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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Mixed, Wrong and Sinful Company-Keeping, – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R. 1955

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

Is Mixed Company-Keeping a Mortal Sin?

 Problem

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

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

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

 Solution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrong Company-Keeping

 Problem

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

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

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

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

 Solution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sinful Company-Keeping

 Problem

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

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

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

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

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

 Solution

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

Two things make it sinful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags

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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?

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

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.

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Is Love Necessary, Is Love Sufficient? – Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R., 1955

This small book contains questions that serious, young Catholics might ask when looking at the many scenarios and problems of young love. It is written by a Catholic Priest in 1955.  Great information!

Question:

Is love necessary for a happy marriage?

 Answer:

It depends on what you mean by “love”. I might add that it also depends on what you mean by marriage, but we shall take for granted that you mean what the Lord meant, viz., an indissoluble sacramental partnership between a man and a woman who pledge themselves to help each other toward happiness on earth and in heaven, and to beget and rear children for the kingdom of God.

What do you mean by “love”? Do you mean that violent feeling of attraction, that all-suffering sense of helpless infatuation, that overpowering “can’t-think-of-anything-else” emotion, which the pulps, true story magazines and mashy novels describe as love?

If you do, my answer is a quick “no”. This kind of love is not necessary because there have been thousands of happy marriages without it, from those in which the bridegroom was chosen for the bride (or vice versa) by elders, as was customary for centuries, down to the latest marriage of two young people who kept their wits about them all through their company-keeping and engagement.

The wild infatuation that some mistake for love is a minor form of hysteria, and hysteria is not only not necessary for, but a positive drawback to, a happy marriage.

But if you define love correctly, I say that it is absolutely necessary for a happy marriage. Love is an intelligent willingness to surrender self-will, to make sacrifices, to place fidelity, charity and duty above feelings, in behalf of a person whom one has found to be a good companion, a sturdy character, and a believer in the same purposes of life and marriage as oneself.

The degree of physical and emotional attraction behind this determination of the free will may vary greatly, but it is never the essence of love.

Too many young people have thought otherwise, to the effect that, with the inevitable lessening of infatuation after a year or two of married life, they have considered themselves no longer in love.

Love is a function of the free will, and it can last as long as the free will exercises itself according to the above definition.

Therefore, to say “I am in love” should mean “I am willing to surrender my will, to sacrifice my desires, to place duty and fidelity above all else, in behalf of one person whom I have found suitable for a successful marriage.”

 

Is Love Sufficient for a Happy Marriage?

 Problem:

If one is deeply in love with a certain person, is not that sufficient for a happy marriage, even though others advise against the marriage?

I am in love with a young man, and want to marry him, but everybody tells me he won’t make me happy.

I am so happy just being in love with him that I know I’ll be happy in marriage.

 Solution:

It has been set down as one of the most futile things in life to argue with a young person already in love, who believes that the happiness of being in love is a true measure of the happiness that will be found in marriage.

However, those of us who are interested in the happiness of married folk will still go on trying to convince young people of the danger of this mistake.

You say that everybody tells you that the young man you love cannot make you happy in marriage.

I presume that this means your parents, your pastor or confessor, your close friends. Such unanimity can hardly be a result of conspiracy against you, or unfounded on good reasons.

With eyes undimmed by the infatuation that makes you a poor judge of your boy friend, they must see something in his character that makes him unfit for the responsibilities of marriage.

Perhaps he is shiftless and undependable; perhaps a drunkard; perhaps unprincipled or irreligious.

After all, there are thousands of divorces in America each year, and tens of thousands of broken hearted wives.

Can’t you see that most of the latter married because they were breathlessly in love, and only afterward, too late, found out that love is not sufficient for a happy marriage?

You did not tell me on what ground everybody opposes your marriage to this boy, and therefore I do not say for certain that their opposition is justified.

There is a good presumption that it is, however, from the fact that it is unanimous.

I do say firmly, however, that you are clinging to a false principle when you say that “because you are happy just being in love with your boy friend, you know you’ll be happy in marriage.”

It takes more than love, I assure you, to make a marriage happy, and sometimes it is only your parents, pastor, and good friends, who can tell you whether that something is present or absent.

On Love at First Sight

 Problem

“Do you believe in love at first sight?

I recently met a man and fell head over heels in love with him on our first date. He seemed to feel the same way about me.

If he asks me to marry him even after only three dates, I feel that I will just have to say Yes. Is not such a love sufficient to make marriage very happy?”

 Solution

No, it isn’t, and if you look around, you will see hundreds of proofs of this fact. Love at first sight may be the preliminary to a happy marriage, but there is no guarantee that it will be.

I should say that the chances are definitely against a happy marriage, if love at first sight and three dates are the only  preliminaries.

The reason should be clear: as a rational creature you are expected to use your head as well as your heart in all the important actions of your life.

There are few things more important than getting married, and once married, you are married till the death of either yourself or your partner.

This love at first sight that you talk about is an emotional reaction to someone who seems to have many fine qualities on the surface.

It cannot possibly see into the heart, into the conscience, into the will, into the past.

It is easily possible that a man for whom a girl would feel love at first sight would be able to present a very lovable appearance for a time, while under the surface he was harboring any number of vices and evils.

It takes time to find out whether a man has the interior qualities necessary to make a good husband and a happy marriage.

And it takes common sense on your part not to say such things as that “you would have to say Yes at once if he asked you to marry him on your third date together.”

By that time you might not even have found out whether he was married before; whether he had an ungovernable temper; whether he was subject to epilepsy, melancholia or alcoholism.

Most of the divorces result from short courtships and so-called love at first sight. Don’t be like the foolish ones of your generation.

If you like this man at first sight, remember that you must use second sight and third sight and twentieth sight to know whether you can have reasonable assurance that he won’t be giving you black eyes in the second month of your marriage.

Love at first sight is all right if after six months of going with the person you find that he is as good inside as he is outside, and that you won’t offend God or renounce God by marrying him.

 

“Undoubtedly,” Pope Pius XII remarked, ‘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.”

This is a must-read for Catholic youth. The do’s and don’t s of dating, how to keep pure, what is a sin and what is just a temptation, the qualities to look for in a good spouse, etc. It is small, but power-packed, straightforward and balanced! Available here:  http://amzn.to/2niVm2T (afflink)

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