Marriage Without Children, Catholic Girl’s Quandary – Young People’s Questions, Fr. Donald, C.SS.R.

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can't afford children, catholic getting married justice of the peace, marriage without children, marrying outside catholic church

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Questions Young People Ask Before Marriage

This post is so good. It is comforting advice and something to hang on to all through our married life. Parents who are open to life will often wonder how to make ends meet. We need to keep in mind what Father had to say to this young woman.

Marriage Without Children

Problem:

I am 20 years of age, and am to be married in June. I have a very serious problem.

My fiancé is making about $130 a month and I am making about the same.

You can see that after we are married we shall both have to work to make ends meet. I have heard so much about birth-control that it has been worrying me terribly.

We are both Catholics and do not want to practice birth-control. We want to have children, but I can’t see how we can for at least two years. How could my future husband support any children, let alone myself, on $130 a month?

As to putting off our marriage, we have been going together for two years, and recognize the danger of waiting any longer.

Solution:

This problem has worried many a young couple about to be married. Some it has led into habits of sin against marriage from the very beginning.

It is for all such couples that this answer is given. The issue is very clear.

On the one hand you have an opportunity to obey a grave law of God when this is difficult, and in so doing to trust yourselves to His loving and provident care, to rely on the friendship with Him that you will thereby win.

On the other hand you may foolishly decide on a certain period of serious disobedience to God, thereby renouncing any help that God could give, inviting His punishments, and trusting only in yourselves and your sins to provide for your future.

The folly of the latter course becomes clear from many angles. A couple about to be married do not know whether God will let them have children. They do not know whether they will live long enough to have children. They do not know in what strange and unusual ways God might raise their economic status before a baby could be born.

They should know, if they are Christian, that God is all powerful, infinitely loving toward His friends, intensely interested in their marriages, incapable of permitting any cross or trial to afflict them without a wise reason.

They should know that without God they are helpless, and that they choose to do without God by adopting practices of birth-control. Together the couple in our case is making about $260 a month.

Even if she becomes pregnant at once, the wife ordinarily would be able to continue working for four or five months.

Before a baby comes, the husband should be able to get a raise or two in salary, or to find a better paying job. They should be able to save something out of their combined salaries.

For any uncertainty that remains, they should have a fund of confidence in God that leaves sin out of the question. To start married life with sin is to make a failure out of marriage from the beginning.

Catholic Girl’s Quandary

Problem:

“I am engaged to be married. My boy friend is not a Catholic, but he consented to go with me to my pastor to make arrangements for our wedding.

When he found out from the priest that he would have to promise that all our children would be brought up as Catholics, he told me that he would never sincerely make such a promise. Now he wants me to marry him before a justice of the peace.

I love him dearly and cannot give him up. Isn’t there something I can do about this?”
Solution:

What should be done to meet a situation of this kind should have been done long before the impasse arose, long before any promises of marriage were given.

The very fact that you don’t know what to do indicates quite clearly that you entered upon company-keeping and permitted yourself to be propelled towards marriage without any clear, Catholic sense of proportionate values.

Now the fact that you are in love makes you want to find some way out of the duty you owe to God. For either of two reasons a courageous and well-informed Catholic girl would tell the boy in your case that she could not marry him.

The first reason is that he insists that she abandon a principle that must be rooted in the conscience of every Catholic girl, viz., that she must transmit her faith to her children.

The second reason is that he wants her to enter what would be an invalid marriage for her. To give in to a fiancé on either of these points is fatal to the soul of a Catholic.

A truly Catholic girl has such dangers as these in mind from the outset of her friendship with any man. She does not easily enter into company-keeping with a non-Catholic because of them. If she does start going with a non-Catholic, having a good reason for so doing that is stronger than the advice of the Church, she lets him know from the outset how firm is her own faith and how impossible for her is any compromise of its principles.

She tries to transmit some of her convictions, and their logical foundations, to her boy friend. If she finds him indifferent to all religion, or opposed to her religion, she becomes aware at once that marriage to him would be most unhappy.

The great tragedies of life begin with statements like yours.

What you are really saying is this: “I am in love with a man. I must abandon God to possess him. Can’t you suggest something that will let me have this man anyway?

