Your Child – Lying, Stealing, etc., by Rev. George A. Kelly

26 Tuesday Oct 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Parenting

The Catholic Family Handbook – Father George Kelly, 1950’s

Father Kelly helps to get it into perspective:

Lying and stealing

Minor transgressions can be expected of every pre-school child; if nothing more, they indicate his desire to learn exactly what penalty will be imposed if he violates your rules. The three or four year-old probably cannot understand that all of us must obey God’s laws. Later, of course, he must be taught that lying and stealing are sins because they violate that law.

It takes a wise parent to understand the difference between a young child’s imagination and his lying. When children learn that speech has the power to affect others, they often make up stories simply to notice the effect upon adults. In such cases, you probably need not do any more than indicate your mild disbelief.

Untruths affecting others are a different matter, however. If your child lies deliberately about a serious matter, you should point out to him that his action is sinful; that it harms those about whom he lies; and that it harms him by causing people to lose confidence in him.

The best way to discourage lying is to encourage truthfulness. The child who admits the truth and is willing to face the consequences of his actions displays a fine sense of maturity and deserves to be complimented for it. But do not carry your commendation for truthfulness to extremes, as though it were a novelty.

Whenever one little boy did something wrong, he ran to his father and confessed. The father invariably praised him for his honesty and neglected to punish him for his actions “because he told the truth.” The youngster, now sixteen, is the most truthful boy in town–and the greatest mischief-maker. He firmly believes that simply telling the truth absolves him of all blame for his conduct.

Children also do a certain amount of stealing. Vinnie, three years old, sees a toy which Billy is playing with and takes it as soon as he can so that he too may enjoy it. He is simply doing what comes naturally; he wants the toy and sees no reason why he should not have it. Obviously, he commits no sin. He must be taught in a calm way, however, that he must not take things which do not belong to him.

You can strengthen your child’s resistance against the impulse to steal by strengthening his own sense of possessiveness. If you treat his possessions with respect, making it plain to him that you would not use them without his permission, you make it easier for him to comprehend his obligations to others.

Probably all children pass through a “stealing” stage during which you can impress upon them the importance of not taking what belongs to others. This tendency to pilfer others’ possessions usually decreases and ceases to be a source of difficulty by the time the child is seven.

If he continues to steal after that, it may indicate that some of his strong and legitimate desires are not satisfied. For instance, the parents of a ten-year-old boy habitually compared him unfavorably with others of his age. He had a compelling urge to show that he was their superior, and he began to steal watches and other jewelry and to flaunt them before his classmates as presents he had received from his rich, admiring relatives.

Other youngsters may steal to relieve their boredom: boys who raid a fruitstand may simply crave excitement. If your child steals after he has reached the age of reason and is morally responsible for his actions, do not minimize the fact that he has sinned; but also seek to determine whether any psychological reason may have been important in causing him to act as he does.

A child should always be required to pay for objects he has stolen, even if he must work on Saturdays or forgo his allowance for months to do so.

Early sex experimentation

A child cannot commit sin until he reaches the age of reason. It follows that no moral guilt is associated with his early sex experimentation. Some parents might mistakenly regard as masturbation a baby’s holding of his sex organ, but it is as natural for him to display this interest as it is for him to examine his hands, feet or other parts of his body. He may experience pleasure when he touches his genitals, but this act has no greater moral significance than has sucking his fingers.

The normal child generally discontinues his sex experimentation when he finds other interests–and you can help him do so by giving him rattles to hold or toys to play with. However, if he continues to touch his genitals habitually after he begins to walk, he may be developing a pattern which will make masturbation more difficult to resist in later years.

You should gently and casually remove his hands each time you see him doing so. It is best to discourage this conduct in a matter-of-fact way, much as you might prevent him from picking his nose. Do not overemphasize its importance; otherwise you may accentuate his interest instead of changing it.

Sometimes two and three year-olds display a curiosity about the organs of the other sex. This interest also is natural and no evil intent is involved, but it is not proper and should not be permitted. Likewise, the little girl who lifts her dress in company is not guilty of any moral wrong, but she should be told not to do it.

By the time boys and girls are about three years old, their training in modesty should begin. They should learn that certain parts of the body must not be exposed before anyone except their parents.

A young child usually can be easily trained to be modest if his mother will tell him in a calm, unemotional way what is expected of him. Much difficulty with children in this regard results from the inability or unwillingness of parents to discuss the process of elimination without a sense of shame, and without giving it an undue importance in the child’s mind.

Sex experimentation usually ceases well before the child reaches the age of reason, and sex does not emerge as a serious problem in his development until adolescence. If your child continues to touch his genitals habitually after the age of six or seven, perhaps he seeks the pleasure which he derives from the action to compensate for some sense of insecurity. If your efforts to stop the practice fail, you should discuss his case with a doctor.

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9 Considerations to Impress Upon Your Children

14 Tuesday Sep 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Parenting, Youth

≈ 2 Comments

The Catholic Family Handbook – Father George Kelly, 1950’s

Father James Keller, M.M., director of the Christophers has made millions of Americans aware of the tremendous amount of good that one dedicated person can do.

The Christophers aim to encourage each individual to show a personal, practical responsibility in restoring the love of Christ to the marketplace and to government, education, literature, entertainment and labor unions.

They emphasize the importance of positive, constructive action and have adopted the slogan, “Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

Father Keller has encouraged countless thousands to undertake less glamorous, lower-paying jobs in order better to serve in Christ’s name. “Individuals who pursue this unpopular path receive a recompense which is a foretaste of the everlasting joy of heaven,” he states.

He lists nine considerations which you should strive to impress upon your children and which you yourself might apply. These are:

You are important. You, as a distinct human being, have been created in God’s image. All of humanity is nothing more than you over and over again.

No substitute for you. God has assigned to you a special mission in life which He has given to no one else. No matter how small it may seem to you or others, it is important in His sight.

Don’t cheat others. The Lord sends blessings to some people through you. If you fail to pass them on, you deprive others of what is rightfully theirs.

You are needed. If everyone figured “I don’t count,” imagine what disastrous consequences could result.

Spiritualize your least efforts. Begin to be a Christopher or Christ-bearer by serving others in small ways. Remember Christ said that if you do no more than give a “cup of cold water” for his sake (Matt. 10:42) you shall gain an everlasting reward.

Start in your home. If you develop a sense of personal responsibility in your own home, school, business and every other place, you will soon wish to reach out to wider horizons.

Don’t bury your talent. Even if God has given you only one talent, put it to work for the good of others. Don’t be like the man in the Gospel who said: “And being afraid I went and hid the talent in the earth.” (Matt. 25:25)

For better or worse. What you do–by prayer, word and deed–to see that God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven” affects the well-being of everyone to some degree. Yes, the world itself can be a little better because you have been in it.

