Category Archives: Youth

High School and Secret Company-Keeping ~ 1955, Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

22 Wednesday Mar 2023

Posted by in Questions Young People Ask Before Marriage, Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R., 1955, Youth, Youth/Courtship

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Too Young to Keep Company?

 Problem:

I am 14 years old, a sophomore in high school, and I have a boy friend who is 16. We go out together twice a week, sometimes more often. My mother tells me I’m too young to be keeping company like that, but all the kids are doing it. I can’t see that there is anything wrong with it. Is there?

 Solution:

Our answer to the above question must be directed chiefly to 14, 15, and 16 year-old high school girls who have not yet gone in for company keeping. (There are many such, despite our correspondent’s statement about “all the kids.”)

It is our sad experience that there is little use in talking to very young girls who already have their “steady” boy friends.

Keeping company makes them feel wise beyond their years. Because they are acting as if they were adults by this practice, they usually feel that they have a right to talk back to adults who tell them it is unwise, dangerous, and harmful to their later lives.

We hope our correspondent is an exception, though the way she tosses aside her mother’s advice would indicate otherwise.

Steady company keeping is only for those who have a right to think about marrying within a reasonable time; who are free from responsibilities that company keeping would interfere with; and who are mature enough to recognize and resist the dangers that go with company keeping.

A 14 or 15 year-old girl in high school fulfills none of these conditions. She shouldn’t and ordinarily doesn’t want to think of getting married for a good number of years.

She should be occupied with the business of getting an education, and nothing can so thoroughly nullify her efforts in that regard as the excitement of puppy love and the time wasted on frequent dates.

Above all, she is too young to be aware of the danger of sin that is inherent in her own nature and that may be presented by her equally immature boy friend in the close associations of adolescent company keeping.

There is great need of a corps of young people of high school age who will resist the all too common practice of regular dating and steady company keeping.

Such young people must be humble enough to realize that their elders are not talking through their hats nor adopting the roll of kill-joys when they advise against the practice. They must know that while again America makes light of it, true Christian principle condemns it. 

Secret Company-keeping

 Problem:

Is it wrong to continue to see a certain boy secretly when your parents have forbidden you to go out with him?

I am 21 years old and my father is quite wealthy. The boy I have been going with comes from an ordinary family and he is working his way through business college, hoping to obtain a good job when he finishes.

My mother and father argue that he will probably never be able to provide for me as they have done all my life so far. That is why they have forbidden me to see him.

But I think I am in love with him, and I don’t care if we do have to live on a small income after he graduates.

Of course I wouldn’t marry him until then, but if I don’t see him in the meantime once in a while I shall probably lose him.

I’ve been having lunch with him now and then when I’ve gone shopping, and I want to continue to do so.

 Solution:

Even though you are 21, with some right to decide your own vocation, there is a presumption in favor of the wisdom of your parents’ requests and commands.

That presumption will yield only to clear indications that they are unreasonably interfering with the happiness of your future and the will of God for you.

On the side of the wisdom of your parents is the fact that ordinarily it is not easy for a girl who has had all the conveniences and luxuries that wealth can provide to adjust her mode of living to a much lower standard.

Nor, ordinarily, can a girl be very happy if, in order to marry, she has had to incur the displeasure and lasting opposition of her family, especially if she has had a pleasant and easy life with her family.

Only if a girl has a strong, spiritual character, a proven capacity for mortification and sacrifice, and a great earnestness about her task in life, should she consider a marriage that will mean giving up much that she is accustomed to.

Since it is pretty hard for you to judge whether you have all these qualities, I suggest that you obey your parents to this extent: tell the boy of your parents’ wishes and commands; tell him that in obedience to them you will not see him for three months; during the three months test yourself, by rather rigorous mortification, to learn how many of the luxuries of your home you can do without; and at the same time try to convince your parents, in all kindness, that they should permit you to see the boy at least once in a while, on condition that you will make no decision to marry him without talking it over thoroughly with them.

High School Company-Keeping

 Problem:

I am 16 years old, and in my last year of high school.

My parents permit me to go out with boys only once a week, and then they insist that I go out in the company of my older brother.

All the other girls of my age have dates as often as they like, and I feel that I am old enough to go out like that too. I know the dangers of going out, but I feel that I have to face them sometime. Don’t you think my parents are too strict?

 Solution:

The chief reason you give for demanding that your parents permit you to go out freely, viz., because other parents let their daughters have all the dates they like, is not a good one.

I realize that it makes a young girl like yourself feel persecuted when she cannot do what other girls are permitted to do; at the same time, you must remember that if your parents were content just to follow the example of  other parents, they could let you find your way into all kinds of trouble.

There are too many weak and foolish parents in the world today; too many whose example would be the worst possible thing for your  parents to follow.

Your question is, then, apart from what the other girls are permitted to do, this: Should a high schoolgirl of 16 be permitted to go out with a boy (or boys) more than once a week, and should she be permitted to do so without having a protective older brother tagging along?

To the first part of the question I would say that once a week is a generous quota of dates for a high school girl who wants to get some lasting good out of her high school studies.

If you go out two or three times a week, it is almost certain that you won’t do very well in your studies, and never in your whole life will you be able to make up for that. Furthermore, I would say that it would be very imprudent for you to go out even as often as once a week if it were always with the same boy.

That would add greatly to the danger of sin and to the wasting of time in high school. I know you will tell me that there are dozens of girls who do this, and I will answer that by telling you that there are dozens of high school girls who fall into sin and wreck their characters and waste their education by steady company-keeping.

As to having your older brother with you on your dates, there is much to commend this safeguard.

High school girls and boys are best off in crowds or, at least, groups of four or six.

When young people insist on their right to be alone with their dates, there is a suspicion that they want to be free to do things that are wrong, such as kissing, petting, etc.

Your parents are pretty wise, but I feel sure that if you convince them that you are not going to permit any evil actions by any boy, they will let you go out once in awhile on your own.

The Agony

“Do not interfere with this innocent man.”
While Jesus was in torments in Gethsemani, Pilate’s wife, asleep in her palace, had a dream. She saw Jesus, and learned that He was altogether sinless; and she saw herself suffering much on account of Him.
Claudia Procla spent a restless morning; and her anxiety became acute when she heard that Jesus of Nazareth was on trial for His life before her husband. Immediately she sent a message to Pilate: “This Man is innocent; let Him be.”
Pilate knew Christ was guiltless, and his wife’s remarkable message proved it. Even so, he crucified Christ.
Such is the power I also have to oppose the grace of God. I should pray every day for the grace not to resist grace.

“Never be ashamed of your home or family because it is humble. People who look down on those whose home is humble and who lack social prominence are not worthy of the friendship of decent families. The most important things in life are character, honest work, humility, loyalty, friendliness, and love.” -Fr. Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook http://amzn.to/2p90Jjz (afflink)

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Visit My Book List for the Youth for some good reading material!

 

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Age Differences, Approval of Divorce, Drinking on Dates, Questions for Young People ~ Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

09 Thursday Mar 2023

Posted by in Questions Young People Ask Before Marriage, Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R., 1955, Youth, Youth/Courtship

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Age Differences for Marriage

Problem:

“Does ten years’ difference in age make happiness in marriage difficult? I am twenty years old and I have been going with a man who is thirty.
My parents are furious about this, saying that I cannot possibly be happy with a man so much older than myself.
He wants to marry me, and I am in love with him, but I am all confused because of my parents’ attitude.
They read The Liguorian like I do, and if you answer my question in it, maybe it will do some good. I know I will surely consider what you have to say.

Solution:

All other things being favorable to a happy marriage, ten years of difference in age, especially at your particular ages and when the man is the older person need not be an obstacle to your happiness in marriage.
We know of many happy marriages with as much and more difference in age between the man and the woman.

Note the condition, however, that all other things must be favorable to a happy marriage. Are you quite sure that the only objection your parents have to this marriage is based on age? I can think of some circumstances that could make the age difference important.

For example, if the man is not of your faith, I would be very slow to tell you that age makes no difference. You are young enough not to need to rush into this marriage as if it were your last chance; indeed, if the age difference were even less, I could give you many arguments against the possibility of happiness in such a marriage.

If this man is ten years older than you are, he will almost certainly be very uninclined to take seriously your religion, as you must want any prospective husband to take your religion seriously; he may even be inclined to dictate to you about religion.

If there were any evidence of such a possibility, and your parents may be able to see that better than you can, I know that any responsible Catholic would advise you against the marriage.
Another example: If your thirty year old friend has succeeded in drawing you into habits of sin, you have a very poor chance of happiness in marriage with him.

This would be a sign that he has grown to thirty without acquiring habits of virtue and self-control, and it is not likely that he will acquire these things after you marry him.

