Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Yeah, I wanna make it clear, except for the points which are explicitly taught by the church. There's plenty of room, uh, for differences of opinion. Obviously we all have to submit to church teaching, but you aren't bound by the opinions of a priest. And I, I won't take it personally as long as you don't insult our lady or my mother. So that being said, I think, uh, for the most part I can make a, a very strong case for what I'm going to say. It's mostly just horse sense, and hopefully it won't be very surprising to anyone. It's an immense, uh, topic to talk about relationship between boys and girls and, and bringing 'em up. So I'm gonna talk for a while and then, and then recommend various, uh, resources and then, uh, run down the questions that were sent in. I jotted a few notes.
Speaker 0 00:00:51 For the most part, it's extemporaneous. So I'm just looking at my notes to refer to the, the points I wanted to say. Uh, I would start with just a general warning for people that are perfectionists or screw or have scruples, there's an important principle that you should know, and it applies to this and everywhere else in your life. And the, the, the principles, the perfect is the enemy of the good. The perfect isn't the enemy of the bad. It's the enemy of the good. So if you're a perfectionist, you're never gonna be happy with what's good enough. And you just have to, you, you have to be happy with what's good enough. You want, we wanna do the best we can, but this isn't the Garden of Eden. You're not the blessed mother. I'm not St. Joseph. We're just gonna do the best we can in life.
Speaker 0 00:01:29 And I know I spend a lot of time kind of talking people off the ledge, especially women. And that's not picking on because they're perfectionists. So that's just something you have to realize of weakness. If you have that, be aware of that. So anything I say, uh, you know, take it as it's meant and not like you, you have to be perfect. We wanna strive to be holy, but uh, if we fall down, that's what confession's about. Okay? So we're gonna start with the general principles. I've mostly, since I'm talking to women, I'm mostly focusing in that direction. Girls will touch on guys, but actually raising boys to be men is essentially the department of men. And that just, uh, you know, one of the big failures right now is raising men. I will, I will say a little bit about that later, but it takes men to turn boys into men.
Speaker 0 00:02:15 And if there isn't a, a husband or a father at home, then a big brother and uncle, a guy, a coach, somebody. But it takes men to produ to bring guys in the world of men. And I may say something about that a little later to depending, but let's go down the principles. First basic principle is girls are a barometer for the moral atmosphere in a society. That's just a principle. I tell young priest, when they go to new parish, it takes about five minutes to figure out where the parish is. All you have to do is just observe carefully the women and the girls. And you know, where the moral standards are. I mean, this starts in the garden Eden and goes forward. But if the women are here, the men are there. If the women are here, the men are there, that the women are here, the men are there. That's an average. There's bad women and, and good, really good men. But I mean, that's an average. Uh, there's a necessary conclusion right now given that is that we, in our society, we live in a brothel. There's no nice way to put it. It's a rude word, but that's where we're living. We're living in a brothel. And it's not barring divine intervention. This is not gonna change.
Speaker 0 00:03:25 So that's something to be very aware of. And especially raising girls. Cause y'all are way more sensitive to what everybody else does than guys. We're kind of clueless. We focus on one thing, can walk right through a living room, never move any. I have a buddy that's a, a priest up in Oklahoma. I go up and visit him over the past decade or so. I can tell you where the piles are in, in on the floor in his rec rectory. I can't even tell you what books are in them. They haven't moved. That's how guys are. I mean, you know, and he just, he knows where he just wa you weave your way to his office and all that. That's how we are. We're not interior decorators. The guy that's interior decorators, really, girl. I mean, this is how these things are. So, because we live in a brothel, it's really important when you're raising girls to think about those kind of things.
Speaker 0 00:04:06 Cuz they have to be you. You have to really think about what are we gonna do. We'll get to that in a second. Second basic principle is every girl is such, even either prodo proposes virtue or vice to those around her. Every girl as such either proposes virtue of advice to those around her. She either models, Eva, our lady, everybody knows this. Everybody knows this. They have it in the fairy tales. Beauty and the Beast is a story about the fact that women have on men. What a good woman has. They don't, you don't have to know anything about Adam and Eve to understand beauty and the beast cuz it's just true. And there's probably, besides Little Red Riding Hood, which is like disobedient girls not listening to their mom. The wandering off, you know, talking to people in the forest and bad wolves, not, I mean, there's probably ones about bad girls getting guys to be bad. I don't remember my fairy tales. But the point is, is that every woman as such either proposes virtue or vice to those around her. Now there's a corollary to that.
Speaker 0 00:05:08 There's an immediate corollary that principle woman's clothing is a statement, it's an advertisement, properly understood. And it, it's an exterior sign of the nobility, the dignity, the humanity, and the beauty of femininity as such, that's what it is. Those that want imitate Eve, like all these posters we've got are on on the, on the, on the signs and all that. It's an advertisement of body parts and dehumanizes and degrades a woman. That's a necessary Corolla. If the Church of the priest talk about rules that can only be properly understood in that context. Women are supposed to be colorful and beautiful with certain exceptions. Whim, widows and, and religious always had permission to sort of dress in an unattractive, dark way on purpose. But the rest don't. You know, St Gemma had to have permission from her director to wear widows weeds. Women are supposed to be colorful and beautiful.
Speaker 0 00:06:05 Now that's somewhat culturally determined. Obviously what's colorful and beautiful and Bavaria is not the same as Kerala India. It doesn't matter. But the idea is y'all are the flowers in society. So that's something important. And the only reason for the church, and I'm saying the rules, is when you're, you, you don't have ordinarily. But when you live in a place like a brothel, it's just to make sure everybody knows it's a fair fight and where the lines are. That's all. It's not that big of a deal because if a person has a sense of their dignity, they will. Clothes are very important. I'd still be who I'd still be a priest if I was up here in Bermuda shorts and one of those Hawaiian shirts and gold chains and all that. But I think I would have a frightful effect on anybody, including myself. I mean, my understanding myself would be just ridiculous.
Speaker 0 00:06:49 But, uh, it wouldn't change the, the essential fact that I'm a priest. But it would sure change how people would, would think about me. Interact mean. It's the saint. So that's just it. Girls either propose virtue or vice to those who run 'em. That's just a given. That's the beauty of, of womanhood or the tragedy. Third principle, girls are made to be loved by a man for religious single woman. Our Lord is the one that ideally takes that place. If he isn't taking that place, there's gonna be a crisis. Huh? But it's just part, it's innate in a woman to be loved by a man when she's little. Of course, uh, she, she needs her father's love. And all I, this is my personal opinion, I think, uh, at least some of the feminist anger is, is rooted in the ability, inability of certain strong women to find a man worthy of surrendering to.
Speaker 0 00:07:38 I really think that that's an, that's an opinion. But uh, uh, certainly in my experience, some of the feminists are, a woman has innate desire to surrender herself. But a man has a desire to sacrifice himself. And it's not the same. It's not the same at all. You know, there's a great essay by CS Lewis on chivalry. I, uh, off the top of my head as I'm standing here, I don't remember in which of his collections it is, but I'd really recommend reading that cuz Shivry is a specifically Christian notion. You know, when the Titanic went down, 80% of the women survived, but most of huge number of the men didn't. That doesn't happen when a ferry goes down Indonesian. Mostly the men survive. Why is that? Because we're more powerful and we can trample you the women and children first is a specifically Christian notion, rid shivery.
