HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER.

Filial piety.

— Who is my mother and who are my brothers?

— Bodily kinship and spiritual kinship.

— INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS: The ingratitude of children and the bonds of family.

You know the commandments: you shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal;

you shall not bear false witness; you shall do wrong to no one; honor your father and your mother. (Saint Mark, chapter X, v. 19; Saint Luke, chapter XVIII, v. 20; Saint Matthew, chapter XIX, vv. 18 and 19.)

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live a long time on the land that the Lord your God will give you. (Decalogue: Exodus, chapter XX, v. 12.)

Filial piety.

The commandment: “Honor your father and your mother” is a corollary of the general law of charity and of love of one's neighbor, since he who does not love his father and his mother cannot love his neighbor; 2 but the word honor encloses one further duty toward them: that of filial piety.

In this way God wished to show that to love must be joined respect, attentiveness, submission, and condescension, which involves the obligation to fulfill toward them, in a manner even more rigorous, all that charity ordains with respect to one's neighbor in general.

This duty extends naturally to the persons who take the place of father and mother, who have all the greater merit, the less obligatory devotion is for them.

God always punishes with rigor every violation of this commandment.

To honor one's father and one's mother does not consist merely in respecting them; it is also assisting them in need; it is providing them with repose in old age; it is surrounding them with care, as they did for us in childhood.

It is above all toward parents without means that true filial piety is demonstrated.

Do those obey this commandment who believe they do a great thing because they give their parents the strictly necessary so that they do not die of hunger, while they deprive themselves of nothing, casting them off to the most lowly rooms of the house, merely so as not to leave them in the street, reserving for themselves what is best and most comfortable? It is well enough when they do not do it with ill will and do not oblige them to pay dearly for what remains of life to them, unloading upon them the burden of the running of the household! Is it then for the old and weak parents to serve their young and strong children? Did the mother sell them milk when she nursed them? Did she perhaps count her vigils when they were sick, the steps she took to obtain for them what they needed?

No, children do not owe their poor parents only the strictly necessary; they also owe them, to the measure of what they can, the little superfluous trifles, the solicitudes, the loving cares, which are merely the interest on what they received, the payment of a sacred debt. Only this is the filial piety pleasing to God.

Woe, then, to him who forgets what he owes to those who supported him in his weakness, who together with material life gave him moral life, who often imposed upon themselves harsh privations to ensure his well-being. Woe to the ingrate: he will be punished with ingratitude and abandonment; he will be wounded in his dearest affections, sometimes already in the present existence, but assuredly in another, in which he will suffer what he did to others.

Some parents, it is true, neglect their duties and are not to their children what they ought to be; but it is to God that it falls to punish them, and not to their children. It does not fall to the latter to reproach them, because perhaps they deserved that those should be such as they show themselves to be.

If charity makes it a law to return good for evil, to be indulgent toward the imperfections of others, not to speak ill of one's neighbor, to forget and forgive offenses, and to love even one's enemies, how much greater must these obligations be when it is a matter of children toward their parents!

Children must, therefore, take as a rule of conduct toward their parents all the precepts of Jesus concerning one's neighbor, and bear in mind that every blameworthy behavior with regard to strangers becomes even more blameworthy with regard to parents; 14 and that what is perhaps no more than a simple fault in the first case may be considered a crime in the second, because here, to the lack of charity is joined ingratitude.

God said: “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live a long time on the land that the Lord your God will give you.” Why does he promise as a reward life on Earth and not celestial life? The explanation is found in these words: “That God will give you,” which, suppressed in the modern formula of the Decalogue, alter its sense.

To understand those words, we must refer to the situation and the ideas of the Hebrews at that time. They still knew nothing of the future life, their vision going no further than corporeal life. They had, then, to be impressed more by what they saw than by what they did not see. God then speaks to them in a language more within their reach, as one addresses children, setting before them in prospect what can satisfy them. They were still in the desert; the land that God will give them is the Promised Land, the object of their aspirations. They desired nothing more than that; God tells them that they will live in it a long time, that is, that they will possess it for a long time, if they observe his commandments.

But when the advent of Jesus came to pass, their ideas were already more developed. The occasion having arrived for them to receive less coarse nourishment, that same Jesus initiates them into the spiritual life, saying: “My kingdom is not of this world; there, and not on Earth, is where you will receive the reward of your good works.”

