From Questions Young People Ask Before Marriage, Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R., 1950’s

Sex Experience before Marriage

 Problem

I recently attended some lectures given at a secular university on the subject of preparation for a happy marriage. In one lecture it was stated that some sex experience before marriage is necessary for happiness in marriage, on the ground that by experiment one learns whether married life will be happy. Is there any truth in this? I am not a Catholic, though I read your column, and 1 feel that this sort of teaching can do an immense amount of harm. Do you agree?

 Solution

This sort of teaching has frequently crept into marriage courses given to young people in secular colleges and universities today, and you are right about its being very damaging to all who take it even half seriously.

Both on religious and on practical grounds it can be proved that any sort of sex-experimentation before marriage is bound to result in unhappiness.

This should certainly be clear to every God-fearing, Christian boy and girl.

Impurity, the right name for “sex-experimentation” before marriage, is a violation of nature and a transgression of God’s law.

It is an inexorable law of nature and a demand of the justice of God that every sin must be atoned for, and most sins are atoned for not only in the next world, but also in this. “The wages of sin is death.” There are many forms of death by which such sins are atoned for, and one of them is the death of that true happiness, built on the love of God and obedience to His law, that is looked for in marriage.

This religious truth is forcefully confirmed by experience. We recall a statement made by the head of a modern marriage problem clinic, who professed no particularly strong religious convictions.

He said that his experience with the problems of married people forced on him the conclusion that not one in a thousand marriages that had been preceded by sex indulgence turned out to be really happy; none turned out to be as happy as marriage should be.

It stands to reason that this should be so; the law of chastity is so deeply engraved in the conscience that it cannot be violated without major repercussions on the whole personality, nor without spoiling the whole relationship of marriage.

Marriages do suffer, sometimes, from ignorance on the part of husband or wife.

Even before marriage, all ignorance about marriage should be removed by proper instruction. But sin is never a good or  prudent preparation for anything.

Second Marriage

Problem

I am a widow, thirty-one years old, with two children. Before my husband died two years ago I promised him that I would never marry again.

I did that of my own accord because I loved him so much and we had been so happy together. He never asked me to make the promise, and only smiled when I did so.

Now in the past few months I have been going out with a single man of 35, and I already know that if I continue to go with him, he will ask me to marry him.

I want to keep my promise to my husband because I feel bound by it, but at the same time I find it awfully difficult to think of giving up this new friendship. Can you advise me?

 Solution

There are two things to be considered in solving this problem for yourself. The first one is this, that if you were unequivocally determined to carry out your promise and to remain single, it would be obligatory upon you not to enter into company-keeping at all.

The reason is that you would be in danger of falling into serious sin if, on the one hand, you were prepared to resist all inclinations and invitations to marry again, and at the same time you were making it possible for yourself to fall deeply in love.

It has been said here frequently that regular company-keeping is lawful only if there be a possibility of its ending in lawful marriage.

If you yourself exclude the possibility of marriage from your future, you must go the whole way and exclude regular company-keeping as well.

If you do not, you shall suffer mentally, physically, and probably morally.

The second thing to be considered is the fact that adherence to your promise, under the changed circumstances of the present, may prove to be very foolhardy and imprudent, because of your relative youth and evident inclination toward male companionship.

Unless you are motivated by deep spiritual principles, fortified by strong spiritual habits, and are willing to live a more or less secluded life for the love of God and for the sake of your children, the next ten years may be very difficult ones for you, unless you accept an invitation to marry again.

If you are a Catholic, the best thing to do is to lay your case before a confessor and permit him to decide for you.

After questioning your motives and studying your character for a while, be will be able to tell you whether you may be freed from the promise you made, and whether to marry again may not be the will of God for you.