Speaker 0 00:08:30 And you know, CS Lewiss isn't gonna talk about that aspect, but it's something really worth meting on. It really is. It'll help you understand, uh, femininity and masculinity just by thinking about that. There's a corollary to this principle that girls are made to be loved by a man. If a girl is not loved, if she's not being loved by her dad, you know, or someone that that took the place like an uncle or something. If, if the dad isn't in the home, uh, and it starts with the dad. It's so important. She has this innate desire to be loved. Uh, she'll, she's gonna look for love and girls will play at sex to get love and guys will play at love to get sex. That's the caral rule. And the girl always loses in that. And the feminist can scream bloody murder all day long. But the dynamic is that way may be rude to say, but it's just realistic. That is the, uh, default setting that will happen if we fall at a natural level and we are all around us. It's important and it raising girls, you have to keep this in mind cuz it's one of the things that, that you want to at, at the right age. And we'll talk a little bit about that stuff to a certain degree. But you wanna make sure your girls understand that haven't helped the girl that doesn't understand that clearly.
Speaker 0 00:09:44 Okay? Within the boundaries of marriage, of course, uh, sex, sex is an ennobling experience. That's by that act that a man turns his wife into a mother. And it's also a blessing thing. It's the first blessing that God gave mankind was to be fruitful and multiply. So within the boundaries of marriage, it's ennobling and it's blessed outside of it. It's profoundly degrading. And the wounds, especially in the girl I'm not seeing, the guys don't get wounded, but especially in the girl, the so frequently these's really, there's really serious psychological slash spiritual wounds are result of engaging this game. She's trying to get love and you can't get it that way. It's not possible to get that way. It has to be an expression of love already safely established. Otherwise it leaves wounds. And heaven helped the poor girl that doesn't understand that and their numbers.
Speaker 0 00:10:41 Legion. Another corollary to this principle that girls are made to be loved by a man is if a girl, and it relates to one, we already said, if a girl wants to land the right guy, she should keep in mind, she wants to be someone worthy that he sees somebody worthy of sacrifice himself for. This is a good thing to tell your girls. He has to see her. She's not like the other girls. That's key. That's absolutely key cuz the whole mysterious power that God has given woman. And it's a real power. It's an unbelievable power. God has given woman the moral power God gave, man the physical power, God gave woman the moral power. And it's really right there. The guy will think, I can't believe that she is in love with me. She's better than me and yet she's follows me. This propels him to try to better himself and sacrifice himself for her.
Speaker 0 00:11:43 A girl can't help but be an examination of conscience for a guy if she's proposing herself as a girl and not in an effective way. It's just the, it's psychologically the way a guy is. A guy that looks up to, to his best girl, morally speaking, he looks down at her and haven't helped her. If he looks down at her, he'll never be able to really respect her like he should. Really important fourth principle, grace perfects nature. Prayer is not sufficient then Pius is not sufficient. Saint Augustine says Pray if as if everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on you, that's an important thing to get through to the kids. I've been talking about girls, but all this stuff, you know, it, we have to understand that it's not just the church. Let's take a scenic cruise. It's a church militant.
Speaker 0 00:12:28 We're fighting, we're fighting to get to heaven. So grace perfects nature. Prayer is not sufficient. The sacraments aren't miraculous, but they need so to speak, surface area to work on. And that's, that's our part of the deal. We'll talk a little bit about that. An application maybe as I go. Fifth basic principle is keep in mind you're trying to raise virtuous holy adults. You're trying to raise adults. Adults. It takes 18 years to raise an 18 year old to, you have a plan. The first thing to be determined is the end. What are we shooting for? When you're starting a horse, I'm sorry, I'm just using country thing, you don't just sort of randomly do things and go, boy, I don't know, maybe I'll sack it out to, you know, maybe you, you gotta clear if if you don't have a clear idea what you're trying to, where you're trying to go with that horse, you're gonna get right where you're going, which is nowhere.
Speaker 0 00:13:23 The horse doesn't know what you want. You know what you want, you figure it out. It's the same with the kid. You gotta have a clear idea insofar as you have a clear idea, then you at least have something to measure against. We don't need any more thumb sucking 27 year old boys sleeping on their parents' couch. It's a catastrophe with the men. I'm talking to women, boy, you know, I'll talk to the men. It's a catastrophe. It's a catastrophe everywhere I go, you know, I work overseas a lot in Sydney, I in that parish, I see all these girls. The only thing, this is a tattoo saying marry me. There's so many neat girls in our parishes all over and there's not many neat guys. There's reasons for that. And you can't make the boys into men. You can keep out of their, you can keep 'em as boys.
Speaker 0 00:14:10 That's part of the, but we have to have an idea of where are we trying to head. If you don't have it, I'm gonna make some suggestions for reading later on, but I just wanna go through some principles right now. We have to have an idea. And you're not just trying to raise any kind of adult. You're trying to raise a confessor of the faith. We're living in a brothel. You are gonna raise martyrs. Have that in your mind, have it in their mind. Read stories of martyrs to 'em. It is a reality. And it's not gonna be 40 years from now and it's not gonna be 20 years from now. Tell 'em what's going on right now with the, the calians in Iraq and see how much help we're giving them. And that's gonna be us. And it's not gonna be long. You gotta be having clearing your mind, what am I trying to do?
Speaker 0 00:15:04 What, what is the goal here? What do I expect at 18 years old? What do I expect at 17? The first thing to return is end. And then you work towards it. So, you know, where are we getting, it's essential, adults don't just happen. Look at our society what proof there is. It's essential. You're trying to raise adults, holy adults, confessors of the faith. Corollary to this is that you're trying to raise adults. Is it with girls? Are you raising 'em? So they have a skillset set, a feminine skillset. I'm not just talking about makeup here. I, you know, which, that's fine, I I'm not making fun of it. But they have to have a feminine skillset. Here's a, you know, I come from the country. So when you get a, we have what are called country schools, you might call 'em one room schools here, but we call 'em country schools where I'm from.
Speaker 0 00:15:57 So it's a one room schoolhouse. And you always, you know, at least till recently we had about 5% of the school districts in America in a state with under a million people. So we got a lot of school districts and these little country schools out in the country. And the, so the school board will hire a single woman to be the teacher for more than one reason. First off, she can get her done second off. That's an opportunity for the bachelor's, right? That's where wives come from, you know, cuz you come from country where there aren't many women. It's not like here. Okay? Anyway, so the first thing you do and there's a country school teachers, he go out there to visit her, you know, cuz it's, you're, you're assessing the situation. I can, I can remember driving out to visit with one and there's a buddy of mine, you know, he thought I was gone. So to make it even, we went together in my pickup so I wouldn't have a jump <laugh>. That's just true. I'm not embarrassed. <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:16:50 So we go out there and we're sitting there visiting with her. Well, I mean in, in the course of about 20 minutes I find out she hated to cook. She hated to clean. She didn't know how to sit. She went down the whole darn list. You know, by the time you're just like, you know, you're just throwing in your cars, I'm being nice. So you get, get her the pickup and you're driving home. So, oh, I get it. So I get fix the fence, fix the, fix the pickup and fix dinner. I mean, what the heck is this? What did her mama raise? That's a divisional labor and I'm not making fun of it. It's a division of labor. We need the guys to have a skillset too. I'm talking to the girls, right? But give them a skillset so that they're not sitting there.
Speaker 0 00:17:24 How? And I will tell you how many times there are girls that are mad, they will come and complain to you. There's a priest cuz they realize they were raised to kind of be a husband because they, they were raised in a family and there's, this is not, I'm not, not against getting education or anything, but they're raised as if they were gonna be the husband and then it's occurring to them. I really don't know how to do anything like the mom stuff. I don't even know how to cook anything. They've been prepared and there's, you know, it can be, but why have all that burden on you when you can fix it on the way and get 'em so that they come up? What are you trying to produce at 18 years old? Have this in your mind so that doesn't happen to the poor girl.
