Transcript

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

I preached on this same Sunday last year on our Lord driving the money changers out of the temple, and specifically how that relates to the discipline of children.

And so I'm going to recycle my sermon last year for today.

Pope Francis would be proud.

It's an important topic, discipline of children.

We see in the world today a total lack of discipline and accountability, especially in the Church, and so it does bear repeating.

There's a Latin phrase, "Repetitio est mater studiorum," repetition is the mother of learning.

People do not need so much to be instructed as they need to be reminded.

And so we will be reminded today regarding some principles on disciplining children.

Now, today's gospel account from St. Luke is of our Lord driving out the money changers, and before He does that, before He enters the temple and disciplines His children, He first weeps over them, lamenting their refusal of His love.

"If only thou hadst known in this day the things that are to thy peace." But the Jews would not.

They wanted to continue indulging their evil desires.

They wanted to continue their bad behavior, and so they refused that which was good.

And so our Lord, out of love for His children, enters the temple and begins to cast out the evildoers.

St. John's gospel includes more of the details with which we are familiar, such as our Lord making a cord of whips and then kicking over the tables of them that changed money and the chairs of them that sold doves.

And what we learned from this event in the life of Christ is how discipline ought to be given.

The final line in today's gospel is, "And He was teaching daily in the temple." God intended this to be a teaching moment, especially for parents.

In Hebrew, uh, Hebrews 12:5-7 we read, "For whom the Lord loveth, He chastises, and He scourges every son whom He receives.

God deals with you as with His sons, for what son is there whom the Father does not correct?" A lack of discipline is a lack of love, and children know this.

People talk about the love languages, right?

Uh, touch, words of affirmation, et cetera.

Discipline is one of them.

Children know that.

And very often, children feel unloved because children are undisciplined.

Now, there are five, uh, five kind of, uh, points we will consider and then some general considerations after that.

Uh, but among them, what do we learn from our Lord's example?

It's the first thing we should think of with discipline.

Parents, if you're gonna discipline your children, do it by example.

Children are immature.

Children are spoiled.

Chil- children are selfish.

Too many parents are the same way.

That's the first lesson we're gonna learn.

Our Lord was, was none of those things, but too often we are.

There's like lesson number, you know, 0.1.

But lesson one from the gospel: Discipline is motivated by love.

Our Lord wept first.

Discipline and punishment are motivated because the parent loves the child.

They do not want the child to harm themselves.

That was the whole lesson of today's epistle.

All those things happened to the Israelites, bitten by fiery serpents, three and 20,000 fell in one day, because they were sinning.

It was their own fault.

It was given to us by figure, by instruction.

Desire what is to thy children's peace.

Peace is a tranquility of order, and children have very disordered desires.

They're out of control.

They can't control their passions.

Parents, bring order.

It's love while you discipline your children.

Discipline should be planned out ahead of time.

That is why our Lord made a cord of whips.

He had a plan.

He reasoned it out.

He took His time.

He was not reactionary.

And so that is what parents ought to do.

Be proactive.

Be thoughtful.

Make your cord of whips, which means a plan.

Come up with something ahead of time and then do it.

This will help you in controlling your anger.

Uh, very often actually, you know, parents, they end up over-punishing their children because they've under-punished their children.

They let something go, they don't do anything, they don't do anything, and finally they've had it and they way over-punish.

That won't happen if you have a plan and you punish not because you're angry, but because the child needs it.

Discipline can be physical and it can be aggressive.

Our Lord kicked over tables and chairs and He chased people with a whip.

That is what we call corporal punishment.

And God is telling us in the Scriptures that is permissible.

Contrary to the advice of modern day experts and psychologists, uh, corporal punishment is not bad for your children.

Look at what 40 years of bad c- child psychology has happened.

Riots and, and in the streets.

We're seeing that.

Yet those children didn't get disciplined by their parents, I'll tell you that.

Parents have a natural law right to physically punish their children, and no state law, no, no pop psychologist can take that away from you or change that.But if corporal punishment i- i- is used, if anger is displayed, and it can be, it should be controlled and proportionate .

