III. Preparation of the Mind

173. - For the end which we now intend, minds are most especially to be endowed with these qualities:

1. Kindly courtesy and liberality, which remove an excessive pursuit of one's own particular utility (egoism) and subordinate one's own advantages to refined civility (politesse délicate);
2. The greatest cultivation of sincerity;
3. Confidence, resting upon the love and fidelity of parents;
4. That magnanimity which wills and hopes for itself a certain noble form and destiny of life;
5. Christian humility, which renders a man docile and, without rash audacity, permits him to become brave;
6. True and solid piety or religion, which pursues Christ and the Blessed Virgin with holy affection.

Concerning the fostering of these qualities, the following things besides seem worthy of indication.

1. It is especially beneficial to children that their paternal home be for them, as it were, a familiar sanctuary, pleasing and dear, where each assists the others with true and intimate love and, every artifice having been laid aside, all converse simply, with open heart. Let them know especially that it pertains to domestic familiarity that children address and question either or both parents with ingenuous confidence.

2. That children may trust their parents fully, it is greatly expedient that the latter be alien to every lie or dissimulation. For deceptions and deceitful arts diminish the authority of parents. Therefore it also seems desirable that parents should not truly deceive their children by any fabulous narrative. Accordingly, if they are asked seriously concerning the pious fictions into which St. Nicholas, the Angel of Christmas Day, etc., are introduced, it seems better that they explain what lies hidden beneath the allegory.

3. It will be worthwhile to endeavor that, in their mutual conversation, brothers and sisters - the former as guardians and defenders, the latter as lovable companions - may find a certain apprenticeship for adult life; and that in mutual practices of reverence and friendship they may begin to foreshadow and exercise the mutual devotion of spouses.

4. It will also be of very great assistance that the adolescent should judge himself born for this, that he represent Christ, imitate Him in conduct, and continue Him, but cultivate the Blessed Virgin with tender affection; while a daughter will strive to imitate the Blessed Virgin and will consider her soul as devoted to Christ as to a spouse!

This can be insinuated by the very authority of the Sacred Scriptures.

174. - You will ask: what if, on account of their civil condition or some other impediment, formation of this kind cannot be expected from the parents?

What if the vices or discords of the parents leave no place for sacred and simple familial communication (intimité)?

This wretched lot of the children must, according to one's powers, be remedied by Christian charity. This must especially be endeavored: that in schools or "patronages" (patronages, recreation centers) for adolescents, or in similar institutes, someone endowed either with an office, dignity, or other authority should offer himself as a true friend and, according to the age, as a kind of parent or elder brother, lest the poor or afflicted be compelled to undergo a deadly solitude of heart, but, on the contrary, that all should have, as it were, an adoptive parent in whom they may confide or with whom they may seek consolations.