At these words, the Promised Land ceases to be material, being transformed into a celestial homeland; 5 therefore, when he calls them to the observance of that commandment: “Honor your father and your mother,” it is no longer the Earth that he promises them but Heaven. (Chaps. II and III)

Who is my mother and who are my brothers?

And, having come home, so great a multitude of people gathered there that they could not even take their meal. — Knowing this, his relatives came to take hold of him, for they said that he had lost his mind.

However, his mother and his brothers having come and remaining outside, they sent to call him. — Now, the people had seated themselves around him and said to him: Your mother and your brothers are out there and are calling for you.

— He answered them: Who is my mother and who are my brothers?

— And, casting his glance over those who were seated around him, he said: Here are my mother and my brothers; — for everyone who does the will of God, that one is my brother, my sister, and my mother. (Saint Mark, chapter III, vv. 20, 21, and 31 to 35; Saint Matthew, chapter XII, vv. 46 to 50.)

Singular some words of Jesus appear, by contrasting with his unalterable benevolence toward all. The incredulous did not fail to draw from this a weapon, claiming that he contradicted himself. An undeniable fact, however, is that his doctrine has as its principal foundation, as its cornerstone, the law of love and of charity;

now, it is not possible that he should destroy on one side what he established on the other, whence this rigorous consequence: if certain propositions of his are found to be in contradiction with that basic principle, it is that the words attributed to him were either poorly reproduced, or poorly understood, or are not his.

It causes astonishment, and with reason, that in this passage Jesus should show so much indifference toward his relatives and, in a certain way, disown his mother.

As concerns his brothers, it is known that they did not esteem him. Spirits little advanced, they did not understand his mission: they held his conduct to be eccentric and his teachings did not touch them, so much so that none of them followed him as a disciple; 3 one might even say that they shared, to a certain point, the prejudices of his enemies. What is a fact, in short, is that they received him more as a stranger than as a brother when he appeared to the family. Saint John says, positively, “that they did not give him credence” (chapter VII, v. 5).

As for his mother, no one would dare to dispute the tenderness that he devoted to her. One must, however, equally agree that she too did not have a very exact idea of her son's mission, for it is not seen that she ever followed his teachings, nor bore witness to him, as John the Baptist did. What predominated in her was maternal solicitude.

With respect to Jesus, to suppose that he disowned his mother would be to be ignorant of his character. Such an idea could find no shelter in him who said: Honor your father and your mother. It is necessary, then, to seek another sense for his words, almost always wrapped in the veil of the allegorical form.

Jesus disdained no occasion to give a teaching; he availed himself, therefore, of the one presented to him, with the arrival of his family, to make precise the difference that exists between bodily kinship and spiritual kinship.

Bodily kinship and spiritual kinship.

The bonds of blood do not necessarily create the ties between Spirits.

The body proceeds from the body, but the Spirit does not proceed from the Spirit, inasmuch as the Spirit already existed before the formation of the body; 3 it is not the father who creates the Spirit of his child; he does no more than furnish him with the corporeal envelope, it falling to him, however, to aid the intellectual and moral development of the child, in order to make him progress.

The Spirits who incarnate in a family, especially as close relatives, are, most often, sympathetic Spirits, linked by prior relations, which express themselves in a reciprocal affection in earthly life. But it can also happen that these Spirits are completely strangers to one another, separated from each other by antipathies likewise prior, which translate on Earth into a mutual antagonism, which there serves them as a trial.

It is not those of consanguinity that are the true bonds of family but those of sympathy and of the communion of ideas, which bind Spirits before, during, and after their incarnations.

It follows that two beings born of different parents can be more brothers in Spirit than if they were so by blood. They can then attract each other, seek each other, feel pleasure when together, whereas two consanguineous brothers can repel each other, as is observed every day: a moral problem that only Spiritism could resolve by the plurality of existences. (Chap. IV, no. 13)

There are, then, two kinds of families: families by spiritual bonds and families by corporeal bonds. Durable, the first are strengthened by purification and are perpetuated in the world of the Spirits, through the various migrations of the soul; the second, fragile as matter, are extinguished with time and often dissolve morally, already in the present existence.