Speaker 0 00:18:02 And there might be some of you sitting here, please don't not, but there might be some of you sitting here that will find yourself in that situation. And that's a lot of catch up to do. Don't do that to your children. Let's just get rid of the sixties, seventies, eight, these weird ideas from before and just get, you know, raise them up to be good girls, whatever they're gonna do. Those saintly women, they all knew how to do all those things. You can start with our lady. Most education you could get in those days. She's in the temple from three. So she's highly educated woman, but she knew how to, you know, what's her Lord wearing when they're playing dice for it, right? She could do it all. And that's it. So you wanna make sure you do that. So does she have a feminine skill set? Does she have an adult, a understanding, appreciation for typical men weakness, male weaknesses and flaws and female weaknesses and flaws. Cuz that's your job.
Speaker 0 00:19:00 That's another thing. I'm gonna read some things here later that I go through with in people. I prepare for marriage. Just, just snippets of things. But that's your job too. So that there, they're in the real world, not in a fantasy world, you know, because except for the holy family, everybody else is gonna have issues. The perfect Santa any good. You're not gonna marry somebody perfect. So you're looking at 'em, you know, it's like buying a h buying a car. You're trying to look what's the, what's where the positive points, what the negative points about this. Is this something, you know, as dispassionately as possible, most of them, two-thirds of 'em are gonna have a vocation to marriage. Roughly if we follow St. John Bosco, you know, at really Catholic times in Ireland and Spain, both, they had about one quarter of the people in, in, in religious life for the priesthood.
Speaker 0 00:19:43 St. John Bosco says it's about a third of the people that have a religious vocation of the priesthood. Now, not all. So that's an ideal. But, so you can assume that on the average two-thirds of three quarters of my kids on the average, cuz they're not average, one family might be one might. It's not that, but are gonna be for the, are gonna be getting married ideally. If that's it, if that's your vocation, am I preparing for that? And even if you're preparing 'em for that and they go to religious life, that's not a catastrophe. We live with priests that, I mean a cup of coffee that would be the most challenging. They gourmet dinner to produce something like that. You know, it's unbelievable at times. The guys are totally helpless. They got away from home like that. I don't understand that, but it's a reality. I mean it's just unbelievable. And father can can vouch for that. He's back there. Um, you watch these guys, it's like, hey, he opened a can of beans. We're getting somewhere, you know, <laugh>, okay, you know, I, I'm gonna come back to some of these things. As I said, six basic principle barring miracles of grace are just absolutely amazing life experiences. The children are gonna leave home with the values you've impressed upon them. If that doesn't scare you a little, you better think really hard about that.
Speaker 0 00:20:57 Is there a true reverence and respect for the opposite sex being modeled in your home, especially by mom? Do you show your appreciation for your husband in front of the kids, both when he is there and when he is not there?
Speaker 0 00:21:13 Do you get yourself gussied up a little bit unless there's a sucking chest wound? Do you get yourself gussied up a little bit and the kids lined up to greet him when he comes through the door, do you hold off, ask him any important questions to you fed him and to keep the kids from asking anything important to you fed him. These are just thoughtful things. You're trying to teach 'em reverence cuz what you're trying to teach 'em is in a relationship. It's not about me. The priesthood isn't about me, it's about you, Christ our Lord, of course. But I'm serving Christ in you because I'm not cloistered. A relationship is not about me. And you're showing 'em that you're modeling that with them. You gotta show 'em that it's not about me and the kids, it's about him and the kids. Are they learning that from you? Because if they're not, you want to work, walk your way back through that and start Justin the way it is now. Marriages have their strengths. I know that. But you know, think about it. Are you nag when your children see someone fall short relative someone they know, someone on the street, some major figure and they bring it up. What kind of message are you I impressing on them by seeing this failure, this sin. It may be catastrophe. Is it yes that really isn't right? Or maybe that's really wrong but there but for the grace of God go I, is that the kind of message you're giving him or is it rip on that person?
Speaker 0 00:22:37 Are you acting like our lady or like eve? Would your speech an example on those kind of matters? Because this is really important on those kind of matters. Would your speech an example in those kind of manners, reflect and resonate with our lady with Eve? What kind of example are you setting there without excusing anyone? I explain to the kids if that person had the graces that we've been given, if they had other grace we've been given, they'd be better than we are. And if we'd had the life they've been given, we'd be worse than they are. Cuz we can say that about anybody and it is an excuse in their behavior. But we should be able to say that.
Speaker 0 00:23:24 Have you established an atmosphere in which your children feel safe in talking to you? Even about their big failures? I'm not talking about you prying it out. 'em don't ever ask 'em why they didn't go to communion ever, ever. That's between them and the priest ever. You'll notice it. You just pray or you're gonna be causing them to make bad communion. Guaranteed. I absolutely guarantee it. You can't be like that. You have to be like our lady. Our lady sees us, but she isn't coming down from heaven and smacking us every time we do something stupid. She's praying for us. You have to be like our lady. It doesn't mean it doesn't bo it should bother you. But you should be praying, you should really be praying. You're not ever say something about that you shouldn't pastor 'em about getting the confession. If you're setting an example of going regularly, they'll get there. If you ever have a real question about that, you can bring it up in the confessional with the priest about it and find out if it's something. But I'm not talking about a week. If this is thing that goes on long term, then you take a priest count on that. But don't ever ask why your husband or your kids aren't going to communion ever. This is a common thing that a woman might think is good, that's very bad.
Speaker 0 00:24:38 We wanna set, you wanna set an atmosphere in which your ch your children feel safe and talking even about their moral failings we and weaknesses, they might not very often. It depends a lot on their disposition, but they should feel safe with that. Like they can place that in your hands and you're not gonna crush it. Okay? That's so important. Men are far from being faultless in these matters, that's for sure. Overall though moral atmosphere is gonna be set by the woman, you're with them more. Might be hard to hear. I'm gonna say something here that might be hard to hear, but I, I think everyone here should think hard about this. Sometimes I think that if St. Mary Magdalene showed it up at some of our traditional communities, there'd be a committee of women that go uprate her and then yanked their killed kids out and go somewhere else. And I don't say that with any delight. If someone hasn't ever committed a mortal sin, they should even more be more grateful to God for the mercy he shot on. So it's one of the things, if you're training your kids right, you're not gonna ha fall apart If someone unwed mother shows up with their tint mass, we're glad they're there at mass. What are the other options? Don't we want them there?
Speaker 0 00:25:53 Woody maker and her child feel welcome and even in your home. It's something to think about.
Speaker 0 00:26:02 And that doesn't mean that we approve of soon, but that's not the same thing I'm asking here. And you don't have to answer me. This is, these are questions for you to meditate on. I'm not gonna give you a test. Seventh basic principle, the teaching the church. This is more concretely have to do with, uh, with things a little later in life. Uh, I'll just read it. Uh, but I, I wanna uh, I wanna spend some time on this and then I'm gonna walk back through some of the stuff we've already said with, I got a whole bunch of things here. So we'll review an occasion of sin as any person, place, or thing that tempts Amanda sin. There are four different types of occasions of sin, remote or near which are opposed to each other and voluntary and necessary. So you have a remote occasion of sin or a near occasion of sin, a voluntary occasion of sin, or a necessary occasion of sin.
Speaker 0 00:26:54 Okay? Those are, those are opposed to each other. So a remote occasion of sin is a situation which men seldom fall a near occasion of sin. A sit, a situation when which men always or nearly always fall. So that's remote, near remote, rarely near, nearly always voluntary occasion of sin can be avoided. A necessary occasion of sin cannot be avoided, at least not without serious loss. But since it can't be avoided, men must take the proper precautions in order to avoid falling. A unnecessary occasion is sin a male obgyn. He is going to see women with their clothes off. It's just part of his thing. If he's saying his prayers, he won't have any temptations. You get a grace steak, he won't even think about anybody but his wife. Another guy doing that is toast. A male nurse, same kind of thing. I'm just using those cuz people, there's no problem at all if they're saying their prayers, the woman won't be a temptation to 'em.