But if you are both Catholics, truly in love, and both eager to avoid sin and aware of the serious responsibilities of marriage, I would say that you may, with excellent prospects of happiness, think of marriage.
May this statement convince your parents of what their attitude should be.

Approval of Divorce Before Marriage

Problem:

“I am engaged to a non-Catholic man, and the other day he mentioned (for the first time) the fact that he believes in divorce.
He said that he did not expect our marriage ever to break up, but that he was convinced that when any marriage did not turn out to be happy, the persons should be allowed to separate and made free to try marriage with someone else.

As a Catholic, I know that true marriage has to be permanent, and that there can be no such thing as a valid marriage after a divorce.
My question is: Do you think I can take a chance on marrying a man with the views expressed above?”

Solution:

The chance you take in marrying such a man is very great.
As a matter of fact, if he were to apply his thought about divorce directly to your own marriage, and expressly to state that he was not entering into a permanent and indissoluble union, but into one that could be dissolved by divorce if and when he wished to have it dissolved, your very marriage would be invalid.
His very consent to marriage in that case would be vitiated.

However, if he did not expressly apply his approval of divorce to your marriage, but actually consented to take you as his wife “till death”, the marriage would be valid.
But it would still be one in which your chances of happiness and security would be very meager.
There is nothing more essential to happiness in marriage than an exclusion of even a theoretical approval of divorce.

The man who approves of divorce for unhappy marriages can, after a few years of married life, think of a hundred reasons for saying that his marriage is unhappy.
He can be attracted to a new face. He can rebel against the expense of raising his own children. He can accuse his wife of having faults he never knew of before marriage. He can get into a rage over some fancied grievance and stalk out of the house forever.

Also, a man who approves in general of divorce, will almost surely approve of other things (birth-control, for example) that are contrary to God’s laws and to the conscience of a Catholic.
My advice would, therefore, be that if you cannot succeed in changing his general attitude about divorce, you should not take a chance on marrying this man.

The natural law concerning divorce and remarriage, and concerning other crimes against marriage, is not too difficult to explain, and many non-Catholics accept the explanation and agree with it once it is given.
But if your boyfriend does not accept the explanation or refuses to agree with it, don’t take a chance with him.
It is the wife who pays most, in a marriage in which the husband has doubts about indissolubility.

On Drinking on Dates

Problem:

“I go around with a group of young people (we are all in our late teens), and most of them like to take a drink.
So far I have held out against this because my mother doesn’t want me to drink.
But my boyfriend, and the other couples we go with, keep urging me to join them. They say that they don’t over-do it, and that there is no danger of my over-doing it in their company.

They tell me that if I am afraid of it, I am just the one who may become an alcoholic some day.
What do you think of drinking on dates? Most of the time they drink beer, but sometimes one of the boys brings a pint of whiskey along when we go out together.”

Solution:

You could do nothing better than to continue to solve this problem for yourself on the basis of the wishes and commands of your mother.

Certainly, apart from everything else, you are right in thinking more of the importance of your mother’s wishes than of the arguments offered you by your drinking friends.
Apart from the angle of obedience, there is no doubt that it is exceedingly dangerous for teen-agers to drink on their dates.

First of all, because you are at an age when such stimulants to good feeling and a good time are least necessary.
If you acquire the habit of drinking now, when you could have such a wonderful time without it, you may find that a little later in life, when problems and responsibilities face you, you may not be able to get along without it.
It is not necessary to over-do drinking in your youth to become dependent on it. And the chances of your becoming an alcoholic are far greater if you drink in your teens than if you were to wait until you reached a greater degree of maturity.

It is also dangerous to make drinking a part of your dates because there is a definite connection between the effects of alcohol even in moderate quantities, and the relaxing of your moral convictions.
By usually going out with other couples, you are warding off some of the dangers that attend company-keeping. But you will not always go out with a group. If you drink with the group you will probably drink with your boy-friend when you are on a date alone with him.

On every date you need clear vision of good and evil and undeviating control of your will. Drink lessens both. It has been responsible for many a girl’s grief in the past.

Don’t let it hurt you, by not letting it touch you.

“Boys and girls must be taught as tiny tots to love modesty. Even though they are too young to sin, they can and ought to be impressed with the beauty of modesty. Training in modesty is pre-eminently the function of the home, to be begun from earliest childhood.” -Archbishop Meyer of Milwaukee, Dressing With Dignity, Colleen Hammond

At the end of the day, you need to first and foremost be patient with yourself….look back on the day and see the energy you DID EXPEND for your family….

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St. Benedict medals are used in many ways, but always as a protection against evil. Some people bury them in the foundations of new buildings to keep them free from evil influences, while others attach them to rosaries or hang them on the wall in their homes. But the most common way to use the St. Benedict medal is to wear it. The medal can be worn by itself or embedded in a crucifix.

Regardless of how it is used, the medal should always be blessed with the special St. Benedict blessing. While, in former times, only Benedictines could bless the medal, now any priest can.

Here, Baroness Maria Augusta Trapp tells in her own beautiful, simple words the extraordinary story of her romance with the baron, their escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and their life in America.

Now with photographs from the original edition.

Most people only know the young Maria from The Sound of Music; few realize that in subsequent years, as a pious wife and a seasoned Catholic mother, Maria gave herself unreservedly to keeping her family Catholic by observing in her home the many feasts of the Church’s liturgical year, with poems and prayers, food and fun, and so much more!

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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General Notions About Will-Training ~ Father E. Boyd Barrett, 1917

01 Wednesday Feb 2023

Posted by in Virtues, Youth

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by Father E. Boyd Barrett, 1917

Those who think of devoting themselves to body-training are not repelled by the knowledge that daily exercises, which demand a certain sacrifice of time, and a certain expenditure of effort, are called for.

It seems to them quite reasonable to pay the cost of what they buy. They are purchasers of well-developed muscles and finely shaped limbs, and they pay readily in daily portions the price, which is bodily exercise.

In like manner those who wish to train their memories are quite prepared to undertake certain tasks at certain times.

It would be strange if it were otherwise with those who desire to train their wills. Will-training is, of course, a gradual process, and in this it resembles body-training and memory-training.

Little by little the will is built up. Little by little it is developed and perfected and frees itself from taint and disease. It is a slow process, but a very sure process. It demands, needless to say, much time and much earnestness.

Over and above time and earnestness, will-training costs effort, and that means self-sacrifice. Indeed, it is true to say that will-training costs what we are least ready to pay, for the discipline of daily exercises means self-sacrifice. It is better to admit this at once, and not to pretend that a strong will can be bought with a check, or won with a smile.

Strange to say, in order to train the will, will is needed. Will is self-trained. Will works on itself and perfects itself. If it did not preexist in us, there would be nothing to perfect, and no source of strength wherewith to work. For the will is called on at every step in will-training.

It is the will which builds up the will by willing. Perhaps, for the moment, these words are not plain and clear, but presently they will become so.

In will-training no expenditure of effort is fruitless. All is banked for some future occasion. But more than this, we begin to draw interest at once on what we bank. Our will grows stronger gradually, and day by day we derive benefit from the exercises we have already accomplished.

This means very much, as the will enters into every action. Indeed, no faculty is so universal in its scope of activity as the will. From tying a boot-lace in the morning to switching off an electric lamp at night, the will enters into all we do.

The question will doubtless be asked, “Is it possible to train the will? If one is already advanced in age, is it still possible?” The answer is most decidedly in the affirmative. It is always possible to train, that is, to improve the will. No matter how weak and inefficient the will may have become, yet is it still possible to train it.

There is no doctrine held more tenaciously by sane psychologists than this doctrine of the possibility of restoring and rebuilding the will, even when things have gone very far.

Some wills, of course, seem more capable than others of reaching a high degree of perfection. Not many men could acquire the will-power to joke about death and suffering, like Sir Thomas More or St. Laurence, even when in the bands of executioners. But all men can increase the strength of their will, and can so far throw off lethargy and laziness of character as to become energetic and strenuous.

Having prefaced these observations about the need for time, and effort, and gradual development in will-training, it may be well to indicate an important distinction between “reform of character” and “increase of will-power.”

Many authors regard the “education of the will” as synonymous with self-perfection, self-culture, and the reform of character. As a result, in books which profess to deal with will-training, much is said about the passions, ideals, sensuality, habits, meditation, day-dreaming, idea-force, self-conquest and such topics, but little is said of the precise means of curing will-disease and of acquiring will-force.

Indeed, it would seem that the word will is taken in far too broad and too general a sense, and that reform of character is looked upon as quite the same thing as increase of will-power. Now this is certainly not so.

It is quite conceivable that a man should have a very strong will, and yet care very little for culture or for the observing of the moral law. And further, it is quite conceivable that a man should set himself to develop and train his will, and should succeed in so doing, without ever entertaining the idea of making himself a more noble or more ideal character.