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Penal rosaries and crucifixes have a wonderful story behind them. They were used during the times when religious objects were forbidden and it was illegal to be Catholic. Being caught with a rosary could mean imprisonment or worse. A penal rosary is a single decade with the crucifix on one end and, oftentimes, a ring on the other. When praying the penal rosary you would start with the ring on your thumb and the beads and crucifix of the rosary in your sleeve, as you moved on to the next decade you moved the ring to your next finger and so on and so forth. This allowed people to pray the rosary without the fear of being detected. Available here.

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Sin or Virtue doesn’t change. These articles are timeless…..

Is Mixed Company-Keeping a Mortal Sin?

 Problem

I am a Catholic nineteen year old and have a non-Catholic boy-friend whom I like very much. Recently my father told me that I must give this boy up because it is a mortal sin for a Catholic to keep steady company with a non-Catholic.

I am sure that this cannot be true because if it is there are surely hundreds of Catholics committing this mortal sin.

My father reads The Liguorian and I beg you to write the truth about this question so that he will understand.

 Solution

Your father is considerably nearer the truth than the many young Catholics who are endangering their happiness and their souls by mixed company-keeping, even though there are some distinctions to be made in the matter.

Your father no doubt bases his statements on a principle that is clearly set down in the Canon Law of the Catholic Church, according to which Catholics are seriously forbidden to enter into mixed marriages.

The law goes on to state that this prohibition arises from the divine law whenever there is danger of loss or lessening of the faith of the Catholic, whenever there is danger that the children of such a marriage will be deprived of a full Catholic upbringing, and whenever there is danger of scandal or weakening of the faith of others. (Experience proves that in most mixed marriages some of these dangers are to be found.)

But even apart from these dangers which one may not deliberately encounter without breaking the divine law, mixed marriages are forbidden to Catholics by the universal ecclesiastical law.

Since mixed marriage itself is thus forbidden, the conclusion can surely be drawn that, since company-keeping is only lawful when it may be a preparation for a good marriage, mixed company-keeping is unlawful for Catholics.

There may be exceptions to this general rule, but the exceptions can be based only on definite reasons for which the Church grants dispensations for Catholics to marry non-Catholics.

Some of the exceptions would be based on the following circumstances:

1) If a Catholic lives in an area in which there are very few Catholics, so that there is little chance of marriage except with a non-Catholic.

2) If a Catholic is well past the ordinary years in which marriage is thought about, and thus has greatly lessened chances of finding a partner for marriage.

3) If a Catholic starts going with a non-Catholic who almost at once shows a sincere interest in the Catholic faith and thus gives solid hope that he (or she) will become a Catholic, preferably before marriage or even engagement.

In any case the company-keeping is forbidden if there is obvious danger to the faith or morals or future children of the Catholic.

As a girl of nineteen, living in a city with a large Catholic population, you cannot defend your mixed company-keeping on either of the first two counts.

If you are on the sure way to making your boy-friend a Catholic, you need only convince your father of that and all will be well.

Wrong Company-Keeping

 Problem

If you are in love and cannot possibly marry for a number of years, is it better to give up the person you love or to continue keeping company in the hope of eventual marriage? My case is this. I got married during the first World War, and a few years later my wife ran away and divorced me.

Now I have met a girl who, I believe, would make an excellent wife. I want to be married as a good Catholic, by a priest, but have been told I cannot because my first wife is still alive.

I am 42 years old. I am still determined to be married only by a priest. The girl wants to wait until I am free.

Should we continue to keep company until something happens to make it possible for us to be married. or should we separate?

 Solution

There is a principle of Christian ethics that must be applied directly to your case. The principle is this: Only they are permitted to keep close and continuous company who are free to marry within a reasonable and foreseeable time.

The reason for this is that company-keeping between a man and woman who are attracted to each other ordinarily becomes a greater and greater danger to their souls the longer it goes on.

It is intended by nature to lead, not to sin, but to marriage. If it cannot lead to marriage, as in your case, it will almost surely lead to sin of one kind or another.

You are not permitted to risk so great a danger when you can escape it by giving up the company-keeping.

Having a lawful wife, even though divorced, you are not free to marry within a reasonable or foreseeable time, and therefore, the security of your soul demands that you forego company-keeping till such time as you are free to marry again.