Speaker 0 00:27:50 Doesn't matter because you get the grace estate. It would be the same if it was a diocesan censor and a bishop appointed him to review things. If they're heretical and all that, he could read that stuff and no problem, somebody else leave leaving through that. Good luck. Okay? Cuz it's, you get a grace of state. Okay? So an occasion of sin is any person plays or thing that tempts man to sin. A remote occasion of sin is a situation in which men rarely sin. Like having a body bottle of whiskey in the cupboard on your occasion of sin is a situation which men always nearly always, uh, sin like, uh, like viewing porn, okay? Voluntary occasion can be removed and necessary occasion can't be avoided, at least not without grievous loss. But the men must take proper precautions in order to avoid falling if he, if he's in a near occasion.
Speaker 0 00:28:31 Okay? Now let's ask ourself a few questions. First, are we allowed to place ourselves in an occasion of sin? It depends on what kind of occasion we're speaking of. Are we allowed to place ourselves in remote occasion of sin? Being alive is a remote occasion of sin. We don't have to, you know, anything, you know? Sure, of course we don't have to worry about remote. How about near occasion of sins? Are we allowed to place ourself in a near occasion of sin? It depends on whether it's necessary or it's voluntary. Okay? Is a voluntary near occasion of sin is no, we can't voluntarily put ourselves into harm's way. That's exactly what we're promising not to do. When we make an act of contrition, we promise to avoid near Cajun sin. We're promised to avoid the voluntary near Cajun sin. Those are the things we can avoid.
Speaker 0 00:29:20 If it's a necessary near occasion of sin, then we can't put ourselves into it. If we take the proper precautions to avoid falling, the more serious the occasion of sin, the more serious the precautions we need to take. It's like running around on the edge of a slippery cliff. Okay, that is all by way of introduction to the next quote. I'm just gonna read from moral manual. I found it, I got another one sitting in my confessional, but I'll just read this one cuz it all says the same thing, just different words, but same quote, company keeping with intention of timely marriage can be considered as a necessary occasion as sin, since our society, at least people do not marry strangers. However, those keeping companies especially engaged must use the ordinary, supernatural, natural means whereby the near occasion of flying to sin is made remote, especially with regard to circumstances of being alone together.
Speaker 0 00:30:09 Closed quote, this is from a moral manual written in 1963. So it's, you know, and there hasn't been some kind of evolutionary change in human weakness, you know, during our lifetimes. Okay? So company keeping with attention of early marriage can be considered as a necessary occasion of sin. However, those keeping company must use the ordinary, supernatural, natural means whereby the near occasion of falling of sin is made remote, especially regard to being alone together. Two points we should burn into our minds. First company, Keating keeping. You can call it dating and call it courtship. We'll talk. These terms don't really matter that much. We're gonna, we're gonna talk about this. It doesn't matter. I mean, it matters maybe to the evangelicals, it doesn't matter to us. The concept is what matters. And we're gonna get into the concept in a minute. Company keeping is a necessary occasion of sin. Why? Because we don't marry strangers. And it's a definitely a grievous loss to not be married when someone has that vocation. In other words, it's serious business though. It's not just recreational activity.
Speaker 0 00:31:07 I said just, it can be recreational, but it can't be just that it's serious. There's a, it has to have a serious note to it, okay? Second, because it's a necessary occasion to say those keeping company must use the ordinary, supernatural, and natural means to more, to make sure the near occasion of flying sin is made remote. I'll just quote what St. Faas says about that. Here's St. Faas. There are three principle means to be described, necessary occasions of sin. The first and, and notice which ones to use is an example of necessary occasion of sins. The first is avoid being as much as possible, being alone together with one another, <laugh> or speaking confidentially with one another. In other words, long, long phone calls after about 10 at night, unless that's just when the people are getting off work kind of thing. It's okay to talk short times when they're, but courtship, dating, whatever.
Speaker 0 00:31:52 When people are interested, if they're going into these things late at night, on and on and on and on and on, you know, we got bodies, you're gonna get in trouble even on the phone. It's just gonna happen. You, you don't have to believe me on that. It's just true. Okay? Second is prayer and unceasing petition to God and the blessed version for help to resist the temptation. Third is frequenting the sacraments of penance in the Eucharist by which strength is obtained to resist temptation. So there we are. Avoid being alone together and talking for long periods of time. You know, on the cell phone at OAR 30, uh, pray especially to our lady and go to confession and communion. Frequently when people come to me, they're engaged. I tell 'em, okay, now if you're not going every week to confession, you're wrong. And probably when you get closer to your marriage, you might have to go more often because the, the devil is putting out a cigarette and going, okay, I wanna ruin this and I want to get it ruined beforehand.
Speaker 0 00:32:43 And, and that's, I mean, devils are a lot smarter than us. They're pretty dumb in certain ways, but that's, but they're, they're still angels and we gotta be careful. And they, they know the rules and, uh, and so they wanna make sure the people get out of it. Let's talk. So courtship, there's somebody sent an Arlet <inaudible>. So I'll, I'll talk about this a little bit. And on the way into that, let me, let me read a couple things. So let's get the, a little perspective on the battlefield. I got a lot of things here. So, September 9th, so this is just, uh, a little one. And the spring of 2000. Zogby International asked more than a thousand US adults, whether they'd ever visited a sexually oriented website. Only one in five had done so. Among born again Christians, 18% had gone to such sites, just three percentage points less than the general public. Fast forward today, a group called Proven Men Ministries commissioned the Barna Group to examine current pornography use. Barna found that 64% of American men and 20% of women view pornography at least monthly. For Christian men, that number 55%, those are low. That would be low because this is the kind of thing that even statistically you're gonna, you're gonna under report. 14 years ago, only 103 men had ever gone to pornography site. But now in your one third of men under 30, do so on a daily basis.
Speaker 0 00:34:03 And if you think it can't get worse, the survey found that 18% of men believe they may be addicted to pornography. That's more than 20 million men in deep trouble. That is serious. Now this is, uh, spring 2 20 14 Christians Apologetics Journal. It's a article by Donna Hura, John of Rice Hughes, excuse me, called the Internet Pornography Pandemic, the largest unregulated social experiment in human history, which is an understatement. I'm just gonna read a a a couple things from this. They, they, they're talking about the, with, in 2010, the Witherspoon Institute released the social cost of pornography, a statement of findings and recommendations. The first multi-faceted, multidisciplinary scholarly review of contemporary pornography. Since the advent of the internet, the reports findings conclude, this is gonna be obvious that pornography, especially via the internet, harms children, women and men refuse pornography addiction. The breakdown of marriage and sex trafficking. Oh yeah, that's a surprise, okay?
Speaker 0 00:35:05 With internet, the protective barrier between the sex industry and youth dissolved in the home historically considered a safe haven, has been the very fir place where the sex industry is grooming our youth now with mobile internet access via smartphones and other portal devices, nearly a third of the teens carry portable x-rated theaters in their pockets. You know, I wouldn't have believed this if somebody would've told me 20 years ago, uh, I was telling somebody earlier, I mean, my good buddies of mine ranching in Western North Dakota, they just got the telephone in, in, in the Reagan administration. So he made a, uh, a big call to that whole part of the country because it's the last big place in lower 48 to get telephone. And now we got this goofy stuff. I mean, if you would've told me people are carrying this stuff around it, I'd have laughed at you. There's no way. And, and I can get up in the pulpit and say this till my face turns blue saying, if you have the internet, and now I say if you have the internet, you have to have a lockdown squeezed out and a what on it. Every kind of filter barrier. And the women should have the password. They go over so many people's head and then they come in with little broken Johnny. Well, I can't fix little broken Johnny.
