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| St. John of Kronstadt brings homeless children to the shelter. |
St. John of Kronstadt and the Education of Children
A child’s soul is divine beauty
St. John of Kronstadt considered love for children to be
the foundation of a teacher’s work—a
foundation that is very often denied by modern-day
so-called technicians of secular educational sciences and
activities. He said to the students of the gymnasium where
he taught, “You are my children, for I gave birth to
you and continue to give birth in you to the good tidings
of Jesus Christ. My spiritual blood—my
instructions—flow in your veins. You are my
children, because I have you always in my heart and I pray
for you. You are my children, because you are my spiritual
offspring. You are my children, because truly, as a priest
I am a father, and you call me “batiushka”
(“little father”, an affectionate term for a
priest).
In Fr. John lived a kind of unearthly, angelic love for
children, which inspired him and motivated the entire
educational process. It was a special gift of God’s
grace, which burned in him so strongly that in later
years, when he was no longer teaching, he often healed
sick children with the power of love and prayer,
continually blessing and instructing them in the faith.
How often did he weep over sick children, especially if
they were spiritually sick! Once he stroked the head of an
emotionally ill boy, and another time he kissed a
seriously ill girl in the hospital, kneeling before her
bed. “My dear, are you in pain? My little
sufferer!” Fr. John lamented.”
Father John’s strictness
Nevertheless, Fr. John could be abrupt. One day a
sixteen-year-old boy who was extremely lazy and morally
spoiled, expressed his disbelief before the entire class
in the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Fr. John called him
godless and a miscreant, but he did answer his question.
Later he summoned him for a separate conversation, after
which the boy felt renewed and strengthened in spirit.
Some recall how a noblewoman complained to Fr. John about
the degradation of religious and moral education of her
children. “Their teachers,” she said,
“taught them everything they need to pass the exams
and be clever.” “You should say that they
pounded them and not taught them,” Fr. John
corrected her. “When being pounded with spiritual
knowledge, they have the same feeling as when they are
learning arithmetic and so on. But how about you? Do you
take care of their souls? Have you directed them so that
besides human approval they would strive for God’s
approval?” “I suggest it to them according to
my strength,” the lady answered him. “After
all, one can’t find the door to one’s own
child’s heart.” “You didn’t find
the door to the heart, so you’ll get beasts instead
of humans,” Fr. John replied. “You have
forgotten that the Lord has shown mankind an example in
the bird species. A bird first gives birth to an egg, and
until this egg has been kept for the proper time in
maternal warmth, it remains an inanimate object. It is the
same with people. The born child is that egg—with
the beginnings of earthly life, but inanimate with respect
to his blossoming in Christ. The child who has not been
warmed by his parents and family to the root of his soul,
to the root of all his feelings, will remain dead in
spirit for God and good works. And it is precisely from
these children not warmed by love and spiritual care that
those generations come into the world, from which the
prince of this world will recruit his armies against God
and His holy Church.”
The loftiness of trust and responsibility in the
education of God’s children
Fr. John warned that God and parents have entrusted their
children to the teacher, and this requires responsibility
and a careful relationship to them. He often noted that
everything beautiful, individual, and unique has already
been placed in the child’s heart as in a seed. God
also provides everything needed for their growth and
development; but for our modest, but extraordinarily
difficult and painstaking work—education—we
must have love, and care for the children. But as great is
the responsibility, so great also is the reward for
conscientious work entrusted by God; for children are His
inheritance. In them is not only our future, but also our
present, and especially the eternal future. “Be
strongly vigilant,” Fr. John reminds teachers,
“that you never disdain in your heart any of these
little ones (cf. Matt. 18:10) whom you might dislike for
some reason. You are disdaining God’s angel, which
was assigned to watch over him. You are disdaining
God’s child; you are disdaining the Lord Himself,
the Father of all children, first of all.” Thus, whoever
violates the least of these commandments out of
negligence, considering it insignificant, and teaches
others to do the same, will be called the least in the
Kingdom of Heaven (according to St. John
Chrysostom’s exegesis, “the violator of the
law will be the least, that is, the last, cast out and
unworthy of the Kingdom of Heaven”), and whoever
keeps and teaches [the commandments] will be called
great in the Kingdom of Heaven (cf. Matt. 5:19).
St. John’s commandment to teachers
What does Fr. John command the instructors of children for
the discernment of and caution against sin? What does he
command the children themselves so that they would know of
the danger and consequences of sin? He said, “Warn
the children about sin and its consequences!” And he
instructed, “Do not leave children without attention
with regard to uprooting from their hearts the chaff of
sin, wicked, evil, and blasphemous thoughts, sinful
passions, inclinations, and habits, from which our lives
are also made. The enemy of salvation and the sinful flesh
does not spare the children either, and the seeds of all
the sins are also in them. Present a picture to the
children of the whole danger and sorrowful consequences of
their sins, so that they out of ignorance and
unreasonableness would not be formed by their elders on
the path of life in sinful passions and habits, which
multiply and grow with age.”
Christian upbringing is the first line of defense in the
struggle for the salvation of a child’s soul. Fr.
John, who himself had difficulty learning as a child, was
according to the recollections of his contemporaries a
remarkable pedagogue. He never resorted to methods of
teaching that were often found in schools: neither to
excess strictness, nor to the moral humiliation of slow
learners. Well known was his warm, soulful relationship to
the students as well as to the work of teaching itself. He
had no “slow learners”. Everyone at his
lessons without exception greedily soaked in his every
word. They couldn’t wait for his lessons to start.
His lessons were more of a pleasure for the students than
a heavy burden and obligation. It was living conversation,
engaging speech, and interesting, attention-grabbing
stories.
There were often cases when Fr. John would defend a lazy
student who had been “condemned” to expulsion,
and he would take the child’s correction upon
himself. A few years would pass, and the child who seemed
to be a hopeless case would be raised up as a worthy
individual.
Christians, first of all, should take care that the
children grow to be unwavering in the Christian faith,
true children of God, living members of the Church, so
that Christ would be formed in their hearts (cf. Gal.
4:19), so that more than anything in earthly life they
would love and prefer God, then their neighbor as
themselves (Mt. 22:37-40). So that the goal of their
lives, in the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov, would be the
“acquisition of the Holy Spirit” unto the
salvation of their souls.
Archpriest Alexander Zelenenko
Translation from Pravoslavie.ru
By Nun Cornelia (Rees)
