“the Whole Sea”

PEOPLE sometimes say, “What is the use of trying to rear children as good Christians; they will be lost sight of once they enter upon life in the midst of the great masses. Will any one so much as notice their presence? Will they be able to leave their mark? Will they not run the risk of being crushed by the amorphous mass and quickly covered over by some all-embracing platitudes.”

Or again, “What is the use of trying to establish a home that is a Christian community, a veritable monastery of Christian virtues—and by that we don’t mean an atmosphere like a morgue but an exemplary group governed by Christian devotion and love—when all about us there are only mediocre families? They are not bad but worldly, with no depth to their Christianity. We would be drowned by all the rest!”

Pascal gave the answer to these questions when he said, “The whole sea rises for one stone that is thrown into it.” Though it appear but an insignificant pebble in value, it at least assures one’s contribution to a common work. Has it not always been the minority groups who transformed the world?

You say, “What is the use of troubling ourselves and working to form Christians and real men when all about us the mass of humanity is becoming less Christianized and less virile? Lacordaire suggests an answer similar to Pascal’s. “Simple drops of water that we are, we wonder what need the ocean has of us; the ocean could tell us that it is made up of nothing else but little drops of water.”

That is true of individuals; it is true of families.

If we could do nothing to effect numbers we can at least effect quality—the policy of the leaven. What matters the thickness and weight of the dough, if the leaven which works in it possesses irresistible force?

Let us throw dynamic Christian personalities into society; where can they be better prepared than in Christian families and institutions? We ought to, that’s sure. In the midst of indifferent families, let us settle some distinctly Christian families who do not compromise when duty is involved, who radiate joy, manifest the beauty of virtuous living and bear witness to Christ by apostolic zeal. And then count on God to assure the result.

The result is certain. We must have faith in Him and believe in the power of radiating centers.

“Unless there are in our cities and towns, homes where Christian life flourishes, every hope for Christian civilization is doomed,” wrote a university man of note shortly before the war.

To Christianize a town, a village, a neighborhood, in short any milieu involves more than multiplying activities which do not even get into the blood-stream of real living; it means an invention of new ways of life, as for example group formation of families who give a public example of Christian virtues by living in loving and fraternal communities, breaking with the forms of mediocre living and substituting for it in their relations with others a true form of friendship rooted in the Gospel spirit.

What was true before the war is even truer now. There is still a desperate need for a renovation of the Christian world, and of the whole world for that matter; this renovation will be achieved only through Christian families, by thorough-going Christians within these solid Christian homes, and fervent community groups of Christian families.