A second reason why you should not continue to keep company with the girl is that, despite her expressed willingness to wait for you, you are doing her an injustice by limiting her freedom to go out with someone whom she could marry.

It is also a sin of scandal to keep her in the circumstances that can so easily lead to sin, and of bad example to others in the same situation as you are.

It must be remembered that the evil of adulterous thoughts, intentions and actions is not changed by the fact that a married man does not happen to be living with his wife.

His marriage vow binds him till death breaks it, and in the meantime he may not think of another marriage or those things that led to marriage.

Sinful Company-Keeping

 Problem

I cannot see the justice of your statement that company-keeping is lawful only when there is some prospect and intention of marrying.

I have a boy friend with whom I have been keeping company for ten years.

Neither of us cares to get married. He does not want to be tied down to marriage and I do not want to give up my job because I have no taste for house work or bearing children.

I suppose I should admit that we fall into sin now and then, but we always go to confession afterward.

Certainly we have a right to each other’s companionship even though we do not plan on ever getting married.

 Solution

I am afraid I must be blunt in contradicting you. Under the circumstances you describe you have no moral right to keep company.

Two things make it sinful.

The first is the fact that you have actually excluded the prospect of marriage from that which is lawful only as a possible preparation for marriage.

The second thing only multiplies the guilt you incur under the first head; it is the fact that your company-keeping has become an occasion of habitual sin.

It is practically certain, moreover, that your confessions are bad, because a confession cannot be good unless there be sincere and practical sorrow for sins confessed.

Such sorrow is impossible unless there be a determination to give up unnecessary occasions of sin.

It is obvious that when you confess the sins committed with your boy friend you have no intention of giving up the unnecessary occasion of those sins, which is keeping steady company with the deliberate intention of never marrying.

It is one of the moral monstrosities of our day that there are people who keep company for years, take to themselves the pleasures that are lawful only in marriage, and yet exclude marriage and its responsibilities from their thoughts and intentions.

That it is a monstrosity is evident in the fact that your own conscience has become so dull to so fundamental a moral principle.

I beg you to pray hard for light and courage to see and do what is right; to talk things over with your boy friend, and then, for the sake of your immortal soul, to decide to give up company-keeping or to plan on marriage soon.

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On Blind Dates

 Problem:

What is your opinion of blind dates? My parents refuse to let me go out with anybody unless I know something about him beforehand. Some of my girl friends can go out with anybody, whether they know the person or not. And often they call me up and tell me they have a date for me, but I’m never allowed to go out on such parties. How is a girl ever going to meet someone she might have a chance to marry, if she can never get acquainted with new people?

 Solution:

Experience proves that there is a great deal of danger in blind dates, and that there is much wisdom in the policy pursued by your parents.

In these times it is difficult enough for a girl to avoid dangerous and sometimes morally fatal entanglements even when she does not take chances on dating with unknown and possibly designing characters.

You should be aware of some of the dangers that have always been found to be connected with accepting blind dates.

The utter freedom that is permitted to your girl friends by their parents makes it very possible that the source of their contacts with strangers may be suspect. They probably meet such men hanging around taverns, or public dance halls, or cocktail bars.

This does not infallibly mean that the men they meet are bad, but the chances are high enough to render it foolhardy for a girl to rush out to spend an evening with one of them.

Oftentimes such men are already married, are in town for a few days, and are looking for girl companions with whom they can have what they call “a good time”.

And it is not uncommon for such to lie about their marital status when looking for girls to take out in a strange city. Often, too, they are divorced men, or men who have made their own home life unhappy, who frequent the taverns in quest of consolation or excitement through chance contacts with girls who don’t care much what they do.

There are some blind dates that are not especially dangerous, and I am sure that your parents would recognize such. If a reputable friend, from a good family, has out-of-town relatives to entertain, about whose background she knows something, it would not be too imprudent to accept a date with one of them and to make one of a party for the evening.