Men train their memories without any reference to morality, and men may well train their wills without any reference to morality. Without doubt when will-strength is acquired, passion can more easily be controlled. Without doubt, too, it usually happens that virtue and true strength of will go hand in hand.

But this does not gainsay the fact that virtue and will-strength are two quite different things, and that books professedly written on the “education of the will” should not be almost exclusively devoted to the consideration of good habits and self-culture.

A book on will-training should be as closely devoted to will-exercises, will-hygiene, and will-phenomena, as a book on body-training should be devoted to body-exercises, body-hygiene, and muscular phenomena. The will, like the intellect, is now an instrument of good, and now of evil.

The strong will, still improving and growing stronger, may become more and more an instrument of evil. It may co-exist with vicious passions, gross lack of culture, deplorable habits, and an utter contempt for the conventions of life.

The will is an instrument, weak or powerful for good or evil, but only an instrument, although as our highest and noblest instrument it should be our object ever to perfect and raise it.

That it is important to have a strong will no one will deny. We all admire the man of strong will—he is more truly a man than other men. He has the power to master himself—to become “lord of himself” and sole ruler of his own forces.

He knows what he can do. He does what he sets himself to do. He wills to do what he does, and means what he wills. He knows his own mind, and puts his hand with confidence to do that on which he is resolved, neither over-impetuously nor over-indolently.

Lethargy has no hold on him, and he scorns to give way to impulse. Energetic and strenuous without being over-active, he is consistent and persevering. He is in earnest about his work, in beginning it, in continuing it, and in concluding it.

He goes not a step beyond, nor does he fall a step short, of the just limit of his purpose. He uses his powers with ease and with assurance. He seems, as it were, to have possession of his own will; to be free in his independence. He wills.

His body is like a machine which he uses to accomplish his ends. That machine is started without a hitch, is governed and regulated as to speed and direction most smoothly, and is pulled up without a jerk by his will.

No engine-driver can control a locomotive as he controls his body. He does not care, usually, about boasting, or bullying, or flattering. He is too strong for that. He is not over-anxious to display his force. He knows he has power and he does not care if others know it or not. Rather, perhaps, he is aware that others do know and feel it intuitively.

He does not display his will-force by clenching his fists, and grinding his teeth, and convulsively heaving his breast like the heroes of the cinema.

He is content to face his daily tasks with quiet assurance, and to carry out what his will wills.

“We must have a daily habit of prayer; it should be ingrained in us. Morning and Night Prayers, the Rosary and frequent lifting of the mind to God will help us to hear His Voice.The daily habit of prayer leads us to spiritual health. We are more ‘tuned in’ to know what God’s will is in our life, to desire it and to do it. By our habit of prayer we will experience the tranquility and happiness that comes from Him Who sees our efforts and loves us so much! He will give us the peace that passeth all understanding….” – Anne Joachim

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Two Titles  by Father Barrett:


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An Important Letter From Father To Son

17 Thursday Nov 2022

Posted by in Father's Role, Parenting, Virtues, Youth, Youth/Courtship

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An Important Letter From Father To Son

From Steering the Boy to a Happy Marriage, 1949

Dear Son:

This letter is very important, perhaps the most important I will ever write, and having been a stenographer, secretary, etc. I have written many. But this is from me to you—from father to son—my only son—and seemingly certain the only son I will ever have. If it should be that you have a son some day you will understand—the love of a father for his son.

So far, you have done very well and I am proud of you, and feel certain you will continue to be a credit to yourself, to your fine mother and sisters and to me. But fate, perhaps of my own making, has decreed that we are separated for a time and at this particular period of your life when I so much want to help you find the true guide for living.

I have in my pocket a slip of paper, already yellowed with age, on which I wrote the following: “Nov. 17, 1919 1:10 PM (Name) Took (mother) to hospital 1 :00 AM, 11, 17 19.” You are therefore 19 years 5 months old now, an age at which a boy needs the helpful guidance of his father.

Now that I am well and able, much more so than ever, I feel keenly my responsibility to you. Oh what I would give if I could have had guidance like this from my father when I was your age? My father died when I was only four and one-half years old—I don’t even remember him. Consequently I had no one to do this for me.

When I say that I don’t wish to reflect unkindly on my very good mother and sisters. They did more than their full duty to me.

If I had had such a letter, or personal instruction, and had faithfully followed it, it would have saved me untold misery and finally deep despair, to say nothing of the suffering and unhappiness that I caused many others. But if that had been the case perhaps you would never have been born, or at least you would have different parents—but I am getting into deep water here and had better throw out the life line.

So let’s take the situation as we find it, not as we would like to have it—always a good rule to start with on a job of work. But before joyfully entering the fray and accepting the challenge, and before I forget to mention it, I want to say that one of the many reasons why I so much wanted to see you at Easter was that I wanted to help you in the matter of your rupture.

I remember keenly how much concern mine gave me when I was near your age. You have arrived at or are approaching the period when sex begins to engage the thoughts of most young people. The right way to handle this natural condition is to make it an imperative MUST rule of conduct to obey the sixth commandment of God: “Thou shalt not com-mit adultery.”

This means to keep yourself morally clean in all respects just as the Boy Scout oath requires and which you have taken many times. There will be times when you are in the company of careless or weak companions when they will attempt to ridicule you into violating this commandment, and there even might occur a tempter in the way of a bad girl or woman of loose morals.

Or you might get the idea to yield to impurity in secret and think no one will know. But heed my plea and stand steadfast, no matter what the cost, and you will be glad you did.

When the right girl comes along, if marriage should be your portion, you will know it, and the fact that you have kept yourself clean will be a big aid in itself in meeting the right girls among whom the right one might turn up.

Remember—make it a MUST rule and no compromise in any circumstances. One cannot get away from one’s conscience—it will follow one to the ends of the earth, and that “still small voice” will be there just the same.

One of the fine results from a strict observance of this excellent commandment is that it keeps one from dissipating his energy and time on sinful things, and keeps the mind alert for attention to other things which really contribute to one’s welfare and happiness.

You have a good knowledge of the Bible and must have noted how often reference is made to the wickedness of impurity, lust, etc. and how often they have caused the downfall of individuals and nations.

Another thing to bear in mind is to avoid the things and places where temptation is likely to occur, such as smutty magazines, indecent photographs, motion pictures playing up sex, (generally in a subtle, enticing manner), association with the wrong kind of girls.

A young man cannot associate with evil very long before the devil en-traps him. Don’t try to see how close you can come and think you will not weaken. That is why Christ taught all to pray: “Lead us not into temptation.” The smart thing is to keep as far away from it as possible. So much for that.

All the other commandments are important too and should be kept faithfully. The means recommended by the Church for right living and the natural consequence—right preparation for the life hereafter,—are:

1. Keep the commandments;

  1. Receive the sacraments;

3. Perform good works;

4. Pray.

It is well to bear these in mind and practice them. This will give you the assurance that God is your ally and therefore you cannot fail to win the day. And when the time comes for you to pass out of life you will face death with that peace springing from the conviction of life everlasting, of which St. Paul said: “That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what things God hath prepared for them that love him.”

On the matter of the life hereafter, which, of course, is not far ahead for every soul, that grand inspired messenger of Christ, John L. Stoddard, out of the richness of a lifetime of observation, experience and research, states his ultimate conclusion in the following beautiful, conviction-compelling manner:

“A time will come,—may come at any moment,—when this ephemeral existence, with its business occupations, wealth and pleasures, must be left. Some callously declare that they shall then expire like the beasts, and pass at once to nothingness.

But, in the face of man’s unsatisfied desires and potentialities, of his instinctive longing for the reign of perfect justice, and of the positive words of Christ in reference to a future judgment, how do they know that they will pass thus into annihilation, untried, unrecompensed, unpunished? They do not know it. They cannot know it. The fact that they desire it does not make it true.

“And if they do not find annihilation at death’s portal, but on the contrary confront their Maker and their Judge there, well, what then? One thing is sure; of all that they desired here,—rank riches, pleasures, personal beauty, power, fame,—they can take nothing with them. All that will go with them into the future life will be,—not what they have, but what they are.

To all men, therefore, it must seem possible, to most men probable, and to Christians certain, that this life is not all ; that this world’s sorrow, suffering and bereavement are not the meaningless precursors of annihilation; that all the great achievements of the human mind will not end uselessly upon a lifeless orb; that earth’s injustices will not rest unavenged; that worthy, pious and self-sacrificing deeds will not go unrewarded; and, above all, that Heaven is not a mere mirage, nor God a myth, nor immortality an idle dream.”

The following from the Bible seems fitting here: “and fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (St. Matt. 10:28).

I cannot live your life for you, and I would not if I could. That is every person’s privilege and duty. But there is no reason why you should not profit by my experience. It is the smart thing to do. And you will thereby go farther and accomplish more than I have.