You count as one. When tempted to play down your own individual importance, recall this old saying: “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. And what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I will do.”

“And you, too, must stand by your convictions at the cost of things you love. An ideal is worth little if it is not worth wholehearted, honest effort. Nothing is more pitiful than a woman whose mind admires purity and right, yet whose will is too weak to choose them and whose life is blighted by sin and mire about her. Be true, be noble, aim high, and God will give you strength to keep your ideals.” – Mabel Hale, Beautiful Girlhood

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Dating Non-Catholics by Rev. George Kelly (Part Two)

13 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Youth/Courtship

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This is not meant to be an attack on non-Catholics. What Father is pointing out is the differences between religions and the conflict that entails. Also, quite often there are unfounded prejudices on both sides…

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George Kelly, 1950’s

Part One is Here.

Dangers to your faith.

You want to make a happy marriage, of course, but you should be more interested in saving your soul and giving your children the best chance of saving theirs. On this all-important point, statistics on mixed marriages set us back on our heels.

According to research by the Bishops’ Committee on Mixed Marriages and others, three out of every five Catholics in a mixed marriage turn away from their religion in some significant way. They may fail to attend Mass regularly, neglect to perform their duty of confessing and receiving the Holy Eucharist once a year, neglect other religious duties, or even give up their religion entirely.

Children born to mixed marriages also have less than an even chance of growing up as good Catholics. Some are never baptized. Others grow up holding that it doesn’t matter what they believe, and the odds are slim that they will be practicing Catholics as adults.

So when you marry outside the faith, you not only play Russian roulette with your own soul, you force your children to play the same deadly game.

Most Catholics have heard all about the spiritual and emotional dangers of marrying a non-Catholic. Why do some enter a mixed marriage anyway? They’re like the soldiers asked to volunteer for a dangerous mission.

The commanding officer lined up his platoon and said: “I need ten volunteers to wipe out a machine gun emplacement. I figure nine of you will get killed, but one will come back alive.” Ten men quickly stepped forward. The officer took each aside, and asked, “Knowing the odds, why did you volunteer?” Each one answered the same way. Each figured he’d be the one to return alive.

It’s a common human impulse to feel that we bear a charmed life and that rules applying to other people somehow won’t affect us. It’s common, but not a sound way to act.

In most unhappy mixed marriages, the husband and wife surely knew what difficulties they would face. Like the soldiers who volunteered, they figured that they could beat the odds.

I like the way an old priest handled the situation when a parishioner said he intended to marry a non-Catholic girl. The priest went down the list of arguments proving that mixed marriages are likely to end in misery for all concerned.

The young man shrugged and said he knew of cases where interfaith marriages worked out well. He even cited one which produced priests and nuns. The priest listened patiently, then asked the man if he would drive his car down Main Street at noon at eighty miles an hour.

The young man laughed at the crazy thought. “Of course not, Father,” he replied, “I’d get killed.”

It was the priest’s turn to smile. “Not necessarily,” he said. “I know a man who did it, and he’s still alive.”

Maybe you could bullet your way down the main street of mixed marriage and live to tell about it. But are you foolish enough to try?

Signed promises may prove meaningless. Before you can marry a non-Catholic in the Church, he (or she) must sign a solemn promise not to interfere with your practice of your religion and must agree to educate all your children as Catholics. He must sign away rights and privileges which are highly important.

For example, although his own religion may tell him that he can practice artificial birth control and get a divorce, he must accept Catholic teachings on these matters.

He must accept the fact that you tell your sins to the priest, pray to the Blessed Virgin and the saints, accept the authority of the Pope on questions of faith and morals, send your children to Catholic schools, and faithfully observe dozens of other practices which he may think are “superstitious,” or, at best, trying.

What happens? It’s no secret that many non-Catholics take the attitude that if it makes the Catholic partner happy, they’ll sign the promises, but they don’t really intend to keep them.

Researchers have found, in fact, that the promises aren’t kept in about thirty percent of all mixed marriages. And the sad part is that the Catholic partner can’t do anything about it. You can’t sue in a law court or do anything else to force your partner to keep his word. Those promises are good only as long as he keeps them so.

Do mixed marriages make converts?

Sometimes Catholics seeking to marry a non-Catholic argue that they’re sure they can convert their mate. Cold facts and figures prove that the Catholic who marries with this hope has only about one chance in five of making a conversion.

If you keep in mind the statistics showing that forty-five percent of Catholics in mixed marriages are seriously harmed in their own religious practices, you can conclude that the person who hopes to convert a non-Catholic actually takes a risk of losing his faith.

Practical aids to avoid a mixed marriage.

When they begin dating, few if any Catholics intend to marry outside the faith. Probably all would prefer to meet and marry a Catholic. But it often happens that they begin to date a non-Catholic, and are romantically involved before they know it.

Once “love” steps in, reason often flies out the window. “Love is blind,” the poets say, with good reason. Logical objections are swept aside in a great surge of romantic ardor. It’s pretty late to talk about the dangers of mixed marriages after a man and woman think they’re in love.

The way to avoid a mixed marriage is at the beginning. Don’t date non-Catholics and you’ll never marry one. It’s as simple as that. Of course, that’s only half the story. The other half is that you should try to meet attractive Catholics of the opposite sex.

True, in some places this may take a bit of doing. But it can be done. If you attend a Catholic high school or college, take part in dances and other social activities where you will get a chance to meet other Catholic boys and girls.

If you attend a non-Catholic school, join the Newman Club there. These organizations of Catholic students can be found in most institutions.

Take a part in church activities. Join the young peoples’ club, sports teams, the choir, and other groups where you can get to know members of the other sex.

A large percentage of husbands and wives were introduced to their future mates by mutual friends. This fact stresses the importance of making friends with Catholics of your own sex. Try to develop a pleasant, appealing personality and cultivate friendships of this kind. Your chances of meeting an attractive Catholic of the other sex will be increased greatly.

Be sure of this one thing: Mother Church is only interested in your happiness, here and hereafter. And when a loving mother with lots of experience says to you “marry your own kind,” she usually knows what she is talking about.

Punctuality exacts self-discipline and detachment; it often asks us to interrupt some interesting, pleasant work in order to give ourselves to another kind, perhaps less attractive or less important.

However, it would be a great mistake to esteem our duties and to dedicate ourselves to them according to the attraction we have for them or according to their more or less apparent importance.

All is important and beautiful when it is the expression of the will of God, and the soul who wishes to live in this hole he will every minute of the day, will never omit the slightest act prescribed by its rule of life. -Divine Intimacy

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Dating Non-Catholics by Rev. George Kelly (Part One)

12 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Clean Love in Courtship - Fr. Lovasik, Youth/Courtship

≈ 1 Comment

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George Kelly, 1950’s

Part Two is here.

Fourteen-year-old Pete was talking to his freshman pal. “I don’t know why the Church keeps harping on mixed marriages,” he said. “I know Protestant girls who are just as nice as Catholic ones. What’s wrong with marrying one?”