It would do much in the home if all the members of the family were to be as kind and courteous to one another as they are to guests. The visitor receives bright smiles, pleasant words, constant attention, and the fruits of efforts to please. But the home folks are often cross, rude, selfish, and faultfinding toward one another. Are not our own as worthy of our love and care as is the stranger temporarily within our gates? -Fr. Lasance, My Prayer Book

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Can Love Be Acquired? When is Kissing a Sin?- 1955 – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R

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

Can Love Be Acquired?

 Problem:

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

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

 Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Is Kissing a Sin?

 Problem:

Is kissing a sin?

 Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Kiss or Not to Kiss?

 Problem:

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

 Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How many opportunities do we, as wives and mothers, have each day to do God’s will, not our own?? Many….many. We do not need a retreat to figure this out. A wife and a mother’s journey is laying down her life for those she loves. And we prove it each time we tend to the needs around us. We learn that most important life-lesson that the hermit in the desert is learning…..to lay down our lives for Christ.-Leane Vdp, Painting by Trent Gudmundsen

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In Love With a Divorced Man, Does Religion Matter in Marriage, Etc. – Questions Young People Ask Before Marriage – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R

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

Does Religion Matter in Marriage?

Problem:

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

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

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

Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doubtful Freedom to Marry

Problem:

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

Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Love With a Divorced Man

Problem:

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

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

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

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

Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Young People’s Questions: On Caring for Aged Parents/Should I Marry for Reputation? Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R

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

On Caring for Aged Parents

Problem:

Is there any obligation that one member of a large family sacrifice his or her life to the care of the parents in their old age? I am thinking of the case in which the parents are financially independent, but partially, not totally, disabled by old age.

Some parents insist that one son or daughter stay with them, giving up any thought of marriage or a vocation of their own. Others whom I have known are willing to make any sacrifice to have all their children follow some vocation, even though it leaves them entirely alone.

The question has been raised in our own family and I wish to know what is right.

Solution:

In the case as given, in which the parents are financially independent, thus presumably able to provide whatever care they need themselves, the true Christian attitude is that of those who want to see every one of their children established in their own vocation, even though it means sacrifice and something of loneliness for themselves.

It would not be wrong, of course, for one of the children to choose to make a vocation out of staying with the parents, thus freely sacrificing opportunities for marriage and a home of their own.

This would be a form of charity and sacrifice worthy of high praise, so long as the one who adopted it based it on spiritual motives, accepted the sacrifice without later grumbling and complaining, and cultivated a solidly spiritual life.

But such a sacrifice would not be of obligation in the case mentioned, and parents should be most highly commended who would urge that it be not made.

There are frequent examples of selfishness and even interference with God’s evident plans on the part of parents.

Thus, those who, in no great physical need and financially secure, refuse to permit a son or daughter to follow a priestly or religious vocation because they won’t give up their companionship, would even do wrong.

The same would be true of parents not in need who would, prevent the marriage of a son or daughter in love and desiring to marry, just because they don’t want to be left alone.

The case is different entirely if the parents are destitute and helplessly ill. In that case some kind of an obligation arises among the children to take care of the parents. Even in this case, however, it can sometimes be arranged that, through the cooperation of all, the parents can be taken care of and none of the children prevented from following an evident vocation.

Should a Girl Marry for her Reputation?

Problem:

Should a girl who has fallen into sin and thus become pregnant insist on marrying the man who was her companion in sin?

Should those who have influence over her insist that this be done to salvage her good name and to provide both a mother and a father for the child?

I am a social worker, and come into contact with these cases every now and then. Is there any general rule to be followed?

Solution:

The one general rule that can be set down is that the decision to marry or not to marry should not be made by such a girl solely on the ground that the marriage would (doubtfully) save her good name and provide a home for the expected baby.

The preservation of her good name would be little comfort to a girl if this were effected by entrance into a marriage that could be foreseen to have little chance of success.

Moreover the providing of a home for an expected baby would be of little advantage if there were little possibility that it would be a good and happy home.

Therefore each case of this kind must be decided according to the circumstances connected with it. If the circumstances reveal that there are good prospects of the marriage turning out successfully, it should be recommended.

This would require, of course, that the man in the case show some solidity of character, true repentance for his lapse into sin, readiness to assume the responsibilities of marriage, etc.

It would also require that the couple love each other sufficiently to be good companions and help-mates. It need hardly be added that both must be free to marry validly.