The one thing that is important is that a girl have some positive knowledge that she is not going out with a married man, a divorced man, or an unprincipled man. She cannot know that if she accepts stone-blind dates with strangers.

On Exclusive Dates

 Problem:

I am 17 years old, just graduated from high school., and in my first year at college. I don’t want to get married until I am at least 20, if then.

I would like to go out with different boys now and then, but I don’t want to be tied down to steady company-keeping. This seems to be all but impossible today.

If I am seen at a party with a certain young man, no one else will ask me for a date unless it becomes publicly known that I have broken up with that particular boy.

In other words, if you go out once or twice with a certain boy, everybody else seems to think you are already bound to that person for good. Do I have to either give up dating boys entirely, or else stick to one during my whole college career?

 Solution:

We have heard complaints about this unfortunate social condition repeatedly. It is not a healthy thing at all. It is even responsible for some unhappy marriages because the young people involved had little chance to become acquainted with anybody but the first partner they happened to take out.

The responsibility for this situation may be traced to the fact that there is so much exclusive dating and regular company-keeping among the very young, even in the early years of high school.

Some school authorities and even parents seem to think nothing of permitting freshmen and sophomore high school students to have their “steady dates.”

Since that is so common, it is natural that many young people should feel that by the time a person reaches college, he or she must have a “steady”, or must want to make a “steady” of the first partner that comes along.

If you really are serious about not wanting to get married for several years, and about making the most of your chance at education, the best thing by all odds would be to do very little dating.

If you go out often, even with different persons, you may find yourself in love before you know it, no matter what different plans you have laid.

Giving up dates, which should not be too difficult for a 17 year old freshman, would obviate all your worries about people taking it for granted that you are all but engaged when you go out with a boy.

Should Engaged Girls Accept Dates?

 Problem:

I am engaged to be married to a good Catholic girl and she has accepted my ring. However I am signed up for three years in the Navy and will be away from home most of the time. Now my fiancee has asked my permission to accept dates with other men for special parties, dances, etc., while I am gone. I don’t like the idea at all, but would like to know what you think of it, and whether I should grant the permission.

 Solution:

There is something in your girl’s favor in the fact that she asks you for the permission at all.The world is full of scatterbrained, disloyal, unprincipled girls who would not even think of asking their fiance about such a matter at all.

They just go ahead accepting dates, in the absence of their fiance, with anybody who comes along.

You may thank God you are not engaged to one of these.There is something against your girl’s character, however, in the fact that she should want such a permission.

Good Catholic girls, of whom there are many in the world, simply would not think of doing any dating with others once they have been definitely engaged. They realize that dating is for those who are free to marry; that it is always a danger, even in the best of circumstances; that it can lead to many complications for a girl who has already promised her hand and heart to a certain man.

To the girl of high character, therefore, it is no problem and not too great sacrifice to accept no dates while her fiance is absent. Only the most extraordinary circumstances, such as would readily be understood by her partner, should make for an exception to this rule.

Of course, the expectation of a boy that his fiancee will not accept dates must be accompanied by the promise that he will do no dating either. If the boy intends to date while he is away from home, or if he finds the opportunities to do so irresistible, he should be consistent and not merely give the girl permission to date other boys, but actually call the whole engagement off.

Strictly speaking, we can say that engagement means that two people say to each other: “We are all through dating-except with each other.”

Waiting for a Proposal

 Problem:

I am 27 years old and have been going with the same man for four years. He has never done any serious talking about our getting married, and yet he resents it very much if I even think of going out with anybody but himself.

He leaves me with the impression that some day he will talk about marriage but at the same time that that day will not be for a long time.

I do not see any serious obstacles to his settling down, but am at a loss to know whether I should wait for him to get good and ready to speak about marriage or give him up. Can you advise me?

 Solution:

This is far too common a problem in the world today, even among Catholics. Let me tell you frankly a hidden factor that is often present in the problem, though it would be very wrong to assume that this factor is present in yours.