Pete’s argument isn’t unusual. Many other Catholics—adults as well as teenagers—have the same view. They know non-Catholics who obey God’s laws and who are decent, respectable grownups.

We all probably know Protestants and Jews who are a greater credit to their religion than some who claim to be Catholics. So why does the Church continually warn against marrying them?

If the problem were as simple as Pete thinks, the teachings of the Church would have no justification. But this is one of those cases I spoke of earlier—a case where you should consider the experience of older people.

Against the fourteen years Pete has to support his viewpoint, the Church has almost two thousand years plus the opportunity to study the results of millions of marriages. Surely she knows more about this subject than anyone. And she has found that the Catholic entering a mixed marriage takes a terrible chance…

Suppose you’re married to a non-Catholic. What’s life like?

You and your mate hold conflicting ideas over the most basic beliefs of your existence. Frequently, there is little agreement on what life is all about—why you were born, what kind of life you’re supposed to lead on earth, what you are supposed to do in marriage, what will happen to you after you die. On these, the most important questions in your life, your non-Catholic partner has been taught beliefs different from the ones you hold.

Other differences arise almost every day of your life…

You must abstain from meat on Friday in memory of Our Lord’s sacrifice in giving His life for mankind. Your non-Catholic partner thinks your practice is silly.

You want to arise early on Sunday to attend Mass. Your partner urges you to roll over and go back to sleep. It sometimes calls for great sacrifice on your part to go to confession and receive Holy Communion. Instead of encouraging such sacrifices, your partner by word or deed indicates that they’re totally unnecessary.

When your children are born, your problems multiply. When you were married in the Church, your partner solemnly agreed to bring up the children as Catholics. But this promise is much harder to keep than to make.

For instance, the baby must receive a saint’s name. Your mate wants to name him after a favorite uncle. It’s a major irritation when that can’t be done.

As your child grows older, his relationship with God, his point of view on life and its problems, his conduct will depend on what he learned in his own home.

Both parents in a mixed marriage promise to see that the child is made into a good Christian. But how often will the non-Catholic sit by complacently while his boy or girl is taught to view Christ through Catholic eyes only? Can you easily teach him that the Catholic Church is Christ in the world today?

What about Catholic worship? We participate in the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ to our heavenly Father daily, and weekly under pain of sin. Can a child of a mixed marriage embrace this mystery and this worship, if either pop or mom never goes to Mass?

How can your son, for example, learn how important it is to acknowledge the supremacy of God, if your spouse indicates that morning and night prayers are unnecessary?

Being brought up as a Catholic, he’ll often ask one or both of you to hear his Catechism lessons. Will your partner help your child to learn principles which may conflict with those cherished by non-Catholics?

These are just a few of the sticky situations which repeatedly arise in a mixed marriage.

Have you fond memories of how your parents celebrated the great feast days like Christmas and Easter? Most people do. As a parent, you want to give the same happy memories to your children.

In many families, for instance, parents and children attend early Christmas Mass and receive Holy Communion together. This practice unites the family on this great feast day. But when the parents have different religions, the mother may go to one church and the father to another. The family is separated at the very moment it should be together. And it is togetherness on basic things that really makes a family. Separateness does not belong in the home.

Prejudice in Mixed Marriages…

Differences over religious beliefs aren’t the only problems in a mixed marriage. Let’s face it; millions of Americans have deep prejudices against Catholics. They might not discriminate against us, wouldn’t mind living next to us, might even elect us to political office.

But some have believed that Catholics stored guns in their cellars, awaiting word from the Pope to rise up and take over the government; others still think Catholics are ignorant and superstitious, the lowest class in the population; that Catholics are the pawns of priests and must do everything their pastor tells them about any subject.

You’d be astonished at the many wrong notions held even by educated non-Catholics.

Of course, this prejudice is not one-sided. Many Catholics feel antagonistic toward Protestants and Jews. And their objections are equally emotional, based on prejudice.

The wrongness of prejudice, even unspoken prejudice, does not change the fact that people have to deal with it; and the last place one should have to experience it is in your own household.

If you marry a non-Catholic, his mother and father may give you the deep-freeze treatment, and your parents may give him the same. Even if they don’t, you may sense it in your spouse every time something religious comes up. The alternative is perpetual silence, and this last state is worse than the first.

Can love overcome the animosity of in-laws? Think twice before you answer yes. You’ve lived with your parents all your life and have absorbed their ideas, and you certainly owe them love and gratitude. Can you turn your back on what they deeply believe and repudiate their teachings?

You may think you can, but in every marriage there are disagreements and difficulties. If you feel that your parents disapprove of your choice, you may be strongly tempted to run to them whenever you have trouble with your mate. There’s less reason to try to keep a marriage running smoothly when your parents disapprove of it.

Experts who have studied such matters have found that getting along with your in-laws is one of the best ways to insure your happiness. Then your spouse feels no pressure to choose, no need to turn against the parents to live with you.

Maybe the non-Catholic parents of someone you know treat you courteously and respectfully. They may have no prejudice against Catholics as individuals. But it’s a sad fact that few people grow up without some prejudices. So even if they accept you as a person, they may remain prejudiced against your Church or may have a bias against your priests. You’d still find yourself a stranger in their midst.

Your partner would probably experience similar discomfort among your relatives. If the arguments I’ve cited against mixed marriages are true, they would be as bad for non-Catholics as for Catholics.

You’d find ministers, rabbis and marriage experts taking the same stand as does the Church. And that’s exactly the case. You could start at one end of town, knock on the door of every minister or rabbi, and probably reach the other end without finding one who would recommend marriages between persons of different faiths.

They oppose them be-cause there are more divorces, more desertions, more legal separations, more failure; to get along well together in mixed marriages than in those where both husband and wife practice the same religion. It’s not narrow-minded bigotry that causes the Church to warn against mixed marriages. It’s plain common sense.

Your happy marriage will be the foundation of a happy home in which the entire family benefits. If you find it hard to understand how to make your husband number one in priority, without neglecting your children, keep this rule in mind: Don’t put the comforts and whims of your children ahead of your husband’s basic needs.
– Helen Andelin

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“Disgrace” in the Family

18 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Parenting

≈ 4 Comments

Thoughts? Too harsh? Outdated?

(Personally, I wouldn’t send my daughter away. She would need her family most at this time.

Another thought ….If the father is no good, and if she left the area until the baby is born, this may prevent a very bad marriage. It would give her time to think more objectively about the man.

It’s a fragile situation, that is for sure….)

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George Kelly, 1950’s

Often, despite the most sincere efforts of parents, a child for some inexplicable reason fails to develop into a normal adolescent or adult who lives up to his responsibilities respectably and honorably.