If the circumstances make it clear that a marriage between the two would have little chance of success, because of the weak character of the man, his lack of sound morals, his obvious inability to support a family, or because, as quite often happens., the girl has come to feel an antipathy for him, or is herself too immature to take up the duties of marriage, then there should be no thought of urging marriage.
Even though the ideal thing is that every child born into the world have a real home with a mother and father, the ideal must yield to the practical and prudent judgment that a particular couple could not establish a good home.

Surely a girl who has had the misfortune of falling into sin should not be coerced nor even strongly urged against her wishes to marry the man involved.

The tasks of protecting her good name in so far as possible, and of providing for the child, can be taken care of in other ways.

“A decent young man really respects the young woman who quietly refuses to be ‘pawed over’ and ‘necked’; he wants a wife who has kept pure.
A decent girl breathes a sigh of relief when she finds that a young man respects her as a human being, as a friend, and as a lady.
There is nothing so beautiful and so powerful as virtuous loveliness. Riches, high position, physical beauty—none of these entrances as does sinlessness. Self-control, purity, exalts the soul while preserving it from defilement.” – Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, Clean Love in Courtship http://amzn.to/2sSyFUA (afflink)

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Sex Before Marriage, Second Marriage – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

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

Sex Experience before Marriage

 Problem

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

 Solution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Second Marriage

Problem

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

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

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

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

 Solution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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And St. Francis De Sales says: “The measure of Divine Providence acting on us is the degree of confidence that we have in it.” This is where the problem lies. Many do not believe in Providence because they’ve never experienced it, but they’ve never experienced it because they’ve never jumped into the void and taken the leap of faith. They never give it the possibility to intervene. They calculate everything, anticipate everything, they seek to resolve everything by counting on themselves, instead of counting on God. -Fr. Jacques Philippe, Searching For and Maintaining Peace http://amzn.to/2u1NCTd (afflink)

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This booklet contains practical advice on the subjects of dating and choosing a spouse from the Catholic theological viewpoint. Father Lovasik points out clearly what one’s moral obligations are in this area, providing an invaluable aid to youthful readers. Additionally, he demonstrates that Catholic marriage is different from secular marriage and why it is important to choose a partner who is of the Catholic Faith if one would insure his or her personal happiness in marriage. With the rampant dangers to impurity today, with the lax moral standards of a large segment of our society, with divorce at epidemic levels, Clean Love in Courtship will be a welcome source of light and guidance to Catholics serious about their faith.

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

 

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.

On Reluctant Mothers, Elopement, Stealing Another Man’s Girl – Young People’s Questions, Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

Questions People Ask Before Marriage – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

On Stealing Another Man’s Girl

Problem

“Very briefly, my difficulty is this: I am very much enthralled by a girl who is engaged to another young man. I am currently trying to convince her that she has made a mistake and should break her engagement.

I met her, after having known her in high school several years ago without paying any attention to her, at a recent reunion. I asked her for a date the following Monday. Before Monday came she informed me that she had just accepted an engagement ring from another fellow.

Despite that fact, I started a routine of courtship – roses, telephone calls, visits at her home, etc. I think she is confused and not too sure of herself about marrying this other man. I also think I could do better for her than he could. I badly need advice, and I think she does too. I am 23 years old, and she is 20.”

Solution

Most people would roundly condemn you for “poaching”, i.e., trying to take a girl away from the man to whom she is engaged. Indeed, a first glance at your problem indicates that you are doing a moral injustice to the man who has already courted the girl and won from her a promise of her hand and heart in marriage.

Only two circumstances could mitigate your brashness in some degree. The first would be if you had real, objective, almost certain evidence of the fact that the girl is not happy in her engagement or would really be unhappy in marriage to the man to whom she is promised. There is danger that your own infatuation may make you invent such evidence.

Furthermore, your own favors may have been the only thing responsible for making her begin to doubt the wisdom of accepting a ring from someone else. In either case you haven’t a leg to stand on.

The other circumstances that might lessen the degree of injustice in your conduct is if the girl herself were directly and expressly to open the field to candidates for her hand once more. For a sound and solid reason a girl may break an engagement, or insist that she and a boy friend go back to the status quo that existed before they agreed on future marriage.

Only if the girl in question does this, may you continue to pursue her. As long as she is willing to remain bound by her engagement, you have to smother, under your sense of honor and fair play, your infatuation. At 23, you need not fear that the loss of this girl will make you a bachelor for life.