Very often experience proves that dilly-dallying with the idea of marriage on the part of a man is due to the fact that he has managed to induce a girl-friend into a more or less continuous habit of sin, with the effect that he is sinfully living as if he were married and yet retaining his independence and freedom from lasting responsibility.

As time goes on, he becomes more and more enamored with his state, entirely content to indulge in forbidden privileges and to put off any serious idea of marriage.

This, of course, represents the acme of selfishness and evil, but all sin is selfishness, and selfishness grows incredibly with frequently repeated sins.

Apart from this angle, which always demands as a first and elementary condition of solving the problem the complete renunciation of sin on the part of the girl, there may be obstacles to marriage in the mind of the man that must be overcome.

He may think he has not enough money, or that he has not a good enough job, or that he owes it to his parents not to leave them for a long time to come.

A girl has a right, after going with a man for even less than four years, to draw such objections out into the open and to insist on their being discussed freely.

She is in a good position if she finds her friend jealous of her companionship, and should use any expression of this as an occasion for discussing the future.

If he refuses to be definite about plans for the future, the odds are that he won’t ever want to get married. In that case it would be good to drop him.

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From Questions Young People Ask Before Marriage, Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R., 1950’s

Can Love Be Acquired?

 Problem:

For several years I have wanted to get married and have a home of my own. Now at last a man of good character has asked me to marry him, but I do not feel that I am in love with him.

Yet I am afraid that if I do not accept him, I won’t have another chance to marry. Tell me, is it possible to fall in love with a man after you have married him? Or is it possible to have a happy marriage without being very much in love with your partner?

 Solution:

The answer to this question depends entirely on the character, training and spiritual maturity of the girl involved. If a girl has a false, movie-inspired ideal of the glamour and excitement of being wildly in love, if she is of the immature type that day-dreams of being swept off her feet by love, there is reason to fear that she would be dissatisfied with a marriage in which her feelings were more or less commonplace.

It is very probable that the lack of romantic feeling on her part, in conjunction with the ordinary disillusionments that arise in married life, would make her think she had been cheated out of something.

She would still be foolishly day-dreaming of romance after marriage.

However, it may be remarked that a girl with excessively romantic ideas about love is usually a poor bet for happiness in any marriage.

But for a girl who is well aware that the movies, romantic novels, and love story magazines present a false picture of the importance of being madly in love, for one who knows how often marriages built on this kind of love collapse after a short time, for one who has learned to make her feelings subordinate to her will, there can be a very happy and successful marriage without the wild kind of romantic love.

History is full of examples of such. If a girl wants to marry, and knows what marriage entails, and has character enough to do her part to make her marriage happy, come what may, she is an excellent prospect for a successful marriage to a man whom she respects, and whose principles are as high as her own.

We make only one reservation. A girl should not marry a man for whom she feels some real dislike or antipathy. The intimacy of married life intensifies such dislikes or antipathies if they are present from the beginning.

We are speaking above of the case in which there is a real liking for a man, community of interests, union in principles, and readiness to do God’s will, no matter what it demands. If what the world calls romantic love is not present, in such a case, it will not matter too greatly.

When Is Kissing a Sin?

 Problem:

Is kissing a sin?

 Solution:

Almost wherever there are young people who go out on dates, this question is posed to those who take an interest in their welfare both spiritual and temporal. It is obvious that the customs and fashions of the world in which they live have made it a serious problem that must be faced.

In answering it, we shall consider the moral angle first, and then add considerations of prudence and common sense. There are two different kinds of kissing that can be referred to in the question.

The first is the ordinary kiss of greeting and farewell, the kiss that people are not ashamed to give in public or in the presence of others, the kind of kiss exchanged between a mother and son, brother and sister, relative and relative.

It is a salutation, a symbol, a sign of love and respect for a person to whom one is bound by the more sacred ties of human relationship. Clearly this kind of kissing is not sinful, not sinful even between a boy and girl in love.

