In homily given on August 30, 2009, in the Basilica Of Our Lady of the Rosary in Caieiras (SP), the founder of the Heralds of the Gospel, Monsignor John Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP, discusses the immense responsibility that means, for parents, to educate the children righteously and holy, depending on God, of Judgment and eternity. The effort to sanctify the spouses is complete with the sanctifying commitment of both children: if we take care of both the earthly treasures, how should we not care for this incomparably superior treasure, what is eternal life?
Watch the excerpt:
They follow the very words of Monsignor John Claudia.
Homily excerpt of August 30, 2009:
The family's main objective is to give their children true education. Teaching the child to eat is great, educating the child to give good manners is great, it is even necessary, it is indispensable; educate their children to enter society and see themselves well within society, give intellectual training, give a career, make the child a lawyer, an engineer, etc., a doctor, that's great. But this is human teaching. Above this teaching it is necessary, it is essential to make children understand that they have been created by God and that they are entirely placed in the hands of God; and encourage children to practice virtue, encourage children to sanctify themselves and who are saints. […]
If we had a son —or a daughter—who is still underage, but who, for some reason, say, one of the thousand richest families in the world, he decided to leave all his inheritance to this girl or that boy. And all the money he has ended up in the boy's or girl's hands. But yo[se]u can't move all that fortune until you're eighteen. Will parents or won't they take care that the girl or boy won't lose a penny of all this fortune?
I have a tremendous obligation to the sanctity of my children. I must ensure that they have the entire preservation within the practice of virtue, and I will be responsible before God for the period they have been in my hands and I have not graduated them. More or less as I would be responsible before a judge later, if I lost all my son's inheritance, all my daughter's inheritance. When they make their eighteen, nineteen, twenty years, realize that fortune was poorly oriented, poorly directed and there is no penny left.
How many times does a son, a daughter, madly file a lawsuit against their parents because they have dilapidated what would belong to them? Oh!… And on the day of judgment, having a son, a daughter, who, with his finger, points out: "I got lost because of you! Your education was terrible! I'm an engineer, I'm a doctor, I'm… but I didn't have the slightest moral background! And I came before God, not only with empty hands, but with my hands full of rot because I lived in sin, and lived in sin because of his bad education!" Oh!…
How wonderful, how comforting it is to find oneself, on the day of Judgment, with his own sons, with his own daughters, full of glory, and his sons wanting to embrace his parents, saying, "My father, my mother, if I am here in this glory with you, it was because of all beautiful education they gave me. How wonderful was the teaching they gave me about God, about Heaven, about eternal life, concerning God, about doctrine, about morals, about holiness! My father, my mother, allowed… I, how many times, have bumped into the face, but I now want to oscular each other's hands and feet. Why is that? Because there's the implementation of a moral life that I ended up receiving, then prize prize." […]
And so must be the conduct of our families. We must be family, to constitute a united family. The husband, concerned about the sanctification of his wife and children; the woman, concerned about the sanctification of her husband and children.