This is what Jesus wished to make comprehensible, saying of his disciples: Here are my mother and my brothers, that is, my family by the bonds of the Spirit, for everyone who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven is my brother, my sister, and my mother.

The hostility that his brothers held against him is clearly expressed in the narration of Saint Mark, who says that they had the purpose of taking hold of the Master, under the pretext that he had lost his mind. Informed of their arrival, knowing the sentiments they nourished concerning him, it was natural that Jesus should say, referring to his disciples, from the spiritual point of view: “Here are my true brothers.” Although his mother was in the company of those, he generalizes the teaching, which in no way implies that he meant to declare that his mother according to the body was nothing to him as a Spirit, that she merited only indifference from him. He sufficiently proved the contrary in various other circumstances. INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS.

The ingratitude of children and the bonds of family.

Ingratitude is one of the most direct fruits of egoism; it always revolts honest hearts; but that of children toward their parents presents a character even more odious; it is, in particular, from this point of view that we are going to consider it, in order to analyze its causes and effects.

In this case too, as in all others, Spiritism casts light upon one of the great problems of the human heart.

When it leaves the Earth, the Spirit carries with it the passions or the virtues inherent to its nature and perfects itself in space, or remains stationary, until it desires to receive the light.

Many, therefore, depart full of violent hatreds and of unsatisfied desires for vengeance; to some among them, however, more advanced than the others, it is given to glimpse a particle of the truth; they then appreciate the dire consequences of their passions and are led to take good resolutions; they understand that, to arrive at God, there is but one watchword: charity; 5 now, there is no charity without forgetfulness of outrages and injuries; there is no charity without forgiveness, nor with the heart seized by hatred.

Then, by means of unheard-of effort, such Spirits succeed in observing those whom they hated on Earth. Upon seeing them, however, animosity awakens within them; they revolt at the idea of forgiving, and even more at that of abdicating themselves, above all at that of loving those who destroyed, perhaps, their possessions, their honor, their family.

Nevertheless, the heart of these unfortunates is shaken. They hesitate, they waver, agitated by contrary sentiments. If the good resolution predominates, they pray to God, they implore the good Spirits to give them strength, at the most decisive moment of the trial.

Finally, after years of meditations and prayers, the Spirit avails itself of a body in preparation in the family of the one it detested, and asks the Spirits charged with transmitting the superior orders for permission to go fulfill on Earth the destinies of that body that has just been formed.

What will be its conduct in the chosen family? It will depend on its greater or lesser persistence in the good resolutions it took.

The incessant contact with beings it hated constitutes a terrible trial, under which it not rarely succumbs, if its will is not yet strong enough.

Thus, according to whether the good resolution prevails or not, it will be the friend or the enemy of those among whom it was called to live. It is thus that those hatreds, those instinctive repulsions, are explained that are noted on the part of certain children and that seem unjustifiable. Nothing, in effect, in that existence has been able to provoke such an antipathy; to grasp its cause, it becomes necessary to turn one's gaze to the past.

O Spiritists! understand now the great role of humanity; understand that, when you produce a body, the soul that incarnates in it comes from space to progress; acquaint yourselves with your duties and put all your love into bringing that soul near to God; such is the mission entrusted to you, whose reward you will receive, if you faithfully fulfill it. Your cares and the education you will give it will aid its perfecting and its future well-being.

Remember that of each father and each mother God will ask: What did you do with the child entrusted to your keeping? If through your fault it remained backward, you will have as punishment the seeing of it among the suffering Spirits, when it depended on you that it should be blessed. Then, you yourselves, besieged by remorse, will ask that it be granted to you to repair your fault; you will solicit, for yourselves and for it, another incarnation in which you may surround it with better cares and in which it, full of gratitude, will repay you with its love.

Do not, then, drive away the little child who repels its mother, nor the one who pays you with ingratitude; it was not chance that made it so and that gave it to you. An imperfect intuition of the past reveals itself, from which you may deduce that one or the other already hated much, or was much offended; that one or the other came to forgive or to expiate. Mothers! embrace the child who gives you sorrows and say within yourselves: One of us two is guilty. Make yourselves worthy of the divine joys that God conjoined to maternity, teaching your children that they are on Earth to perfect themselves, to love, and to bless.