Usually when this much has been explained, young people answer rather scornfully: “Oh, we don’t mean that kind of kissing.”

Or they will cry out with still greater scorn: “How can you expect us to kiss like a brother and sister if we are in love?” This is very revealing.

It means that what such young people have in mind when they ask “Is kissing a sin?” is not the mere symbol or salutation of affection, but something inspired by and bound up in some way with passion.

They are referring to close and protracted embraces; the kisses that gratify, in some way, the yearning for bodily union with another that can lawfully be fulfilled only in marriage. Sometimes they do not realize that this is the origin of their desire for protracted kissing experiences, but the fact remains that it is just that, and in many cases it leads them straight into the great sins that beforehand they would have said they abhorred.

That is why such kissing, prolonged, passionate, exciting, is a sin in itself. It is a sin in so far as it springs from and leads to indulgence in sinful passion.

On the prudential side, even the kisses that are merely symbols of affection should not be made common, cheap and promiscuous. Kisses should be reserved for the more strong and sacred relationships in life. The boy and girl who make them cheap will almost invariably cheapen even nobler and more important things.

To Kiss or Not to Kiss?

 Problem:

Most boys expect to be permitted to kiss a girl at least after one or two dates. Is it permissible or advisable to go along with their wishes? Some girls with whom I have talked say that if you don’t permit it you will lose every boy-friend.

 Solution:

Let’s bring this question down to some fundamental principles and reasoning, leaving out of consideration for the moment whether “most boys expect it” or “all girls advise it.” Little of value for one’s happiness is ever learned from what “everybody happens to be doing.”

The purpose of dates between marriageable young people is that they may become acquainted with each other’s characters and so find out whether, when the question comes up as it should eventually, there is a good chance of their being happily married.

Let it be noted that the purpose of dates is not primarily and exclusively “a good time”-with no further implications. Of course, every boy and girl want to have a good time on a date, but this should be subjected, in their minds, to the more serious purposes that justify company-keeping and its dangers.

It is because so many young people think of dating as just a means of “having a good time” that so many fall into sin on their dates. A decent boy and girl will never think of a good time as permitting anything contrary to God’s law; nor will they be unmindful that on their dates they are making a test of each other.

Passionate kissing, it has been shown in this column, is forbidden to unmarried people. There are different kinds of kissing, and the above problem can only be considered as pertaining to that kind which is not gravely sinful.

There is no question about the other. Even that, however, we say, indulged in on a first or second or third date, is a serious obstacle to the fulfillment of the purpose of company-keeping.

Kissing, even though it be quite modest, stimulates physical attraction to another. In proportion as it does so, it lessens the ability of intelligence to judge the fitness of a companion for marriage.

Many a girl who permitted a boy to kiss her on short acquaintance has been swept into marriage by her feelings, only to find that he was anything but the person to make her happy.

Many a girl who permitted kissing to a near stranger has been swept into sin and into a forced marriage.

The above principles are so true that even if all boys expected a girl to consent to kissing, and all girls advised it, (which is not true), they should still be followed by an intelligent, self-respecting, God-fearing girl.

Following them is the only known way of finding an intelligent, self-respecting, virtuous boy for a partner in marriage.

Little Lady’s Charming Crocheted Garden Party/Church-Going Hats!

Your little special lady will look charming in this beautiful handcrafted Crocheted Hat! Every flower, petal and bow is hand made with care. The unique combination of colors will add the final touch of elegance to your little girls outfit! Available here.

For great books for the young people, visit My Book List for the Youth!

 

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SavWith his facile pen and from the wealth of his nation-wide experience, the well-known author treats anything and everything that might be included under the heading of home education: the pre-marriage training of prospective parents, the problems of the pre-school days down through the years of adolescence. No topic is neglected. “What is most praiseworthy is Fr. Lord’s insistence throughout that no educational agency can supplant the work that must be done by parents.” – Felix M. Kirsch, O.F.M.