On Eloping

Problem

My boy-friend, whom I have promised to marry, wants me to elope with him because of the opposition of our families to our getting married in the near future.

I am 17, have just finished high school, and my family tells me I’m too young to get married. My boy-friend’s family tells him that he is not making enough money to get married.

He is 20, and he works in a factory where he is paid $1.25 an hour, which brings him $50 a week and more when he works overtime. I am terribly in love with him, and am almost agreed that the best thing for us to do is to leave our homes without saying anything to anybody and get married at once. What do you think?

Solution

Experience is heavily weighted against your having a happy marriage with such a start as you contemplate. Even secular marriage counseling agencies, which keep statistics on such things, will tell you that marriages that begin with elopement have the least chance of success.

Elopement is a bad beginning for married life for many reasons. First of all, it means a sharp and bitter break with your family, and no matter how much you may think you don’t need your family now, you will, as time goes on, feel deeply the separation you have caused. At your age especially, an elopement would be a combination of selfish mistrust of your parents, of meanness in depriving them of a chance to share in your wedding joy, and of an element of disobedience because you are so young.

Even if they were to forgive you later on, they could never feel quite the same toward you as they did before. As a Catholic, you should know that an elopement, with speedy marriage following, is out of the question. (I hate to think that you may be contemplating a civil marriage, with all its disastrous consequences for your soul.)

As a Catholic, you have to go to your pastor in good time, have to be instructed in the duties of marriage, have to permit the banns of marriage to be published, etc. Of course there is provision made for special cases in which there is an important reason for secrecy or haste. But so often this reason has to do with sin that a young girl who marries hastily and in secret gives grounds for the suspicion that “she had to get married.”

From this distance, it would appear that your parents and your boyfriend’s parents are advising you wisely. You can check this with your pastor or confessor, who will be influenced by no personal motives in advising you, and who will help you to get married before too long if that turns out to be the prudent thing to do. But put out of your mind any thought of an elopement.

On Reluctant Mothers

Problem

I am just over 21, and am engaged to be married to a good Catholic young man. We have been going together for eight months. We would like to be married in a month or so, but my mother begs me with tears to put it off for a couple of years, so that she will have me with her that much longer. She tells me that I owe this to her for all that she has done for me. Can you tell me if I do have any obligation to put off our marriage for two years because of my mother’s feelings?

Solution

It could be a grave mistake to put off your marriage for even a year merely because your mother wants your companionship. Common sense and experience lay down very definite principles regarding the length of time young people should wait before marrying, once they have become engaged.

There are some cases in which a wait is necessary for serious reasons, such as the actual material dependence of others on the man or woman, or the lack of even a modest income on which to start a home.

These exceptions do not change the universal principle that long engagements are to be avoided whenever possible. The longer two people who are in love with each other put off their marriage, the greater is the danger of their falling into sin. To be in love and engaged and yet to have to wait two years or so before marrying places a great strain on young people’s ability to resist manifestations of affection that of their nature endanger the virtue of chastity.

Mothers who hate to lose their daughters do not think of these things. But a daughter must think of them and must decide the matter according to the best interests of her soul and the soul of her fiancé.

In a situation such as is presented here, a girl would do well to place the decision in the hands of her confessor. He will be able to judge objectively both the reasons for the mother’s reluctance to give up her daughter for a while, and the degree of spiritual danger that will be involved for the engaged couple.

If he decides that the marriage should not be put off for another year or two, his authority should be quoted to the mother, and should be followed even though the latter bitterly resents it.

“Many times God allows it to be hard to pray, simply to school us in applying our wills, to teach us that the value of prayer does not depend on the amount of emotion we can whip up. Many times the saints had trouble getting excited about prayers, but they said them, because prayers were due and their value had nothing to do with how eagerly they went about saying them.” -Mary Reed Newland, http://amzn.to/2snNxN7 (afflink)

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How to Judge a Boyfriend’s Conversion, Etc. – Questions Young People Ask Before Marriage, Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

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

How to Judge a Boyfriend’s Conversion

Problem:

How is it possible to be sure that a boyfriend, in becoming a convert to the Catholic Church, is truly sincere in his conversion and not merely “going through the motions” for the sake of marriage?