Speaker 0 00:36:11 Your little Johnny is a little boy. You just have to take on faith and priests that you have to protect the boys and the men in this. You have to, you're women, you're the moral authority in that. If it means locking up the phones at night, I don't care. Get a milk box or whatever you call it. Lock it, put a padlock, take the dang router off at the at night. It shouldn't be on in the middle of the night, et cetera. There's all kinds of different things to do, but do it. Don't wait till it's broken. You know, I tell these girls that meet a perfectly nice guy, null, null no till. He is not hooked on porn. You can't ever meet that need. He doesn't even know who a girl is. He doesn't even know what a girl is. How can a girl's, a collection of body parts to him, he's spun up.
Speaker 0 00:37:02 And these aren't just, you know, this is Joe. Everybody just from these, uh, these statistics, it's just a nightmare. I'll just read a couple more. Porn sites get more visitors each month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined. 30% of the internet industry's pornography. They're not online. Porn industry makes over $3,000 per second. Mobile porn is expect to reach 2.8 billion here by 2 20 15. That's not too far away. The US is the largest producer export of hardcore porn, DVDs and web material. A Google trends analysis indicates searches for teen porn of more than triple between 2005, 2013. There in at 2013, uh, teen related porn. There's a 500,000 searches daily. One third of daily total daily searches of porn sites. Are the 304 sites analyzed. 88% contained physical aggression, physical aggression. And that isn't gonna be towards the guys physical aggression towards our girls. I'll just read a couple other emotion. Impact and emotional mental development of children. I'm gonna make my own observations in a second, but you're not scientific. Children are especially susceptible influences affecting their development. Research says porn, search circuits and distorts the norm. Personality development process and applies misinformation by a child's sexuality, sense of self and body that leaves a child confused, changed and damaged. Porn often introduces children prematurely to sexual sensations, which they're developmentally unprepared to deal. Yeah, that's to put it mildly.
Speaker 0 00:38:38 Okay, here we go. Porn teaches sex without love. Intimacy, tender, touch, responsibility and commitment. Justice 32nd commercials can influence whether we choose one popular soft drink over another exposure to porn shapes or attitudes and values. And often our behavior. And I, I'm sorry, I think most TV shows are actually porn. I don't think it's just, you know, the, the way they detect women, like they're just a bunch of body parts. It's so offensive you can't believe it.
Speaker 0 00:39:10 Teens also express great, express great difficulty in bridging the gap between the porn experience and the real world sexual experiences. The demand for today's preteen girls to be porn Redding provide porn sex when data is dawning according to Courtney age 18. It does make them curious just like a little girl when she watched Cinderella, you know, she wants to be just like her and kids that watched porn, they wanna be just like them. We'd watched together and then the guys did expect me to act out like that. But it destroyed our lives and respect for others in our relationships. Justin, age 16, Steve, I just wanna do what they did in the porn. I didn't even care about the relationship anymore. I just wanted to have sex with as many girls as I could. Girls in real life don't act like the girls in porno. Well, no kidding. What's porn about? It's as if a girl exists to degrade herself for a guy. Those girls have no emotional needs. They never have a period. They only exist to degrade themselves for a guy. There's not a single thing you have to think about emotionally. It's all, it's as unrealistic as Spock. Only Spock isn't dangerous. No girl is gonna fall in love with some guy expecting to be passionless. The whole di idea is idiotic. But the guy you know that's watching this stuff, what's his idea of a girl? Snap my fingers. Do something degrading.
Speaker 0 00:40:17 That is what he's getting in his head. When you get with them and they don't act like porn stars, it makes you find unmanly. It's disappointing. Oh yeah, okay, great. It goes on and on. It goes on and on. But I don't think I really need to read it to you because it's pretty obvious. It's really obvious. So anecdote, it was the late eighties, the early nineties in the part of mon when the part of Montana was living in when we got television cuz they got those stupid dishes
Speaker 0 00:40:49 And all of a sudden you had a, you know, you kind of know everybody. You know the name of their dog, you know, if somebody went and got drunk that you know, you know everything you want to know. You don't have to be, it's just that way when you're from the real Boone Tules, all of a sudden, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna be rude. The boys, the little boys, these teenage boys are starting to act like dos in heat and you just grab Hold'em, what is your major mouth function? Leave these girls alone cuz you grew up with them, you know, and you, what is going on here? And they're talking about ecstasy. Well, I knew it wasn't the street drug. We didn't have anything like that out there.
Speaker 0 00:41:23 And then I was out visiting a guy in, in ranch and they, they had, uh, they just got this dish and they had this Canadian chip on it, which, which decoded everything or whatever, I don't know know. And they're flipping through things. I seem like, what, what was that? You know, he goes by, cause it's, it's a porn thing. And he says, oh, that's this stand channel. It's called ecstasy. Blank light goes on. You know, here we are from just sort of, I'm not, it was not the Garden of Eden. You know, you, you know, you could get away from a lot of things. It wasn't the Garden of Eden, that's for sure. But it wasn't this oversexed ridiculous, insane kind of thing with the boys and girls. It turned into it like that. There were other effects from television, but I, you know, just like, you couldn't believe it.
Speaker 0 00:42:03 And it was like literally within a matter of months of people starting to get this dish that you started seeing the boys acting like this. And you'd never seen it before. And I'm not saying people didn't drive out into the hills and get in trouble. I'm, you know, I'm, this isn't fantasy land, but it wasn't like this, you know, just this sort of public oversight. They can't control themselves. They're just spun up. It's a catastrophe. We've never done something like this. Okay. So that's a background, that's one of the things. So dating, I I I, I'll just talk a little bit. There's, there's an article here and I, and then I'm, I'm gonna talk a little bit about this article and then I'm gonna come back and make some other comments on thing. It's some kind of article by a by a homeschooling guy. Grew up in the nineties.
Speaker 0 00:42:49 Uh, he, he appears to be an evangelical I sin it's, and it's, he's he's against courtship and, and, and he, he and he talks about the greatest generation. So he's talking about his grandparents in, in the thirties and forties were encouraged to date and discouraged from going to steady while in middle school. That's different from my generation, which is encouraged to wait until you're ready to get married before pursuing a romantic relationship. And he starts cri critiquing things. It's like, okay buddy, I'm not that generation, but the first one of my buddies to get married was 16. That isn't happening right now. The most 16 year old guy. You know, when I was in high school, when I was a senior, I did have a girlfriend cuz at the time I didn't know I have a vocation. And we were talking about getting married, shock of shock.
Speaker 0 00:43:28 Her parents had got married when she was si they were 16. That wasn't that common. Uncommon where we're from. By the time I was 20, everybody I went to school with just about was married. People just got married and they got married. So it isn't unusual that they'd start dating at a certain age because they're thinking about getting married. Who can support a family at 16 now or even 18 by the way, if you're raised a boy, that's one of the things he has to happen is mine from the youngest age. I gotta be able to make money when I leave home and I'm gonna leave home when I'm 17 or 18. And you want him to do that. I'm not gonna hold my family up as an example cuz we're not the holy family is an example and we're not a bunch of canonized saints, but every one of us boys left home but after junior year and went, worked about 150 miles away.
