Honoring the Parents, a Letter

'Reverend and Dear Sir: I have heard of your reasonable anxieties, and I feel sorry for you; but from afar counsels cannot be given to you: what can be given are general rules, because there are always circumstances that change cases. Therefore, to give you my opinion as I know it to be before God, I hold that in the case that you point out, you should by no means neglect to assist your father, who, the more troublesome he is, the greater will be the merit of your charity and filial piety.

We know by faith that God has commanded that our parents should be honored; no exception, whether they are good or bad; and we read in the Lives of so many saints having either heretical or infidel parents, to whom they were however most respectful and gave them temporal support.

Your Reverence should, therefore, do the will of God who ab aeterno [from eternity] has destined you to be the son of such a father and who he knew had such a disposition.

St. Charles made a beautiful answer, quite worthy of himself, to one who was trying to dissuade him from using so much tolerance towards certain perverse people who, the more good that was done them, the worse they became. He said that the mercy of God is occupied with those that are miserable, but who is more miserable than the one who knows not his misery?

This remark I suggest to your Reverence. You already know that your father is reduced to such a state that he hardly distinguishes good from evil; you should therefore always assist him charitably and patiently so that you may either have more merit before God or that you may see that perhaps by your virtue you may overcome his obstinacy, thereby imitating the angel guardians who do not leave souls, although they see that they do not profit by their inspirations.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, 'Letters'