A son or daughter may be attracted to evil companions and may lead a life which causes public scandal. An offspring may drink, gamble, or develop other habits that become occasions of sin, if they are not sinful themselves.

Or, after acquiring a limited education, he may become sophisticated and turn away from the teachings of the Church because they are not modern enough for him.

Whenever such conditions occur, good Catholic parents are sorely tried.

If they could they would correct their child’s conduct and place him once again on the path to Christian virtue. Unfortunately, however, their influence over a child begins to wane after his early years.

A tendency toward evil that you can correct easily in your child of six will be difficult to eradicate when he is fourteen and may become impossible to remove when he is twenty-two. The plight of parents with offspring who cause shame should remind all mothers and fathers that the time to implant habits of virtue is when children are young–not when they are adults.

With our present knowledge of the causes of delinquency, promiscuity, and other shameful deviations from normal behavior, we can advise parents that scoldings, recriminations and threats are almost always foredoomed to failure.

Our Lord clearly taught in his gentleness toward Mary Magdalene that sinners can be won over by love, affection and sympathetic understanding–and that one may legitimately hope for reformation regardless of the depth to which the sinner has declined.

Parents must never cease to strive, by prayer, example and teaching, to help their wayward child to save his soul. They should create a framework of love and affection in which to discuss his problems with him and, by reasoning with him, try to get him to mend his ways.

Of course, you cannot condone sin. If your child uses your home for sinful purposes, you are morally obligated to prevent him from doing so.

If he refuses to be married in the Church, you cannot attend a civil ceremony and thus implicitly bless his action. You must always avoid giving others the impression that you support your child in actions which violate moral teaching.

On the other hand, you should make it plain that while you deplore and detest the sin, you love the sinner. By your unquestioned concern, kindness and sacrifice, and despite obstacles which seem insurmountable and disappointments which bring you to the border of despair, you may yet see a reawakening of his conscience and his ultimate return to you and the Church.

The need for sympathy and love is especially important in the case of a daughter who becomes pregnant outside marriage and faces the awful prospect of bearing a child without a father.

In older generations, such a sin was often considered justification for her parents to turn her away from their door and to thrust her, hopeless and friendless, upon a scoffing world. Such cold-blooded lack of charity was often a greater sin than the act which prompted it. Fortunately very few modern parents so lack compassion that they would reject a daughter at the moment when she needs them most.

Girls in such a predicament often have not received the parental love to which they are entitled. Some grow up in an atmosphere where they are deprived of natural objects for their affection, and they respond unthinkingly to the first individual who offers them kindness.

Of course, every person must fully accept the consequences for his or her own sins. But parents should also humbly consider whether their actions have not contributed to the tragedy. Even where they are not at fault, they should have charity.

When pregnancies occur outside of marriage, the question usually arises of whether the girl should marry the man responsible for her condition.

Experience teaches that marriages based solely upon a physical relationship which has produced unforeseen consequences stand little chance of providing happiness for either man, woman or child. If a strong bond of affection exists between the boy and girl, however, marriage may be considered a wise solution.

If marriage is impossible or undesirable, plans should be made for the girl to live away from her home community in the later stages of her pregnancy. Many institutions exist to provide kind care and sympathetic attention to unmarried mothers.

Often, they also arrange for the infant to be adopted, because the unmarried mother almost invariably lacks resources to provide the proper home environment for her child during his long years of dependency. The parish priest will know where institutions of this kind are located within convenient distance of the community where the girl lives.

When this procedure is followed, the unwed mother can return to her home without becoming the subject of a public scandal. Now, as during her pregnancy, her parents should display the Christian virtue of forgiveness. They should do all within their power to encourage her to turn from past habits and associations and to build a new life with courage and trust in God.

“Patience is a powerful help in married life. It controls and restrains strains angry feelings and outbursts of anger. It is a mature virtue that shows superiority of intellect, practical wisdom in daily life, strength of will, and a good, humble, and benevolent heart.

The more spiritual progress you make, the more patient and gentle you will become. Patience procures for you love and influence. It attracts people to you and is of the utmost importance in the family, since you spend so much of your lives together.” – Fr. Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook https://amzn.to/2Dbcimb (afflink)

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With the help of Maria Von Trapp, you, too, can provide Christian structure and vibrancy to your home. Soon your home will be a warm and loving place, an earthly reflection of our eternal home.

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How To Be a Good Mother – Rev. George A. Kelly

10 Monday May 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Motherhood, Parenting

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domestic happiness, domineering mother, good mother, martyr mom, overindulgent mother, raising children

Close to Mother’s Day is a good time to think about motherhood.

Timeless advice from a very smart priest!

The Catholic Family Handbook – Father George Kelly

In view of the many social evils resulting from the decline in the father’s influence, one of the most important functions the modern mother should perform is to help maintain or restore the father’s position of authority in the family. In doing so, you will fulfill your own role as a wife and mother to a greater extent than is possible when you permit your husband to be the lesser figure.

This was the secret of the success of olden fathers. Even though they worked twelve hours a day, their dominant role in the home was guaranteed and protected by the mother.

You can make your greatest contribution to your family as the heart of your home–not its head. From you, your children should learn to love others and to give of themselves unstintingly in the spirit of sacrifice. Never underestimate the importance of your role. For upon you depends the emotional growth of your children, and such growth will better prepare them to live happy and holy lives than any amount of intellectual training they may receive.

Most of us know persons who have received the finest educations which universities can bestow, who yet lead miserable lives because they have never achieved a capacity to love.

On the other hand, we also know of men and women whose intellectual achievements are below normal but whose lives are filled with happiness because their mothers showed them how to love other human beings.

It follows that in helping your child to satisfy his basic emotional needs to love and be loved, you give something as necessary as food for his full development. So do not be beguiled by aspirations for a worldly career or by the desire to prove yourself as intelligent as men or as capable in affairs of the world as they.

The father must always remain a public figure. The mother is the domestic figure par excellence. In teaching your child the meaning of unselfish love you will achieve a greater good than almost any other accomplishment of which human beings are capable.

You are the most important person your child will ever know. Your relationship with him will transcend, in depth of feeling, any other relationship he probably will ever have–even the one with his marriage partner.

As noted above, from you he will learn what true love really is. From the tenderness you show and the security you give, you will develop his attitudes toward other human beings which will always remain with him.

However, his dependence on you begins to wane soon after birth–and continues to wane for the rest of your life. In his first years, naturally, he will rely upon you almost entirely–not only for food, but also to help him perform his most elementary acts.

But soon he learns to walk and to do other things for himself; when he goes to school he can dress himself; when he reaches adolescence and strives for the freedom that adults know, he will try to throw off his dependence so violently that you may fear that you have lost all hold upon him.

Your job is to help him reach this state of full and complete independence in a gradual fashion. And your success as a mother will depend to a great extent upon the amount of emancipation you permit him as he steps progressively toward adulthood. Therefore you should try to judge realistically when your child truly needs your help and when he does not.

