NOT WHAT WE HAVE READ

THE FIRST TIME I READ THIS PASSAGE IT ACTUALLY SCARED ME

'At the Day of Judgement, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done; not how eloquently we have spoken, but how holily we have lived. Tell me, where are now all those Masters and Doctors whom you knew so well in their lifetime in the full flower of their learning? Other men now sit in their seats, and they are hardly ever called to mind. In their lifetime they seemed of great account, but now no one speaks of them." Thomas a Kempis

I guess that passage spoke to me because I had  from early childhood  found  my personal value  measured by what I had read,  And in a funny way READING was the one activity that my mother never interrupted or disparaged.
As long as I was reading I was safe and sound.

My mother always praised me for reading. She took me to two libraries every Saturday from the time that I was four years old.  One was a Catholic lending library on  High Street in downtown Pawtucket and the other was the august  Public Library that still stands there at the top of the hill.

She believed in reading and was encouraged in this belief by her brother, Brother Cyril.  She took his advice and insisted that my reading should balance, and that I should read a religious book for every secular book.  Also I was not allowed to read any book published after 1920 or the end of World War.

According to my mother,reading was a form of self education and would help me to advance in the actual world of classes and degrees. Of course, she was absolutely right about that.

Whenever  my Aunt Anna would chide me for not doing enough housework, my mother would defend me with the words "Oh she will be a Mother Superior; the other nuns will take care of the dishes."
Anna had no answer for that. AND to me she would say--"what ever you do stay in school and go as far as possible even to college. Education is one thing that no one can take away from you."

My mother followed her own advice her entire life. In fact when I did go away to college, she would ask me to send her a copy of my reading list for  my literature classes and she would read the same books. 
Now that is devotion to learning and also attests to the unfairness that was forced upon her when she finished the Eighth grade first in her class and was awarded a five dollar prize and the next day her father forced her to get a job sweeping out in Coats Knitting Mill. Her formal education was
over at fourteen.