Speaker 0 00:44:19 Played room and board and all that. And within, within a couple weeks after graduating, we left home and he didn't think any different. And we went to college and I was a junior in college before I thought, you know, I didn't have to do this. It never even occurred to me cuz my parents were so clever about, you know, they, they were just, and my dad hadn't gone to college, but they were gonna make sure you know, that I'm not necessarily recommending that at all. Cuz you could work through, I first I had a scholarship, but then I dropped out and went to work and then when I went back I'd work my way through. You can't do that anymore. And the last thing you wanted me to do is get many student loans. What can you, how when you go bankrupt, what happens to your student loans?
Speaker 0 00:44:55 Anybody know? You still have students. You can't default. It's slavery to the banks. They own these students the rest of their lives unless they, you can't default on a student loan. So you better think really hard about if our kids are going on how they're gonna pay their way through. That's another thing to think about. But that's nor there. So he talks about these different things and then he, he, so he is, I'm just some of the things and he's talking, he complains that that, that these homeschool guys are rejected by the fathers cuz they have to ask him to go out. And I think, well heck, I've been through that barrier myself. I didn't know it was that bad. Like mom said was always tell you faint heart never wore one fatal lady. You gotta go ask the guy if you can go out with his his daughter.
Speaker 0 00:45:43 What's wrong with that? Now if the guy is psycho, that might be a problem. I don't know the community's from, you know, that's a different thing cuz if dad isn't letting the girl go out with absolutely anyway. But it seems to me it's the most excellent screen possible because the girl tells dad, I don't like this guy. And he says, oh, we don't like it. I mean, you know, it's, if if the guy doesn't have any obvious qualities in it, she doesn't want to, whatever. But I mean, and the mom's in on that. I'm a hundred percent for asking the parents. I see absolutely no problem with that. And if the guys are one and about it, we'll get over it pal. Uh, you know, this isn't, she's not a toy. She's, she has a dignity and her parents love her. This is a great thing if the parents love her like that.
Speaker 0 00:46:20 I don't know. You can, it can be overdone. I'll talk to the guys about that sort of stuff. But I mean, and the women are certainly, I mean you're gonna have more of a sense on a lot of that stuff. You can smell out of fish between the two of you. You can tell if the guy's a screw ball, you should be able to, cuz you got a grace state. But so what is it? If you can't go out without, until you're relatively ready to be married, prompt marriage, then you don't date court, whatever you want to call it until you're ready to get married. That's just going through the Catholic moral principles. So, I mean he doesn't have Catholic moral principles to, that's why it is. So people might've gone out when they're 16, 17, 18, a couple generations ago cuz they were gonna get married in some parts of the world.
Speaker 0 00:47:03 They still do. I I think it's a tragedy how late people are getting married now, but that's cuz of other issues. But nonetheless, and the girl, you should tell 'em, don't go out with the guy unless he can put a roof over your head and food on a table that's gonna motivate that guy. A guy's looking for somebody who can sacrifice himself poor. If this is his best girl that's gonna motivate him. That's just always the traditional thing. The girl, you know, she says, yeah, I'll wait free. He's off trying to figure, figure out how to, you know, strike oil or whatever he's gonna do whatever it takes. That's highly motivational for any guy. That's not, that's no obstacle whatsoever. I had a, well just tell because you wouldn't know, but two extremely virtuous young people in, in another parish that I was in and they fell in love when they're bought 18, you know, and so he went to the dad and, and you know, asked, asked him to take him out to lunch or whatever and said, Hey, you know, can I, can I court your daughter?
Speaker 0 00:47:59 Can I go out with him? He says, can you put a roof over head and food on the table? And he says no. And he says, come back when he can. It wasn't me. It was really friendly. Boy, that mo motivated that guy. He served my mask one day and all of a sudden he's going to college and at the same time and all of a sudden he gets a, he, he's working in a thing, he gets a managerial position. I go, how much you making? He says, 35,000. I go, when are you gonna get married? The next day his dad called up, their dad called up last night, he started laughing. He says they're engaged. He said, <laugh>, I don't know what you told him yesterday, but I mean it was, it was that quick cuz he's just motivated. He's just doing the best thing.
Speaker 0 00:48:30 They're great couple, you know, just wonderful. But it motivated him so much as this 18 year old guy going, wow, this is my best girl. I gotta do something. And they weren't going out. They had a right to, you know, like you tell 'em, you have a right to preserve your friendship and all that and, and talk for so long every week. And they, you know, but you, you can't be sitting here if you're all just clinging on each other. This is a, you know, you jump in a river, you're gonna end, you gotta get married before you get in the ocean. And that's just part of nature. That's the Catholic church. Nothing to say about that. That's just, you know, I'm talking to married women, but I mean this is just the human condition. You gotta get her done. And so you just, you gotta kind of moderate that cuz I always tell 'em you both are sitting on open kegs, gunpowder with lit cigars.
Speaker 0 00:49:09 So you gotta be careful. And that's just the human condition. Since we're not our lady. We have original sin. We just have to be careful. But uh, what you wanna ha convey to these kids from the earliest years is you don't go out till you're ready to get married. And why would you, the person you go with doesn't mean you're gonna marry and but why would you go out with somebody that you don't think is potentially somebody you're gonna marry? That's the whole object to the exercise. Now I don't know exactly what he's writing about cuz I'm not an evangelical, but the object of the exercise is not just recreation. It's a serious thing. So it's gonna be rec, why would you go out with somebody you're not interested in? This doesn't make any sense. So obviously there's a recreational in that sense aspect, but it's, it's more like a serious thing.
Speaker 0 00:49:49 Now I'll make some remarks, you know, based, this is an ethnic kind of thing. You can take it for whatever it is. But coming from a largely German background, I really think the way that girls used to do it from at least the part of the culture I'm from was very smart. They call it going Dutch just come from Deutsche. Uh, but a girl going Dutch as a general principal, a properly raised German girl, it's over with. Now, where I'm from, I mean, I don't know how it is in Germany, I don't know, but wouldn't take a gift from any man that wasn't a relative. Why? Because she wasn't gonna be beholden to him. So when she's going out, he, she buys her meals, she buys everything because she is, it's putting her in a position of power. Am I gonna surrender her to this guy because she's the woman And if she's letting him buy everything and all that, I'm not saying that's intrinsically wrong at all, but what it does emotionally, it puts her in a different position than if she's sitting there kind of negotiating.
Speaker 0 00:50:49 Like, is this somebody that I'm willing to? Because once she says yes, then he has to take care of everything. Of course. That's the whole way that the, the deal works. But until then, she's putting herself in somewhat of a position of power in, in, in, in that relationship where he has to actually, he can't buy her affections in any way. Not even with the rose. I mean, it sounds harsh, but after he gets married, you know, after they, they say yes, then he, you know, then he has to start romance. But he has to make his best pitch. I'm not telling everybody to do that. Although girls that come for direction that are in that, I always tell him, you should do this. You know, it's gonna help you a lot. And it helps girls, especially, uh, it's, it's really important if you have, uh, if you have really kind of bubbly, vivacious, sort of, sort of girls that can get talked into things, but they have principles like this cuz it's a lot harder to get talked into something.
Speaker 0 00:51:40 If you have a little barrier that's a family barrier. You don't have to call it going Dutch or whatever. But, I mean, you know, in our family, we, you know, when you're a certain age, you just don't take it. It's a suggestion. You can do whatever you want with it, but it, it makes it, it takes some of the pressure off the girl emotionally and puts her in a, in more of the, more of a position of power in the negotiations. Like, yeah, I'll surrender this guy. Yes or no. Um, so the sanguine girl is the one that, that you need to watch the most carefully because she's gonna be moss outgoing, but the easiest to get talked into things. So you should know a little bit about what, what your girls are at. Uh, it doesn't mean there's any, it doesn't mean she's a bad girl, but generally she can have an easier time getting talked into things just by her disposition than than other girls.