And that is the example of Christ, our Lord, by kicking over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those that sold doves .

For you can pick up money off the ground, no harm done, but if you kick over the table and it's got a cage of doves and the cage breaks, the doves escape or they're injured, that's loss of property.

Disproportionate and, uh, uh, and- and so not appropriate.

So our Lord even gives that example.

You can discipline with anger, but it should be controlled.

Anger should not be the motive of your discipline, but what is good for the child .

Uh, most importantly, discipline is given that a greater evil might be avoided.

Christ, our Lord, disciplined the Jews because He saw the evil of the destruction of Jerusalem coming.

He prophesied about it.

"The days will come when thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and straighten thee on all sides, and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children, and not a stone will be left upon a stone." This was due to their own fault.

And that is what children need to be told when they are misbehaving and when you are punishing them, "This is your own fault.

If you stopped misbehaving, you would stop being punished." That is such an important lesson for children to learn.

Now those are- those are what we learned from, uh, uh, the- the- the gospel account today, and we're gonna consider some other things as well.

And the best time to begin disciplining is right away.

Infants and toddlers, uh, not so much infants, but if a child is old enough to learn a new language, he's old enough to be disciplined.

Right?

And children start learning languages very, very early.

And there is a difference in how you discipline children and- and how you treat them, uh, and- and how much reason you can employ.

In general, the older the child, the more reason you can use.

"Because Mommy said so" is a perfectly acceptable reason for a child, a toddler.

It's not gonna work for a teenager.

Uh, but at no point should parents feel like you have to explain yourself to your children or argue with them.

Uh, even God, God Almighty, when He was disciplining Adam and Eve, when He gave them instruction, He said, "Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." He gave them one reason.

"Lest you die." That's it.

No explanation.

This is the reason.

Here's the rule.

I expect you to follow it.

Parents, you don't have to explain yourself or argue with your children.

Now very important, especially with younger children, to make sure you make the difference between ignorance and malice.

Ignorance is a child doesn't know what to do.

They don't know what is right from wrong.

Or they do know, but they're forgetful, they're clumsy, they are irresponsible.

They're children.

That's understandable, right?

Th- that kind of ignorance.

That is what discipline is for.

You discipline that kind of ignorance.

Malice is when they know right and wrong, they know what the good is, they know what you want, and they fight you.

They disobey you.

They disrespect you.

That is malice, and that should not be disciplined.

That should be punished.

What's the difference?

The characteristics of discipline are instructing the children what to do, modeling good behavior for them, praising good behavior, and showing disapproval of bad behavior.

Those are all forms of discipline.

That's not punishment.

But unfortunately, that's where many parents stop, because they've been told, "Oh, don't use corporal punishment.

Don't hit your children.

That'll cause them to be violent," et cetera.

The opposite.

So what are parents supposed to do, right, when they have to punish?

And by the way, you have an obligation before God to do that.

Parents, you will stand before the judgment seat of God and He will ask you, "What did you do for my children, my children whom I gave you?

You saw their bad behavior.

You saw their malice.

And you didn't do anything about it." And I'll tell you what, that's gonna fall the hardest on the fathers.

And I see some of that even in this church.

I see moms out there in that hallway, what we call our- our crying room, and they're holding a- a- a toddler, two years old, who's fighting the mother.

Fathers, that is your fault.

And if that's your wife out there, struggling with her kid, you should be ashamed.

Punish that malice in your child.

Because guess what?

Uh, right now, your child's misbehavior is squirming in church, talking in church, throwing a fit.

20 years from now, your child's misbehavior is fornication, leaving the church.

I'll tell you, it may be hard to see your child weep because you punished them now, but that is a far less pain than when you weep when your child has left the faith because you didn't discipline their evil desires.

Evil desires are small in a toddler.

If they don't learn how to discipline that small evil, they're not gonna learn how to discipline the big evil when it happens.

That's why God weeps over Jerusalem.

That is for your instruction.

God felt that pain.

He knows what it's like to see His children go astray.

She wants to spare you from it.

But I'm gonna tell you what, this is a no judgment, no guilt sermon...