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Necessary advice to Catholic parents building a Catholic home. Reliable advice that is almost completely lost today, from people who know how it’s done. How to make it. How to live it. How to keep it. This book covers every aspect of Catholicizing your home–from spiritual matters like prayer and catechism to nuts and bolts topics like Keeping the Family Budget, Games and Toys, Harmony between School and Home, Family Prayers, Good Reading in the Home, Necessity of Home Life and much more

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Questions Young People Ask Before Marriageby Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

Does Religion Matter in Marriage?

Problem:

I am keeping company with a non-Catholic boy, and cannot understand why everybody is making a fuss about it. He is better morally than many a Catholic boy I have gone out with. He says he’s not interested in my religion, nor in any religion, but he is perfectly respectful toward what I believe.

I like him and he likes me, and we have talked informally about getting married. And no matter what anyone says, I feel certain that ours would be a happy marriage. Wouldn’t you agree that a man’s character, his respect, his love for a girl, are more important than religion?

I am 21 years old, old enough, I think, to judge these things.

Solution:

A 21 year old girl is far from being a capable judge of what makes a happy marriage from all the angles that must be considered in this matter. There are two phases to marriage. The first is the phase of love, courtship, physical and mental attraction, etc.

In this phase, nothing seems important to young people other than their sentiments and emotions toward each other. They have no way of knowing what they will feel like ten years later, and no way of knowing what moral and personal problems will arise in the course of time.

The second phase of marriage starts within a year or two years or five years after the wedding, when sentiment and emotion have simmered down, and the couple have to rely on a deeper sense of unity than feeling.

Only the experience of older people can tell youngsters just getting married what problems will arise after this second phase has set in. Perhaps by that time there are two or three children.

The non-Catholic husband believes that birth-control is now called for. The Catholic wife knows that it is wrong. She will do one of two things: either compromise her conscience and give in to evil; or keep up a running battle with him over this serious moral issue.

Either course means friction and sorrow. This one example is symbolic of a hundred impasses that can arise, and that have arisen in multitudes of marriages.

Above all, the 21 year old girl who sees no harm in marrying a man who has no interest in religion is potentially forfeiting the faith of her potential children. She may do everything possible herself to mold her children in her faith; yet the example of her husband will be a standing and powerful example against her teaching.

Doubtful Freedom to Marry

Problem:

I am keeping company with a man who was married before and is now divorced. At the time of his marriage and divorce he was not a Catholic, but now he wants to become one. We feel that there may be hope of having his first marriage declared invalid. Is it wrong to go out with such a person, in the hope that we may get married in the Church some day?

Solution:

Clear thinking and firm action are required in all cases of this kind, which are not few in number today.

Here are the principles that must govern your whole attitude in this matter.

1. It is wrong to continue close company-keeping with a man whose freedom to marry you is in doubt. The reason is this: company-keeping can lead to love – a love so strong that eventually you might find yourself not caring whether your friend is free to marry or not, and willing to pretend marriage to him even at the cost of your immortal soul.

Or, if you retain faith and courage enough to resist an attempted marriage, it will very probably lead you into serious and frequent sin.

2. Therefore, as soon as you learn that a man who seeks your company has been married and divorced, you are bound at once to find out certainly whether there are solid grounds for his being declared free to marry by the Catholic Church.

You may not dawdle along with your company-keeping on the probability that he might be declared free, or with a doubt in your mind about his freedom.

By so doing you would be throwing yourself into an occasion of casting aside your faith, your soul, and heaven. That is why you must get all the facts about his previous marriage and go to a priest at once and find out whether the facts warrant the assumption that you can validly marry him in the future.

3. A Catholic girl who is being courted by a divorced man must, as she loves God and desires to save her soul, bolster her will to a complete readiness to give him up immediately if she learns that there is little or no chance of marrying him validly.

This is another reason why she is bound to get the facts, and a priest’s judgment about the facts, early in her acquaintanceship with him. The earlier she ascertains his standing as to marriage, the easier it will be to give him up if that proves necessary.