This letter is nearing conclusion, and I am only going to mention the following to help impress you with my earnestness and the truth of what I have stated herein.

I am writing this at a time when I haven’t a dollar of my own, and am temporarily living on the charity of a good sister. The point I would make is that I have this firm belief, even in these circumstances.

How much easier it will be when I have at my disposal an abundant income, which I feel supremely confident I will have soon, because, by the grace of God, I have the stuff to earn it: “Give the world the best you have, and the best will come back to you.”

I still have a long ways to go. Also, going back to the last paragraph, it is not so easy to do what I am doing, considering that over a long period I had an ample income; at times substantial. It requires much self-discipline and patience, two virtues which I do not recall ever being charged with. (Perhaps this is how I have to get them.)

I hope you will feel inclined to keep and cherish this letter, and to read it every now and then. If it should be that you are present when I pass on, it would give me the greatest pleasure if you could tell me that you have faithfully followed the advice here given to the best of your ability. I will, of course, supplement this in person, from time to time when we meet.

I am drafting this letter on a beautiful, balmy spring afternoon, sitting on a bench in the Public Library Park at Massachusetts Ave. and K Street in the nation’s capital. It is wonderful to be alive and able and willing to do one’s best work, in which there is always the greatest pleasure. You will find life that way pretty much if you adopt the program I have recommended to you. By this I am giving you the best I have; angels can do no more.

John Henry Newman said: “Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.”

This is a good thing to remember in many situations. And now, goodbye for a little while, and may God bless you and give you understanding and strength. This morning I received your very good letter. Those grades are excellent and I am more than pleased. Will write in a few days.

Yours very truly, Dad

“Who shall blame a child whose soul turns eagerly to the noise and distraction of worldliness, if his parents have failed to show him that love and peace and beauty are found only in God?” – Mary Reed Newland

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Your Everyday Problems ~ Catholic Youth’s Guide, Fr. Kelly

18 Tuesday Oct 2022

Posted by in Youth, Youth/Courtship

≈ 1 Comment

by Rev. George A. Kelly, Catholic Youth’s Guide to Life and Love

Your everyday problems

Not long ago, an executive of a record company was watching a television program. There appeared on the screen an actor playing the part of a parking lot attendant—a finger-snapping jive-talker with all the mannerisms of a rock’n’roll fan.

The executive disliked the character instantly. And he realized that typical American parents who saw the program also would loathe the lad.

Then he had a momentous thought. If parents despised the boy, wouldn’t teenagers find him inspirational? He decided to take the actor who played that part and turn him into a singer. A song was especially written in which the actor mumbled a few lines over and over. The song was introduced—and took exactly two weeks to reach first place in the “Hit Parade.”

The recording executive shrewdly realized how to appeal to teenagers. Just give them a character he knew their parents would loathe.

His bull’s-eye is an amusing commentary on one of the biggest problems you probably face. It’s how to get along with your parents. Most teenagers have such conflicts. It’s natural because you’re in a “between” stage of development.

When you were seven, you didn’t have these problems; you did what you were told without question. When you’re twenty-two, you won’t have these problems either; you’ll come and go pretty much as you please.

It’s quite a change to go from a state in which you utterly depend upon your parents to one in which you’re almost completely independent.

How much freedom should you have?

Right now, you should have considerably more freedom than you had at seven, and considerably less than you’ll have at twenty-two. Nobody disputes that fact. But exactly how much should you have now? That’s the question that causes all the trouble.

“My mother says I’m old enough to mow the lawn and wash the car, but I’m too young to go to a movie tonight with my friends,” complains fourteen-year-old Tommy.

“Tommy complained when I gave him his lunch money every morning,” says his mother. “He said he could handle his allowance in a lump once a week. So I gave it to him. He spent it all on hamburgers and milk shakes for his crowd, and I had to give him extra money the next day. How can I trust him when he acts as childish as that?”

These complaints are typical. Multiply them a few dozen times and you get a clear idea why teenagers often say that they don’t get along with their parents, and vice versa. What can you do about it?

Let’s face some facts. Your parents must set the standard. They’ve been through your experiences themselves. They know—maybe better than you realize—what your temptations, liabilities and capabilities are. They have the experience to make sound judgments.

Even if your mother and father wanted to let you do whatever you pleased, they would not have the moral and legal freedom to do it.

When God made them your parents, He gave them a solemn obligation to look out for your welfare until you’re old enough to do so yourself. In society’s eyes, you’re not old enough to care for yourself until you’re at least eighteen. (In most States a boy can’t marry without his parents’ consent until he’s twenty-one.)

Your parents are legally responsible for what you do. Let’s say that you drive a car down the street and cause an accident. The law would make them foot the bill. So, whether they like it or not, they must concern themselves with your welfare.

Your parents probably know more about what’s going on than you imagine. They can’t help reading about “juvenile delinquents,” about teenage pregnancies and marriages, about young drivers involved in car crashes, about sex influences that modern youngsters are exposed to almost everywhere they turn—movies, television programs, books, magazines, and so on.

Don’t think your parents lack confidence in you, either. They know from experience that wholesome boys and girls with the best intentions can often find themselves in situations which could cause great harm.

Two fathers of sixteen-year-old boys were talking. “When my son’s out at night, I worry about him,” the first said. “These modern kids don’t do what we did when we were their age.”

“I worry about my boy, too,” said the second father. “I worry that mine is doing what I did.”

In a humorous way, that story sizes up the fact that parents have plenty to worry about.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say that their worries aren’t justified. Nevertheless, they don’t worry for the fun of it. It’s not a hobby with them. They’re seriously interested in your welfare.

And although you may think that they often overdo it, deep in your heart you want them to set standards for you. You’d feel pretty low if you came home at 4:00 A.M., after being out on a date all night, and found that they didn’t care where you were or what you did.

You’d have an empty feeling if you brought home a report card filled with failing marks, and your parents didn’t lay down the law to you.

When high school boys and girls get together, they frankly admit they don’t have the will power, experience or judgment to make major decisions for themselves.

Dramatic proof of this occurred not long ago when a news commentator appeared before a meeting of students. He started by denouncing adults who “censor” youngsters’ reading matter. Thinking he was striking a popular note, he went on to say that high school students should be free to read anything and were wise enough to judge for themselves whether the material was harmful.

He couldn’t have struck a falser note. As soon as he sat down, the students stood up to tell him that they wanted adults to select their reading matter, because they realized what harm might result if they made the selections themselves.

Your parents must impose many standards upon you if they’re to do the job God gave them. They must set up regulations to make sure that you do your homework assignments and don’t “goof off” at school.

They’re morally obliged to protect you from influences they believe might harm your soul—to forbid you to go to places which may be occasions of sin and to associate with boys or girls who may be an evil influence.

They also must make certain that you obey God’s laws—attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, receive the sacraments regularly, fast and abstain on the days appointed, and obey all the other commandments.

They must also keep you from doing things which may injure your health. If you don’t get enough sleep or eat proper foods, they’re duty-bound to correct you. A vast field still remains in which parents can set the standards or not, as they see fit.

They can insist that you have proper table manners, come to meals properly dressed, sit up straight when you eat, and observe all the niceties of etiquette. Or they can let you slouch and eat with your fingers.

When you go out in the evening, they can insist that you wear neat, clean clothes, that your face is washed and hair combed. Or they can let you walk out in the slacks you’ve worn for the past two weeks, or with hands and face that haven’t been washed in days.

It’s in this vast area that conflicts often arise. There may be a wide gap between what your parents try to make you do and what you want to do. The problem is simple. You want to be treated like an adult who can make his own decisions. The solution also is simple. Just act like the grownup you want to be!

If your parents deny you all the freedom you think you deserve, maybe it’s because they’re used to telling you what to do. After all, they’ve done it ever since you were born.

It takes time for them to realize that you’re no longer a child and now can do many things for yourself. You might have to educate them by proving that you deserve more responsibilities. The best way is by handling those you already have with complete satisfaction. Then they’ll be glad to give you more.

They want you to be an independent, mature individual who can stand on his own feet. Parents are usually eager to have their children grow up. So if you want to be treated like a grownup, act like one.

If you regularly spend some time with God each day, you will find it easy to call upon Him when you need Him. Prayer lifts you above the sordid things of this world. It purifies your mind and strengthens your will. It keeps your soul seeking after God alone—the real purpose of life! ~Fr. Lovasik, Painting by Herbert Gustave Schmalz, 1856-1935

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Care and Common Sense in Choosing a Partner

13 Thursday Oct 2022

Posted by in Clean Love in Courtship - Fr. Lovasik, Youth, Youth/Courtship

≈ 3 Comments

Clean Love in Courtship by Father Lovasik

The decision of supreme importance in your life is the choice of a helpmate for life. The consequences of that choice reach even into eternity. It follows that your choice should be made with the greatest care, prudence and wisdom.