I take that back.

Hold on.

It's a- a- a low, low guilt, low judgment.

Because even the best parent, God Almighty, even some of His children went astray.

So don't beat yourselves up if your children, despite your best efforts, don't correspond, if you still have children who misbehave.

Um, I- I said it before, every- every family has that demon child that is like impervious to pain or that it's nothing seems to work.

That's difficult.

Right?

You're gonna have difficult children.So don't blame yourself if you have done your best, if you have really, uh, uh, put effort and thought into it.

And keep in mind, uh, when you discipline and punish your child, uh, you do want them to understand, as I said, it's for their own good and you want them to say to themselves, "It's not worth it.

It's not worth the punishment to indulge my desire." So a child misbehaves this much, you don't need to, you don't need to punish, you know, out to the moon right away.

You punish just enough.

Child misbehaves here, you want them to punish here.

What do they say?

"It's not worth it." Now, if your child continues misbehaving and throws a fit, what's he trying to get you to say?

"It's not worth it." Your child wants you to stop punishing, that's why they continue misbehaving.

They're going to make it so hard for you that you say to yourself, "It's just not worth it.

I'd rather deal with a tantrum and I'm going to make everybody else in public deal with their tantrum also because I don't know what to do or I'm tired or I just can't deal with it." Whatever.

Don't do that.

Don't give up.

Now, some people will say, "Well, Father, the only time my child acts up is when he's at mass or when he's in public or whatever." Uh, that's probably because that's the only time you ask for proper behavior.

If the only time a child has to sit still, be quiet, and pay attention is at mass, that's when they're going to act out because they've never had to do it before.

So what you do in the home is insist upon good, proper behavior.

The home is where you establish discipline, the home is where you punish.

Public is where you display the discipline you've instilled in the home.

As our Lord says, "My house is a house of prayer." That's not unreasonable to expect even children abide by that.

As I said especially, don't feel bad, you are not a bad parent if you over-punished or under-punished your child.

Um, e- everybody makes mistakes.

Children, what's going to cause children trauma is parents who don't love them.

Uh, that's what is going to cause trauma.

And when children see that you love yourself more than them, that's what's going to be bad for them.

Not whether out of, of true love for them, maybe you are, you punished too much or realized it was too little.

It's the love that makes the difference.

And you really, especially if you use corporal punishment, you are teaching your child that their soul is more important than their body.

What is worse?

A temporary pain in a child's behind or long-lasting bad behavior in their heart?

Uh, but you can't give what you don't have, as I said.

So many parents, uh, they don't discipline their children because they themselves are not disciplined.

So spouses, parents, you have to discipline yourselves.

Be on the same page, talk to each other, come up with a plan, make your cord of whips, whatever that might be, a- and then, and then execute it.

Uh, put some thought into it.

Be proactive.

You're showing your children love and you are instructing them.

You're modeling good behavior, you're modeling discipline, you're modeling self-control, you're modeling charity towards each other.

That is how it's going to happen.

That's, that's the best leadership is by example.

And I would say, you know, I would ask the question that, that, you know, we, we, we see in the world today a total lack of respect for God and his authority.

Uh, and, and can we really, can we really blame the bishops and the Church and the Pope who aren't disciplining their children if we're not disciplining our own?

And, and your children today are going to become the governors, the priests, and the bishops of tomorrow.

And those men and women need, uh, to understand discipline.

They need to understand discipline is good, it is, it is a good thing.

The fear of the Lord is a good thing.

Punishing of evil is a good thing.

When we have people in the world who understand that, the world is going to become a better place.

It's going to be easier for people to discipline their passions and follow the laws of Christ.

Uh, so I would like to ask that of all of us, uh, especially parents.

Uh, lead by example.

Discipline yourselves and then, and discipline your children.

God is asking that of you, he's asking that of all of us.

Uh, let us correspond to the graces we have by our baptism, by your marriage, uh, by the fact you have children.

You have graces specifically for that.

Make use of them, correspond to God, be generous, be loving, discipline your kids.

God bless you all in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Thank you for listening.

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