I went out with this boy for a while, liked him quite a lot, but finally told him I would have to stop seeing him because I was determined never to marry anyone but a Catholic. Almost at once he said: “Then I’ll become a Catholic.”

I have seen similar cases in which the converted person turned out to be anything but a decent Catholic after marriage. I don’t want that to happen in my case. My boyfriend is taking instructions, but how can I be sure he is sincere?

Solution:

This is a very practical and important problem because there have indeed been many cases in which a boy went through all the requirements for becoming a Catholic, but turned out later to have done so only for the sake of “getting the girl.”

On the other hand it must be remembered that sincere converts make the best Catholics of all, and a Catholic girl should be very happy over the prospect of marrying such a man.

There are certain signs of sincerity in one who is taking instructions to become a Catholic that the girl should look for. She should, if at all possible, accompany him to the instructions he receives from the priest, both to give him confidence and to watch their effect on him.

If he is sincere in his study of the faith, he will show it in three ways:

1) By asking questions both of the priest who instructs him and of his girlfriend. A man who goes through a whole course of instructions without ever asking a question or raising a doubt, is probably not really interested in the faith at all.

2) By commenting to his girlfriend on the new things he is learning and on their wonderful appeal to his mind. If a man takes instructions to become a Catholic and never has a word to say about their effect on him, he cannot be very sincere.

3) By showing a new interest in prayer and church services within a short time after beginning to take instructions. True conversions are always marked by sincere prayers and a quickening desire to enter into the life of the Church. A man who would go through an entire course of instructions and never of his own accord go to Mass or any other Catholic church service until after his reception into the church, would offer evidence of indifference to the whole thing.

One final thing that a girl should do: she should bring up moral problems that being a Catholic raises in one’s life and see how her boyfriend would solve them. If he balks, for instance, at the Catholic principle concerning birth-control, and holds out against it, he is not sincerely converted.

Choice of Loves

Problem:

I am in love. The man I love is wonderful. I have never met anybody like him. Other men with whom I have gone out have almost invariably made indecent advances; this man never has. He respects my religion and would do nothing to lessen my regard for it. He even says he would like to become a Catholic.

There is only one drawback to my happiness. He was married before in the Protestant Church in which he was baptized. I promised to marry him because surely God will not condemn us when we need each other so badly.

Solution:

It is good that you have written to me so that I can answer shortly before Christmas. You say you have already made your decision. This means that Christmas is not for you. You have renounced it and rejected it, and none of its beauty or joy can have any meaning for your soul.

You say that “God will not condemn you because you need each other so badly.”

Despite your feelings, God has already condemned you. He who left heaven and gave up warm houses, soft clothing, even honor and respectability, and ultimately His life, to save you for heaven, has already pronounced sentence on a decision like yours.

He called marriages such as the one you have promised to attempt “adulterous”. And He said that there will be no unrepentant adulterer in heaven.

Therefore, take, if you will, the benefits of this attractive invalid marriage. But know what you are taking. You will never, so long as you live with this forbidden partner, be able to go to confession and receive God’s forgiveness for this or any other sin. You will never be permitted to kneel at the altar railing and receive the Son of God into your heart. You will never be able to look at a crucifix and say: “He died for me; therefore I will love Him and He will save me,” because you are rejecting Him by your bad marriage.

And there will be no “good tidings of great joy” for you on any Christmas, because what Christ came to give to those of good will, you will have exchanged for a home in which God cannot dwell.

It is not worth it, child. I know it is hard for a girl to give up a man whom she loves greatly. But so was the stable hard, and the manger and the cross. You don’t need any particular man in all the world. You do need God….the God-Man….and you will need Him forever. Don’t give Him up for any love.

 

 

“We as grandparents have a great opportunity to teach our grandchildren traditions, truths, and values that their parents may overlook or not have time for. Because of the various complexities of today’s society and family values, we can provide spiritual training when the grandchildren are with us.” – Bob & Emilie Barnes

 

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Can This Be Love? How to Escape from Love – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

Can This Be Love?

 Problem:

Some weeks ago I had a date with a young man and I fell very much in love with him. But he has never asked me for another date.

I am 21 years old and feel that he is the only one for me. How can I get him to fall in love with me? I see him at various parties and affairs, but he is always with some other girl. This makes me just crazy with jealousy.