Company-keeping and courtship have no other reason for existence except to assist you in becoming better acquainted and in making a wise choice. Acquaintance and friendship between the sexes should be fairly extensive. Dances, dramatics, and social affairs are designed to promote such acquaintance.

Meet many young people of good reputation and character. Mingle and talk with them in a friendly way. Learn their interests, disposition and character.

Out of many friendships you are likely to form one based upon disposition, character, training, outlook and convictions—one which will ripen into conjugal love. In courtship you must first of all be true to yourself. Because a choice is made while the emotions tend to disturb the even functioning of the mind, you stand at that time in particular need of guidance.

 

The advice of parents, the priest, and of other sensible people of experience should be sought. Do not make the mistake of confiding in no one about your choice of a helpmate in life. This would close the door to many helpful suggestions and perhaps open it to an unfortunate marriage.

Love is blind. Commonsense can give it eyes.

So keep at least one ear attuned to the voice of reason. Do not be content to gaze upon the beauty of the face of your sweetheart, but learn to penetrate to the disposition and character with which you must live when the bloom of youth has gone.

Be on your guard against elements which make for separation and divorce. One of the chief causes of these disorders is that the couple discovers after marriage that they are mismatched; they have little in common. They are uncongenial in temperament and disposition; they differ in moral character and in religious outlook, in culture and tastes.

Association loses its charm; boredom sets in and finally leads to aversion.Test yourself to find out if you are really called to married life with this particular person. As soon as you realize that such a union does not and cannot appeal to you, gently discontinue the courtship regardless of consequences.

It is better to part as friends in good time than to be compelled either to live together very unhappily for life, or to separate as enemies later on. After all, it is the purpose of courtship to learn this very thing.Courtship should be entered upon with a deep sense of responsibility and mutual respect.

Intelligent choice of a mate must not look only to mutual physical attraction, but more so to harmony of tastes,feelings, desires, aspirations, and of temperament. It must weigh spiritual more than physical values.

What has begun as a mere sex intimacy is not likely to end in a happy marriage.In courtship you must also be honest and honorable towards your partner.

Reveal yourself and your family and personal stature with sincerity and truth to the extent to which he or she has the right to this information. However, there are certain things of a family or personal nature one need not and must not tell, such as personal repented sin. They are best left buried and forgotten.

No one except God should ever know of past sins. As soon as you know that a person has no prospect whatever of marrying you,you are in duty bound to discontinue receiving his attentions.

After you are engaged to be married, you can no longer keep company honorably with others, as long as this engagement holds.Listen to the wise voice of the ancient Church which has seen millions of young couples through happy marriages and has only their earthly success and eternal happiness at heart.

The Catholic Church warns you in advance that you will pay a heavy penalty for negligence, haste, and rashness in choosing a partner.

Before she admits candidates to the priesthood, she requires them to spend long years in training and discipline, meditating all the while on the seriousness of the step they contemplate.

Yet Holy Orders imposes no obligation of greater duration than that imposed by matrimony. Refrain from beginning to keep regular company too soon. If you begin to do so at sixteen or seventeen years, you expose yourself either to the danger of a premature marriage with its frequent mistake of poor choice or you court the hardly lesser evil of an immoderately long courtship with the attendant disadvantages.

You tie yourself down to one person and thus lose the social advantages and contacts that will have a great influence upon your later life. You expose yourself in a special way to temptations against chastity, because this love affair may be a very prolonged one, and the danger of violating chastity increases as the affection is prolonged.

If you begin “to go steady” while you are a student, you will find it almost impossible to do justice to your studies.Since courtship limits your interest to a single person, it should not be undertaken until you are in a position seriously to consider marriage in the not too distant future.

This presupposes that you have attained the age to understand the great responsibilities of marriage and that you have enough financial resources to establish and maintain a home.

Marrying in haste nearly always means repenting bitterly at leisure. Do not prefer to be sorry to being certain.While the Church warns against courtships of undue brevity, she likewise counsels against those of excessive length.

No hard and fast rule can be laid down determining the exact length of courtship. It should be of sufficient duration to allow young people to learn the character and disposition of each other quite well.

This can usually be done in a period ranging from six months to a year. Ordinarily regular company-keeping should not be protracted much beyond a year. Aside from the obvious moral dangers involved, long courtships are undesirable because they often end in no marriage or in an unhappy marriage.

Grievous injustice can be done to the girl if the man terminates the courtship after monopolizing her attention for several years, and depriving her of other opportunities. Courtship is not the end but the vestibule leading to the great Sacrament.

 

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True Friendship ~ Rev. George Kelly

22 Thursday Sep 2022

Posted by in Marriage, Youth, Youth/Courtship

≈ 3 Comments

A very good analysis of true friendship (in marriage and otherwise)…..

From Chastity, A Guide for Youth by Fr. Gerald Kelly, S.J., 1940’s

It has been our experience with many young men and women who read the manuscript of this book that at first some were strongly inclined to balk at our description of friendship. Their idea of a friend had always been: “1 like him and he likes me.” and they were displeased on finding that that notion could not always square with the qualifications on which we insist.

After considerable argument on our part and further consideration on theirs, they have generally come to the conclusion that we are correct. It is essential to keep in mind from the beginning that we are talking about true friendship, not about a mere emotional fascination, or blind passion, or a companionship of mere convenience which is struck up today, is carried on pleasantly for a time, and then dies of its own weight.

Real friendship differs considerably from these things. A companionship may be styled a real friendship only when it possesses these three qualities:

1) It is morally helpful to both parties; 2) There is a genuine basis of agreement between the parties; 3) Their mutual love is characterized by a spirit of self-sacrifice.

A few words about each of these qualities will lay a solid foundation for the first part of this book. For the time being it is well to omit any special application to love between the sexes.

These three qualities distinguish true friendship wherever it is found, whether between persons of the same sex or of different sexes. The qualities have not been chosen arbitrarily or at random; they are given here as the result of long and serious study of the real meaning of friendship, and with the confidence that any thoughtful reader will agree with the enumeration.

Morally Helpful

To put this negatively, it means that a companionship is not a true friendship if it leads to sin, to troubles of conscience, to a lowering of ideals, to a weakening of faith, to neglect in the practice of one’s religious duties. Such harmful moral effects violate the most elemental idea of real friendship.

Friendship is founded on mutual respect, and it is impossible to have a sincere respect for one who has the influence of poison on the soul. True love seeks the good of the beloved, and this good is never found in sin.

Friendship should have a positive influence for moral good. The appreciation of the worthiness of the friend should inspire one to a similar worthiness. It lifts up; it brings both nearer to God; it is a union in Christ.

An intimate companionship is bound to influence both parties, and only a good influence is worthy of friendship. There should be mutual help to avoid sin, and mutual inspiration to the practice of virtue.

This does not mean that in forming our friendships we must consciously strive for moral betterment, but it does mean that we should not consciously prolong a companionship that we recognize as morally evil.

It does not mean that both friends must be equal in virtue, but it does mean that both should have an appreciation of and a willingness to practice virtue and that at least their influence on each other is not a hindrance to the practice of virtue.

You can have a blind attachment for a person who leads you away from God, but you cannot have a genuine love for such a person. “I love you, so let’s go to hell together,” is language that simply does not make sense, whether expressed by word or action; whereas the contrary, “I love you, so I want to take you to heaven with me,” is full of meaning.

Agreement

This point may seem too obvious for discussion, for we are accustomed to think of friendship in terms of common interests, common taste, similar likings, and so forth.

The friend is one to whom we go for sympathy, encouragement, helpful advice, and inspiration; he is one with whom we can share joy and sorrow; he is, in fine, another self.

All these things imply a very special kind of agreement. Obvious though it may seem there are a few points about the agreement of friendship that may well be recalled here. The agreement, for instance, is genuine, not artificial. In this it differs greatly from mere fascination.

If you have a strong emotional attachment to another, you will often note that it prompts you to like just what he likes, to want to do just what he wants, to think about things just as he thinks about them, yet all the while, if you are honest, you know deep down in your heart that the whole similarity is artificial, that this is not your ordinary way of living and thinking, and that it cannot last.

To know if the agreement of real friendship exists, one has to decide if there exists between oneself and one’s friend a basis for lasting harmony. This does not mean that both most have exactly the same natural likes and dislikes. That kind of similarity may even be destructive of true, lasting friendship, because it makes things too easy, limits the beneficial interchange of views, and reduces incentive to mutual self-sacrifice dangerously close to zero.

The ideal agreement of friendship implies the ability to work together harmoniously, with wholesome agreement on big and fundamental things and agreeable compromise in the lesser things.

Differences of opinion and taste should be points of enjoyable mental contact and intercommunication, and not occasions for the breaking of the friendship. Normally there must be some compromise, some mutual yielding in regard to personal likes and dislikes, in friendship.

