For Fathers: Living a Life of Faith Is Hard

I’ve just finished Saint Theophan the Recluse’s, The Path to Salvation. The final chapter includes his translation of Saint John Chrysostom on raising children, and it completely unsettled my comfortable modern mindset.

As Chrysostom lays out how to bring up children in the faith, the sheer weight of eternity and the implications of belief become piercingly clear.

Some unforgettable lines if you’re a parent:

“I have just told you that fathers who do not take care to give their children a Christian upbringing are murderers of their own children.”

“Do you want your child to be obedient? Then from the beginning bring him up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

“For what is the cause of untimely death? …Is it not because we do not try to correct our vicious children?”

And this next passage cut me to the core. Written in the 4th century, it resonates even more powerfully in our era of endless distraction and shiny technological advancements:

“It means that the children’s unruliness come from nothing other than the insane attachment of the fathers to earthly care. Paying attention only to earthly cares, and counting nothing to be more important, they involuntarily begin to neglect the souls of their children. I say of these fathers (and let no one consider the words to be born of anger), that they are even worse than child-killers.”

These are heavy words.

Do you pray with your children? Do they see you pray?

Do you read Scripture with your children? Do they see you do so regularly?

Is your example one of love and attention—or distraction and indifference?

It isn’t the house, or the clothes, or the bank account, or even the worldly education you give them that matters most. It’s your example of faith and your guidance in faith.

And that is precisely why living the Christian life is so difficult. It demands a constant renunciation of our self-centered desires, all for the good and spiritual formation of our families—the only things on this earth that ultimately matter as we point their way (and our own) toward heaven.