With pain and tears you will receive grace, and again with tears and joy and thanksgiving, with fear of God you will keep it. With zeal it is drawn. With coldness and negligence it is lost.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of our salvation, and its constant guardian. This it is which secures both the beginning of conversion, and the purging away of vices, and the safe retention of virtues...
Parents and teachers! Beware and be most careful not to let your children be capricious; otherwise they will soon forget to value your love: their hearts will be corrupted with wickedness; they will soon lose holy, true, glowing love from their hearts, and, on reaching maturity, they will complain bitterly that in their youth you spoilt them too much and encouraged them in their caprices. Capriciousness is the germ of the corruption of the heart, the rust of the heart, the moth of love, the seed of evil, and an abomination to the Lord.
When a man walks in the fear of God he knows no fear, even if he were to be surrounded by wicked men. He has the fear of God within him and wears the invincible armor of faith. This makes him strong and able to take on anything, even things which seem difficult or impossible to most people. Such a man is like a giant surrounded by monkeys, or a roaring lion among dogs and foxes. He goes forward trusting in the Lord and the constancy of his will to strike and paralyze his foes. He wields the blazing club of the Word in wisdom.
As it is not possible to cross over the great ocean without a ship, so no one can attain to love without fear. The fetid sea, which lies between us and the noetic paradise, we may cross by the boat of repentance, whose oarsmen are those of fear. But if fear's oarsmen do not pilot the ship of repentance whereby we cross over the sea of this world to God, we shall be drowned in the fetid abyss. Repentance is the ship and fear is the pilot; love is the divine haven.
Many teach their children about worldly politics, others teach them to speak foreign languages: French, German, Italian, and in this spend no trifling sums. Others endeavor to teach them commerce and other arts. But hardly anyone teaches them to live in a Christian manner. However, without this, all learning is nothing and all wisdom is madness. For what does it profit a Christian to speak Italian, French and German, if he lives in an ungodly manner? What use is it to be skilled in commerce and the arts if one lacks the fear of God? God will not ask you whether you taught your children French, German or Italian or the politics of social life--but you will not escape divine reprobation for not having instilled goodness into them. I speak plainly but I tell the truth: if your children are bad, your grandchildren will be worse, and the evil will thus increase...and the root of all this is our thoroughly bad education.
The fact that repentance furnishes hope should not be taken by us as a means to rob ourselves of the feeling of fear, so that one might more freely and fearlessly commit sin. For behold how God in every wise preached fear in all the Scriptures and showed Himself to be a hater of sin.
If artists who make statues and paint portraits of kings are held in high esteem, will not God bless ten thousand times more those who reveal and beautify His royal image (for man is the image of God)? When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their fellow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we install virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them. This, then, is our task: to educate both ourselves and our children in godliness; otherwise what answer will we have before Christ's judgment-seat?...Let us be greatly concerned for our wives and our children, and for ourselves as well...The good God Himself will bring this work to perfection, so that all of us may be counted worthy of the blessings He has promised.
The root of good inner order is the fear of God. Preserve this fear within you constantly: it will hold everything taut, and will allow no slackness either in physical members or thoughts, creating a vigilant heart and a sober mind, and allowing no bodily torpor or blurring of thought. But one must always remember that success in any aspect of the spiritual life is the fruit of the grace of God. Spiritual life comes entirely from His most Holy Spirit. We have our own spirit but it is void of power. It begins to gain strength only when the grace of God flows in it.
The fear of God is the beginning of virtue, and it is said to be the offspring of faith. It is sown in the heart when a man withdraws his mind from the world’s distraction so as to confine its wandering thoughts within the ruminations of reflection upon the restitution to come.
As a ray of sun, passing through a crack, lights everything in the house and shows up even the finest dust, so the fear of the Lord, entering a man's heart, reveals to him all his sins.
The simplest means for confining the will within its proper bounds lies in disposing children to do nothing without permission. Let them be eager to run to their parents and ask: May I do this or that? They should be persuaded by their own experience and that of others that to fulfill their own desires without asking is dangerous; they should be put in such a frame of mind that they even fear their own will.
Have great care of your children. We live at a time when much freedom is given to the expression of thought, but little care is taken that thoughts should be founded on truth. Teach them to love truth.
The spirit of faith and piety of the parents should be regarded as the most powerful means for the preservation, upbringing and strengthening of the life of grace in children.