If you can reach the happy medium wherein you do for your child only what he cannot do for himself, you will avoid dominating him or overindulging him.

The dominant mother makes all decisions for Johnny and treats him as though he had no mind of his own; the overindulgent mother will never permit her Mary to be frustrated in any wish, or to be forbidden any pleasure her little heart desires.

The overindulgent mother may do without the shoes she needs to buy a doll for her Annie; she may stop what she is doing to help Johnny find the comic book he has misplaced; she may eat the leftovers in the refrigerator while she gives the freshly prepared food to her children.

The overindulgent mother is a common character in literature. Probably every American woman has seen movies and television programs, and has read stories in magazines and newspapers, in which these defects were pointed out.

Yet every new generation of mothers seems to practice the same extreme of behavior. Some excuse themselves by saying that they want to give their children every advantage in life.

Such an intention is laudable, perhaps, but the method is impractical. If you want to do the best for your child, let him develop so that he can face life on his own feet. Overindulging him denies him his right to develop his own resources and thus defeats the purpose of your mission as a mother.

Someone once remarked in jest that as part of her education for motherhood, every woman should visit the psychiatric ward of an army hospital. If you could see the countless examples of mental disorders caused largely by the failure of mothers to sever the apron strings to their child, you could easily understand why–for the sake of your child’s emotional self–you must make it a primary aim to help him to develop as an independent person.

Priests and psychiatrists often see problems from different angles, yet they display striking agreement in pinpointing other kinds of maternal conduct which do great harm to the child. Their advice might be summarized as follows:

Don’t be an autocrat who always knows best. Your child may have his own way of doing things, which may seem to be inefficient or time-consuming. Have patience and let him do things his way, thus giving him the opportunity to learn by trial and error.

Don’t be a martyr. Naturally, you must make sacrifices. But do not go to such extremes that your child feels guilty when you deny yourself something which rightfully should be yours, in order to give him what rightfully should not be his.

A typical martyr worked at night in a laundry to pay her son’s way through college. Before his graduation, he asked her not to appear at the ceremony–he said she would be dressed so poorly that he would be embarrassed.

Don’t think you have the perfect child. Some mothers, when their child receives low grades, appear at school to determine, not what is wrong with him, but what is wrong with the teachers.

When such a mother learns that her son has been punished for disobedience, she descends upon the school officials and demands an apology. By her actions she undermines the child’s respect for all authority–including her own.

You will probably be on safe ground, until your child is canonized at St. Peter’s, if you conclude that he has the same human faults and weaknesses that you see in your neighbors’ children.

Don’t use a sickbed as your throne. The “whining” mother feigns illness to attract sympathy and to force her children to do as she wills. Who would deny the last wish of a dying person? In this vein she often gets what she wants–for a while. The usual, final result, however, is that her children lose both sympathy and respect for her.

Don’t be a “glamor girl.” Motherhood is not a task for a woman who thinks that ordinary housework–preparing meals, making beds, washing clothes–is beneath her.

Of course, mothers should strive to maintain a pleasing appearance, but they should also realize that they are most attractive when they are fulfilling the duties of their noble vocation.

You would embarrass your family if you insisted on acting and dressing like a teenager; and, if you adopted a demeaning attitude toward household tasks, you would teach your children that motherhood and its responsibilities are unworthy of respect.

“In the Catholic home there is that modern rarity–fidelity between husband and wife. There is great reverence for parents by the children, great protection of weaker members by the stronger, and a great awareness of the dignity and rights of every member of the family. The Catholic woman has attained a height of respect and authority which cannot be found anywhere else, and the chief factor in her improvement has been the Church’s teaching on chastity, conjugal equality, the sacredness of motherhood, and the supernatural end of the family, in imitation of the Holy Family of Nazareth.” – Rev. George A. Kelly, The Catholic Family Handbook

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You Can Have a Happy Family (Conclusion) – Rev. George A. Kelly

23 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Catholic Home Life, Family Life, FF Tidbits

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Being a good father, domestic happiness, Good Catholic children, happy home, mutual love necessary for happy home, Teach children about God

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly. 1950’s

Part One

Part Two

The Triangle of God, Parents and Child

It cannot be stressed too often that you can leave a heritage of good for centuries simply by leading a holy life as a parent.

For example, if you have six children, it is possible that within your lifetime you will have twenty-five or thirty grandchildren. They in turn may have more than 100 children, and within a century perhaps 1,000 lives will reflect your influence to some extent. If you have been a good parent, thanks to you they may be good Christians–your advocates in heaven. If you are a bad example, you may leave a large number of evildoers as your contribution to God and humanity.

As the Catholic Bishops of the United States pointed out in 1950 in their memorable formal statement, “The Child: Citizen of Two Worlds,” the first requirement of good Catholic family life is that the children must know God. However, as the Bishops emphasized, “there is a vast difference between ‘knowing about God’ and ‘knowing God.’ The difference is made by personal experience.

It is not enough that the child be given the necessary truths about God. They ought to be given in such a way that he will assimilate them and make them a part of himself. God must become as real to him as his own father and mother.

God must not remain an abstraction. If He does, He will not be loved; and if He is not loved, then all the child’s knowledge about Him will be sterile.

Where love is, there too is service. (‘If you love me, keep my commandments.’) That is Christ’s test and it must be applied to the child. He should be brought to see God’s commandments and precepts as guideposts which give an unerring direction to his steps. In this work, the Church, the family and the school all have a part to play.”

How can you teach your child to know God? First, by inspiring him to love and serve God by your own daily actions. He will be quick to imitate what he sees and hears at home.

If good example is not forthcoming, he will become confused by the contradiction between what you teach and what you practice. His confusion will be compounded when he goes to a school where religion is taught. There he will learn to reverence the name of God, but at home he may hear God’s name used irreverently in petulance and anger.

At school he will learn to get along with his fellow pupils, but at home he may be allowed to offend and wrangle with his brothers and sisters. At school he will be taught strict precepts of honesty and justice, while at home he may hear boasts of sharp business practices and clever evasions of truth.

Disturbed by these contradictions and torn by conflicting loyalties to home and school, he will lose confidence in his parents or teachers or both.

Only two courses are open to your child. He will be either God-centered or self-centered. Every young child seeks to satisfy every selfish whim. Training yours to consider God and others before he acts is one of the most challenging tasks you face. Here is where you can draw on the life of Christ.

If you teach your child to deny his selfish whims in imitation of the obedient and patient Savior, he will not only have a supernatural motive for his actions, but God will have a central place in his affections. Only then can he grow up to his full spiritual stature.

You can find joy in your children. While you should never forget that you are your children’s foremost teacher–and the most important influence they will ever know–your family life will lose its true perspective if you overemphasize the sacrifices you must make to educate them. For your joy in your children should outweigh by far any disadvantages they may cause. In them you will find your own happiness.

