The decision of supreme importance in your life is the choice of a helpmate for life. The consequences of that choice reach even into eternity. It follows that your choice should be made with the greatest care, prudence and wisdom.
Company-keeping and courtship have no other reason for existence except to assist you in becoming better acquainted and in making a wise choice. Acquaintance and friendship between the sexes should be fairly extensive. Dances, dramatics, and social affairs are designed to promote such acquaintance.
Meet many young people of good reputation and character. Mingle and talk with them in a friendly way. Learn their interests, disposition and character.
Out of many friendships you are likely to form one based upon disposition, character, training, outlook and convictions—one which will ripen into conjugal love. In courtship you must first of all be true to yourself. Because a choice is made while the emotions tend to disturb the even functioning of the mind, you stand at that time in particular need of guidance.
One living in this modern age may think this list is antiquated. I ask you, has human nature changed? Are the Ten Commandments still applicable? Are people still born with Original Sin?
No, sin and virtue are not antiquated, they are just as real as they were 100, 500, 2000 years ago.
Father Lovasik puts before us some specific guidelines on how to have a chaste courtship. How important this is! It lays the foundation to a healthy and wholesome marriage. And if the courtship ends because one or the other sees too many obstacles, there will be no regrets…
Though the following suggestions are directed mainly to girls, they are equally applicable to boys, inasmuch as boys will know what is expected of a decent girl and will cooperate with her in preserving her virtue. Continue reading →
Who would not count it an honor to have among her friends the wisest, noblest, and best of earth, and have their friendship so intimate that at any time she might go to them and converse with them and have their opinions upon the matters of importance?
If only one such friend were yours or mine, should we not feel honored indeed, and would we not cultivate that friendship that if possible our lives might be brightened by the association? I am certain that each one of us would feel just such an interest in so exalted a friendship.
Would you be surprised if I should tell you that such a friendship is possible, not only with one or two superior persons, but with all the wisest and best of all time? That is the fact in the case.
We are all provided with means by which we may become acquainted with those who have moved earth’s masses most, whose lives have influenced most people for good, knowing the very motives and desires of their hearts and learning exactly what their opinions were or are.
The medium for all this wonderful knowledge is the printed page. Through books we may, very intimately, know the wisest and best. I may take a book and go into the quietness of my room and there read, as a great personal letter, what the author has to say, and there compare his views with those of others and with my own, gathering wisdom for my personal store. What a privilege this!
It is said that a person becomes like his friends. This is a very truthful saying, for association makes a great difference in the life of anyone. Especially is this true of the young.
Boys and girls in the teens will almost certainly be like those with whom they most intimately associate, especially if they have chosen their associates. Like begets like, and we naturally seek out and enjoy those who are congenial to us, passing by those whose tastes and manners are offensive.
It is not only the personal touch that makes this likeness, but the exchange of ideas. By the interchange of thought and expression all become to a great extent one, each giving to the other something of himself, and receiving to himself of the other.
What is true of personal friendships is also true of book friendships. If I choose only the books that I like to read, and after a while give you a list of those books, you can know, though you never see me face to face, just what kind of person I am, just how my thoughts run, and what I admire most in people and things.
And if I habitually choose books that I believe will be the best for me, and read them carefully until I understand them and make their thoughts my own, I will in time become like those books in thought, and will be lifted out of the rut I naturally would have run in.
When a girl chooses her friends she should as much as possible select those who will be a help to her. If she chooses the quiet, modest, sincere, earnest girls for her friends, she will become like them; but if her friends are mostly the thoughtless, giddy kind, though she had been a reasonably sensible girl in the beginning, she will soon be as her companions.
So it is with books. If a girl will choose her books from those whose ideals are high and whose language is pure and clean, unconsciously she will mold her life like to those portrayed in the books she reads; but if her book friends are the giddy, impure, unchaste kind, you may be certain that the girl will become like them.
I have heard the assertion that to go to any girl’s bookcase and there study for a little while the books she reads, will give to one a true estimate of that girl’s character, and I believe this is in the main true.
If a girl is interested in history she may have at her command the works of educated men who have made history a special study, and there she may seek out just what they have learned on the particular point that interests her. If she is interested in science, medicine, art, chemistry, music, or business, in books she can find the thoughts and conclusions of those who have made these a life study.