But oh! many among you, instead of eliminating by means of education the innate evil principles of prior existences, entertain and develop those principles, through a culpable weakness, or through carelessness, and, later, your heart, ulcerated by the ingratitude of your children, will be for you, already in this life, a beginning of expiation.

The task is not as difficult as it may appear to you. It does not require the learning of the world. The ignorant can perform it as well as the learned, and Spiritism facilitates its performance, by making known the cause of the imperfections of the human soul.

From the time it is very little, the child manifests the good or bad instincts that it brings from its prior existence. To studying them must the parents apply themselves; 18 all evils originate from egoism and pride; 19 let the parents, then, watch for the slightest signs revealing the germ of such vices and take care to combat them, without waiting for them to cast deep roots; 20 let them do as the good gardener, who cuts the defective shoots as he sees them appear on the tree. If they let egoism and pride develop, let them not be astonished at being later repaid with ingratitude.

When parents have done all that they ought for the moral advancement of their children, if they do not attain success, they have nothing for which to blame themselves and may keep their conscience tranquil; 22 to the very natural bitterness that then comes to them from the unproductiveness of their efforts, God reserves a great and immense consolation, in the certainty that it is only a matter of a delay, that it will be granted to them to conclude in another existence the work now begun, and that one day the ungrateful child will reward them with its love. (Chap. XIII, no. 19)

God does not give a trial beyond the strength of the one who asks for it; he permits only those that can be fulfilled; 24 if such does not come to pass, it is not that possibility is lacking: it is the will that is lacking; 25 in effect, how many there are who, instead of resisting evil inclinations, take delight in them; for these are reserved weeping and groans in later existences; 26 admire, nevertheless, the goodness of God, who never closes the door to repentance. There comes a day when, to the guilty one, weary of suffering, with pride at last humbled, God opens his arms to receive the prodigal child who throws himself at his feet.

Rude trials, hear me well, are almost always a sign of an end of suffering and of a perfecting of the Spirit, when accepted with thought in God.

It is a supreme moment, in which, above all, it falls to the Spirit not to fail by murmuring, if it does not wish to lose the fruit of such trials and have to begin again. Instead of complaining, thank God for the occasion he affords you of overcoming, in order to grant you the prize of victory. Then, emerging from the whirlwind of the earthly world, when you enter the world of the Spirits, you will there be acclaimed like the soldier who comes out triumphant from the fray.

Of all the trials, the hardest are those that affect the heart; 30 one who bears with courage misery and material privations succumbs under the weight of domestic bitterness, stung by the ingratitude of his own.

Oh! what piercing anguish that is! But, in such circumstances, what more can effectively restore moral courage than the knowledge of the causes of the evil and the certainty that, though there be prolonged rendings of the soul, there are no eternal despairs, because it is not possible that it should be the will of God that his creature suffer indefinitely?

What is more comforting, more encouraging, than the idea that upon each of one's own efforts depends the shortening of suffering, by means of the destruction, within oneself, of the causes of the evil? For this, however, it is necessary that man not retain his gaze on Earth and see only one existence; that he raise himself, to soar in the infinity of the past and of the future.

Then, the infinite justice of God becomes manifest to you, and you wait with patience, because what on Earth seemed to you true monstrosities becomes explicable to you. The wounds that open within you there you come to consider as simple scratches.

In this glance cast over the whole, the bonds of family present themselves to you under their real aspect. You no longer see, binding its members together, only the fragile bonds of matter; you see, rather, the durable bonds of the Spirit, which are perpetuated and consolidated by becoming purified, instead of being broken by the effect of reincarnation.

Families are formed by the Spirits whom the analogy of tastes, the identity of moral progress, and affection induce to reunite. These same Spirits, in their earthly migrations, seek each other, in order to group themselves, as they do in space, whence originate united and homogeneous families; 36 and if, in their peregrinations, it happens that they remain temporarily separated, later they meet again, happy for the new progress they have realized. But, as it does not fall to them to work only for themselves, God permits that less advanced Spirits incarnate among them, in order that they may receive counsel and good examples, for the sake of their progress; 37 they become, at times, a cause of disturbance in the midst of those others, which constitutes for the latter the trial and the task to perform. Receive them, therefore, as brothers; aid them, and afterward, in the world of the Spirits, the family will congratulate itself for having saved some castaways who, in their turn, will be able to save others. — (SAINT AUGUSTINE. Paris, 1862.)