Few people can be intimate over a long period of time and always have the same desires at the same time or always be naturally pleasing to each other. There must be compromise, mutual yielding in such small things as how to spend an evening or how to decorate a room; there must be mutual overlooking of small faults and mutual respect for divergent opinions.

But the compromise has to be limited to accidentals. It cannot enter the sphere of conscience. It cannot include such fundamental things as Creed, Moral Code, Method of Worship.

At least fora Catholic, compromise in these latter things would violate the first rule of friendship. That is a difficulty often brought out at the time of a mixed marriage. The non-Catholic is sometimes of the opinion that he is being dealt with unjustly when he is asked to promise to allow the children to be brought up as Catholics.

In reality, it is the only way that the case could be solved without an immoral compromise, for non-Catholics generally agree on the principle that one Christian religion is as good as another, whereas it is part and parcel of a Catholic’s faith that his is the one true Church. He could not conscientiously allow his children to be brought up in any other church, whereas most non-Catholics can do that without violating their consciences.

The wider the field of intimacy and harmony among friends, the richer and more extensive is their friendship. Thus, all other things being equal, two saints enjoy a richer friendship than do ordinary people because their capacity for mutual sharing is more profound.

So, too, all other things being equal, a friendship between two good Catholics is richer than a friendship that exists between a Catholic and a non-Catholic, for the simple reason that the former have a much larger field of common interests and a much deeper bond of common sympathy.

But, whatever be the scope of their mutual intimacy, friends should always realize that they can and should keep their friendship vital and make it richer by a constant striving to reproduce in oneself the good one finds in the other. And this really brings us to the third quality of friendship.

Self-Sacrifice

It is not mere poetry to say that true friendship involves a blending of souls. In any blending process, each element gives up something of itself, of its own individuality, and thus contributes to the common result.

Friendship is the result of an analogous union of souls –each gives his best to the other. In practice, this giving of one’s best means sustained self-sacrifice. Friendship cannot endure without it.

St. Ignatius, speaking of friendship between God and the soul, gives these two simple signs of the love of friendship:

First, it shows itself by deeds rather than words.

Secondly, if one friend has good things, he wishes to share them with the other.

These are good norms for human friendship, too; they indicate the quality of self-giving that is the salt of all friendship. To keep this from being too theoretical, it is well to look at some of the many practical ways in which self-sacrifice plays its part in keeping friendship alive.

For example, there are the compromises already mentioned. Each compromise requires a certain gracious “giving in,” and the willingness to do this is incompatible with unyielding selfishness.

When you have known a person for a long time, especially when you associate with him intimately, you begin to notice small defects that you may not have perceived at the beginning; sometimes, because of changing moods, these defects begin to “get on your nerves.” These moments can be fatal to friendship unless one resolutely crushes the inclination to concentrate on them and make much of them.

Or again, suspicions and jealousies may arise in the mind. The loyalty necessary for friendship demands that such things be banished.

A friend should be a resort in time of trial, one who can give sympathy and encouragement, one who has a willing ear for both troubles and pleasures. Often enough it is not difficult to exercise these good offices of friendship, but sometimes it happens that you are in a contrary mood just when your friend needs help. You would much rather talk about yourself.

At these times, the readiness to fulfill the duties of a friend cheerfully requires great self-sacrifice.

Again it happens that at the beginning of friendship, both are quite spontaneous in performing little kindnesses and courtesies; but the familiarity of friendship has a tendency to blunt this spirit of thoughtfulness. Yet such thoughtfulness in little things must be kept up, and doing so requires constant self-discipline.

Finally, each friend should be a moral inspiration to the other; and there in no doubt that the day-in and day-out attempt to be worthy of the other, to be a help to the other, makes constant demands on one’s self-love.

The foregoing examples give some indication of how friendship is a perpetual and mutual self-giving. This need of self-sacrifice may be summed up in a few words: there must be patience with defects, rejection of suspicions, constancy in service, a real desire and a genuine effort to understand each other–in fine, the practice of the golden rule by both parties, especially in bad moods, disagreements, and misunderstandings.

In themselves, these occasions of difficulty are small, arising out of the fact that we human beings have many imperfections. But constancy in facing them and cheerfully overcoming oneself in them requires a high quality of love.

A Rational Love

After the explanation of the three qualities of friendship, it should be evident that the love of friendship is not mere emotionalism or sentimentality or sense appeal. It is a rational love, a human love.

We human beings differ from animals in that our minds can see the good and that we can freely direct our affections towards that good. There may or may not be much external notation in our love; our hearts may or may not beat violently; but the essential thing, the fundamental thing, the human thing is that the head must also be used.

Friendship is basically a love of the mind. One sees the goodness, the character of the friend, and upon this basis one strives for union.

Perhaps we should add here that in speaking of friendship we have been considering the ideal. Of course, in any definite friendship the qualities we have outlined admit of progress, and it may be that in the beginning they are present only very imperfectly.

But they ought to be present at least in some degree; otherwise the friendship can hardly be called true.

🌺🌺Esther Update…🌺🌺

The doctor let Esther go home on Monday. She does breathing treatments at home and they just got an oxygen machine for her. The nights are rough but she is slowly progressing.

Jeanette was told to expect a hard winter with Esther. She will be taking her to a specialist after she gets more stable.

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From the Child to the Woman ~ Beautiful Girlhood

23 Tuesday Aug 2022

Posted by in Beautiful Girlhood, Youth

≈ 3 Comments

“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.”

from Beautiful Girlhood– Mabel Hale

One day I had a great surprise. I had been watching a young girl grow through what had been for her awkward, changing years. She was not pretty, nor was she very attractive, but she had a good, true heart hidden away under her blundering ways, and I loved her.

I had not seen her for a few months, so one day I purposed to call upon the family and learn how they were prospering. It was a pleasant spring morning which I chose for this walk, and I tapped lightly on the door. Her mother opened for me and pressed me to stay with them for dinner.

While we talked, I heard the sewing machine humming in another room, and presently her mother said, “Clara is doing the spring sewing for the children.” I was surprised to hear that, for I thought of Clara as a girl too unskilled to undertake such a task.

But my surprise gave place to wonder when a little later the door opened and Clara came in to greet me. It was Clara’s voice and face indeed, but otherwise I should never have recognized my little friend in this graceful young woman before me. How such a change could have taken place in the few short months of my absence I could not understand. My little Clara had blossomed into a young woman.

Childhood is a wonderful thing. The little baby in its mother’s arms, a tender plant dependent upon mother for all things, holds in its little body, not only the possibility, but the sure promise of manhood or womanhood.

The infant mind now so imperfect and undeveloped possesses powers of growth and development that may sometime make it one of the foremost persons of the world. Every name, though ever so great, and every record, though ever so inspiring, can be traced back to an infant’s crib. Even our Savior was once a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.

Childhood holds untold possibilities and promises. While it is true that many men never reach their childhood’s promise, never become noble characters, but remain mediocre and dull, it is not always because there was in them no possibility of better things.

We must admit that circumstances and environment, as well as heredity, have much to do with the nature and development of children, but much more depends upon their individual disposition and effort.

God meant that every child should grow into a noble, upright person, and there is in every child that which may be brought to the fullness of manhood or womanhood. Those who fail to be such have somewhere along the way wasted that which God has given them.

Womanhood is a wonderful thing. In womankind we find the mothers of the race. There is no man so great, nor none so low, but once he lay a helpless, innocent babe in a woman’s arms, and was dependent upon her love and care for his existence.

It is woman who rocks the cradle of the world and holds the first affections of mankind. She possesses a power beyond that of a king on his throne.

There was the ancient Jochebed, who received the infant Moses from the hand of Pharaoh’s daughter, and in a few short years she had taught him so to love his people and the God of his people that when he came to man’s estate he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the honor of being the grandson of the king.

Womanhood stands for all that is pure and clean and noble. She who does not make the world better for having lived in it has failed to be all that a woman should be.

Childhood holds its promises, womanhood its fulfillments, and youth, those golden days of girlhood, the transition. This change is almost too great for us to comprehend.

We marvel when we see the tiny, green bud develop into a mature rose of brilliant hue; how much more wonderful is the change from the immaturities of childhood to the beauty and grace of young womanhood! We see this miracle performed before us continually, yet we never cease to wonder at the sweetness, charm, and beauty of every woman newly budded forth.

Wonderful changes take place in the body of a girl in this transition. She takes on a new form and new symmetry. Organs that have been dormant during childhood suddenly wake into life and activity. She becomes, not merely a person, but a woman.

And with this change in her physical being comes just as wonderful changes in her nature. She has new emotions, new thoughts, and new aspirations. She has a new view of life and takes a new course of action. It is as if she were in another world, so completely does she change.