Speaker 0 00:52:26 So anyway, so, uh, I think, you know, you, you wanna tell your girls and your sons too. I mean, a marriage is like a waltz, but you're telling the girl it's like a waltz. It's not like, it's not like you're not important. You, you can say yes or no, but once you say yes, you got a waltz, you're gonna follow this guy around. You might have to be dodging his feet, look over shoulder and he aren't crashing other people in shares and stuff like that. But it's just like that in a marriage. It's not like the woman has any less dignity, but you have a different role and you're gonna have to trail along in that way. And so that's one of the things in, in, when you're in the, in the negotiating stages, you want to think about it and you want to go over to his house and look at how his mom is treated by his dad.
Speaker 0 00:53:05 How his mom is treated by his, her, his brothers, how his brothers treated. Sisters, you wanna study those things. That's the kind of thing you tell a girl. How are women treated in that family? Cuz it's gonna be a pretty rare apple that falls far from the tree in that department. You say, how is a woman? How's a woman treated in that family? That's how I'm gonna be treated. And she should study those things. But if she's got the romance going nine oh and just kind of dazed in major crush time danger cuz she could get talked into things, get married a guy that might not have been the very brilliant, most brilliant idea. Okay, let me go through some questions cuz I have tons. I got tons of stuff. Alright, I'll, I'll hit a couple other things here as we're gone. All right. Crushes a crush is not, has no moral quality at all.
Speaker 0 00:53:55 I'll get to that a crush. The moral quality has to do what's, what happens in our will, our emotions and passions have no moral qualities. Sin or virtue is in our will. A crush can be ordered towards the good. That's fine. If this is the guy you're gonna marry, that's great. There's nothing disordered about that. But all of a sudden somebody can be married. You know, they come in and say, father, I'm not in love with my husband anymore. You know why? Cause I just don't have these feelings. And you say, okay, and you talk okay, but your feelings, but you still want him to get to heaven. You're still thankful you married him. You're glad he is the father of your cha blah, blah. Yeah. And you love him. I mean, what is this? It's love and, and, and like, are not the same thing.
Speaker 0 00:54:39 Love is willing, the good, like you all love your teenagers. You don't always like him. They're not the same. Emotions don't have the so crush can just flott and it kids can easily get a crush and it can be appropriate. They can get a crush on a teacher, on this person, on that person, on somebody else. It's no big deal. And it's a teaching moment for you not to, it, it, you don't have to have a panic attack, yank your kid away, you know, panic that the other kid, you know, whatever. It's nothing like that. Uh, it, it's, uh, in fact, I have a little thing, a handout I give to people. If, if it's inappropriate, you know, like they're married to someone, they all of a sudden they finally have a crush on. Somebody say, don't worry, it'll be gone in six weeks if you just do this.
Speaker 0 00:55:16 You, and it doesn't matter. But you just separate, at least physically. If it's a bad crush, a little kid, I wouldn't worry too much unless it's getting carried away. But you just, it's a good time to talk and say, this can happen to any time in life. You can be married to someone that you love. Totally. And all of a sudden this happens. And it doesn't mean anything because our passions fell with Adam and they can just kind of, you, you won't even know, just go bang. And it's float out towards that person. So if it's real, it's, if it's a problem kind of thing, you tell 'em, you know, you, you just separate physically from from the party, you know. So you don't go out with them. You don't phone call 'em, you don't correspond, you don't email. You can't simultaneously c cause an emotion to quiet down while you're throwing kerosene on it.
Speaker 0 00:56:00 So that's the first thing is you separate physically, you separate mentally, you don't daydream a about and all that. It's no big deal. You just don't daydream about 'em. When you catch it, you make yourself think about something else. Uh, you don't bathe yourself in self-pity cuz they're not returning the thing. You know, you don't do any of these things at all. You just sit there and say it's a crush. You know, you don't save their letters, you don't save the little lock of hair, you don't save souvenirs, you get rid of all that stuff. <laugh> it, it just won't work. You know? I mean, this guy shows up at the seminary with the lock of his girl's hair. How long do you think he made it? One day. What a surprise. <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:56:35 You're gonna go to the seminary and bring a lock of your best girl's hair. I think you need to break up with her. That's how it works. That's the deal we make, right? You know, I just gave up one more women than your husband did, you know? So it's just crazy to do that. So then you gotta keep a balanced metal attitude. You just, you, you know, you don't worry. The moods might come and go and you tell 'em it'll go after a while. It's just gonna go. It's a good teaching moment when a child has that. I said this was one of the questions. So it's a good teaching moment. Not no worries. If it's appropriate, it's appropriate. If it's not, you don't worry about it. But you don't make it into any kind of excitable thing. It's no big deal at all unless you handle it, mom.
Speaker 0 00:57:12 Okay, so I'll just go down through these. What is the purpose of finding out about courtship if from a young age, children not know how to honor, know themselves opposite sex or the persons in general? Well, it isn't cuz courtship is just, as I said, this is just if, if we're preparing, if we have a goal and we have virtuous our goal and we have, we know what we we're expecting. And in fact some recommendations. I'll just hold up a few here for making goals. These, these ones co compass a practical hand, a handbook on Parent Parental Leadership by James b Stenson. Absolutely. It's gonna really help you do it. This guy has 30 years experience running some kind of elite Catholic private school. That's not the point. The point was, he was clever enough to see which families were really, you know, all this families kind of seemed the same and models of the community, but ones their children went on, got married, got successful, got on with life and the other ones. So he started interviewing parents from families where he consistently started seeing these kind of successful things. So he's written it down, he's got three decades. So you're just taking advantage of people with the gray hair. So Compass by James b Stenson, he's got lifeline the religious upbringing of your children. And he is, have questions to think about. So it's not just practical things and upbringing. Discussion handbook for parents of young children. So James b Stenson, those ones really good.
Speaker 0 00:58:34 I'm gonna recommend a Protestant. You have to use judgment on some of the Protestant things he says. But there's a lot of good ideas preparing sons to provide for a single income family. If you, this is a good idea. <laugh>, preparing sons to provide for a single income family. Steven Maxwell. I do, you know, you are, you just have to read it with some discretion. But it's one of the things, if you're raising boys, you want to be thinking about that kind of stuff. What do we want where, what do we expect our boys to do? We wanna have goals.
Speaker 0 00:59:16 These are more as the guys getting older kind of things for the boys. But to be a man life lessons for young men. It's not something you can do. I'll talk to the guys more about, but it's something, it's something you can read and hand off. You get ideas to be a man. That's James b Stenson too. He's got a lot of good things. Another one by him, father, the family protector. This one's for people who getting married and legacy Steve Wood. These are the two, like when people are getting married that read this legacy by Steve Wood. Really good. This is the most, uh, spiritual out of all of them. They're, but you know, it's practical, but a lot of spiritual things. Okay, this one needs discretion. But you're raising girls. It's for women only. What you need to know about the inner lives of men, it's by Shanti Feld Han.
Speaker 0 01:00:16 Now there are certain points when they're talking about sex, these people don't have confession. I wanna make some remarks on that cuz it's important. I've, I've, years ago, I uh, ended up in a situation where I, I was invited to talk to a bunch of Baptist seminarians before I was a priest. Before I was a seminarian, a bunch of Baptist seminarians and, and Baptist, they wouldn't have me in a church, but they had me, uh, right in a, in a building next to their church in seminary. They broke away. They actually broke away from the SBC cuz they thought it was too liberal. But, uh, during the course of the course of the course, I was holding for scriptural there, see? And, and, uh, and lit and literal meaning scripture. And they hold against that, which most people don't know, but it's in the specific line we got into it on is they said, well you can't possibly believe that when our Lord says, when you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you're guilty of adult today.
