God and the Family

Summary

In the fifth of these talks Dimitrios Panagopoulos addresses the spiritual responsibility of parents. A parent's own past follows him into parenthood, since children take it either as an excuse for their own sins or, where they see genuine repentance, as evidence that a person can be changed. He speaks sharply against the systematic avoidance of childbearing within marriage and against confessors who leave the matter unresolved. He challenges the common notion of a good child: education, manners, and a respectable profession count for nothing if the child does not confess, commune, fast, or come to church, for the measure is salvation. Parental duty is above all spiritual rather than material; parents guard their children's food by smell and taste yet leave their souls unguarded, and where a child no longer listens they must turn to hidden, persistent prayer.