Your children give dimension to your love as a couple. Conjugal love, which can be selfish and isolated, takes a great stride with the birth of a baby. Many young mothers have said, “John and I did not really know what our love could grow to be until we held successive children in our arms.”

The greatest aid to your own maturity as human beings is the rearing of your children. St. John Chrysostom remarked, “Can there be a more responsible task than to mold the human spirit or form the morals of young people? I consider that man greater than any painter or sculptor who neglects not the molding of the souls of young people.”

In your children you will rediscover your own youth. Their growth process will rekindle your own sense of wonder and enthusiasm. Johnny asks, “Dad, why is the sky blue?” And Dad, who hadn’t cared, takes a new and longer look.

What have you to show for having lived, if not your children? At forty or fifty years of age, an adult generally reaches the limits of income and social standing. Yet parents continue to grow with their sense of fulfillment in the achievements of their children.

And as if these satisfactions were not enough, parents through their offspring have a grand opportunity to spread the faith. They are real missionaries in their own home. They can say at the end of their lives as Christ said of His Apostles: “Those whom Thou hast given Me, I guarded; and not one of them perished.” (John 17 :12)

There is no doubt that genuine Catholic family life is among the best family life to be found in the United States. For Catholic married couples are one of the few large groups in the country who have consistently sacrificed themselves to have more children.

And the large numbers of their children who, properly trained, have left Catholic homes to take up responsible roles in the armed services, corporate economic life, the labor movement, and the public offices of government, reflect credit on those parents and on the Church.

In the Catholic home there is that modern rarity–fidelity between husband and wife. There is great reverence for parents by the children, great protection of weaker members by the stronger, and a great awareness of the dignity and rights of every member of the family.

The Catholic woman has attained a height of respect and authority which cannot be found anywhere else, and the chief factor in her improvement has been the Church’s teaching on chastity, conjugal equality, the sacredness of motherhood, and the supernatural end of the family, in imitation of the Holy Family of Nazareth. But even as we uphold the Catholic woman as wife and mother, we also uphold the pre-eminent place of the husband and father in the home.

You must not forget that the vigor of your Catholicism rests on the stability and goodness of your family life. Of course, the Church knows better than anyone else that in proclaiming Catholic family ideals she is dealing with human weakness and the tendency to selfishness and sin.

Like a good mother, she also forgives and embraces those who momentarily betray those ideals. But unlike others, she will never admit that those weaknesses diminish or vitiate God’s place for fathers and mothers or call sin virtue or pretend that weakness is strength.

The reward for all your efforts is the Call of Christ on Judgment Day:

“Come, ye blessed of My Father.”

“I insist that it is every woman’s duty to know, or to acquire some practical knowledge of housekeeping, so that she may be ready for any emergency. Her fitness for it will be a perpetual source of satisfaction to her, for there is nothing more self-satisfying than to feel that one is capable; it gives confidence, strength, and self-reliance.”- Annie S. Swan, Courtship and Marriage And the Gentle Art of Home-Making, 1893

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You Can Have a Happy Family (Part Two)

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Catholic Home Life, Family Life

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Catholic children, catholic family, Catholic father, Catholic mother, Catholic parenting, God's grace, happy home

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, 1950’s

Part One is here.

Conclusion is here.

Parents are partners with God. The success of your family depends upon your recognition of the fact that as a parent of a human life, you share one of the greatest of God’s gifts–the magnificent act of creation.

Your role is to procreate His children, and to educate them so that they may ultimately return to Him in heaven. Only with Him can you realize your life’s goals for yourself, your mate and your children; for, as we learn in childhood, the first purpose of our existence is to know, love and serve God in this life so that we may be happy with Him forever in the next one.

To achieve its purpose, the family must be a triangle consisting of God, parents and children. Our Lord taught us this when He raised marriage–the fountainhead of the family–to the dignity of a sacrament. And through the sacrament, He provides the graces for true spiritual success in your family life regardless of the trials and tribulations you may face.

As your partner in parenthood, God will help you. His grace will make your home His dwelling place and the means of your sanctification. It will make you capable of greater love than you ever thought possible and will enable you, as a parent, to achieve levels of self-sacrifice beyond your dreams. And what it will enable you to achieve will lead not only to your own salvation but also to the salvation of the souls He has entrusted to your care.

God’s partnership with husbands and wives is nowhere more evident than in what might be called the “innate genius” of parents. If you look about you, you doubtless can see many men and women who a short time ago seemed to be irresponsible and incompetent, poorly fitted for the many tasks which must be performed as parents. Yet today they are fathers and mothers and–thanks to God’s grace–they are doing a proper job in caring for their children.

Once you accept the great force of God’s grace, you will never underestimate your own genius as a parent. Many of our own fathers and mothers were, by worldly standards, ignorant of psychiatry or psychology. Yet, by and large, they succeeded in bringing to adulthood men and women who walk in the path of goodness. They succeeded for one reason only: they understood their children’s need for love, encouragement and direction, and they gave it.

Without child experts to guide them along each small step of the way, they instinctively provided what was best for their youngsters. Once you make yourself willing to accept the graces which God offers to you, you will do so too. You will achieve a natural competence as a parent that will produce more good in your children than any blueprint that a human authority can give you.

What is a true Christian family? We probably can best appreciate the characteristics of a genuine God-fearing family by picturing it in operation in a representative home.

As Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston has inspiringly described it: “The worthy Christian home finds a true Christian family abiding therein and growing in love and care for one another. This home is not constructed in prefabricated fashion in a few weeks or a few years–for it is not purely material. Indeed its true character is achieved not through plaster and paint and sanitary plumbing, but through love and sweat and tears. It is a framework trimmed with remembered moments of joy; cemented by hours of suffering.

It is a reflection of the personalities of those who dwell therein, an expression of their likes and dislikes. The true Christian home is an altar of sacrifice and a theater of comedies and drama; it is a place of work and a haven of rest.”

If yours is a true Christian home, it is like a little church, where the family daily joins together in beautiful devotions–the family rosary, family night prayers and the act of consecration to the Sacred Heart. Life is viewed as Christ would have us view it. There is great trust and confidence in His providence.

Love, tenderness and forgiveness you find there, but also a high standard of moral living, obedience and discipline. Parents and children, whether they be rich or poor, share generously with each other, go without things if necessary, and bear trials and sufferings in patience.

It is a little school, where your children learn to live and love as dignified human beings, to work for the good of others, and to serve their fellow man without thought of monetary gain.

It is a little recreation center, where the family relaxes in peace from outside woes and work. Playing together helps children and parents reconcile differences and adjust to each other’s needs, and builds up the affectionate ties that last a lifetime.

Most of us remember the starring roles we had at one time or another in our own homemade theater. It is the humorous incidents of the family that help develop pleasant and outgoing personalities–the good fun involving Mother and Dad and all the boys and girls which the uncrowded modern household misses.

