Welcome to our daily rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

The fourth commandment is explicitly directed to children, for it says,

Honor your father and mother.

Not everyone is a father, not everyone is a mother, but everyone has a father and a mother, which means this

commandment applies to everyone, and it applies first and foremost to children in

the home. Now it's become commonplace for people

to assume that children are just recipients of family benefits. Kids often take it for granted that their parents will give them life,

spend time with them, help educate them, support them,

help them enter in adulthood, and to keep them on their health insurance

until they're about 75 years old.

Meanwhile, it's often seen as no big deal when kids are rude, ungrateful, or selfish.

In other words, in our culture, the entitlement mindset tends to begin in the home. But as Christians, we know it's

not supposed to be that way, because children have moral responsibilities just like the rest of us.

They have to be virtuous, loving, self-controlled and generous. And just like the rest of us, if they fail in their moral responsibilities,

that's called sin.

And just like the rest of us sin will ruin them.

So every child has two choices, sin and virtue, just like the rest of us.

And apart from their relationship with God, just like the rest of us.

And apart from their relationship with God,

the primary mark of a virtuous child,

the number one moral obligation and ethical principle according to which they will be judged by God himself

...