Children’s heroic faith under an ungodly regime

A ten years old girl by the name of Angela was in grade 4. Very talented, she was always at the head of the class. She had a golden heart and she was nice to everybody and always willing to help.” Angela asked the Pater one day if she was allowed to go to holy communion every day. The pater warned her about the possible unpleasant repercussions for her, but she replied: “You demand from me that I am a good example for everybody. I need strength for this. I have more courage after I have received communion .” She thus received the hoped for permission, but her life turned into hell at school because of her teacher; no matter how well she did her lessons, she was always scolded and tormented. The child put on a brave face, but she soon became pale. “I fully admired such courage. Angela didn’t complain, but her classmates told me with tears in their eyes that this child was bullied on a daily basis. As she couldn’t fault her assignments, the teacher tried to shake the child’s faith in God” said Pater Norbert. “These two opponents were very unequal. Angela had no answers to the severe attacks from the teacher, she actually put the whole teaching program aside in order to inflict the whole jumble of anti-religious propaganda on the students. The child stood there with her head down and suppressed her tears. As from November, the lesson in 4A turned into severe duels between the teacher and the ten years old girl. Filled with fears, her classmates called upon me for help. What should I do? – Worsen the situation? Thank God that Angela didn’t give in. All we could do was pray from the bottom of our hearts! People in town and in the surrounding areas began to whisper about this. Nobody chided me about allowing Angela to have her daily communion.” It was no secret to anybody that this teacher wanted to erase the faith in God, a part of every Christian, in this delicate child. Even Angela’s parents encouraged the girl to persist. She became the central figure in the region from one day to the next. Everybody admired her courage! She was the only one that wasn’t aware of her bravado. She felt mortified by her inability to defend herself by producing evidence for the justification of her faith. Just before Christmas, on the 17th of December, the teacher invented a new, cruel game, one that would give the old superstitions that “contaminated” the school, according to her opinion, the fatal blow. This event deserved to be rendered here in all its details: Angela was naturally once again the point of attack. The teacher asked her in a sweet voice: “Listen my child, what do you do when your parents call you?” “I obey” replied Angela diffidently. “Certainly, you hear them call and you quickly go to them like a good, obedient child. And what happens when the parents call the chimney sweep?” “He comes” answered Angela. Her heart beat a riot; she sensed a trap, but she didn’t recognise it.

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