You can best live up to this picture of true family life if you keep as your ideal the life led by the Holy Family at Nazareth. For there, as

Cardinal Cushing goes on to say: “…one beheld simplicity and purity of conduct, perfect agreement and unbroken harmony, mutual respect and love, not of the false and fleeting kind, but that which found both its life and its charm in devotedness of service.

At Nazareth, patient industry provided what was required for food and raiment; there was contentment with little–and a concentration on the diminution of the number of wants rather than on the multiplication of sources of wealth.

Better than all else, at Nazareth there was found that supreme peace of mind and gladness of soul which never fails to accompany the possession of a tranquil conscience. At Nazareth one could witness a continuous series of examples of goodness, of modesty, of humility, of hard-working endurance, of kindness to others, of diligence in the small duties of daily life.”

You can imitate this model of the Holy Family only if you set out to make every member of your family more concerned about God and the things of God than about the things of this world. You must live in the awareness that all that is done is done in the presence of God and that genuine happiness results only when we conform to His will.

“Love is the most wonderful educator in the world; it opens up worlds and possibilities undreamed of to those to whom it comes, the gift of God. I am speaking of love which is worthy of the name, not of its many counterfeits. The genuine article only, based upon respect and esteem, can stand the test of time, the wear and tear of life; the love which is the wine of life, more stimulating and more heart-inspiring when the days are dark than at any other time,—the love which rises to the occasion, and which many waters cannot quench.” – Annie S. Swan, Courtship and Marriage And the Gentle Art of Home-Making, 1893

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You Can Have a Happy Family (Part One) – Rev. George A. Kelly

26 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Catholic Home Life, Family Life, Parenting

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Artist: John Arthur Elsely

by Rev. Fr. George A. Kelly, The Catholic Family Handbook, 1950’s

Part Two is here.

Conclusion is here.

When you became a parent, you undertook the most important job of your life–the job of guiding your children so that they might live happily on earth and win eternal happiness in heaven.

The foundations of Christian family life have never faced the many-sided assault they must stand up against today, and the task of the conscientious Catholic parent has never been more difficult.

In order for you to understand what objectives you should strive for as a parent, you should first realize that your Catholic family symbolizes in miniature the Mystical Body of Christ. The husband and father is the head of the body and represents Christ.

The wife represents the Church and the children, as members of the body, represent the faithful. And this family unit has been designated by Christ to worship our Heavenly Father. Through its common life all the members give glory to God and express their submission to Him.

In addition, the family works with Christ for the redemption of its members and the world. For when Our Lord made marriage a sacrament, He established the family as a basic means through which His grace could be given to men. The husband and wife channel grace to each other and to their children and vice versa.

If these graces do not come to us in this way (through another member of the Mystical Body), they do not come at all. Therefore it is most important that parents and children live in the state of grace, and that the Holy Spirit continually dwell in their souls. For mortal sin in any member prevents the free flow of grace to other members of the household.

You will achieve the greatest success in your family life if you remember that you are fulfilling this sacred vocation. Like the priest, you are called upon to teach, rule and sanctify your children in the name of Jesus Christ.

His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Spellman, once wrote: “A man’s family (is) a place to which God could look, as He did to Bethlehem, for the beginning of mortal lives which are also eternal, for the beginnings of lives of tiny citizens of two worlds–of earth and of heaven.”

Your work as parents, therefore, is a holy and religious work. You may produce doctors, lawyers, scientists. But to the extent that your children do not reach heaven or are given every opportunity to do so, you have not succeeded. And you will begin to realize the full potentialities of your vocation when you see your family in this light.

Modern pressures harm family life. Today, unfortunately, we do not always have that Catholic family life of which older generations were justly proud and which produced great human beings and outstanding Christians.

The adult children of those fine German, Italian, Irish and Polish households now tend to reject their parents’ way of domestic living. They may value their many brothers and sisters and pay generous tribute to their self-sacrificing fathers and mothers, but the effort involved in having a large family is too heroic for them.

The training for hard work and service to others, the mental stability, the sense of right and wrong, the religious faith which they received–they want these for their children too, but they often do not want to do all the work or accept the point of view that makes such accomplishments possible.

In fact, some couples have wandered so far from the ideals of Christian marriage that they are not Christian parents at all.

Today we see the individual exalted at the expense of the family.

People marry foolishly and then leave marriage to suit their own convenience. Others deliberately limit children and thus belittle the importance to solid family life of a full household; their birth-control mentality tempts them to look upon their union merely as companionship or a means of mutual gratification.

Frequently a small and prosperous family has a built-in selfishness which disturbs, where it does not destroy, domestic peace. And parents who use contraceptives may have lax opinions about sexual morality, so that the young consciences under their care are harmed.

Many modern wives have forgotten, or do not want to know, that their first purpose is motherhood and that making a home is their most worth-while career. They have emancipated themselves from serious self-sacrifice on behalf of their husband or family.

Many husbands, too, have mentally divorced themselves from their high calling as teacher and ruler of their young ones; as a result, their homes are in a state of anarchy or matriarchy. Thus the marriage bond in many instances has ceased to be moral and spiritual. Instead it has become sensual, social and esthetic.

Some modern social scientists have termed Catholic concern over the decay of public and private morality and the disintegration of home life “alarmist poppycock.” They array a large amount of statistical evidence to demonstrate that the American world is no worse off than it was before. They declaim that elders have always looked upon every new generation as a generation of vipers.

But we who deal with people as people, and are interested in their moral well-being, know that the divorced, the promiscuous, the drug addict, the alcoholic, the homosexual, the juvenile delinquent, are increasingly prevalent phenomena which cannot be discovered in social pathology books, let alone the neighborhood streets, of thirty years ago.

They live next door–in large numbers and among ordinary family folk, and can be found in the mainstreams of society.

Parents, priests, doctors, teachers, judges, policemen and thoughtful citizens are rightfully alarmed, even if the sociologists and psychologists are not. And you, as parents, must be concerned lest the plague infect your home.

The blame for these blights on modern happiness can be laid squarely on the secular culture of our country which equates happiness with the pursuit of private pleasure and denies the existence of spiritual goals and values. The lack of religion, the encouraged agnosticism of our public institutions, particularly our schools, and the denial of the authority and rights of parents are all related to secularism.

In the face of such widespread error, the Church turns hopefully, as she did two thousand years ago, to the family. She would (1) have you recognize the Christian dignity of marriage; (2) strengthen your determination to live your family life in Christ and for Christ; (3) confirm your resistance to the pressures which threaten to destroy family virtue and domestic tranquility; (4) inoculate your family against further moral contamination.

For no matter what evil influences flourish outside your home, your family can be an impregnable refuge of Christian life.

