - Therefore, it is not superfluous, I think, to remind parents and educators of children of the Apostolic instruction: “educate... in the discipline and teaching of the Lord.” That is: in word and deed, guide your children to a pious and honest life according to the teachings of Christ. Let us pay our debt of respect to knowledge and scholarship. Let's say, if you like, that people who have deep knowledge about the subjects of nature, humanity and human society are the eyes of the people. However, just as not every member of the body needs to be an eye, so not every member of society needs to be a scientist. But increased reproaches to ignorance and praise to vaguely understood enlightenment have sown in some people one-sided thoughts that education worthy of its name is only scientific, that education means teaching science, that educated people should honor someone who has gone through several fields of lessons. This means educating the head rather than the heart and the whole person. Happy is the one being brought up if a mentor in the teaching of faith manages to sow the seed of spiritual teaching in him more deeply than other mentors with the seeds of worldly teachings, and if the spiritual seed is nourished by home and church exercises of piety, under the influence of good leadership and example. The Divine teaching will purify, confirm and sanctify human teachings, and make them usable for private and public benefit: because “godliness,” as the Apostle says, “is profitable for all things, having promise for this life and for the future” (1 Tim. 4:8). But if piety, although the decrees speak about it, is not placed in the very soul of the person being educated as the basis of worldly teachings, then they will not be truly solid: unfounded teachings do not improve life, but, meanwhile, usually puff up; arrogant with imaginary knowledge and education most often puts himself above his condition. Thus, there are people who do not put up with poverty, do not get along with mediocrity, do not maintain moderation in abundance; they hunger for exaltation, splendor, pleasures; they are disappointed by satiety as well as by not finding food for their passions; always unhappy; they love change, not constancy, and, in pursuit of dreams, they upset present and future reality. Scientists themselves recognized that scientific education is not always appropriate and usefully applied, especially to states, middle and lower in society, when they distinguished it from it and tried to separately arrange for these states business education, that is, adapted to the affairs of these states, to agriculture, to crafts, to the arts, to industry and trade. A sensible idea with efficient execution. However, it’s not my place to talk about this. It is my duty to remind—remind, I say, because I think there is no need to prove—that business education, only with the help of pious and moral education, can form a farmer, artisan, industrialist, merchant, hardworking, honest, capable of organizing their own well-being, and to be serviceable members of society. What can we say about graceful education—about educating children through pleasant arts? – Fortunately, I can now say something in favor of this branch of education from close experience. Here we heard raised children participating in church singing. This is the application of a pleasant art to education, worthy of praise and encouragement. Exercise in church singing, and similar chants of spiritual and moral content, through pleasure leads to benefit; it softens the heart, but does not pamper it, like other types of singing, it excites and nourishes sublime feelings, and not passions; occupying an innocent soul, not only does not diminish its innocence, but also sanctifies it. Let us not hide our desire, without dwelling on whether it can be realized, that this pure amusement will pass from education through habit into life, and that Christians, as once happened, not only in church, but also in the home, according to the instructions of the Apostle, “speak to themselves in psalms and songs and spiritual songs, chanting and singing in their hearts... to the Lord” ( Eph.5:19). This is not what the custom of the century wants. He uses pleasant arts in education in such a way that, let us explain it as modestly as possible, they are flowers that do not bear fruit, and with which are connected thorns that pleasantly sting. On this subject, pious feeling, pure moral feeling and experienced prudence must be carefully called upon for advice on in what form and to what extent the pleasant should be allowed, so that under its cover the harmful does not creep in - effeminacy, absent-mindedness, addiction to sensual pleasures. The world imagines fun as almost the same necessity of life as work, food and peace. He thinks of living by playing. No, brothers, life is not a game, but it is an important matter. Earthly life is given to man in order to develop from it, by the hand of free will, by the power of God’s grace, eternal bliss. Anyone who understands this matter and deals with it as he should will hardly find much time for games and fun. And therefore, the Apostle shrewdly and prudently commands us to teach and learn this matter as early as possible, from youth, from childhood. “Educate... in the discipline and teaching of the Lord.” Parents and children, educators and educated! Think and do not forget that human teachings prepare for a temporary life, but they cannot make it happy without the help of the Lord’s teachings: but the Lord’s teachings prepare for an eternal blessed life, which God will vouchsafe for all of us, whether short or long, but in a right and true way, to achieve. Amen. You might be interested in: