Keeping Up Appearances

Oh, for the Wisdom of the “Back-Thens” (a term used by my children for the good ol’ days!) This particular excerpt is from 1893!

from Courtship and Marriage and the Gentle Art of Homemaking, 1893

In these very words (Keeping up Appearances) lurks a danger likely to beset our young couple, on the very threshold of their career. All eyes are upon them, of course; their house and all it contains, their way of life, the position they take up and maintain, are, for the time being, topics of intense concern to all who know them, and to many who do not.

There is no doubt that we need to go back in some degree to the simpler way of life in vogue in the days of our grandmothers; that pretentiousness and extravagance have reached a point which is almost unendurable.

We are constantly being informed by statistics which cannot be questioned that the marriage rate is decreasing; and we know that in our own circles the number of marriageable girls and marriageable youths who for some inexplicable reason don’t marry is very great.

What is the reason? Is the age of romance over? Is it impossible any longer to conjure with the words love and marriage in the garden of youth? Or is it that our young people are less brave and enduring, that they shrink from the added responsibility, care, and self-denial involved in the double life?

My own view is that this pretentiousness and desire for display is at the bottom of it; that young people want to begin where their fathers and mothers left and that courage is lacking to take a step down and begin together on the lowest rung of the ladder.

I have heard many young men say that they are afraid to ask girls to leave the luxury and comfort of their father’s house, and to enter a plainer home, where they will have less luxury and more care; and though I grant that there are many girls who would shrink from the ordeal, and who prefer the indolent ease of single blessedness to the cares of matrimony on limited means, yet have I been tempted sometimes, looking at these young men, to wonder in my soul whether it was not they who shrank from the plain home and the increased responsibility marriage involves.

The salary sufficient for the comfort and mild luxury of one is scarcely elastic enough for two. It would mean giving up a good many things; it would mean fewer cigars, fewer new suits, and fewer first nights at the theater,—in fact, a general modification of luxuries which he has begun to regard as indispensable; and he asks himself, Is the game worth the candle?

His answer is, No.

And so he drifts out of young manhood into bachelor middle age, passing unscathed through many flirtations, becoming encrusted with selfish ideas and selfish aims, and gradually less fit for domestic life. And all the time, while he imagines he has a fine time of it, he has missed the chief joy, the highest meaning of life.

The conditions of modern life are certainly harder than they were. Competition in every profession and calling is so enormous that remuneration has necessarily fallen; and it is a problem to many how single life is to be respectably maintained, let alone married life.

Then the invasions of women into almost every domain of man’s work is somewhat serious in its consequences to men. A woman can be got to do a certain thing as quickly, correctly, and efficiently as a man; therefore the man goes to the wall.

While we are glad to see the position of woman improve, and the value of her labor in the markets of the world increase, we are perplexed as to the effect of this better condition of things on the position of men.

The situation is full of perplexities, strained to the utmost. There is no doubt whatever that this improvement in the position of woman, the increased opportunities afforded her of making a respectable livelihood, has had, and is having, its serious effect in the marriage market.

A single woman in a good situation, the duties of which she has strength of body and strength of mind to perform, is a very independent being, and in contrast with many of her married sisters a person to be envied.

She has her hours, for one thing; there is no prospect of an eight hours’ day for the married woman with a family to superintend.

Then she, having earned her own money, can spend it as she likes—and has to give account of it only to herself; and she is free from the physical trials and disabilities consequent upon marriage and maternity.

If you tell her that the sweet fullness of married life, its multiplied joys, amply compensates for the troubles, she will shake her head and want proof.

Altogether, the outlook matrimonial is not very bright.

Now, while we deplore, as a serious evil, hasty, improvident, ill-considered marriages, and hold that their consequences are very sad, we would also, scarcely less seriously, deplore that over-cautiousness which is reducing the marriage rate in quarters where it ought not to be reduced,—our lower middle-class, which is the backbone of society.

There is no fear of a serious reduction in other quarters: where there is no responsibility felt, there is none to shirk; and so, among the very poor, children are multiplied, and obligations increased, without any thought for the morrow, or concern for future provision.

There is a very supreme kind of selfishness in this over-cautiousness which is not delightful to contemplate, the fear lest self should be inconvenienced or deprived in the very slightest degree; and all this does not tend to the highest development of human nature, but rather the reverse, since the spirit of self-denial and self-sacrifice is one of the loveliest attributes of human character.

“Kindness is infectious. One kind action leads to another. Our example is followed. This is the greatest work which kindness does to others– that it makes them kind themselves.” – Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, Kindness – The Bloom of Charity

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The rosary, scapulars, formal prayers and blessings, holy water, incense, altar candles. . . The sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church express the supreme beauty and goodness of Almighty God. The words and language of the blessings are beautiful; the form and art of statues and pictures inspire the best in us. The sacramentals of themselves do not save souls, but they are the means for securing heavenly help for those who use them properly. A sacramental is anything set apart or blessed by the Church to excite good thoughts and to help devotion, and thus secure grace and take away venial sin or the temporal punishment due to sin. This beautiful compendium of Catholic sacramentals contains more than 60,000 words and over 50 full color illustrations that make the time-tested sacramental traditions of the Church – many of which have been forgotten since Vatican II – readily available to every believer.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Published 80 years ago, this Catholic classic focuses on the Christian family and uses as its foundation the1929 encyclical “On Christian Education of Youth” coupled with the “sense of Faith.” Addressing family topics and issues that remain as timely now as they were when the guide was first published, “The Christian Home” succinctly offers sound priestly reminders and advice in six major areas…

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How to Make and Keep Friends (Part Two) – Rev. George A. Kelly, The Catholic Youth’s Guide

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

Part One is here.

The Golden Rule

I mentioned that wanting to be liked is an innate human instinct. Human beings at all times and under all conditions throughout history have spent much thought trying to learn how to make and to keep friends.

In our own century, researchers by the hundreds have made all sorts of scientific investigations to learn the same thing. And here’s a striking fact. Today’s scientists come up with various answers phrased in different ways. But at the root of their findings is something which was discovered thousands of years ago. No matter how you say it, it all adds up to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you expect them to do to you.

If you want to have a friend, be one. Give friendship and you’ll receive it. And that’s the whole secret.

Ruth, Edith and Ellen were friends. Two sometimes went places without a third, and there was a wonderful opportunity for the two to gossip about the absent one. But they were loyal to each other—they were true friends. Suppose they hadn’t followed this principle?

When Ruth and Ellen got together, they might have ripped Edith to shreds, finding fault with how she dressed and acted and with what she thought about various phases of life. But sooner or later, Ruth and Ellen would have suspected that if such conversations went on behind Edith’s back, why wouldn’t they go on behind their own?

In other words, the Golden Rule would have been suspended and one of the real bases of friendship—loyalty—wouldn’t exist. Only by giving their absent friend the same consideration they’d want for themselves could the girls insure that they, in turn, wouldn’t be talked about behind their backs.

Sympathetic understanding is another “must” for friendship. When something troubles them—a disagreement with their parents, some problems about growing up—your friends must feel that they could discuss it with you. You wouldn’t have to agree with their viewpoint necessarily, but you’d have to listen calmly and sympathetically. You wouldn’t ridicule them because of their feelings, and you certainly wouldn’t run around spreading the news told to you in confidence.

Again, the Golden Rule.

 Wouldn’t you feel burned up if someone you thought was your friend ridiculed you after you confided in him? You want your friends to be reliable.

Say that you plan to go to a football game but suddenly find that you can’t get the admission charge. But your friend has a lot of money. You probably feel you have a right to try to borow some. Suppose you’re refused in the pinch? You’d probably write him off your list, because you’d have helped him if the tables were turned. But he’s not following the Golden Rule. Hence he’s not your friend.

Friendship also consists of many thoughtful little acts which come under the heading of good manners. They’re covered by the Golden Rule, too. Suppose vou agree to meet a classmate at a movie theater at two o’clock. You wait an hour and he doesn’t arrive. You phone him and he can’t give a good reason for standing you up. You probably decide that you’ll never make another appointment with him. You just can’t trust his word. Scratch him from your list. And if you want to keep your other friends, remember never to pull the same stunt.

Applying the Golden Rule isn’t hard: It’s safe to say that things that irritate or antagonize you would irritate or antagonize someone else if you did them.

On the other hand, kind and friendly acts that are done for you, you too can do for others. Just as you do, they’ll consider them as acts of friendship. The conclusion is obvious.

Make mental notes of actions by other boys and girls which you find annoying. Don’t do them. At the same time, note the courtesies, acts of kindness, and other actions done to please you. Do them to others.

By this simple procedure—by always doing for others what you’d have them do for you—you will find the key to lasting friendships with both boys and girls.

Four rules to help you make friends.

As I’ve mentioned, many studies have been made to determine what boys and girls like and dislike about each other. It shouldn’t be surprising that they all agree that the basic qualities of character that boys like in other boys are the same ones they like in girls. The qualities girls like in other girls are the ones they like in boys. Conclusion? Cultivate those qualities that you want in your friends, and you’ll have a personality that appeals to other boys and girls.

What are these qualities? You could compile the list yourself by considering what you’d like a friend to be.

Always try to be pleasant and cheerful. You’ve often heard the old saying, “Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.” Yes, you have problems sometimes that get you down. So does everyone. But they’re your problems. You don’t have to spread them to everybody who comes into contact with you.

Make sure that you cultivate your own sense of humor. Did you ever make a wise-crack you thought was pretty good, only to have it go right over your listener’s head? You probably thought your companion could use a sense of humor. After a few experiences, you’d probably want to run the next time you saw this person coming.

Don’t put on airs. Ever meet a snob? He wants everyone to know he’s something special—not one of the common people. He’s either richer or smarter or more of a man of the world than the rest of you, and he never misses a chance to tell you so. Of course, after a while, he doesn’t get many chances. Everybody avoids him like the plague.

Be natural. Maybe you do have talents above the average. Maybe you brilliantly planned it so that God would give you more brains or that your parents would have much more money. Be modest about it. (Boys especially seem to resent a girl who tries to appear overly bright. A high school newspaper once carried this line, “A brainy girl is always brainier than she seems because a brainy girl has more brains than to seem brainy.”)

Be well-mannered. Ever been embarrassed by a companion who was loud-mouthed when he should have been quiet; discourteous when he should have been polite; slovenly when he should have been neat? Most people want only a few experiences with a character like that. Then they look the other way when they see him coming.

You don’t have to memorize every rule of Emily Post’s, but you should know what conduct is suitable in what place. And if you don’t know, try to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

These rules are just examples of the Golden Rule in operation—doing to others what you’d like to have them do to you. Follow them, and you’ll develop cheerfulness, naturalness, and consideration for others, the qualities which top every survey made to determine what boys and girls like in their friends.

In addition to honesty, sincerity, and the other characteristics listed above, boys want something extra in girlfriends and girls want something extra in boys.

At this point, I hear a romantic-minded reader: “Three cheers for the extras!” These important extras can be summed up in two sentences. Boys are attracted to girls who are girls—who have the feminine qualities males expect in a woman. Girls want boys to be men—to possess qualities which are distinctly masculine in nature.

A boy considers a girl’s personality on the basis of what he knows about women. Naturally he admires his mother most of all. He has a definite preference for her qualities—her willingness to listen to his problems, her sympathy with his ambitions, her self-sacrificing and loving nature.

He doesn’t like the tomboy type. He doesn’t like the girl who wears harsh make-up, uses harsh language, or acts in other ways different from the young lady she should really be. Why? Because she’s not at all like his ideal of womanhood, his mother.

In the same way, girls draw their main ideas about men from the ones they’re in closest contact with—their fathers. And so girls want boys who are thorough, decisive—leaders. They want a man, not an imitation of one.

God meant men and women to be different in their natures. If He had intended them to be alike, He could have created just one sex and called it a day. Instead, He gave men the qualities to provide for the family unit. He gave women qualities to do well the job of bearing and educating children.

As a result, women generally are more idealistic, more romantic, more emotional. Men are more logical, more decisive.

When a boy seeks feminine qualities in a girl, therefore, he’s only doing what is natural. The girl who seeks masculine qualities in a boy makes the choice which nature intended.

So if you wonder what it takes to make and keep friends, always remember these major points: obey the Golden Rule; be yourself, and develop the qualities of the sex God made you.

🌺🌺Take time to smell the roses in this wonderful month of May, the month of Mary! Take a walk with your children, garden together, pick a bouquet, look at the stars…. Another spring is upon us, a time to enjoy God’s creation as it unfolds its beauty all around us! 🌸🌸Our Lady, Cause of our Joy, pray for us!

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Penal Rosaries!

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

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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A Frank, Yet Reverent Instruction on the Intimate Matters of Personal Life for Young Men. To our dear and noble Catholic youths who have preserved, or want to recover, their purity of heart, and are minded to retain it throughout life. For various reasons many good fathers of themselves are not able to give their sons this enlightenment on the mysteries of life properly and sufficiently. They may find this book helpful in the discharge of their parental responsibilities in so delicate a matter.

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How to Make and Keep Friends (Part One) – Rev. George A. Kelly, The Catholic Youth’s Guide

Father Kelly stresses this old adage that all of us must keep in mind, and especially our youth who are in such a vulnerable time of their lives….You become like the people you associate with.

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

Eugene Guilbert, a researcher who to find out what teenagers think about certain subjects, once made a survey to learn how youngsters regard companions as an influence in their lives. He discovered what you probably already know—that you often value your friends’ opinions more than you value those of your parents or teachers. What’s more, you know what effect your companions can have on you.

Three out of every four boys Gilbert interviewed told him that companions were the worst influences in their lives. Two girls out of three said the same thing. Of course, if companions can be such a strong evil influence, they can also be a strong influence for good.

Choose Your Friends Wisely

If you stand aside and watch groups of boys and girls as they arrive at a movie theater or some other place, you’ll notice that the members of a particular group dress pretty much alike. Girls in one group wear white bobby socks and two-tone sport shoes with rubber soles. Boys in another crowd wear their hair cut in a certain way, flapping shirts, and the same kind of slacks or dungarees. Clothing is only one way in which teenagers conform.

You and your friends probably do the same things—listen to the same television programs, enjoy the same singers, like the same foods. That conformity is natural. Most adults also choose friends with similar tastes and interests.

My point is that if the interests of your group are good, you will be helped by belonging to it. If the interests are bad, you will be hurt. There’s nothing new about this.

They were saying, “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you what you are,” hundreds of years before the invention of bobby socks. The group you join will have much more to do with your future than you probably imagine.

A boy I’ll call Danny moved into a new section of town just before entering high school as a freshman. He got to know a group of youngsters who were interested in having good times and “thrills” and cared little about school work.

Danny had been a good student in grade school, but his new group thought it sissy to waste time on homework. And although he could average eighty without hitting the books too hard, he knew that his pals would call him a grind. So he became perfectly content just to get passing marks.

Soon Danny and his friends began doing things they knew their parents disapproved of—just for the sake of doing them. They sneaked smokes before school every day, drank beer on the sly, went to see movies on the condemned list.

When they were old enough to drive, they borrowed a parent’s car and thought it was smart to see how long they could keep their foot pressed to the floor board on a highway leading into town.

Despite his good mind, Danny barely got by in high school. When he graduated, he only wanted to do what others of his group were doing—get a job, buy a car and live happily ever after. He got a job, and then a car. He had great fun for a few months. Then the thrill wore off. The job became boring and unchallenging.

Now Dan is twenty-three. Classmates who were in other groups have graduated from college and are getting jobs which offer bright futures. Dan sees this and realizes that his future would now be much more promising had he chosen his pals with care.

The most interesting part of the story is that Danny’s younger brother, Eddie, has just entered high school. No parent watches over his son as carefully as Danny does over Eddie. He says he won’t let his brother make the same mistake he did.

Any priest or teacher probably could cite dozens, if not hundreds, of other examples proving that your companions can be good or bad for you. A typical tale: Five boys were close friends throughout their high school days. Each proved to be a good influence for the others. Now all are college graduates and have found careers which will help them serve God and man to the best of their abilities. One is a priest, another a lawyer. Two are scientists and the fifth is an industrial designer. The four laymen are married to wonderful Catholic women, and to see them and their families together is a real inspiration.

If you’d taken each of these men at the age of fourteen and placed them in entirely different groups, they probably wouldn’t have turned out as well.

If you want to take a spectacular shortcut to success in your life, therefore, just remember this principle: associate with boys and girls who’ll help bring out the best—not the worst—of which you’re able.

“Everybody does it!” But you don’t have to! This point is almost equally important. You don’t have to do everything your pals do. We’ve all got our own minds and souls and so can’t excuse ourselves because “everybody’s doing it.”

There may come a time when your buddies may think of doing something you and they shouldn’t do. That’s when you’ll just have to take your stand. You needn’t work up a fever wondering how to get out of the project. It’s easy when you know how and when you try it.

Sally, Anne, Grace and Margaret planned to go to a movie together. One film had been heavily advertised and left no doubt that it was loaded with suggestive sex. It was classed as unsuitable by the Legion of Decency, and Margaret’s mother in particular had told her not to see it.

“Let’s go anyway,” Anne said. “Our mothers will never find out.” Two girls shrugged their shoulders, indicating that they’d go along with her.

Finally Margaret spoke. “I don’t want to lie to my mother. Let’s go somewhere else.” After a long discussion, the group agreed to attend a different theater.

Later, Sally took Margaret aside and said, “I’m glad you spoke up. I was afraid to say anything, but I’d have been ashamed to see that movie.”

Just because some in the crowd don’t object to a suggestion that’s off the beam doesn’t mean they approve of it. They may be too timid and want somebody with more gumption to talk for them. You needn’t be a soap-box orator, and you needn’t deliver a sermon. If you stand up for what you know to be true the others will respect you for it. They may not admit it, but in their hearts they know that you’re right.

The Art of Friendship

Psychologists say that all of us feel a great shock when we discover that some people don’t like us. We may talk about others and let the world know that we’d be happy if they’d leave our lives permanently. There may even be some people we can’t stand the sight of. It’s okay for us to feel that way, we reason, but it feels like a knife in our back when someone feels that way about us.

This desire to be liked is universal. It’s probably one of the strongest we have. And like most innate desires, it can be used to good advantage or to bad.

To good: when we’re willing to sacrifice our own selfish interests to keep the good will of someone we admire.

To bad: when we’ll do anything to avoid having someone angry, or seeming to be angry at us—as when a girl lets a boy paw her because she’s afraid he won’t date her again if she stops him.

There are two ways to be liked. Sometimes we get them confused. The first way is to be liked for something we do or some talent we have. That’s popularity.

The second way is to be liked because of our character and personality. That’s a deeper, more permanent kind of liking. It’s friendship. You can be popular and you can have real friends—people you can count on if you ever get into a serious jam. But you can also be popular without having friends and you can have real friends without being popular.

Let me explain. A boy I’ll call Johnnie had one of the best physiques I’ve ever seen. In high school, he made all the teams he could possibly go out for; in his sophomore year, he was the varsity halfback in football, high-scoring forward in basketball, star hitter in baseball. He was one of the most popular boys in his class. -Wherever he went, four or five others trailed behind, but he wasn’t really close to anyone. He had no friends whom he could really confide his troubles to, or who’d tell their problems to him.

During the second football game of his junior year, Johnnie broke his leg in a scrimmage. The doctor said he’d have to give up sports that year and probably the next year, too. As soon as Johnnie was no longer the star athlete, there was no reason for other boys and girls to flock around him. Before long, he was just another student—and he hadn’t one real friend.

I’m convinced that when Johnnie fractured his leg, he got a break in more ways than one. Some persons spend almost their entire lives without realizing that there’s a difference between popularity and friendship, and that while the first is nice, the second is the real thing. Johnnie learned in one lesson.

It may surprise you, but some beautiful women fall into Johnnie’s category. They’re so attractive and charming that men are too afraid of being outclassed to be at ease in their presence. The girls never get a chance to become truly friendly.

On the other hand, many boys and girls without outstanding talents, who probably couldn’t be elected to a class office, have many real friends who would give them real and sincere help whenever they need it.

I can’t give much help in advising you how to be popular. If you’re good at sports or are an outstanding musician and can entertain at parties, or if you have striking good looks that make the opposite sex anxious to be seen with you, you probably will be popular. However, I can pass along some thoughts to help you make and keep friends.

St. Francis de Sales on the company we keep: “Be very careful, therefore, dear reader, not to have any evil love, because you will in turn quickly become evil yourself.

Friendship is the most dangerous of all love. Why? Because other loves can exist without communication, exchange, closeness. But friendship is completely founded upon communication and exchange and cannot exist in practice without sharing in the qualities and defects of the friend loved.”

What are things that make people always look negative on things? Family, politics, the state of the Church are areas that can do that. What do we do about that to keep from being negative?

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A must-read for the married and those considering marriage! This guidebook to finding a happy marriage, keeping a happy marriage, and raising happy children has been out of print for over 50 years…until now! From the master of the spiritual life, Raoul Plus, S.J., it contains loads of practical and spiritual advice on family life. Have you been looking for a handbook on marriage and raising children that is based on truth? You’ve found it!

The saints assure us that simplicity is the virtue most likely to draw us closer to God and make us more like Him.

No wonder Jesus praised the little children and the pure of heart! In them, He recognized the goodness that arises from an untroubled simplicity of life, a simplicity which in the saints is completely focused on its true center, God.

That’s easy to know, simple to say, but hard to achieve.

For our lives are complicated and our personalities too. (We even make our prayers and devotions more complicated than they need be!)

In these pages, Fr. Raoul Plus provides a remedy for the even the most tangled lives.

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

Questions Young People Ask Before Marriage by 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.

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Pure and Noble Ideals – Beautiful Girlhood, Mabel Hale

Tags

becoming a woman, convictions, noble ideals, principles, purity, sincerity

 “Strength and honor are her clothing.”

Painting by Marina Chulovich (1956, Russian)

Beautiful Girlhood by Mabel Hale

What is your aim in life, or, rather, what would you have your life to be if you could have the choosing? What kind of life looks the best and most desirable to you? What are your ideals?

An ideal is a mental conception of perfection. It is a picture in the mind of things as we should like to have them. Every girl has her ideals and in one way or another is working toward them. She may be careless and hardly conscious of what she is doing, yet certainly she is following after her ideal. She has in her mind the picture of the woman she wants to be.

No girl can rise higher than her ideals. The ideal one has in mind is the limit of perfection to that person. It is impossible to attain to higher things than we strive for; and few, oh, so few, even reach their ideals. So it is imperative that a girl set before her good and pure ideals, that she set her mark high. It is better to aim at the impossible than to be content with the inferior.

Every girl is a woman in the making. Sometime she will stand in a woman’s place and take a woman s responsibilities. And now, while she is a girl, she is forming the character that shall be hers through womanhood. Her ideals are shaping her life.

What is an ideal woman? What sort of woman do you most admire? Who among your acquaintances seems the most admirable to you? Consider her lifework, her manner of speech, her influence upon those about her. Think of her as a housewife and a mother.

Is your ideal woman loud-spoken, or is her voice pitched low and sweet? Does she criticize others quickly and sharply, or has she always a good word for everyone? Is her dress quiet and becoming, or dashing and bold? Is she conspicuous for the ornaments and jewels upon her person, or is her adornment that of a quiet, Christian spirit? Is she a leader in society, or a quiet homebody? Is she a teacher, a housewife, or businesswoman? Is she an actress or a movie star? Is she earnest and sincere, or light and frivolous?

Whatever she is you admire, she is your ideal, and deep in your heart you wish to be like her. Because she is your ideal—your pattern of womanhood—you will be putting on ways like hers.

Out of these many traits let us together choose the ideal woman. First of all, she should be earnest and sincere. Our truly ideal woman will not be silly or frivolous, nor will she be guilty of actions that appear vulgar or unwomanly. She must be sweet-voiced and gentle—how a loud, boisterous woman jars on our feelings! She must always have a kind word for others—not a person who will unjustly criticize behind your back.

Her clothes are womanly and becoming, for our ideal woman will not wear anything that will cause others to jest and joke at her appearance! She will be known for the beauty of her character rather than the richness of her clothing or ornaments.

Her face may be pretty or it may not be. She should be home-loving and a lover of little children. She must be tenderhearted and sympathetic. She must be the kind of woman to whom one could come with her troubles, truehearted and loyal in friendship, never breaking faith.

She must be a Christian, serving God sincerely. With such a pattern before her any girl will be safe. But girls are liable, if they are not guided carefully, to become blinded by the glitter and gloss of things that are not pure gold.

The dressy, extravagant woman, the social queen, or the girl seen oftenest on the screen at the picture show, becomes brighter lit than the noble women whose lives are telling for good. You, my little friend, choose well; for she whom you choose becomes your pattern.

A right ideal is worth striving for. The best cannot be obtained without effort. Effort costs something. We do not drift to the best that is in us, but we gain the higher places by steep, hard climbing.

Every girl has much within her to be overcome, and much to be developed. If her ideals lie in gaining culture and education, then must come years of hard study and application. If her aspirations run out to music, drawing, painting, sculpture, these accomplishments are perfected only after years of hard work.

Does she aspire to be a housewife and mother? Then she must learn those homely arts that are woman’s part in homemaking. Perhaps this latter vocation takes more earnest application and persistent effort than any other: for home touches the life so closely everywhere. Does our girl aspire to be pure and noble? Then she must give up all that defiles and leave it out of her life.

It is not enough to have good ideals. There must be a careful and persistent effort to live up to them. To keep these ideals perfect often costs the sacrifice of other things that seem pleasant. Like the merchant of old who found a pearl of greatest price and sold all that he had to purchase it, so a girl, to keep her ideals pure, must be willing to give for that all else. And a girl will sacrifice much for her ideal, be it good or bad.

It is not enough to strive for a life morally pure and noble. That is good; but the truly ideal life is one lived for God. A life which does not in word and deed reflect the life and teachings of Christ fails that much in being ideal.

I never think of one who stands by her Christian ideals but that I remember a girl I knew years ago. She was a happy, blue-eyed girl with high ideals of morality and godliness, and with a purpose to be true to these in all her conduct. She had kept company with a young man for some time and they had become engaged to be married, and she gave him her whole heart’s love.

But he was not a Christian, and as their acquaintance became more intimate he saw more and more her determination to be guided in everything by her pattern, Christ. He loved the things of this life and desired that their lives together should be happy and full of worldly pleasure, while he saw plainly that her mind ran to things spiritual.

He thought it best for them to understand before marriage that their lives were not to be religious, but should be given to the things he loved. So one evening he told her plainly his position.

Her blue eyes opened wide in astonishment that he should set before her such a choice; for he had said that if she were not willing to give up her religion she must give him up. She was disappointed, for she had hoped to win him for the Lord. But her answer came firmly from her heart, “I will not give up my Lord for any man.”

This decision cost her his friendship and the fulfillment of all the hopes and plans they had built, but she had in her heart the consciousness of having stood by her convictions.

And you, too, must stand by your convictions at the cost of things you love. An ideal is worth little if it is not worth wholehearted, honest effort. Nothing is more pitiful than a woman whose mind admires purity and right, yet whose will is too weak to choose them and whose life is blighted by sin and mire about her. Be true, be noble, aim high, and God will give you strength to keep your ideals.

“Friendship is a virtue, and the greatest saints have had friends without harm to their advancement along the road of perfection. Perfection does not consist in abstaining from friendships, but in having only those that are good and holy.” -St. Francis de Sales

Painting by Gregory Frank Harris

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How to Choose a Marriage Partner – Fr. Lovasik

Painting by Constantin Alajalov, Saturday Evening Post

Recently I posted a wonderful list by Father Daniel A. Lord on the qualities to look for in choosing a wife.

I am following up with this list that is not as extensive as Fr. Lord’s but very good for a woman to ponder as she keeps her eyes open for a good husband….and a man to think about to see if he needs to make some changes in his life.

From Father Lovasik:

The following questions will not only help you to fit yourself for leading a worthy and holy married life, but also enable you to choose a partner in marriage intelligently.
I. Friendship

1. Is your friendship morally beneficial? Are you morally better or worse for having been with him, and what can you expect in the future? Would marriage with him help you to observe God’s commandments and practice your religious duties faithfully?

2. Imagine a crisis in your life (poverty, sickness) that might demand a high quality of virtue to remain faithful to God. Would he be a help to the practice of such virtue?

3. Does he drink too much? Gamble?

4. Does he want to indulge in petting, passionate kissing, even at the expense of chastity?

5. Does he control his temper? Has he a sense of humor? Can he keep a secret?

6. Does he practice his religion?

7. What are his views on divorce, on having children, on Catholic education, on frequenting the sacraments?

8. Can you actually point out any definite virtuous qualities, or are they put on for your benefit now?

II.Agreement

1. Is there at least a reasonable degree of similarity between you in regard to the recreations you like?

2. Could you both enjoy staying at home in the evening, especially when children come?

3. Are there any habits now that not only get on your nerves but which you find extraordinarily difficult to overlook?

4. Do you both fit into about the same kind of social life?

5. Does he get along with your family and you with his?

6. Have you both sufficient health for marriage?

7. What are his habits of life: cleanliness, orderliness, good manners, good grammar?

8. Are you able to harmonize judgments on things that pertain to family life: food, kind of house, furnishings, etc.?

9. Have you the same religion and the same standards concerning its practice?

10. Have you the same attitude towards children and their education?

11. Do you feel at ease together, regardless of what you talk about? If you do not meet for some time, are you able to take up where you left off, with something of the naturalness of a family reunion, or do you have to try to work up an acquaintance all over again?

12. Has he a nagging or reforming disposition?

13. Do you see his failing, and are you willing to tolerate them? Does he admit them and is he willing to get over them?

14. With children in mind, would you say that this person would be just the right other parent for them?

III. Self – Sacrifice

1. Is your prospective companion thoughtful of others and has he the power of self-discipline?

2. In his home does he show thoughtfulness of parents and brothers and sisters, and do you get the impression that this is his regular attitude?

3. What little kindnesses, not only to you but to others, have you noticed in him?

4. When he is wrong, does he admit it and try to make up for it?

5. Does he easily and graciously pass over others’ mistakes?

6. Does he look for sympathy too much?

7. Can he give sympathy willingly, or does someone else’s trouble always bring out a greater trouble of his?

8. Does he show that he knows his temper, and that jealousy and other unpleasant traits ought to be controlled?

From Holy Matrimony: Choosing a Partner:

Signs of emotional immaturity:

1. Gloominess over little failures.
2. Pessimism over slight difficulties.
3. Complete panic when frightened or in an emergency.
4. Throwing or breaking things when angry or crossed.
5. Tears when thwarted, disappointed or upset.
6. Selfishness, aggressiveness, rebelliousness, stubbornness.
7. Needless and prolonged worry over trifles.
8. Morbid fears, strong hates, and unreasonable prejudices.

from Father Kelly:

“Is it a husband you want: How does he like children? Does he like to work? Can he hold a job? Has he a sense of responsibility? Is he “grown up,” or does he have to be pampered? Too jealous? A braggart? An alibi-artist? Is he courteous?”

“At his home (each should know the other’s family) does he show thoughtfulness of parents and brothers and sisters and do you get the general impression that this is the regular thing?

What little kindnesses, not only to you but to others, have you noticed in him? When he is wrong does he admit it, and try to make up for it? Does he easily and graciously pass over others’ mistakes? Does he look for sympathy too much?

Can he give sympathy willingly, or does someone else’s trouble always bring out a greater trouble of his? Is he emotionally grown up; at least does he show that he knows his temper and jealousy and such things ought to be controlled?”

“Pride must have no place in wedded life. There must never be any calculation as to whose place it is to make the apology or to yield first to the other. True love seeks not its own; it delights in being foremost in forgiving and yielding. There is no lesson that husbands and wives need more to learn, than instantly and always to seek forgiveness of each other whenever they are conscious of having in any way caused pain or committed a wrong. The pride which will never say, ‘I did wrong; forgive me,’ is not ready for wedded life!” -J.R. Miller

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The Girl Worth Choosing by Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S.J. (Part Two)

The Girl Worth Choosing

For the BOY who Chooses and the GIRL who wants to be Chosen.

(Part Two)

By Rev DANIEL A. LORD S.J.

Part One is Here.

Painting by Gregory Frank Harris

Father continues this wonderful list on what to look for in a Godly woman.

HOME-LOVING

In the normal course of life your wife will spend most of her energies running your home for you.

Perhaps right here and now a boy doesn’t realize how important his home is to him. He entered his present home in infancy without much responsibility for its happiness. For years the home exists for him, and he accepts its comfort and its safety, its meals and its peace as his simple due.

It will be a long time before he knows how much of his character developed out of the home atmosphere that his mother and father had created for him. He will — only with deep maturity — come to see the relationship between good meals and good health, quiet and calm and sound nerves, pleasant laughter and family gaiety, and his attitude towards recreation and sports and fun.

Well, once you marry a girl, you have taken the partner upon whom will depend the happiness and wholesomeness of the home you are to occupy for many a long year.

Will she be home-loving and a good house-keeper?

“How in the world shall I be able to tell that?” you demand.

Easy, lad; just take a look at the girl in her own home.

How does she feel about her present home? Does she love it and is she proud of it? Does she take you there with an air of happily showing it off? Does she introduce you to her parents with real pride and satisfaction?

You can carefully keep your eyes open and make a few more important discoveries.

What does her mother look like? Well, allowing for the better food eaten by modern girls and the fact of current diet and exercises, your wife will someday probably look very much as her mother looks today. How does that strike you?

Can your young lady cook? “Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy?” the old folk tune used to ask. Or is she the kind of girl whose mother carefully bakes the chocolate cake prepared for your coming and, just before your arrival, coaches her daughter with “Remember, when you tell him it is your cake, say, ‘This is a cake I baked for you,’ and not, ‘This is a cake I cooked for you’!”?

Is she proud of her home in such a way that she willingly plays a part in its upkeep? You may well shy away from the girl who “just hates to wash the dishes; they ruin my hands.” Your dirty dishes will ruin them just as fast as her father’s.

“Mother never lets me do anything around the house; she just spoils us, but I love to be spoiled.” “Next week Mother is house-cleaning; I’m going to spend the week with my girl friend; house-cleaning drives me crazy.” Danger signs, my lad! Great big flashing danger signs! Note them and take the nearest detour.

Your home is, you hope, going to be a place of safety and happiness, of meals well prepared and floors spotlessly clean, for you and your children. You can foresee it as a refuge at the end of the day, a retreat from life’s battle, an oasis in the tough journey over the commercial sands. Go on and add your own figures of speech.

Well, you alone can never make a home any of those things. Only a woman can turn a house into a home. Only a wife and mother can make an apartment or flat a thing of beauty and calm and security and peace.

Do you think your girl is capable of that? Better be sure . . . oh, very, very sure!

CHILDREN

All this, I said, is to be for yourself and your children. Time was when philosophers maintained that the instinct of motherhood was one of nature’s deepest; nothing could root it out. I’m not so sure. One meets some pretty selfish women these days.

They dislike babies because, they state incorrectly, babies ruin their figures. They are too nervous for the noise and squalls of infancy. They don’t want their homes cluttered up with disorderly children. They are individuals with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and children have a way of demanding a share of their life — cutting down their liberty — and restricting the forms their happiness may take.

Unhappy the good man who marries a girl who resents children.

How can you know? It’s not too hard:

Find out how the young lady feels and acts towards her little brothers and sisters. If she regards them as brats, nuisances, inconveniences, bothers — she won’t change too notably when the children are yours.

Watch her with chance children who come your way. Listen to the words she uses to describe the dirty-faced kid whose clumsy and sticky hands imperil her spring outfit. Watch for distaste when she sees a mother with three or four small steps trailing along behind. Listen for her tone of pity when she says, “Susan has had her third baby in three years; the poor thing!”

Love of children is a deep, maternal, beautifully feminine instinct. But it has been left for our highly competent and often savagely selfish modern women to tear it from their hearts. You are lucky if your future wife loves children. You may find her regarding you as a brute and a taskmaster if you expect her to bear and love and bring up children, when she regards motherhood as a curse, and children as an interference with her peace and personal life.

WHAT ABOUT GOOD LOOKS?

“What kind of book is this anyhow? Here he’s been going on for pages and not one word about how the girl looks! I want to marry a beauty myself. Life for a husband must be pretty dull if his wife isn’t pretty. I’d hate to spend my life looking at some of the girls whose only recommendation is a pleasant disposition.”

One thing that has always puzzled me is the faces of some men I’ve known who demanded beautiful wives. How come that homely men think they are entitled to pretty wives? You’ll hear some most unattractive male demanding for himself an extremely attractive female. There ought to be some balance in looks, I’d say.

When the onlookers say, “What a handsome couple!” I find myself thinking it quite right that beauty should draw beauty; when I hear a man demanding beauty in his partner, I always look twice to see if his partner will find good looks in him.

However, if our newspaper records are accurate, marriage to a raving beauty seems to lead to some raving divorce proceedings. Beauty is natural in some women, painfully acquired in others, and in still others retained only through a lifetime’s service.

I can think of no husband as likely to be neglected as the husband of a professional beauty. She owes too much of her time to the care and cultivation of her good looks. And when she is out, she is constantly walking in the presence of an audience to which she carefully plays. Beauty, like all natural gifts, demands a lot of time. If a woman hasn’t the inner spirit to keep her beautiful, then she has to put in tireless thought and continued effort to keep the fragile flower of physical beauty from withering.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, BEAUTY?

It is important, however, before answering the demands of the young man bent on finding a beautiful wife to ask just what he or anyone else means by beauty.

Regular features?

A perfect complexion?

A figure meeting the latest standards from the Power’s Agency?

I doubt if those are the types of a beauty with which it would be pleasant to live. For regular features, like anything else regular, soon seem less regular than routine. Right now Hollywood is far less interested in regular features than in the expression that lies back of them.

There are a thousand girls with regular features waiting counter in cafeterias and pounding typewriters in Los Angeles; the girl who registers in the present tests for good looks has lack of those features — regular or irregular, according to the classic tradition or in the current eclectic vogue — aliveness, interest, character, charm, an inner glow that comes out in her eyes and her general expression.

The day of beauty, classic and orderly, comes and goes.

In the end, beauty is what pleases the beholder; and it is amazing how attractive people defy the rules of art and are beautiful despite a slight twist to a nose, freckles, eyes that are just a little off alignment, a mouth with a fascinating quirk, and a chin that would look odd indeed on Venus of Milo.

Beauty is worth having only if it attracts. Beauty is worth possessing only if, after the passing of time, it remains.

And that is why surface beauty is a poor thing to look for and a worse thing to marry in a girl.

Good health, that wholesome look, the “well-scrubbed look” praised by the current novelists, the face and eyes and figure that mean a lifetime of decent food and enough fresh air and clean living — these are what matter on the physical side.

But looks will fade. Sickness, child-bearing, the passing of the years singularly alter the physical aspects of a woman. Then the inner girl begins to show more and more, to dominate the looks and bring the character to the surface.

Her face is charming because she is constantly cheerful. Her features remain surprisingly unlined because she smiles easily, her mouth curves upward, and she doesn’t let worry or annoyance dig furrows into her forehead. She moves rapidly and easily because she has an inner spark that keeps her alive. She has something better than regular features; she has regular habits; and the regular possession of virtue and of sanctifying grace.

It is amazing how, with time, the soul comes to dominate the body. Selfish people get the hard, selfish look. Generous people grow more physically attractive each day. People with the peace of God’s friendship develop expressions that instantly attract and constantly charm. A mouth that speaks kindly becomes a beautiful mouth. Hands that serve generously become characterful hands. Eyes that look out for affection on mankind are eyes that radiate an inner beauty not difficult to find.

A young man is wise to ask of his future wife a wholesomeness and moderate health.

Her smile soon comes to compensate for regular features.

And if she has a lovely character, she will year after year, indeed day by day, grow into a comfortable, attractive, gracious, beloved adornment of his house. Her virtue is the only kind of beauty that does not decay; and the virtue of her soul will take over and mould to full charm the beauty of her whole person.

HER PERSONAL GOODNESS

All this means that a young man should expect his future wife, the guardian and in a way the maker of his home, the mother of his children, to have personal goodness.

Modern young men have freely expressed a theory which I find horrible. They feel they have a right to “test a girl.” That is the famous “pass” about which so many ugly jokes are made.

“A fellow has a right to find out how far a girl will go. If she is willing to let him get away with something, that’s her lookout. If she isn’t, then let her take a stand and a decent chap will respect her attitude. You’ve got to experiment to find out whether a girl is good or not.”

Horrible as it is that the self-confessed “stronger sex” should make what they call “the weaker sex” decide how good they both will be, girls might as well know that many a modern young man actually puts them to the test. His attitude is contemptible but common. He does not make love to them because he loves them; he makes love to them to find out whether they are worthy of his possible love. And, in strange and savage contradiction, if the girls accept his insistent love, he decides they are not fit for married and maternal love.

Just as many a pagan-minded girl today thinks she has to indicate to the young man who takes her out that she is a “good sport,” so many an equally pagan-minded young man makes the test: Is she going to be a “good sport,” or is she someone whom I might consider for a partner in marriage, my wife, the mother of my children?

There is no real need for such contemptible experiments.

Goodness has a way of manifesting itself in a thousand instinctive signs. It is shown in speech and in reaction to speech. The girl of personal goodness is clean of tongue and quite clearly is not happy when the speech of others around her grows soiled.

Personal goodness shows itself in the kind of amusements a girl enjoys, and in her attitude to a film in which suddenly something off-color appears, or to a nightclub performer who turns blue.

It appears in the way children take to her attitude towards boys and men; a boy may frankly wonder a bit when a girl is a little aggressive, inclined to be too free with her gestures of affection, hangs on him, sits too close, has a way of finding the arm of the chair he occupies and sitting there rather than in a chair of her own. None of these things are too morally wrong in themselves; they are the signs of her habitual attitude.

A good girl is a pleasant companion. She likes to dance, but she dances with blended verve and modesty. She enjoys happy conversation but not off-color conversation. Her laughter is tell-tale; for it should be wholesome and natural and not strained or too loud or rising a little hysterically when things are doubtfully decent.

She is a girl who loves her home and is content with a quiet evening. She does not expect the boy at the movies to put his arm around her shoulder, and she goes well forward in the theater and does not herself stay back among the young couples whose interest in the film is largely secondary.

When she rides with a young man in his car, she does not imperil his driving by plastering herself against him; and if he suggests parking, she understands and differentiates between parking to admire the beautiful vista and parking as instant prelude to undeclared courtship and love-making.

No boy has to “test a girl” as the moderns would do. The thousand simple, easy, quickly rising signs tell the story of goodness or its lack. What does she read? What magazines does she eagerly page through? Who are her friends and what kind of boys and girls has she been going with?

PASSED ALONG

It is vital to remember that the goodness of the children is, next to the grace of God, going to come from the goodness of the mother. A girl of easy virtue may be “fun”; she is nobody to trust with a family. She may be a good sport, but will she be a good mother? After marriage she may reform, but it is wasteful effort for a girl to marry a drunkard to reform him; and it is prelude to heartache when a man marries a girl of easy virtue in the determination to turn her into a virtuous wife and mother.

Your future wife should have the health from which will come strong, vigorous young bodies. But she should have the spiritual health from which will arise strong, vigorous, virtuous souls.

HER MIND

While we are on the subject of what a woman passes along to her children, we may take at least a swift glance at the girl’s mind.

Certainly, unless you yourself are a young Einstein, you need not demand that your future wife be a Phi Beta Kappa. A book-worm or the ridiculed college grind is not necessarily a person with the kind of mind you’d enjoy living with for years.

Yet this is the day of universal education. Despite the value of modern schools, children will always find their mothers their best, as they surely are their first, teachers.

You will be happy if you marry a girl with an alert and inquiring mind. The physical aspects of marriage are extremely limited even in actual time. The rest of the day you live with a woman’s disposition and mind and soul. What she did in school and how much formal education she received is far less important than the quality of her thinking and the kind of mental attitudes she has developed.

Were her parents people who liked books, took her to good films and plays, had good music on the radio or their disks, and believed in pleasant conversation among themselves and with intelligent friends? Or, if they were not, has she herself developed such attitudes?

Did she detest books and class and almost deliberately do badly in her studies, so that now, self-defensively, she brags about what rotten marks she made?

When you are together, what does she talk about and what does she like you to talk about? Is she bored if the conversation rises above the latest Voice with the name-bands or the last piece of gossip about her girlfriends? Does she know at least something of what is going on in the world, and when you talk of your ambitions and dreams, your work in life, what you hope to make of yourself and your job, is she alert enough to follow?

We can’t stress this too demandingly; yet you will have to depend during a long married life upon the interests and mind and alertness of this girl. And your children’s minds will take their first character and formation from hers.

TASTES

The use of cosmetics and the style of her dress really are important chiefly in this: they illustrate her natural taste. A girl with taste doesn’t paint like a freshly designed circus poster. Her clothes are attractive and not extreme. They are neither too short nor too long, too full nor too scant, not the styles of five years ago or of the Space Cadet era.

When she eats, she is curious about new food but content with the plain dishes of the restaurant you can afford. She is curious about and receptive to new music and new books and art; but doesn’t go overboard for the latest craze that may die before its names get into the loose-leaf dictionaries. She shows honest enthusiasm but doesn’t gush or rave. She is sweet to people but doesn’t, in the Irish phrase, palaver them.

All these are the signs of good taste; and after all, upon the taste of your wife will depend the tasteful or chaotic home in which you are going to spend a good deal of important time.

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL

There are charming, well-mannered, attractive, beautiful, tasteful, well-dispositioned girls in every faith. All religions have their good and virtuous members, depending, of course, on what these religions believe and practice, and what they demand in virtue of their members.

But you are a great fool indeed if you allow yourself to fall in love with someone not of your faith.

If your religion means anything at all to you, it is Christ’s own revealed truth, Christ’s way of life, Christ’s road to salvation, Christ’s explanation of how to please His Father, Christ’s program for saving the world. Christ’s way is the only way to salvation.

It is not a matter of being a Republican or a Democrat, an Elk, a Rotarian or a Knight of Columbus. It is not a question of preferring the Dodgers to the Cardinals, golf to tennis, hamburgers to hot dogs. It is part of God’s plan for you to make a success of your life.

So you fall in love with a girl who does not share your faith. A lot of things inevitably follow…

1. You hold deep down inside you a great many truths that she thinks are false, nonsensical, or certainly not in the least important. A great sector of your life is totally alien to her.
2. As your wife, she has promised to raise the children in your faith. What are you asking of the poor girl? What demands are you making upon her tact, patience and ingenuity?

She must teach them truths she does not regard as truths.

She must start them off in religious practices that she herself does not practice.

She must create a religious atmosphere for the house when she does not accept that religion.

She must be so clever that she inspires the children to reverence and follow a religious way of life which she herself neither understands, accepts, nor externally practices.

You are asking a girl who may not believe in miracles to work them. You are going to ask your children to accept a faith that their darling mother does not accept. You are facing a life of religious loneliness; for you can never talk about your faith to the girl who does not understand what you are saying, and you must go off alone to Mass, to confession and Communion, to the parish mission or retreat.

And you must insist on a Catholic education for the children, following their Catholic Baptism, Communion and Confirmation, which means less money in the family budget, and sacrifices she must make just because you demand them of her.

Does it sound like prelude to a happy marriage, this fact that the girl doesn’t accept your faith?

The plain fact is that nothing so disqualifies a girl for marriage to you as the lack of your religious faith or the acceptance of a religion that regards your religion as false, misleading, and perhaps even of the devil.

Marry the girl of your own faith. Don’t ask a girl without your faith to accept you when accepting you means a lifetime separation from the soul and mind and practices of the man she has married.

ASK A LOT, GIVE A LOT

Perhaps by this time you have reached the conclusion that I am telling you to ask a lot of the girl you marry. I am. But I am also telling the girls to ask a lot from you.

The simple but vital principle for selection is this: You ought to demand a lot of the girl you marry, for the girl who marries you ought to be getting just as good as she gives.

Ask a great deal of the girl; but bring the girl a great deal yourself.

It’s a shabby marriage when either party short-changes the other in disposition, virtue, devotion and faith. It’s a blessed marriage when virtue weds with virtue, health finds health, a good disposition unites with a good disposition, and a faith is consecrated at the altar to a similar faith.

Marriage is too important to be fooled with. If shabby, third-rate people must marry shabby, third-rate people, the world will continue to know its makeshift, unhappy, fore-doomed marriages.

You wouldn’t have read this booklet if you did not want the right girl for the ideal and blessed marriage. Look until God leads you to her. And let her, when you make your offer, know that you are bringing her a man of integrity, pleasant habits and disposition, virtue, and a deep and shining faith.

Then God bless you both.

“How often do the father and mother of a large family remain young at heart because of the love they give to, and draw from, their children and grandchildren? In fact, many say that old age is their happiest time of life because they can enjoy to the fullest the love of the children!” – Rev. George A. Kelly, Catholic Family Handbook

St. Joseph Wire Wrapped Rosary! Lovely, Durable… Each link is handmade and wrapped around itself to ensure quality. Available here.

 

Why do we wear our best clothes on Sunday? What was the Holy Ghost Hole in medieval churches? How did a Belgian nun originate the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament? Where did the Halloween mask and the jack-o’-lantern come from?

Learn the answer to these questions, as well as the history behind our traditional celebration of Thanksgiving, in this gem of a book by Father Weiser.

Celebrate the Faith with your kids all year round!

For over half a century, Catholic families have treasured the practical piety and homespun wisdom of Mary Reed Newland’s classic of domestic spirituality, The Year and Our Children. With this new edition, no longer will you have to search for worn, dusty copies to enjoy Newland’s faithful insights, gentle lessons, and delightful stories. They’re all here, and ready to be shared with your family or homeschooling group. Here, too, you ll find all the prayers, crafts, family activities, litanies, and recipes that will help make your children ever-mindful of the beautiful rhythm of the Church calendar.This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

The Girl Worth Choosing by Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S.J. (Part One)

This is a lovely..and detailed… article. Since it is long I have broken it up into two parts….that are still long.

I read this kind of list before I met my husband. I also read a list about what a girl should look for in a Catholic young man. This was very helpful for me. I knew I would not find someone who perfectly fitted the bill…but I had something to go on in a day and age where you feel like you have to lower your morals or at least your expectations in order to find someone. Once again, you won’t find perfection…ever (are we perfect?)….but there ARE things to look for!

This list is extensive. There are many things for the young lady to work on. I have never understood why a young woman would feel like she has to fill in her time with going to college in order to feel useful in that interim before Mr. Right comes. (It’s different if you actually have a God-given career to pursue).

There are so many things to learn in this world! So many ways to grow in virtue! So many things we can do before we get married to develop these very same attributes Father Lord talks about! It is a time to really roll up our sleeves and get working!

This list is very good for us married women too. We should never stop growing in virtue and we need to be teaching our girls these things!

(As a side note, do not let this list dishearten you. None of us will be “ideal”. Part of growing in virtue is accepting who we are…a fallen human being. Let’s just use this list to tweak areas that may need working on…)

The Girl Worth Choosing

For the BOY who Chooses and the GIRL who wants to be Chosen.

By Rev DANIEL A. LORD S.J.

Part Two is here.

Painting by Elaine Munier (1840-1895)

This is for the boy with his eyes on the future. But it is for the girl who is thinking ahead. It is meant to help a boy pick out the right girl, and to help the girl be the kind that will be happily and permanently picked.

If you are a boy not in love, yet expect someday to be, this booklet is meant to guide you in picking the girl worth loving. If you are in love, there is still time for you, my young friend, to appraise the girl and decide whether she is the sort who will hold your love as the years slip by.

As for the girl, the suggestions in this booklet will make you more lovable. This is no guide to glamour. But it is a guide to the feminine characteristics that attract a young man and make a mature man glad that in his youth you attracted him.

Choosing the right girl is one of life’s great decisions. Upon it depends more of a man’s future happiness than at the time he faintly guesses. Romance fades and realism sets in; the dream is gone and the damsel remains. The enchantment of fascination disappears but the enchainment can remain a delightful partnership or a life sentence.

While some girls, in the blessed providence of God, are meant to know His full love and their own personal dedication to Him and His little ones, for most girls the matter of who picks them out and says, “Will you?” is terribly important. It is important to be chosen by the right man. Better not be chosen at all rather than find that the man who asks you has asked you for all the wrong reasons.

LOVE IS ENOUGH?

“Aw,” protests the young man, “what kind of a business deal does he think marriage is? Love is enough. Love will point out the perfect girl for me. One look, and I’ll say, ‘This is the one!’ Isn’t that the way the popular songs go? Doesn’t it happen like that in the movies?”

I shouldn’t, if I were you, trust too far the popular ‘song-pluggers’ or the actors and actresses who play at love on the screen. Their married lives are seldom a pattern of successful and enduring love.

Falling in love is almost too easy. People do it all the time, and sometimes many times over. Someday in greying maturity, you will look back in amazement at the number of girls you briefly thought you loved. Most young men say, “This is the one,” after a quick look at a litany of maidens.

Marrying is something very different.

Marrying is the heart and the head working together. It is love that to “Isn’t she lovely?” adds “And what a lovely disposition;” to “Isn’t she beautiful?” quickly joins “And what a beautiful soul!” Marriage turns love into a permanent state. Until marriage, the girl you love comes and goes; with marriage she stays on. Love may be blind; but marriage gives you plenty of time to look at the girl and really see her.

It is easy to marry; it takes a lot of co-operation between two well-matched and congenial people to stay happily married.

BEFORE AND AFTER.

The disillusioned married man was once the enthralled bridegroom. He comes to a friend with a startled look in his eye, crying, “If I had only known her beforehand as I know her now!” Or, angrily and in frustration, he waves his arms at an unsympathetic world: “Why didn’t somebody tell me? Why wasn’t I given some tests that I could have applied before I married the girl?”

Now the simple fact remains: A girl is not changed by marriage. She is the same in disposition and abilities, in character and virtue after the honeymoon as she was before she was fitted for her bridal gown.

More than that, the shrewd observer could have seen in the girl the qualities that would make her a good or poor wife — a happy mother or a complaining shrew. All the signs were there. Many a casual person saw them. It was the lover, blinded by his emotions, who missed the obvious. He in some cases deliberately preferred to be blind. “She’ll change,” he persuaded himself. Or, “I like the fact that she can’t cook . . . Isn’t her continuous chatter delightful? . . . Of course, she hasn’t grown up, but she will . . . I know she is extravagant with her parents’ money; but she won’t be that way with mine.”

THE TIME TO LOOK.

Before marriage, not after, is the time to find out what sort of person the girl really is.

Laugh if you like, but many a highly successful marriage was worked out by the parents of the boy and the girl. The lad’s mother and father knew that the girl was charming, good, virtuous, an excellent cook, a fine manager, with a pleasant disposition. She was no Miss Universe; but twenty years from now when her beautiful character had given her grace and a durable smile and comfortable understanding and instinctive good manners, how lucky the man who had married her!

Since parents haven’t much to do with marriage choices these days, the young man had better do some tall and serious thinking for himself. We Americans are wild advocates of the romantic marriage. And we are also an international disgrace for the way our marriages go to pieces on the rocks. Quite obviously a “glamour puss” is not necessarily a successful wife. She may be a Wow in a ball gown but she may also shy away in horror from the waving of an apron. She may have a clever line of chatter that is hollow as the rattle of castanets.

So before marriage, during what is first friendship and the beginning of courtship, the wise young man looks and listens and judges and appraises. He quite reasonably expects that the girl is sensible enough to give him the same treatment. Precisely the sort of person not to marry is the person (male or female) who rushes into marriage without thought, planning, or more than a heart-throbbing acquaintance with a life-time partner.

Look, young man, and study the signs.

Don’t, young lady, even consider marrying a man who doesn’t look and study.

Don’t be hurt, young fellow, if the girl is slow to decide whether she thinks you are up to the standard she has set.

Run like a startled deer, young miss, from the hunter who shouts first at his quarry and then asks what kind of trophy he has bagged.

To put it simply: Look before you love.

Or for the girls, let’s say: Be complimented by the long and thoughtful look of a good man and be sure you can stand in honest scrutiny.

SIMPLE TESTS.

What should a young man planning marriage look for?

What qualities should a young woman develop that would attract a fine, intelligent man, and hold a devoted, faithful husband?

Let’s start with that all-important thing called disposition.

“Disposition” is a word that comes from the verb “dispose.” And “dispose” means “arrange”. How is the girl disposed towards things and people around her? How does she arrange her actions to fit the people she meets and the circumstances that arise?

The ancient verse used to say (and we change only the noun):

“It’s easy enough to be pleasant

When love runs along like a song;

But the maid who’s worth while

Is the maid who can smile

When everything goes dead wrong”.

That was said first of men. But disposition is not so different in men or women. How is she disposed towards pleasant days or gloomy weather … towards plenty of spending money or a sudden shortage . . . to a new spring outfit or last year’s that must do for this season . . . towards the party when some other girl takes the spotlight . . . towards old people and young children . . . towards a week full of dates and a week when — for some reason — the phone doesn’t ring . . . towards the school election that chose her Queen of the May and the class election that found her missing the presidency by one vote ?

THAT PRECIOUS SMILE

A lot of future life would be simplified for the young man who learned to read girls’ smiles:

The quick spontaneous smile of good humor . . .

The smile that breaks when things have broken badly . . .

The smile with which a hard job is accepted . . .

The smile that is the outward sign of inward grace . . .

For cheerfulness is just one of the really important elements of a woman’s disposition. A man battles the world all day, and it’s often enough a tough, ratty world that cuffs him and growls at him and snaps about his ears, and digs pointed elbows into his ribs. When he comes home, he has a right to ask cheerfulness. The smile of his wife at the door is the real love-light that should be burning for him. And he can drop into an armchair of peace if he is welcomed by the cheerful good humor, the dimpled smile, the easy gaiety of his wife.

Many a woman has wisely cultivated a smile.

Girls with charming dimples may well have learned before their mirror that a smile is the way to wake them in fullest fascination.

There are forced smiles . . . and artificial smiles . . . and smiles that are turned on and off with some sort of inner switch, actually emotionless as an electric bulb.

Public entertainers learn to flash their smiles, no more sincere than the tears shed by a Johnnie Ray or a singing crocodile. As the chorus line dances onto the stage, the tired, gloomy, unsmiling faces of the girls will seem to catch fire from the footlights; and practiced smiles in magnificent insincerity will burst on every face.

In a way, a smile is less of the lips and the dimples than it is of the eyes. A mouth may curve in a smile and the eyes remain dead and lifeless. But eyes cannot smile without the whole face waking to cheerfulness and charm.

CHEERFULNESS FIRST

The test of cheerfulness is, of course, any sort of difficulty.

A girl cannot be other than cheerful when a young man dances attention on her, when she is heavily dated, when her frock is fresh and flattering; when Dad lets her borrow the car, and Mother slips her an extra green bill for incidental expenses.

The time to see whether or not a girl is cheerful is when things go badly:

It rains and spoils the picnic.

You are sorry but whereas you expected to take her to the expensive restaurant with the name band, you admit you are able to afford only a movie and a hamburger.

Mother says, “Sorry, dear, your father and I just have to go out tonight; and you have to stay home and take care of the youngsters.”

She has a fresh manicure, but it is also her turn to do the dinner dishes.

She expected to be the school’s prom queen, but the other girl wins the place.

Despite her honest efforts, she does not win a place in the school competition.

She captains a team that loses.

Her baby brother runs his hands, heavy with chocolate and jam, over her new linen suit.

You sincerely wanted to take her out, but if you don’t stay home and study, you’ll barely scrape through.

SMALL TESTS

Small tests are the big tests; for big tests come rarely in life. The cheerful wife and the cheerful mother will be the girl who can take small mishaps with a grin; who doesn’t get upset by the tricks of everyday incidents; who can smile and even laugh a little at the trifling disappointments of life.

Watch the girl for the small things. Those are the things you and your wife will have to face later on. Cheerfulness is the precious sunshine of a home; and if the wife has it, the home is bright and beautiful indeed.

MANNERS

Always a young man can think of a girl in these two ways:

1. Someday I shall depend upon her for my personal happiness, once she is my wife.
2. Someday my children will take their manners and their morals from her, once she is their mother.

So, in this day when manners are not too much prized by the younger generation, you’d be wise to take a good look at the manners of the girl you are thinking of choosing.

“Manners” — the word — expresses exactly what it intends to say:

The manner, the way in which a person habitually acts.

The manner, the way she talks.

The manner, the way she acts towards people.

The manner, the way she eats.

All those external gestures make the difference between a savage and a civilized person, a barbarian and a pleasant member of society.

A woman with pleasant manners is a delightful person to have around. A woman without pleasant manners can be a shrew, a harridan, a back-fence gossip, a rude, ill-bred, fish-wifely, gutterish person.

So you might nicely do a little listening to her voice and the way she speaks. You will have to listen to that voice for the rest of your days. Good grammar? Pleasant modulation? Sharpness of tone? Sudden squeals or blasts or outcries of rage or indignation? Too many words for too few ideas? No words at all, or so few that you question if she has ideas?

Does she say “thank you” for your gifts, and say it charmingly and with real appreciation? You might notice whether “please” figures in her normal speech, not merely towards you whom she is trying to impress but towards younger children, salespeople, waiters and waitresses, her teachers.

A gentle tongue may come under the head of virtue rather than manners, yet even when a tongue is not concerned with sin, it is certainly concerned with our comfort.

Heaven deliver a good man from a complaining woman . . . from one who is a fault-finder, who constantly sees what’s wrong with everything and makes a point of laying her tongue vigorously upon it . . . from the critical woman who can spot and indicate a blemish, however small . . . from the gossip who knows only the mistakes and slips of her friends and makes them her constant subject of conversation.

A man wants to be proud of his wife. He had better notice whether he is proud of the girl with whom he goes out. There are a few tests: She should know how to meet people; she should be considerate of older people, notably those related to her; she should be easy and comfortable in a restaurant, whether it be superlatively good or fitted to his depleted wallet; she should know how to wear the clothes suited for the occasion; she should watch and learn from those who have more experience than she; if she makes mistakes, she smiles at them, apologizes briefly, puts them aside, and tries not to repeat them.

GRATITUDE

Is gratitude a matter of manners or of deep inner virtue?

You will be smart if you expect gratitude from the girl you marry. Here, as in most cases, you can judge her future gratitude to you by her gratitude to her parents here and now. The girl who accepts the money and clothes, the house and food, the schooling and fun made possible by her parents without appreciation or gratitude will later take what you give her as her right, her due, and nothing for which you should get a sign of thanks.

Listen carefully while she talks about Dad and Mother.

“Oh, Dad’s so tight. He hates to let anyone have the car . . . I had to wheedle and coax to get this new dress out of Mother. You’d think every dollar bill was skin off her nose . . . For Christmas? Oh, I got a lot of clothes and things like that; but then, a person’s parents are expected to provide those. I wish I really had rich parents.”

Listen to her as she discusses her friends.

“Hazel helped me with my book report. But then, Hazel is a bookworm; she’d rather study than go to a dance . . . I feel sorry for June; she does so well in her studies, but she simply has no charm, do you think? . . . I finally persuaded my little sister, that’s Nan, to let me take her new nylon scarf; I promised to let her have my gloves on Sunday; but I’ll keep them hid so she can’t find them; I don’t want that kid using my stuff.”

A LADY, PLEASE!

Any female is a woman. But only certain women are ladies. For your sake, I hope you have the good luck to marry one of them. For a lady has those marks of good breeding that you will want her to pass on to your children. A lady has gracious manners that make her charming in her own home, pleasant in company, a prize that you can happily bring to a party, the confident, restful companion on your arm.

A lady is careful not to hurt others; and if she inadvertently does, she is quick to apologize.

A lady is considerate of the very old, the very young, the tiresome, the sick, the weak, the underprivileged.

A lady dresses well without being in advance of the styles or holding onto a style when it has gone into history.

A lady is extreme in nothing, but notable because what she does is right.

A lady is the lovely partner of a lifetime. Pray God to send a lady your way.

TOLERANCE

You and I are males, and as males we are going to do our full share of barging into fragile objects, thoughtlessly kicking things around, saying the wrong things at the right time, making the mistakes for which we will be very sorry and of which we shall be ashamed.

Thank Heaven, we spent the early and most naturally clumsy years of our lives under a tolerant woman — our mother.

She picked us up and dusted us off and kissed us when we fell.

She gathered together our broken toys and wiped up our spilt milk and set upright the chairs we had thrown over.

She took us in understanding arms and kissed our bruises and bandaged our cuts and told us how sorry she was and how sure we wouldn’t do it again.

When we rashly jumped off the tool-shed and landed on the cement and in bed, she said not a word of reproach; but nursed us back, knowing that our stupidity had taught us all the lessons we needed.

She didn’t much like that big kid over whom we waxed enthusiastic; but when he turned out to be a bully and a thief, she didn’t say, “I knew it all the time.” She accepted our bitterness towards him as she had first accepted our enthusiasm, wordlessly and with understanding.

MEN ARE GROWN-UP BOYS

Well, unflattering as it may seem to our male vanity, nothing truer is ever said by a woman than, “After all, a man is just a little boy grown up”. And by “grown up”, they usually mean physically — perhaps in some ways mentally; but not emotionally and not in any mastery of our mistakes.

So you had best look to your future wife for a deal of tolerance.

Is she tolerant of her own dad, his talkativeness, his not overwhelming success in business, his tendency to brag about his golf score or what he said to the boss, his constant remembrance of the past, his repetition of the same joke on all occasions? Or does a sneer curl her lips and pity narrow her eyes when she mentions him?

You will need a lot of tolerance from your wife as the years go on. She must be willing to be satisfied with moderate success. The girl (perhaps fortunately rare) who is contemptuous of anything but the most expensive restaurants, the best seats at the ballet, the top-flight clubs, clothes from the superlative shops, may find you — intolerable.

Her tendency to despise anything but real wit may make your modest humour seem hardly worth listening to.

And if she has a biting way of tearing down the reputation of those she knows, will your reputation and fame and achievements be of so high a standard that they are out of the reach of her sarcasm and scorn?

Gentleness and tolerance in a wife are almost essential for a husband’s happiness. The girl who lacks these is going to be tough on the man she marries. He has my pity well in advance of the scorn which will blister his skin and the disapproval that will embitter and probably stunt his efforts.

AH, SWEET CONTENT!

The perfect wife is a strange blend of contentment and ambition. You can study that rather easily in the girl with whom you are going. Here and now she will tell you, and mean it, how much better you can do than you are doing; yet she will be pleased with what you actually accomplish and achieve.

“I’m so glad that you are going out for football. I’ll be in the stands cheering you when you snare the forward pass.” And, if the coach doesn’t object, she is around when you practise, giving you the inspiration and courage you need. But you never get off the bench for the first few games. “I know you’re chafing to get into the game; be patient; it’s an old, seasoned team, and before the end of the season you’ll be in there, and next year . . . that’s going to be your year.”

Ambition for you, yet content with what you achieve.

“Are you going to enter the short story contest? I liked that last story you published in the school magazine. Remember that plot you sketched out for me? Why don’t you write that?” You do, but when the awards are given, you get an honourable mention, and none of the cash prizes. “But remember, you are only a Junior. The winners were mostly Seniors.” Mercifully she does not mention that Sophomore who got the second prize. “Write that plot over again and next year I’m betting on you.”

Her discontent expresses itself in her ambitions for you and for herself. Her content rests upon an acceptance of whatever comes out of honest effort.

DISCONTENT?

Into your litany put “From discontented wife, O Lord, deliver me!” From the woman who is always comparing unfavourably what she has with what someone else has. From the woman who is angry at the success of others. From the woman who never seems to have enough. If you give her a pound box of chocolates, her look indicates she expected three pounds in a fancy container. If Dad gives her a dyed fur, she admits pettishly that he really could afford broadtail. She does not look at what she gets but at what she has not got. She doesn’t have fun in the blessings and gifts that come her way, but is sour and resentful at the blessings and gifts that go to others.

You need not be long with a girl to measure her contentment of mind.

Her attitude towards you will soon show whether her desire for your success is pride in you and ambition for your full development, or greed and envy and an appetite for things and more things and still more things that no millionaire could ever satisfy.

You’ll catch that in the way she orders her smaller brothers and sisters around and acts towards people who wait on her.

It is tough to be tied to a bossy woman.

It is a slavery to be married to a demanding woman.

Does she now expect you to spend more than you can afford and to buy her luxuries that are clearly beyond your allowance or income?

(To be Continued)

True beauty comes from within. If that beauty is lacking, no exercise program, eating plan, or wardrobe update can put it there. No interior decorating scheme can give it to me. “The unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit… is of great worth in God’s sight.” 1 Peter 3:4 – Emilie Barnes.

Your Children Will Love These Books!
Review: Catholic Mother Goose, Volume Two, is a ‘one of a kind’ treasure for young and old alike! Little minds will be captivated by the beautifully colored and illustrated pages. Throughout the nursery rhymes, children will learn the lessons of kindness, unselfishness, the efficacy of suffering and the value of prayer! They will become more familiar with the lives of the Saints, St. Therese, St. Francis, etc. and their great love for Jesus and Mary. These beautifully written poems will plant the seed for good literature and a love for reading for years to come. This is how we make our Catholic faith and culture come alive for our children! This book is a must!
Package Deal on Volumes One and Two here.

 

 

In this book, Kennedy Hall explores the traditional wisdom of the Catholic Church on all things pertaining to masculinity. It is no secret that in our day it is hard to define what a man truly is, let alone how he should act. With all the modern obstacles that work against forming virtuous men, Kennedy Hall provides a solution with this book. Terror of Demons: Reclaiming Traditional Catholic Masculinity will help men of all ages and stages in life to develop heroic masculine virtue, something greatly needed in our time.

Here’s the award-winning classic that for over forty years has shown Christian men how to be the loving husbands and gentle fathers that Christ calls them to be.

Rooted firmly in Scripture, these pages call on husbands to stop thinking of themselves simply as bosses and breadwinners. Rather, says author Clayton Barbeau, husbands should see themselves as co-creators with God, imitators of Christ’s love for His people, high priests in the domestic Church, teachers of their children, witnesses to society, providers of spiritual and material goods, and models of holiness.

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The Single Vocation in the World/More Tea-Time With FF

by Fr. Dominic J. Unger, O.F.M., 1958, The Mystery of Love for the Single

There have always been enemies outside the Church who have attacked the celibacy of the clergy and denounced the perfect chastity of religious. With the defense of such single people we are not concerned directly, though much of what we say about chastity for the single in the world holds equally for the priests and religious.

Directly we are concerned with the vocation of men and women in the world who wish to live a life of perfect chastity in the single state. The legitimacy of this vocation has been attacked by those outside the Church. Even some Catholics seem to have had inaccurate, incomplete, and disparaging ideas on the matter.

We aim, therefore, to prove that it is lawful for people to remain in the world and live a single life of perfect chastity for the sublime purpose of attaining their primary end in life more easily and securely, thereby achieving a more complete and perfect personality, and ultimately for the purpose of obtaining a more perfect life of glory in heaven—all this for the greater honor and glory of Christ and God.

That such perfect chastity is quite legitimate is clear, first, from the fact that no one of less authority than Christ counselled it. He invited all those who feel capable of living that life to accept it when He said: “And there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. Let him accept it who can” (Matthew 19,12).

This invitation of Christ is general, it is not limited to priests or religious. His invitation implies that the vocation is difficult, but that it can be chosen freely by anyone who feels he can live it. And the reason He assigned for such a life is “for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.” Anyone may choose it for that reason, is Christ’s meaning; not merely those who for various reasons are barred from entering other vocations.

St. Paul, too, is warrant for the lawfulness of such a vocation of virginal love in the world. In his long and beautiful seventh chapter to the Corinthians about virginity and married life, he argues not only that this is a lawful vocation but that it is more perfect than the vocation of married life. For I would that you all were as I myself; but each one has his own gift from God, one in this way, and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they so remain, even as I. (I Corinthians 7,7-8)

Later he explains: He who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please God. Whereas he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and he is divided. And the unmarried woman, and the virgin, thinks about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and in spirit. Whereas she who is married thinks about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

Now this I say for your benefit, not to put a halter upon you, but to promote what is proper, and to make it possible for you to pray to the Lord without distraction. (1 Corinthians 7,32-35)

And he concludes: But she will be more blessed, in my judgment, if she remains as she is [namely, a virgin]. And I think St. Paul was speaking directly of women virgins, but his thoughts have equal force for men who live in perfect chastity. That is evident from the fact that he proposes himself as a model even for the women virgins.

In view of that clear teaching of Christ and St. Paul, it is not surprising that Holy Mother Church, who is herself the virginal Spouse of Christ, approved of this vocation from the very beginning, and protected it against the attacks of heretics and immoral persons. By her infallible authority she has declared that this vocation is better, in itself, than that of the married.

The Council of Trent made this statement: “If anyone says that the conjugal state is to be preferred to the state of virginity or celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity or celibacy than to enter matrimony, let him be condemned. (Session 24, canon 10).

Though the Council had religious and priests more in mind, its canon was meant also for men and women who live a life of virginity in the world.

In our own day Pope Pius XII, in a discourse on the vocation of woman in the modern world, praised the thousands who through the twenty centuries of the Church’s history have followed Christ’s counsel and freely renounced marriage to consecrate their services to humanity by prayer and penance, by every kind of work of charity toward children, the ignorant, the sick, the dying.

These remarks of the Pope do not refer exclusively to priests and religious. He praised those, too, who freely renounced marriage for the sake of a life of contemplation, of sacrifice and of charity. In regard to these, he said, one immediately thinks of a “vocation”; namely, that they have a true calling for that life from God.

Then, to encourage those who because of circumstances of war had to remain unmarried, he added that they, too, have a “vocation,” a call from God for their single lives, and their lives need not be useless for society. (Discourse, Oct. 21, 1945)

It would be quite erroneous to think that the Pope did not recommend a single life in the world except for those who were forced to remain unmarried. Such a deduction, as our analysis of the whole section shows, would be utterly false.

The Pope would never make such a primitive error in so important a matter of Christian living. He was speaking of a fact due to war conditions. He was not laying down an exclusive principle.

In fact, just before that he spoke of those who voluntarily choose such a vocation. For them it is a “vocation” without doubt. But it can be a “vocation,” he wished to explain, also for those who remain unmarried by force of circumstances.

Already prior to that discourse, on Holy Saturday, 1943, in an allocution to the Italian girls of Catholic Action, the Pope praised “the sons and daughters in the earliest Church, who freely renounced earthly nuptials for the love of Christ, consecrated all their powers to the duties of caring for souls, of Christian education, of charity, of foreign missions.”

He then spoke of those who were even martyred for their faith and purity. Only later does he mention religious. Those referred to earlier evidently include lay people who lived in perfect chastity, as is clear too from his speaking of the “earliest Church,” when there were no religious in the strict sense.

But the Holy Father gave a more solemn approval to the single life in the world in his encyclical On Holy Virginity, March 25, 1954. This document deals generally with virginity as lived by priests and religious, but many points apply equally to lay people who live in perfect chastity.

In one passage in particular he speaks expressly of lay people: But while such perfect chastity is the object of one of the three vows, of which the religious state consists, and while it is required of the clergy of the Latin Church in major Orders, and is demanded from the members of secular institutes; it, nevertheless, flourishes also among not a few who belong entirely to the laity.

For there are men and women who are not established in a public state of perfection, and still they abstain entirely from matrimony and the carnal pleasures by virtue of a resolve or a private vow, in order that they may more freely serve their fellow men and that they may unite their souls more easily and closely with God.

We have here an authoritative as well as an express approval of the single vocation even for those who are not forced into it but who choose it freely.

Virginal chastity in the world has, through the centuries, received at least implicit approval from the Vicars of Christ by the fact that they have beatified and canonized many men and women who lived this form of life. They have presented them to the whole world as models to be imitated.

A couple more questions were asked after my last “Tea-Time” and I thought it would be helpful to others to answer them here. They were asked in the comments so I thought the ladies wouldn’t mind if I put them on the post…

I have a question–what advice do you have for mothers with morning sickness? Our routine completely falls apart and my husband works hard to care for all the children and me all by himself. It is discouraging and very difficult for everyone. My moods during pregnancy also lower my quality as a mother. What spiritual advice would you give me? Thank you and I love your work!

I sent this question to my daughters and daughter-in-law. Here is the “thread” of answers:

“Father said it is a woman’s time of exodus.. You literally have to offer it up to God and do what you possibly can do to survive. Each day is just trying to get your basic prayers in. Like you said morning, night, rosary… Otherwise leave it in God’s hands…He knows what you’re going through. Unless there’s very specific areas which she could possibly work on I can’t think of how it necessarily would be helped…except by offering it up. Looking at our pregnancies a lot of times it is just survival. But somehow God seems to bless us and pull us through.”

“Exactly! That’s why I tremble in my boots thinking about pregnancy. I know I will be passed out, sicker than a dog, for 4ish months. You have to just live one day at a time and be grateful that you can have children. (Progesterone cream for mood swings.)”

“And depending on the man, it’s his time of exodus also. They definitely have to pick up a ton of slack and especially if he’s a good and caring man. Now that I am thinking of it, it just amazes me how good our guys are and how much they do to help us during that time!”

“I never suffered severe morning sickness so I can’t completely relate. But, like all things in life, the gifts, the crosses, we strive to accept them both with a joyful heart and offer them up to God. And allow ourselves LOTS of grace when the going is rough. God knows we can’t do it all, all the time. We demand so much of ourselves, always trying to be ‘perfect’ that we have a hard time truly letting God ‘handle the reins.’ Practically, you do what you can and let go of the rest. Focus on nutrition, supplements, rest, and if available and financially feasible, seek outside help when necessary. Never be too proud to ask for help!”

Question:  I follow your blog for quite some time and I enjoy it, it is like a breath of fresh air. I have a question: what would you advise to a single young woman who is alone, still waiting for soul mate, but I try to choose noble and more feminine jobs that would protect me from indecent behaviors. So I would like to hear your advice about possible jobs or your experience. Thank you very much and may God bless your family.

You are wise. There are jobs that are more feminine than others, and, if you have the choice, seek out the ones that help to build those qualities, rather than tear them down.

For myself, I worked in an office for the few years before I got married. I took quite a pay cut by quitting my one job to go to another. But I did not like the atmosphere in the government job I held. The women were very catty and unfeminine….and I was surrounded. So I vouched for the other job and was much happier…the money was not as important to me.

I think jobs where you help others….nursing home, nanny, etc. are very valuable. You are not only making a necessary income, but it is an apostolate, as you are working with souls. This brings out the feminine, nurturing side of a young woman, which is always good.

This being said, my girls go out on the job with their brothers and dad. They paint…which means they sand, they lift, they clean, etc. I’m not at the job with them but even though this job may not seem very feminine, the guys respect them, they wear their work skirts on the job and I am sure they work hard while being a lady. It can be done….

We may not have choices so God provides in our journey. Prayer always can change circumstances and put those more feminine choices in our paths.

You may have read this post: If You Want to Find the Right Person, You Must BE the Right Person, and it is not completely on topic to your question but it may be one you enjoy.

Often turn to Our Lord, Who is watching you, poor frail little being that you are, amid your labors and distractions. He sends you help and blesses your afflictions. This thought should enable you to bear your troubles patiently and quietly, for love of Him Who only allows you to be tried for your own good. -St. Francis de Sales

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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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A Frank, Yet Reverent Instruction on the Intimate Matters of Personal Life for Young Men. To our dear and noble Catholic youths who have preserved, or want to recover, their purity of heart, and are minded to retain it throughout life. For various reasons many good fathers of themselves are not able to give their sons this enlightenment on the mysteries of life properly and sufficiently. They may find this book helpful in the discharge of their parental responsibilities in so delicate a matter.

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

Timeless words from the pen of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen inspire the heart and imagination as readers embark on a Lenten journey toward a better understanding of their spiritual selves. Covering the traditional themes of Lent–sin and salvation, death and Resurrection, sorrow and hope, ashes and lilies–these 50 passages and accompanying mini-prayers offer readers a practical spiritual program as a retreat from the cares and concerns of a secular world view.
If you enjoyed learning about holiday traditions in The Christmas Book, you are sure to love its sequel, The Easter Book. Father Weiser has here applied his winning formula to an explanation of the fasts and feasts of the Lenten and Easter seasons with equally fascinating results.

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