The Devil exults most when he can steal a man’s joy of spirit from him. He carries a powder with him to throw into any smallest possible chinks of our conscience, to soil the spotlessness of our mind and the purity of our life. But when spiritual joy fills our hearts, the Serpent pours out his deadly poison in vain. – St. Francis of Assissi

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Finer Femininity is taking a break from Facebook.

I am on MeWe if you would like to follow me there. This platform is a lot like Facebook but respects the privacy and the free speech of the user. Here is the link to my FF MeWe Page. Each day I add tidbits to inspire you on your journey.

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CATHOLIC MOTHER GOOSE…Available here.

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A very nice review from a friend, Mary Fifer, of St. Anne’s Helper, to whom I had given my Catholic Mother Goose Book.

I don’t often make recommendations yet when Leane Vanderputten gave me her book to review, Catholic Mother Goose, I couldn’t refuse.

I read her book cover to cover, and I love the whole thing. I think that it has the best Mother Goose nursery rhymes on the planet!

For over 25 years I’ve searched for unconditionally good books for younger children and her Catholic Mother Goose is a dream come true. It was an honest pleasure to read her book. This is how all Catholic books ought to be written. No White-Out necessary!

You can put it right next to your Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson rhyme books. You can read it to your little ones and assign it to your older children. I’ll bet that by putting it in the living room, it will be read without suggestion.

I wish I’d had it for our children when they were little, and I’ve got it on my list for when grandchildren come. I’m so glad to have a truly good Catholic book to recommend to family and friends for Catholic preschool and kindergarten and I’m very glad to be able to add it to our website.

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In With God in Russia, Ciszek reflects on his daily life as a prisoner, the labor he endured while working in the mines and on construction gangs, his unwavering faith in God, and his firm devotion to his vows and vocation. Enduring brutal conditions, Ciszek risked his life to offer spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners who could easily have exposed him for their own gains. He chronicles these experiences with grace, humility, and candor, from his secret work leading mass and hearing confessions within the prison grounds, to his participation in a major gulag uprising, to his own “resurrection”—his eventual release in a prisoner exchange in October 1963 which astonished all who had feared he was dead.

Powerful and inspirational, With God in Russia captures the heroic patience, endurance, and religious conviction of a man whose life embodied the Christian ideals that sustained him…..

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a “Vatican spy,” Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God’s will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer–a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the “arrogance of evil” that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experience, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God–even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, “What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?”
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What Will Your Child Do in Life?

10 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Parenting, Vocation

≈ 1 Comment

by Fr. George Kelly, The Catholic Family Handbook, 1950’s

Not long ago, newspapers told the story of a twenty-seven-year-old man who had shot and killed his father. In prison, the man defiantly explained why he had done it.

Throughout his life, he had been interested in teaching as a career. But whenever he mentioned his aspiration, his father ridiculed it and told him that he must enter the family business. After completing a college course in business administration at his father’s dictation, the young man was placed at work in the family store.

It was evident that he was not equipped to do the kind of sales work necessary for success in the business, but his father drove him on with ridicule. Finally, he could stand it no longer and in frustrated rage performed the deed which shocked the public everywhere.

Like most occurrences which reach print, this was an extreme case. Few men kill their fathers because of differences over their careers, and few fathers callously demand that their children pursue vocations unsuited to them. Yet this story serves the useful purpose of pointing out that parents should give intelligent and sympathetic consideration to their child’s ambitions.

Another moral of the tragedy cited is, of course, that every person should decide his own course in life.

A consistent objective of his training as a child, adolescent, and young adult should be to enable him ultimately to be completely free in the sense that he can make his own decisions and accept complete responsibility for them.

Thus he alone should choose his life work, because its success or failure will depend upon him only. He alone has the intimate knowledge of his talents, motives and aspirations required to make a choice and to succeed in what he chooses.

But while your child must in the final analysis select this vocation by himself, you can help him to determine what his objectives should be.

Indeed, as a conscientious parent, you must do so. You must take a part in formulating standards which will guide him regardless of whether his future station, in the eyes of the world, is high or low.

Your child will often ask you what you want him to be when he grows up.

By your answers, you can implant ideals which will serve as his own guideposts. Moreover, you can help him recognize the importance of high objectives by your own daily conduct.

A father will strongly influence his son’s choice of a life work by his attitude toward his own occupation; by the respect he shows to priests, brothers, doctors, teachers and others who give of themselves to serve mankind; by his own attitudes about the monetary rewards of work and the things that money will–and will not–buy.

Likewise, a mother will influence her son and daughter by the amount of cheer she radiates as she does her daily household tasks; by the way she greets the nuns at school, whether it be with deference or indifference; by her attitudes toward neighbors and acquaintances with greater or fewer material possessions than she has.

Any worthy vocation should fulfill three requirements.

It must help your child save his soul. At the very least, it must not, by its nature, constitute a hazard to salvation.
It should serve mankind in some constructive way. As an extreme example, the young man who inherited a large sum of money and decided to devote his life exclusively to his own pleasure could hardly be said to have a worthy objective. Nor could the young woman who hoped to marry and practice artificial birth control so that she could lead a social life unhampered by the responsibilities of parenthood.
The work should be within his capabilities. The youth who is helped to select a kind of work in which he has a reasonable chance of making progress is also more likely to achieve his first and second objectives as well.

It is worth noting carefully that this listing of basic objectives omits such goals as wealth, glory, power and similar allurements. For implicit in this listing of worthy objectives is the teaching of Jesus:

“For what does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul?” (St. Matthew 16:26)

The emphasis is on true and lasting values–“treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth consumes, nor thieves break in and steal.” (St. Matthew 6:20) The Bible teaches us that “covetousness is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) and that it is “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (St. Matthew 19:24)

Not only does an ambition to achieve wealth for its own sake violate Our Lord’s repeated teachings; it is not even suitable as a worldly ambition. One can search in vain for the man whose riches have brought even earthly happiness; the rich who achieve the serenity of those less favored financially usually do so only by using their wealth to serve others.

When you encourage your child to keep these three objectives constantly before him, you do not limit his number of choices in any substantial way. He can achieve all of his great goals–attain salvation, perform tasks which benefit mankind, and properly use his God-given talents–in either the religious or secular life.

“Sometimes the wife is tied to her mother’s apron strings and is emotionally immature. She refuses to shoulder the normal responsibility of a wife and mother.

Some married women harm their homes, their husbands, their children, and themselves by too much external activity: organizations, societies, luncheon groups, clubs, and civic committees.

Birth control is a cause for too much social life. A childless or almost childless home can drive women to expend their God-given energies for motherhood on vain external affairs.

Other causes are too much wealth and, therefore, too much leisure, so that even mothers of sizable families can hire people to do most of their work; and the appeal of social prominence.”

-Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook https://amzn.to/2PDpph1 (afflink)

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What Will Your Child Do in Life?