 Solution:

Very probably your determination to snare a husband, and your setting your cap for the individual with whom you had a single date, became so clear in your conduct that this particular man lost interest in you.

Men of character do not as a rule care for this “love-at-first-sight” business, whether it be actually put into words or whether it be only manifest in the looks, actions and eagerness of a girl.

No matter how much you may be attracted to a man at first acquaintance, prudence dictates that you exercise a certain amount of reserve.

This adds to your attractiveness and at the same time shows that you have common sense enough not to permit first feelings to rule your conduct and even to sponsor decisions that must last a lifetime.

When you go out with a man, you should remember that, while company-keeping is essentially a proving-ground for marriage, the man does not want to find that the only thing you are interested in is marriage.

He wants to find out what some of your other interests, capabilities, ideals and enjoyments are.

If he catches you mooning over him from the very start, “putting on” in an effort to impress him, acting as if you have not a thought in the world other than that of leading him to the altar, you must not be surprised if he does not ask you for a second date.

If, on the other hand, he finds that you have a rounded personality, that you are a pretty happy sort of person and would be such whether you knew him or not, he is very apt to decide in due time that you are the type of girl he would like to go through life with, and that your love is worth making an effort to win.

Another thing: you are showing signs of great immaturity by stating that this one man is the only one for you, and that you will be forever miserable without him.

You may be miserable, but not because this one man gave you the cold shoulder.

It will be because you have cultivated so few interests in life other than the determination to get married, that no man will give you a second or serious thought.

Take your mind off marriage for a while and try to be natural, to be contented, to be self-sufficient, and you will not be left alone with your dreams.

How to Escape from “Love”

 Problem:

Is it possible for one who has fallen madly in love with another to fall out of love? I am terribly in love with a man.

But I know that my family and friends are right when they tell me that he would not make a good husband because of his obvious character defects and his past.

But what can I do? I love him so much that nothing seems to matter except being with him and marrying him any time he says the word. Is there any cure for this at all?

 Solution:

Yes, there is a cure for this unfortunate situation, if you will permit the intelligence God gave you to take command over your feelings.

Most of the cases in which girls talk about being madly in love, contrary to their own better judgment, are due to too much reading of romantic magazine stories and novels, and too much indulgence in movies that represent love as a flame that cannot be extinguished.

Such stories and movies are an insult to the God-given intelligence of every human being.

They are based on the false principle that a person can do nothing about his feelings except give in to them.

If this were true, we would all be worse off than brute animals, because the latter have instincts to preserve them from harm which we do not possess.

Human intelligence is supposed to save us from harm. These are the steps you must take to overcome the attraction you feel for a man whom you know to be unfit for marriage:

1. Convince yourself that you don’t have to let your feelings lead you around like a donkey on a halter. Cultivate a sense of shame for the very idea that you are helpless because of your feelings.

2. Use the special power, that is a part of your intelligence, of looking into the future. Visualize the unhappiness that will be yours in a very short time if you marry one who lacks decent character and virtue. Think of the shame that will be yours when your own conscience and everybody else will say: “I told you so.”

3. Make yourself acutely aware of the sinfulness of giving in to your feelings in this matter. It is wrong to wreck your life by acting on your feelings when you know this will end in tragedy for you, and will even endanger your immortal soul.

Ask daily for God’s help in following your reason rather than your feelings.

4. Make the sharp and final decision not to see the person any more. Don’t torture yourself by accepting a single date with him after you have made your decision.

Don’t act on the delusion that you can enjoy his company with no intention of marrying him.

5. Don’t pity yourself as if you were terribly abused because this had to happen to you. Everybody has to choose between feelings and common sense at some time or other in life.

Make the choice proudly, as befits one who is the image and likeness of God.

“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

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Blind Dates, Waiting for a Proposal – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

On Blind Dates

 Problem:

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

 Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Exclusive Dates

 Problem:

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

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

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

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

 Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should Engaged Girls Accept Dates?

 Problem:

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

 Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Waiting for a Proposal

 Problem:

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

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

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

 Solution:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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“Enjoy the man he is.
Don’t compare him to anyone else. There is little more destructive than hoping he’ll become like someone he isn’t – whether said aloud or thought silently in your heart. Instead, make the most of his own unique qualities.” – Lisa Jacobson

For reading suggestions visit Book List for the Youth here.

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