The awakening comes suddenly. Not that she will know the day or the week when the change comes, nor will she be conscious of the miracle in her nature, but the things of childhood will slip away from her.

The little girl loses interest in her play world. She who did play whole days with her dolls now leaves them in their little beds weeks at a time. And one day she will say, “Mother, I do not play with these dolls any more, and I have a mind to put them away for they take up so much room.”

Then, Marguerite and Rosemary and Hilda May are dressed nicely and, with a last loving pat, are tucked away in a box or old trunk in the attic and left to themselves while their little mother is hurrying away to the land of “grownups.”

Mother looks on with dismay as she sees these changes, for she knows that her little girl is getting away from her, and that she must make room in her heart and life for the young woman developing before her eyes. She would put it off a little longer, for she will miss her little daughter, her baby girl; but even mother love cannot stay the hand of time.

Youth cannot stand monotony. So rapid are the changes in those eventful years that nature has tuned the mind and spirit of youth to seek and desire change and variety. Even a few days of sameness become wearisome to the girl. The more full life is of excitement and change, the more happy she is. Life to her is a succession of glad surprises.

The child becomes a woman at last. She slipped into girlhood naturally, and just as naturally will she lay off girlish ways and settle into womanhood. Life will take on a more sober look and she will see things more distinctly.

Many of the admonitions and reproofs that she received in her girlhood, and which seemed hard and unnecessary at the time, will now appear in their true light, and she will thank her guardians who gave them.

Her cheeks will glow with embarrassment when she thinks of some of her girlish escapades, and become redder still when she thinks of some of the things she wanted to do but Mother would not permit.

She will talk more quietly and laugh less boisterously. New feelings of responsibility will press in upon her. Life will look more earnest and serious than it used to do. She will wonder how she could ever have been so careless of consequences. Our child is now a woman, and her nature craves something more real and satisfying than the fleeting pleasures of youth.

You, my dear girls, are now in these busy, changing years. I can have no better wish and prayer for you than that you may arrive in due time into the glorious state of womanhood with hearts pure and hands clean.

Good women are needed everywhere, and the call for them will never grow faint. There will always be responsible places in life to be filled by women who are true and noble. Their price is above rubies; that is, their worth is more than all the riches of this world.

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Undoubtedly youth is a most beautiful thing of itself. But, if you have in this tender flower, the shining whiteness of Christian purity, then you have human beauty displayed as something noble and exalted, attracting the admiration and imitation of those who see it. – Pope Pius XII www.finerfem.com

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Resolutions ~ The Will to Win

09 Tuesday Aug 2022

Posted by in Will Training by Rev. Edward Barrett, Youth

≈ 3 Comments

Painting by Norman Rockwell

by Fr. E. Boyd Barrett, The Will to Win, 1917

RESOLUTIONS

“RESOLUTION” as you know is an act of the will whereby you set yourself to achieve something. You resolve, for instance, to go to early Mass every day for a week. You propose, promise yourself, and make up your mind to do so. You mean to do it, and you commit yourself to this course of action.

You make a contract with yourself to do it, and you feel in consequence under an obligation to do it. That course of action has now a certain claim upon you. If you neglect to fulfill your promise you are conscious of a certain unworthiness, or even of dishonor.

The course of action resolved on calls for fulfillment — you have promised, and you feel that you should make good your undertaking. The promise, or contract you make with yourself, about achieving something, is the first part of the Resolution – the making. The actual fulfilling of the promise is the second part of the Resolution – the keeping.

This too is an act or series of acts of the Will, wherein the Will, as master of mind and body, calls upon and commands the other faculties to perform the work stipulated.

This power of making and keeping Resolutions is one of the most important powers we have. Here the Will performs a great function; it directs and controls our conduct; it decides our future. It is responsible for that conduct which it decides on and brings into being, and so it is, in a sense, a creator.

If it produces what is good, we are virtuous. If it produces what is evil, we are bad. If it faithfully carries out the Resolutions it makes, it is strong. If it fails to carry out such resolutions, it is weak. Its ability to keep Resolutions is its supreme test, and hence the man who “keeps his word,” and is “faithful to” or “sticks to” his principles is the most honorable of men.

From these remarks you will see that a Resolution is a very serious matter. It concerns us vitally. It tests and tries us. It is of deep significance. It is the most “sacred” of our natural acts, in so far as natural acts can be “sacred.” It is not a thing to trifle with.

If we make and break Resolutions carelessly and lightly we injure our Will, we undermine its strength, we lessen, so to say, its dignity, and we degrade it. A Resolution should be made well, or not at all. It should only be made after careful thought, and with deep earnestness. It should be kept with rigorous exactitude.

We should not make Resolutions that may be perhaps beyond our strength. If we do, we run the risk of failure, and failure is injurious to the Will. We must secure a victory every time in every Resolution.

Let us now suppose, in order to study a little the art of making and keeping Resolutions, that we set ourselves to overcome a habit of unpunctuality. That is what the Will sets itself to achieve. Now, how are we to go about the work? How are we to make the necessary Resolution well, and to secure success?

First of all we must formulate the Resolution. To formulate the Resolution thus, “I will never be late for a duty,” would be to court failure. Such a resolution would be too vague, too great, and too difficult. We must render it definite, small, and well within our powers.

Perhaps this would do. “I will never be late for important duties.” Even that is too vague and too great. Divide et impera! Take the matter in parts and conquer the parts one by one.

So let us resolve about punctuality in one important duty. “I will get up at once when called in the morning.” That is now sufficiently precise and it will strike hard at one of our faults of unpunctuality. Still we can render it more definite by means of a time limit. And so we resolve thus, “Each day, for the next ten days, I will get up at once when called in the morning.”

So far we have merely formulated or drawn up the Resolution. It must now be made by the Will as earnestly as possible. It will not suffice merely to say it over a few times and to memorize it. The whole Will with all its force and energy must, so to speak, be hurled into the Resolution. I must make it as firmly and seriously as if my life depended on it.

Again and again, every day, I must make it in this manner. I must strive to secure that success will be absolutely certain, almost inevitable. I must make my Resolution part of myself, and identify myself wholly with it.

I must be able to say, “Yes, before God, I really mean to get up every morning, at once, when I am called for the next ten mornings. I will keep this Resolution. I know I can keep it and I will keep it. I will take every precaution to keep it, and I will make any sacrifice that reason demands in order to render its fulfillment certain.”

So far we have described the part of the Will in the Resolution, but the intellect too at the command of the Will plays its part. The intellect is the light that illuminates. It ponders over the uses and advantages of punctuality and proposes new motives to elicit a stronger determination in the Will. It throws new light on the object resolved on by the Will and renders it more attractive. It exposes the fallacies of hostile motives and maintains by its reasoning the sense of conviction.

Next, in the making as in the keeping of a Resolution, we must solicit help from heaven. Above all we need God’s grace. We must pray then for the grace to be faithful to the Resolution, remembering that the attainment of punctuality and the mastery over ourselves in this matter will count for God’s glory and our own salvation.

We even go so far as to offer little acts of self-denial, or undergo some trifling self-inflicted pain, in order to win the desired grace, and to intensify the seriousness of our Resolution.

Resolutions made in this thorough way are certain of success — provided always they be well within our strength and that we keep up our efforts to the end. The making of a Resolution thus passes imperceptibly into the keeping of a Resolution, for we go on making and reiterating it until it is fulfilled.

When at last it is fulfilled to the letter we experience a splendid sense of satisfaction, of duty well done, and of self-confidence. We realize, at such a moment, the meaning and the value of Will-power. We realize fully that we have within us a great power, and that there are things, even hard things, that we can do, if only we set ourselves to do them.

I suppose then that you have acquired the power of getting up at once when called in the morning. This is a first and important step towards acquiring the virtue of punctuality. Other similar steps should now be taken in due order — resolution should follow resolution, each directed towards a different part of the virtue, each well made and duly fulfilled — until at length the virtue as a whole is acquired. This, of course, will take time, and demand perseverance, but it will involve nothing beyond your strength.

These are now a few points, which I shall summarize briefly, and which it is well to bear in mind. Some of them are repetitions of points already noted.

(1) The Resolution should always be definite, limited in scope, and well within our power.

(2) Careful consideration should precede each Resolution. It must not be hastily formulated. It should be carefully chosen, and well directed towards an important point of the object to be achieved.

(3) The making and keeping of the Resolution depends wholly on yourself. In this matter the burden falls on your own shoulders, and no one can bear it for you. Some help may however be obtained from advice in the matter of formulating your Resolution.

(4) Resolutions demand a great output of effort. Effort is the price you must be prepared to pay for success. If the price is not paid, success will not be secured.

