12 May 2024
The mother by a single glance, by a single kiss, by her sweet voice and
her delicate caresses, can immediately arouse in the child’s heart the leaning
and inclination toward the good. Likewise, by a single disapproving glance, by
a single tear falling on her cheeks, by a single expression suggestive of her
heart’s sorrow, she can remove the child from the most destructive danger of
the heart. The child, nurtured in his mother’s bosom and warmed in his mother’s
embrace, begins to love before he learns the concept of love, and he begins to
subordinate his will to the moral law before he learns the concept of the moral
law, and it is the mother alone who is most suited to arousing in the child’s
heart his first conception of God. Because of this, Basil the Great says
(Letter 223), “The conception of God which I received in childhood from my
blessed mother – it was this conception, brought to maturity, that I had within
myself. For I did not change from one set of opinions to another in the
maturation of my reason, but rather I brought to completion the beginnings
handed down to me by her.”
St. Nectarios of Aegina
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