It is difficult to be sympathetic with Catholic girls who have kept company with a divorced man for a year or two, fallen deeply in love, and who then come to a priest begging that he do something to help them get married. The investigation should have been made at the very start of the friendship and a decision made then.

In Love With a Divorced Man

Problem:

In the April issue of last year you stated that a Catholic girl is obliged to find out as quickly as possible whether a man who asks her for dates is free to marry. That statement made me angry. Find out! Great! But how?

Three years ago I met a very nice young man. The second time I saw him, he told me he had been married and divorced. I discovered that I liked him very much, so I went to our pastor to see whether the man could be declared free to marry me. He took instructions and has become a Catholic.

Since then (three years ago), though we have filled out innumerable papers, no decision has been given by the Church. Surely this is no fault of ours. The Church preaches against the danger of long courtships and then leaves us right in the midst of that danger.

And the idea that the final answer to our petition may be “No” leaves me panic-stricken. What am I to do? We both have gone through much sorrow and trouble before we met, and we wonder why we are not entitled to a little happiness.

Solution:

This is going to hurt, but it should be like the hurt of a necessary operation. When I said that a girl should find out whether a man who wants to keep company with her is free to marry, I neither said nor implied that all she has to do, in the case of going with a divorced man, is to drop the problem in a priest’s lap; that she might then let herself become deeply involved and practically committed to marriage.

When I said “find out whether a divorced man is, for some valid reason, free to marry” I meant “get the answer to the question,” not merely present the question to a priest and act as if it’s all settled in your favor.

This is a matter on which too many Catholics need instruction and frequent reminders. The Catholic Church presumes every marriage to be a valid marriage unless objective proof is available that it was invalid.

The Church is the protector of the marriage bond. Her whole history and organization have been geared to uphold the indissolubility of marriage. She will not be rushed into declaring a marriage invalid so that the person involved can marry again if the evidence for invalidity is not compelling.

Cases run on for years just because such evidence is lacking. Your argument that, because you have suffered a great deal, you are now entitled to some happiness, has nothing to do with the case.

The Church was founded by Christ to lead you to the happiness of heaven, and to fortify you for suffering loneliness, hardships, even martyrdom in behalf of that goal.

Sure, she wants you also to have as much happiness as possible in this world, but only within the framework of obedience to God’s laws. She has no power to set aside or treat lightly those laws for the sake of your temporal happiness.

“The many troubles in your household will tend to your edification, if you strive to bear them all in gentleness, patience, and kindness. Keep this ever before you, and remember constantly that God’s loving eyes are upon you amid all these little worries and vexations, watching whether you take them as He would desire. Offer up all such occasions to Him, and if sometimes you are put out, and give way to impatience, do not be discouraged, but make haste to regain your lost composure.”
― St. Francis de Sales

❤️🌹Our first line of defense is the bond we must have with our husband. Besides our spiritual life, which gives us the grace to do so, we must put our relationship with our husband first. It is something we work on each day.

How do we do this? Many times it is just by a tweaking of the attitude, seeing things from a different perspective. It is by practicing the virtues….self-sacrifice, submission, thankfulness, kindness, graciousness, etc.

The articles in this maglet will help you with these things. They are written by authors that are solid Catholics, as well as authors with old-fashioned values….
Available here.
Pkg Deal on Catholic Wife’s Maglet and Catholic Young Lady’s Maglet here.

I have prepared this Lenten journal to help you to keep on track. It is to assist you in keeping focused on making Lent a special time for your family. We do not have to do great things to influence those little people. No, we must do the small things in a great way…with love and consistency…

Timeless words from the pen of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen inspire the heart and imagination as readers embark on a Lenten journey toward a better understanding of their spiritual selves. Covering the traditional themes of Lent–sin and salvation, death and Resurrection, sorrow and hope, ashes and lilies–these 50 passages and accompanying mini-prayers offer readers a practical spiritual program as a retreat from the cares and concerns of a secular world view.
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