(5) If through weakness or passing carelessness or misadventure we fail in a Resolution, let us suppose on the third or fourth day, the Resolution must not be abandoned. It is still there and it calls still for fulfillment. We must at once remake and reiterate it with redoubled energy, and we must persevere in it until the stipulated time is up. If the first lapse or failure meant that ipso facto the Resolution ceased to exist, we should be working on the absurd assumption that our Resolution was only to be kept until it was broken!

(6) Some Resolutions, those for instance which aim at avoiding a moral fault, something bad in itself, must of course be kept absolutely. They are absolute and do not admit of exceptions or conditions. We must keep them even at the expense of displeasing those we love. Other Resolutions however are not absolute, and so, without harm, they may be conditioned. They admit of exceptions. An example will make this clear.

Suppose, for instance, a boy resolves to go to early Mass every day during vacation. Now it may happen that during vacation he catches a bad cold. However he resolves all the same to get up and go to Mass. When he is getting up, his mother comes in and says, “No! you must stay in bed today.” What is he to do? If his mother really insists, and he sees there is question of obedience, then evidently his duty is to obey. But does this break his Resolution? Surely not! His Resolution, if it was properly formulated, carried with it at least the implicit condition, “I will go to early Mass, etc., unless it is my duty not to do so. In all such matters we must obey right reason.

(7) Resolutions I said should be definite, limited, and well within our power. What then of big, heroic Resolutions? Are they never to be made? Well, some Resolutions though apparently very big are well within our power. They are shown to be quite possible by the example of other men who make them. Take, for instance, the Resolution to abstain from all intoxicating liquors during our whole lives. This Resolution we call the “Heroic Offering” or the “Pledge for Life.”

It is of course a gigantic Resolution, and it seems contrary to all our rules to attempt such a Resolution. Still strangely enough it is not so. It is well within our powers. It is definite, precise, and limited in many ways. Besides, it is shown to be quite possible by the example of others who make and keep it. Also it carries with it great graces, and a great inspiration — it means so much good for our Faith and our Fatherland and so we need not be at all afraid to make it.

(8) The good results achieved by Resolutions are very wonderful. Whole lives have been changed for the better by well-made and well-kept Resolutions. Often the good results seem to come very slowly, but they come very surely.

In the morning the mountain-top in the distance that you mean to reach, seems very far away, and each step that you take as you walk towards it is a very tiny advance. Yet by mid-day, or a little later, you find yourself on the summit and you are astonished when you think of the distance that stretched before you that morning.

So too, by fidelity to your Resolutions, you will achieve very remarkable results, results as remarkable, for instance, as that of learning thoroughly a difficult language by devoting to it five or ten minutes a day.

 

“I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.” — John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Photo: Solemn Mass of Exposition for the Forty Hours’ Devotion on March 12, 2013 at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in London. Photo credit: Charles Cole

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The Beginning of Marriage

13 Wednesday Jul 2022

Posted by in Marriage, Youth

≈ 2 Comments

BEGINNING YOUR MARRIAGE, 1957, BY THE CANA CONFERENCE OF CHICAGO

“Why do you want to get married?”

“Because we are in love, of course!”

“Of course! But just what are you looking forward to in marriage?”

“Happiness!”

“Yes, that makes sense. Now tell me, how would you define happiness? What does it mean to you?”

“Mm, that’s not so easy to answer!”

“All right, let’s take just your happiness in marriage. What do you expect? Have you thought very much about what it means to you?”

“Well, it means that somebody loves me more than anybody else in the world–and I feel the same about that person. It means we are going to form a special partnership, a ‘twosome,’ with a unity and ‘oneness’ in which there will be affection, companionship, security, mutual understanding and support.

It means we feel a need for each other, a desire to give ourselves to each other as man and woman. It means we want to go through life together, sharing its joys and its hardships. It means we feel we’re ‘good’ for each other in the sense that together we can better realize our purpose in life as we see it.”

Most people about to get married have something like this in mind. They want to get married because they are in love. They expect that life together will bring them happiness. But there is something very special about love and happiness in marriage.

Whether you think about it or not, marriage is for children. The partnership you are about to form is reproductive. The love which draws you together as man and woman is necessarily creative. The happiness you hope for is family happiness, the happiness of parenthood. Babies may not be uppermost in your thinking right now, yet normal marriage means children.

In marriage you dedicate yourself to the service of new life. Your love and happiness are so important because only if you love each other and are happy together can you provide the kind of home which children need.

This dedication to a purpose which extends beyond yourselves is not a loss but a natural fulfillment. Married love means dedication. Like all love, it grows through giving.

There is truth in the old saying that “marriage is what you make it,” but to make anything you must first understand what it is. If you are as wise as you are willing, you will want to spend some time thinking about what makes marriage a success. Because getting married is so “natural,” it is easy to assume that we know what married life implies. The crowds at our divorce courts suggest that this may not be the case.

The degree of love and happiness you find in marriage will depend upon how successful you are as marriage partners.

MARRIAGE is a way of life. It is not your final purpose in life, nor the only way to achieve this final purpose. Although it is a way of life followed by most people, marriage is only one way.

When you enter marriage, then, you freely choose the way of life you wish to follow in attaining your final purpose. Hence, to get the right view of marriage, to understand its place in your lives, you must first understand the purpose of life itself.

A way of life has meaning only if it leads somewhere. Marriage is a good way to the extent that it helps you fulfill the purpose for which you were made.

Now that you are approaching marriage, you are in a better position to recognize the connection between the purpose of life and the purpose of marriage. To see the full picture, we must consider our origin, our nature, and our destiny.

Our Origin

We are not our own makers. We have not come into existence through some accident of evolution. In the beginning, God created man. Although we do not know how He did this, we are certain of the fact.

We know also that at the time of conception in our mother’s womb, God created our immortal souls. We come from God. Further, we depend on Him for our existence at every moment. Our dependence is so complete that if God did not constantly sustain us, we would simply cease to exist.

It is easy to forget our dependence on God in this modern, man-made world. Yet experience tells us that whenever we come face to face with the stark realities of suffering, sorrow, and death, we quickly realize our helplessness and our weakness. We are all in the hands of God.

He has breathed an immortal soul into each of us. He has fashioned our human nature according to His divine plan. Even if we try, we cannot undo this basic dependence upon Him.

Further, the God who created us is infinitely wise and infinitely good. He must have made us for a purpose. This purpose is our happiness with Him.

Because He has fashioned our hearts with a desire for infinite happiness, we can find fulfillment and peace only in Him. All other things which give us happiness are reflections of His goodness and beauty. They are meant to lead us to Him.

Our human loves, wonderful as they may seem, are short-lived and shallow unless they are rooted in Him.

Life Partnership

Marriage is a life partnership. Your love must be such that it fits into the meaning of life or it cannot last.

Marriage is a life companionship. The happiness which you seek from your togetherness can be satisfying and enduring only to the extent that you are really “good” for each other, that is, only to the extent that you support and help each other in attaining that happiness for which you were created.

It is easy in your new-found love to separate marriage from the purpose of life. But marriage is only a way of life. As a way, it has meaning only in terms of its destination. Either it will offer you an opportunity for the growth and development of yourselves as followers of Christ, or it will prove an empty, frustrating experience.

There are many types of “love” and “happiness” between the sexes. Some are shallow, some are counterfeit, and some are little more than thinly disguised selfishness.

True love and happiness are rooted in life. They are developmental. They are aids to personal perfection, not distractions or positive hindrances.

“Every effort we make to forget self, to leave self behind us, and to devote ourselves to the labor of making every person with whom we are bound to live, happy, is rewarded by interior satisfaction and joy. The supreme effort of goodness is,—not alone to do good to others; that is its first and lower effect,—but to make others good.” Rev. Bernard O’Reilly The Mirror of True Womanhood, 1893 (afflink)

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Women historically have been denigrated as lower than men or viewed as privileged. Dr. Alice von Hildebrand characterizes the difference between such views as based on whether man’s vision is secularistic or steeped in the supernatural. She shows that feminism’s attempts to gain equality with men by imitation of men is unnatural, foolish, destructive, and self-defeating. The Blessed Mother’s role in the Incarnation points to the true privilege of being a woman. Both virginity and maternity meet in Mary who exhibits the feminine gifts of purity, receptivity to God’s word, and life-giving nurturance at their highest.

You’ll learn how to grow in wisdom and in love as you encounter the unglamorous, everyday problems that threaten all marriages. As the author says: If someone were to give me many short bits of wool, most likely I would throw them away. A carpet weaver thinks differently. He knows the marvels we can achieve by using small things artfully and lovingly. Like the carpet weaver, the good wife must be an artist of love. She must remember her mission and never waste the little deeds that fill her day the precious bits of wool she s been given to weave the majestic tapestry of married love.

This remarkable book will show you how to start weaving love into the tapestry of your marriage today, as it leads you more deeply into the joys of love.

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