Every girl likes in one way or another the social side of life. By going to the proper kind of authors she may get glimpses of and even come into intimate acquaintance with, the lives of the purest and noblest of earth. She can through her book friends converse with people of the highest and noblest ideals. Or she may seek out those whose lives are foul and bitter and enter with them into their dark deeds, smudging her young heart with the worst sins of the world.
I believe every girl would be able to choose rightly if, when she begins a book, she would ask herself these questions: Would I like to read this book aloud to my mother? Would I feel honored in intimately knowing the people of this book in real life? Would pure society approve of the conduct of these story-people? Can I profitably make my life pattern after the ideals I here find? Would the reading of this book help me to better serve my Lord?
If these questions can be answered in the affirmative, then she may safely read the book; but if not, even though the book is very enticing, let her put it away, for it is poison.
The reading of love stories in which the lovers have secret meetings in dark and lonely places, embrace and caress each other, and whose acts stir the fever of romance and imagination of the reader, is very detrimental to young girls, and is good for no one.
Stories of murder and crime that stir the mind with horror or excitement, or that make heroes of evil characters, are not good for the young people. It is almost as bad to read books that make you intimate with bad characters as to make personal friends of that sort of people.
In both you learn their intimate thoughts and motives, and will condone their wrongs if their personality has appealed to you. More or less, my young reader, you will be like these people whom you admire and like to read about.
Light, frivolous reading brings the brain into a condition where it is almost impossible for it to grasp and hold weighty matter. When the girl who habitually reads novels undertakes to read anything that requires thought, she seems to be only uttering words, and not comprehending a thing. She will throw the book down and say, “It is not interesting, and I see nothing in it.”
But let her keep at the heavier reading, going over and over the same paragraph or chapter till she does understand it—she will in time become able to grasp the thoughts as she reads. And if she keeps on at the deep reading, she will lose her appetite for the light stuff; it will seem chaffy and foolish to her.
It will not hurt any girl to read a few stories; and, in fact, if the right kind of stories are chosen she will learn much that is useful and good through story reading. But she who wishes to become educated and make her reading a means of culture must select the greater portion of her books from those authors who deal with facts in life.
Works of history, biography, and other branches of learning are good for all. Books of travel are very good, for they make one acquainted with the people of other lands. In the great field of choice, pick out those book friends that will widen the outlook and lift up the standards of life.
Books can be the greatest of blessing in the life of a girl, or they can become her curse. Which will you have them to be in yours?
“We can change the world within our own families. We do not need heroic deeds, exceptional intelligence or extraordinary talents. Every day, our daily duties, our interactions with our family, our living out the Faith in the small ordinary things, will be the thread that weaves the beautiful rug that future generations will be walking upon and building upon….” -Finer Femininity
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“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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This excerpt was originally written for young women having to make their way in the world. It is beautiful, and reminds all of us to keep our eyes and our hearts set on the goal. This will help us to make good decisions and to embrace our crosses along the way…
All the advantage, all the good of a life of labor depends on your being faithful.
Two girls may be in equally good situations, yet one will be contented and happy and growing better every day, while the other will be always complaining and fretting, making herself and everybody else unhappy and getting more and more wicked.
Let us look into it and see the reason of all this difference.
These two girls are acting on very different principles. One looks first at this world in everything. Her mind is taken up with the idea of enjoying all the pleasure she can now. She is all the time studying the ease and comfort of the present moment.
As soon as any desire rises up in her heart she allows herself to be completely carried away by it, and God and religion have to stand in the background.
The other is in the habit of looking away from this world, and looking first at God. The question with her is: Is it right? Is it good for my soul? And not, how do I like it?
She takes a calm and holy pleasure in denying herself what is wrong or not good for her, because she knows that her soul is united more closely to God, her only real good, by so doing.
This is the reason of all the difference in their lives—why one is so happy and good, the other so unhappy and sinful; and this shows the necessity of having a right principle of conduct, a principle good enough, and broad enough, and strong enough to regulate all the actions of our life.
We cannot do better than lay down some such principle. St. Paul had such a ruling principle. He says: “I do not live any longer, but it is Christ that lives in me.” (Gal. ii. 20). He had Christ so firmly seated in his mind, he had it so much at heart to please Him, that he was able to say that he lived no longer for himself, but for Christ.
Here was his fixed principle: He would no longer live for himself, but for Jesus Christ. No doubt he used to say to himself on all occasions: “Remember, Paul, you are no longer to live for yourself, but for Christ ‘‘; and it was by acting on this principle that he arrived at such a high state of perfection.
In the same way, if you want to live a good life, you must take care to have some such principle, which shall have the upper hand in your soul and control your whole conduct.
It is no matter how it is expressed—whether one says, “It is better to lose the whole world than suffer the loss of the soul”; or “My only real happiness consists in serving God”; or “My meat and drink shall be to do the will of God”; or “I will look at God and His will first in all I do” or “All my desire is to please God and save my soul”… all these things mean really the same thing.
They mean only what our Savior meant when He said, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul,” or “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul.” (St. Mark viii. 36).
We need some such thought to sink deep in our minds, so deep that it may never be forgotten or lost sight of. Oh! My good girl, do not rest satisfied until you can repeat some such sentiment with your whole soul.
When St. Ignatius wanted to get St. Francis Xavier to devote himself to God he did it in this way. He saw St. Francis, at that time a worldly young man, who thought little of his soul, quite frequently, and managed at every interview to repeat the words: “What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul.”
By and by they began to have their effect, and St. Francis said to himself: “Indeed, what will it profit me to gain all worldly distinction if I am lost?” He saw things in their true light, devoted himself to God heart and soul, and became a great saint.
So, my dear good girl, you must strive to possess and fill your soul with the grand principle of living for God, of wishing and striving to please and love God more and more. You must, as it were, keep your eyes fixed on this mark, that the sight of it may always afford you strength and courage.
Suppose a beautiful house, on a hill-top, surrounded by pleasant groves and gardens of flowers, could be placed in your sight, with the promise that it should be yours after a term of faithful service.
If you found that service getting tiresome, you would go to your window, look at that beautiful house, your courage would rise, and your labor would again become lightsome and easy.
So have in your mind’s eye the love of the Savior, that great treasure which will make you rich for all eternity, have it always ready to look at, and I will warrant that all the troubles of life, and all the mischances that may happen to you, cannot hinder your soul from rejoicing at the glorious prospects before you.
Would that we could always bear this in mind! But the trouble is, and I may say the only trouble is, that it is so often forgotten ; either lost sight of altogether over time, or seen only so dimly and indistinctly that it appears like a dream and has little or no effect on the mind.
Yes, it is very true; this glorious prospect can always be kept in view if we will, and yet it is often, very often lost from sight.
Now, I do not want you to lose sight of it, if others do. Your whole spiritual life, goodness, and happiness depend upon your not losing sight of it. Therefore, you must, like a prudent person, consider within yourself what means you will take to keep it always in view.
“If you accept a man at face value, is there any hope he will change? He may not, and you need to accept this fact. But in a miraculous way, when you accept him at face value, he is more likely to change. The only hope that a man will change is for you to not try to change him. Others may try to teach him and offer suggestions, but the woman he loves must accept him for the man he is, and look to his better side.” – Helen Andelin
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Sermon on the symbolism of the advent wreath & Christ…
Mortification means ‘to make dead’. It is the struggle against our evil inclinations in order to subject them to the will, and our will to God. By mortification we establish the right order of all our faculties and prepare ourselves for a higher life. Advent is a time when we should practice mortification (a small Lent). During Advent, we also reflect upon the death of the world. The destruction of this world helps strike holy fear into our hearts and reminds all that man can’t construct a heaven upon earth, but must rather die to the gluttony, lust, pride and anger so prevalent in this world. The better we observe Advent, the more joyous our Christmas will be….
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“I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.”*
I had gone out with Betty and Jean, two very dear young friends of mine, and we were comfortably settled in our places in the streetcar when an exclamation from Betty made me look up.
Coming into the car was a group of girls led by a pretty young creature yet in her teens. It was she who had called out the exclamation of my little friends. She greeted them cordially, and they introduced her to me as a schoolmate whom they had not met for nearly a year.
While the girls talked I could observe the new girl and her comrades. All of them had their cheeks painted red and their lips a deeper crimson than nature ever intended. Their dresses were cut in the latest fad and were startling in appearance, while extravagance in their general manners was very noticeable. They were giggling and simpering, purposely calling attention to themselves and enjoying that attention, in every way showing themselves to be silly, vain creatures.
As well as I knew Betty and Jean, I found myself wondering if I had been mistaken in them, and if this was the type of girls they chose as friends, if in their hearts they were like this. The conversation lagged, and I caught my girls watching me with furtive glances as if trying to fathom my thoughts.
When we stood again on the street the girls turned to me with flashing eyes and flushed cheeks and said almost in one breath, “I hope you do not think for one minute that we approve of those girls. We were glad to see Belle after such a long time, but she used to be just like we are. What has changed her so? Why, she looks and acts like a bad girl.”
My mind was relieved as to Betty and Jean’s ideals, but I could not refrain from pitying the girl who had brought upon herself their disapproval, and not only theirs, but that of every right-thinking person. No girl need to be classed among the purest and truest of women, who appears on the street as Belle and her companions had appeared.
A girl is generally taken at her face value; that is, she is thought to be just what she appears to be. Some people will take time to know her as she is; but the great majority pass judgment on appearances only. Nor are they far wrong in doing so. There are not many of us who can for any long time keep up a false appearance. Our real selves will show through.
When a girl dresses to go on the street she should prepare herself in becoming dress, being neither untidy nor conspicuous for the brightness and gaudiness of her clothes. She should remember that upon the street she meets all kinds of people, and among them will be some who would put an evil construction upon any carelessness in this respect.
It is for her protection and good name that we would insist upon a street dress that is modest and unassuming. The more simple the street dress the better it is. Also, her hair should be done in a simple manner and such as is becoming to her face and years. She should strive to look just what she is, a quiet, unassuming girl going about her own affairs.
The cheeks and lips painted a scarlet beyond anything nature would ever give is bad taste at any time, and is an index to a vain and foolish heart, and will not be found in beautiful girlhood. Good health and perfect cleanliness will bring a rosiness and flush to both cheek and lip that is far more beautiful than anything that can be rubbed on.
When the girl is on the street or in public places she should never laugh nor talk loudly. To do so will only call upon her undesirable attention and criticism, and it is a sign of vulgarity. A real lady will not do so. Neither will she be giggling and simpering, nor in any of her conduct will she seek to draw attention to herself. She will not act boisterous nor rowdy, nor keep the company of those who so act. There will be something about her which is a reproof to those who would be boisterous.
A girl should never loiter about public places when she has no business calling her there. If she does so, she is forced into temptation and made an object of criticism, which will in time bring her into very undesirable situations. One girl, a very young girl, who had formed the habit of loitering about a depot at train time, picking up a conversation with some of the men she met there (thinking only of the fun there was in it), had the following experience:
One day a gentleman alighted from a train which was to wait for the passengers to eat. He began walking up and down the platform. He was fine looking and soon attracted the attention of this girl.
She watched him furtively out of the corner of her eye, coughed a little, and laughed merrily and a trifle loudly with a group of her acquaintances; but at first he paid no attention. This piqued her, and she made more ardent efforts to attract his attention; for her companions were teasing her about her failure to “land her catch.” Her power of attraction was being tested.
At last he noticed, turned, and sought her out and came directly to her, her foolish little heart was all in a flutter at her success. She meant to do no more than to chat with him a few moments, and by so doing satisfy her vanity as to her attractiveness, and clear herself of the charge of weakness the girls had teasingly made.
“My dear girl,” he said, tipping his hat, “have you a mother at home?”
“Why, yes,” the girl stammered.
“Then go to her and tell her to keep you with her until you learn how you ought to behave in a public place,” and saying this he turned and left her in confusion and shame. It was a hard rebuke; but this man had told her only what every pure-minded man and woman was thinking. Girls can hardly afford to call down upon themselves such severe criticism.
A young man was walking down the street of a small city intent only upon his own affairs; but he happened to be good-looking, and a group of schoolgirls spied him. One of them expressed her decision to make his acquaintance and find out who he was. She and her companions walked rapidly and overtook him, and passed him, laughing merrily and managing to catch his eye as they passed.
Then they loitered till he had to pass them in getting to the corner, when he turned off on purpose to avoid them. They followed him and passed him again, and this time the girl who was leading the attack was more bold in catching his eye, and with a glance challenged him to speak.
He saw the challenge and flushed. He had sisters at home, and had been taught by a good mother the proper respect for women. Stopping, he addressed her with a smile that was not merry, and she, thinking she was about to accomplish her foolish design, waited for him to speak.
He said, “My young friend, you are not a bad girl, but you are acting like one. It is only a little way on the path you are going to where you will be what you pretend to be now. Promise me that you will never, as long as you live, do as you have done this evening, but that you will be a true woman.” He waited a little for her to answer, turning his head so as not to see the painful flush on her face, for he was right, she was not a bad girl, just a silly one.
“I promise you,” she said faintly, and he turned and passed on, and the group of humbled girls hurried home.
If all men were as these two gentlemen, girls would not be in the danger that they are in from an unguarded act; but these were exceptions. While they set the girls back to right paths, too many would have led them on to lower depths.
There is no more beautiful adornment to womanly character than purity, and the girl does well to see that everything that concerns her dress and behavior when away from her home on the street or otherwise in the eyes of the public, is pure, clean, modest, and quiet. Though she should have to pass by many things that other girls count good times, she will in the end be far happier.
🌸💞I want to be able to lay my head down at night knowing I have connected with those things that matter most….. So that when my life is at its close it can be said, “You have run the race, you have fought the good fight.” and I will be remembered, not for what I have accomplished, but for HAVING LOVED WELL….. -Finer Femininity
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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
Yesterday we went to the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles to be present at the Abbatial Blessing of Mother Cecilia, the first-ever consecration of a Benedictine Abbess in the Traditional Rite in the United States!
There was also First Professions and Investitures. It was a long ceremony (4 hours) but oh! so beautiful and inspiring!
They had the abbatial dedication of the Sisters’ new church the day before (almost 8 hours long) so it was a big weekend for the Nuns!
“Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts, 9: 6)
A number of our Catholic young men and young ladies, who are called by God to the priestly or religious state, remind one, in their attitude towards the divine call, of the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob. When Jesus asked her for a drink she thought that she was to bestow a favor on Him, whereas in reality all the favor was to be hers.
Our Lord intimated this when He said to her: “If thou didst know the gift of God, and Who He is That saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water” (John, 4, 10).
Instead of deliberating whether they should favor God by answering His call to the sanctuary or the convent, these young people should feel highly favored for being called at all.
But how is a girl to know, if she has a vocation for the convent or not? Before I give the answer to this question, I want to observe, not only to girls but also to young men, who may have a call to the convent or the priesthood. While the call to the priesthood is more sacred and consequently more distinct than the call to the religious life: still the general canons for distinguishing the relative vocations are about the same for both.
The call to the cloistral life may be extraordinary or ordinary. When it is extraordinary, it is manifested in an unusual manner, say by means of a personal supernatural revelation through a vision, a dream or some similar channel.
The subject of this revelation has no doubt and can have no doubt of its genuineness; yet he duly submits it to the judgment of his spiritual director before acting on it definitely. Several saints, for instance St. Paul, received their call in this way.
The Ordinary Way
Instances of this kind of vocation, however, have always been and are today very rare. They who are known to have been the beneficiaries of them, never sought, prayed for, or expected them. These vocations always came unsolicited and altogether unlooked for. Even some of the greatest saints and apostles of the Church, of both sexes, received their calls to the convent or the priesthood in the ordinary way.
This consists in a certain inclination to the life, together with a consciousness of having the qualifications of body and soul that are necessary to make a success of it.
The aforesaid inclination does not have to be an overwhelming and irresistible attraction that one sensibly feels for the consecrated life. It may be a mere leaning of the mind and heart towards it coupled with a will to embrace it even if the emotional nature should rebel against it with a degree of sensible repugnance, fear and revulsion.
The Will Is Lacking
If one, then, has the desire to follow the life, and possesses the corporal, mental, spiritual and moral properties to render it successful, there is every evidence of a vocation. There is nothing more required in addition, but that the person in question definitely resolve to follow the call, and make application to the superior of the convent or, respectively, to the bishop.
As soon as the superior receives the postulant in the community, or the bishop admits a young man to sacred orders, the call to the religious or priestly life is completed, and is as certain and secure as God desires it should be.
It is to be noted that, all other things being given, the will of the individual plays a large and decisive part in establishing a vocation, in pursuance of our Lord’s words: “If any man will come after Me.”
Usually, when true vocations do not mature, this will in the subject is lacking; and, alas, it is lacking in far too many of our Catholic young men and young ladies in the United States today.
You Must Take a Chance
The mistake many of them make is, they virtually and unconsciously, if not expressly and knowingly, look and wait for an unusual sign of vocation, when they are not entitled to it and will consequently never get it.
They are always about to be told by an angel or by our Lord Himself, in a dream or a vision, that they should enter the convent.
They delude themselves and ordinarily die unclothed with a religious garb. They should be satisfied to do as thousands of others have done and are doing, to their own and others’ temporal and eternal welfare, and follow the ordinary signs of vocation.
To use the usual phrase, God wants those who follow Him to take a chance, and to trust in His loving providence and generous fidelity for the future. And they who take this chance in abiding confidence and whole-souled attachment are never known to regret it ever so little.
Famous and Fortunate Chance-Takers
Abraham took a chance when he complied with God’s bidding, that he should leave his country and his kin. The apostles took a chance when Jesus, hardly known at the time, bade them to leave their boats and their nets and follow Him.
He never disappoints those who sincerely renounce everything to follow Him. But in every single case He makes good His grand and magnanimous promise:
“Amen, I say to you that you, who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone that hath left house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My Name’s sake, shall receive a hundred fold, and shall possess life everlasting” (Matt., 19, 28, 29).
The Test Is Not Hard
Every girl, therefore, who feels inclined to convent life and is satisfied, that in view of her physical and moral qualifications she can make a good nun, especially if her judgment is supported by that of some other discreet and reliable person or persons, such as her parents, pastor, confessor, her nun teacher or nun friend and the like, is warranted in believing that she has the necessary vocation, and is at liberty to apply for admission in the cloister.
If the superior duly receives her, she need have no fear whatever regarding the genuineness of her vocation, even if she was never vouchsafed a revelation from on high in the form of a heavenly voice or apparition, telling her that her place was in the convent. These manifestations of vocation are, as has been said, most unusual and infrequent.
The best marks of a divine call are the ordinary ones, as a rule, for they are easier and surer discerned, and there is not so much danger of delusion in regard to them as there is respecting pretendedly extraordinary signs of vocation.
This is true, of course, in an equal degree of a young man contemplating the pursuit of the priestly or religious life.
“The Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.” -St. Augustine
What is the easiest path to heaven? How do you know what is your vocation? Should you check out religious life first? Please say 3 Hail Marys for the priest….
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Before we speak of the means to achieve success, we should form a clear idea for ourselves as to what success means, in what it consists, for we cannot discuss the way sensibly unless we know where we are going.
Everyone who is not a fool desires success in life, but many fail to achieve it, even with their utmost effort, because they have not rightly conceived what really constitutes success.
A successful life is a life that achieves its purpose. Such a life is a happy one, even though its way may pass through suffering and difficulty, because happiness is one thing and pleasure another, and a person may have great pleasure and still be very unhappy, just as he may lack pleasure almost entirely and still be very happy.
What is the purpose of life?
The chorus of all generations of mankind, the general conclusion of history, is that the purpose of life is to do one’s duty to God and man, to make the most of one’s opportunities of service, to live virtuously, and thus enjoy the happiness here and hereafter that comes from such performance of duty.
I say this is the final conclusion of mankind. It is true that there are many individuals who put success in various forms of achievement. Some people look on success as the acquirement of great sums of money, and the reason they judge thus is that money means power; it means the acquirement of property and influence and the enjoyment of good things of this world. Hence, when men put success in business achievement, they confess that the good things of this world seem to them the way to happiness.
But is this so? A little reflection will show that it is not. Money is a means to an end, and very often a necessary means, because a man must live decently and must support his family, if he has one.
But some of the greatest failures in history have been those who have accumulated huge sums of money, but who have lacked moral principle and have been false to their duty; wherefore, they made gigantic failures.
The greatest persons of history have often been poor in material things, but they have always been rich in principle, in devotion to duty; otherwise they would have been not truly great.
There are others who have put success in the acquirement of honor or reputation, and here again they were wrong, because honor in itself is not so much in the person himself as in the thoughts of others. Honor does not bring a person lasting happiness.
Many a one has achieved immense reputation and then left, in his own writings, the record of his disillusionment and disappointment. It is not those who have achieved renown who are truly fortunate and happy, but those who have deserved honor by their virtue. What has been said of honor may be said, too, of power and influence.
These are not the real rewards of life. Here, again, many a man has succeeded in rising to great heights and yet made a failure of his life.
Remember the great Napoleon at St. Helena. He had climbed and fought to the peak of human greatness, and he left behind a name that will endure for many generations. Yet his career recalls at its end the saying of Solomon: “Vanity of vanities and all is vanity.”
Rather, it is the leading of a virtuous and upright life, the performance of one’s duties to God and man, the making the most of every opportunity for service, and the harmonious development of every faculty that make for real success in life and that lead to happiness here and a greater happiness hereafter.
You have only a few years in which to realize in your own person this end of dutiful service. To realize it, you may have to “scorn delights, and live laborious days”; you may be obliged to forget friendships, amusements, and even success, when these are against your conscience and your duty. But in this way, and in this way alone, lie true success and happiness.
“At a certain moment when going to confession to a Capuchin father, St. Therese came to understand that it was just the opposite: her defects did not displease God and her littleness attracted God’s love, just as a father is moved by the weakness of his children and loves them still more as soon as he sees their good will and sincere love.” -Fr. Jacques Philippe,The Way of Trust and Love http://amzn.to/2fpXVzl
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“Whose adorning [let it be] the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.”
The girl is the woman to be, and girlhood is the dressing room for womanhood.
The perfect woman has graces and powers of body, mind, and soul that make her able to be the mother of men and to guide them into the right paths of life. Her example and influence are unbounded, not only in her own home but in society in general.
No girl can come to this perfect womanhood unless she uses the opportunities of girlhood rightly. If she does not develop a healthy, active body she is handicapped through all her life.
If she does not come to womanhood with a mind and soul that are clean and clear and properly directed she cannot rightly fill her place.
A vain, silly, giddy woman is just as unfitted for the responsibilities of life in mind and soul as a sick woman is in body.
A right attitude toward her dress will not only help a girl to grow strong and vigorous in body, but will aid her in growing strong and beautiful in mind and soul.
Let us always keep in mind that the perfect woman is a Christian woman. To be a true Christian is to take the path in life that was mapped out for us in the life of Christ and to show daily in life and manners the graces and the spirit of Christ.
He was “meek and lowly in heart,” and showed always the opposite of vanity and pride. Paul speaks to Christian women of the “ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.”
And the girl who is growing into a perfect woman is noticed for her kindness, sympathy, gentleness, sweetness of spirit, and her willingness to be of service. There is about her a humility that makes you feel that she does not despise you and think you below her, that she is rather thinking of your happiness than her own personal appearance.
These beautiful graces—kindness, sympathy, humility, gentleness, purity—are the real ornaments of beautiful girlhood. But it is in the ornaments that clothe and beautify her soul and mind that make her a lovable and desirable creature who carries happiness and cheer wherever she goes.
Seek first the more beautiful inner ornaments and then clothe the body so that those more important ornaments are not hidden.
Your clothes should not be conspicuous among your comrades, either as old-fashioned or odd, nor as being smart and daring. It is not a trait of beautiful girlhood to expose the person in a way to call forth coarse remarks and criticisms.
It is impossible to point out certain things that are wrong, for a fad that is causing strong comment today may in a few years be forgotten, but this principle always holds good: that our girls who are striving for a beautiful girlhood and a clean and useful womanhood should always dress so as to appear modest and quiet and inconspicuous in their environments.
Any girl can easily settle these matters for herself if she will keep in mind that her business is always to keep in evidence the true ornaments of mind and soul and then be careful that in clothing and beautifying her body, she does not dim her more precious ornaments.
There is yet another angle regarding dress that our girls should keep in mind.
Good girls behaving as they should are one of the strongest influences for good in the lives of their boy associates, and every girl striving for a clean and beautiful girlhood should not in dress or action do that which in any way lowers her in the estimation of clean-minded boys, nor causes her to become a temptation to those who are weak.
Undoubtedly youth is a most beautiful thing of itself. But, if you have in this tender flower, the shining whiteness of Christian purity, then you have human beauty displayed as something noble and exalted, attracting the admiration and imitation of those who see it. – Pope Pius XII www.finerfem.com
Just a Note:
The Finer Femininity Facebook Page is a happening place. It has many lovely quotes and images, book suggestions, sermon suggestions, Meadows of Grace products, coloring pages, etc. For those of you who may not be on it, here is the link. https://www.facebook.com/catholicfemininity/
It is helpful to put in your newsfeed preferences “see first” on the pages you like. With the new Facebook algorithm, much of it does not go out to those who just “like” the page, without doing this.
Don’t forget to sign up for the Giveaway!! I will announce the winner tomorrow!
My daughters, Virginia and Jeanette make these lovely Kanzashi Ribbon flowers. It is amazing to see such lovely pieces of art bud forth from a straight piece of ribbon. These make great hairpieces, they can be worn on a collar or on a purse, scarf, etc. They make lovely gifts! Come take a peek here.
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