Speaker 0 01:01:09 I said, absolutely. And if you do do that and die on repent, you go to hell. And man, we had, and the these were good guys. These would've been, you would've been happy to have 'em for your neighbors. I mean, theologically, we don't agree with them. But I mean these were moral insofar as they can be. Baptist seminarians. I'm not. We got into this. I mean, they were screaming at me, no one can live like that. I said, yeah, you have to, or you're gonna go to hell. You cannot if you die, un repent. If you're thinking about girls that are not your wife in any way like that, you, you burn in inhaled period. Well, it wasn't, I was a seminarian before I realized they were telling about their interior life because it was actually true. They don't have our lady, well they have her, but they don't know that they don't have our lady, they don't have confession, they don't have communion.
Speaker 0 01:02:02 They can't keep their minds pure without a particular grace from God. That's possible. But it's a, it's, it's, it's a particular grace. So when you read this, you have to keep that in mind. When you read things written by people outside the boundaries that aren't devout Catholics. They're not lying when they say certain of these things, they just don't see it. Cuz how can they see it? Cuz they can't get there from here. So there are certain things they're gonna say about the sixth night commandment that are just not possible. James Dobson, who has written some really good things on, on discipline and, and raising kids and all that, but he holds about self-abuse that everybody does this. Well, I'm sorry, Dr. Dobson. But everybody does not do this. And if they do and they die in repent, they'll go to hell. I mean, it's just, and I'm not picking on him, but why?
Speaker 0 01:02:50 They don't have confession. They don't have communion, they don't have our lady. They do in a remote sense, but they don't know that. Huh? So these are people that are in the same moral foxhole as us in one sense. And yet they're light years away. Now I'm not picking on 'em because look at how our Catholics are acting like the original stripe baboons. But, uh, but anyway, so with with certain qualities, this is not a bad thing to read. And then at certain ages you can discuss those things with your girls so that they can think about this kind of stuff. If they're gonna get married, it's pretty dumb to just go in and not really know. Like what guys are like,
Speaker 0 01:03:32 It's Shanti. S h a u N t I Feld him f e l d h a h N. You can get this stuff used dirt cheap on, on Amazon, you know. Okay. People asked something about, about the talk. There shouldn't be just the talk. There should be a series of 'em at different ages. There's a couple things I can email around cuz they have it on e documents. Two, two different that you can buy the books. But they're called Listen son and, uh, mother's little helper that have like scripts. They've been around since the fifties. I have 'em on e documents. So if people want that, I'll, I'll, I'll make that available. I just have to do that. So that has little things. But the best one overall that's balanced. It's been, it's been in print for about 50 years. All this stuff you always have to read and use your own judgment. But Tan brought it back out. I was glad to see, and I, I assume they still have it. Parents', children and the facts of life. My father Satler, he's a, a good old redemptorist back when they were Catholic. And, uh, and so it, it's just, it's it's the most complete kind of thing that's balanced on this that you're gonna find. There's, you know, and you can use your own judgment on this, but who's responsible for having the talk? You are and your husband is.
Speaker 0 01:04:48 It's that basic and you want to anticipate. So it should be a little early. He'll go through that and, and, and that kind of thing. When you're having that sort of thing as they're getting older, uh, you, you're gonna have to deal with other things. Cuz in here it asks something about, uh, I can't remember where it is. Yeah, keep away from Christopher West.
Speaker 0 01:05:06 I'm serious. I don't say the guy morally means something wrong. I won't read it from here. Uh, but he has a thing good. He has a book called Good News about Sex and Marriage and there's stuff in there that is against the natural law, divine positive law. And uh, it's outrageous. And you read it. Just say, are you kidding me? And, and it's got an imprimata on it from a good bishop. So you a lot what the problem is, a lot of what he has to say is actually good, but you better know more than he does. Cuz when he all of a sudden he launches out into the deep on things and he say no, whoa, flag on that play. And, uh, and so that's all I want to say publicly. Uh, <laugh>, I can answer those questions, but you know, you can ask me in the confessional if you have problems with that.
Speaker 0 01:05:51 But, but, uh, I just don't want to get into it. I don't like bring bringing up his name cuz I'm always afraid somebody's gonna go by the book and try to see what's wrong with it. Don't do that. Okay? Just <laugh>, I don't get paid for this. I don't have a particular agenda. I'm trying to, you know, I I wanna be saved by telling people the truth. Just steer clear of it and then you don't have to study this stuff. Okay? But I actually translated something from the Latin, uh, which I can't believe. I mean, it's something from the Holy Sea, but it shows how disconnected priests and bishops are cuz they don't read the documents anymore cuz they can't. But this is only from like 1914 that's saying, but before a woman can engage in this kind of behavior, she has to die first. Okay?
Speaker 0 01:06:31 And yet he says, no, no, it's nothing intrinsically wrong. Ah, yeah, yeah. Okay, Chris. Okay. Uh, so let's see here. Well here we go. Uh, oh, this answers the crush things, I think. Relationships. Yeah. So I'd just go through that. And, and these many courtship models involve a controlling father decides who may court his daughter. How involves should the father being the decision who courts a girl? Well, we don't have arranged marriages here. I've had very good, uh, I've had, I had couples, uh, that, that had from Caroline, my last parish. They were wonderful. But we don't do that here. And, and, uh, it's not something we should start. I mean, if, if, if people are from there, that's fine. But it's not, we don't, I don't think the father, the father is, is more like he's the father. So it's not some control freak thing, you know, that's just not the parents.
Speaker 0 01:07:21 In fact, the moral principle is the child has to take the counsel of their parents, but they don't have to take the advice. So the answer to that is the father should be in a loving way. But if, if he's a father and trying to, trying to look after his daughter and if he raised him up so they trust, you know, they trust the parents, this shouldn't be a concern. This evangelical thing, when I read, I thought that's just weird. I mean, I'm the oldest brother, so, you know, I'd be in Central Montana. One of my students would say, your sister has a new boyfriend cuz she's going to college. It's 250 miles away, but it's sort of like a small town spread over a lot of country. So I'd drive down there to meet him cuz it's my job, you know, just tell 'em how it was in our family and you know, and everything is gonna be just great as long as my sister is gonna be fine.
Speaker 0 01:08:02 And that's it. But no, there's rules. They know, I mean, you know, you're not being a total eight, but you just remind 'em that this isn't just like any other girl. This is my sister and I hope that I get to you before my dad does. And it would be just a little short thing. I don't mind that stuff. <laugh>. No, no. Look, that stuff I, you know, I'll tell once. So I asked a girl out. Um, I, it was the second, I guess the first one I went as we, we kind of, we were at the auction barn, you know, real romantic auctioneer, selling cattle. And, and uh, we walked around, you know, Sue, the parents kept track, but the next one, you know, so I had to go over there, go to the place and you know, I was more scared of her than I was of him. So I had to come in and talk to the dad. He's cleaning his guns, you know. And, uh, I didn't even think about it till later cuz that's, it's not that big of a deal. <laugh>, I'm not advising that, you know, that's not why I'm a priest. But, uh, <laugh>.
Speaker 0 01:09:00 But, uh, you don't need to do this, you know, over the top stuff. But you're not from, you know, Boone, Tule, Montana either. So when is it, how can we use examples of imperfect relationships to make the better and good single parents? Divorce, separation, mom and dad, grandparents, friends and all that? Well, I mean, we're not from the holy family. So just honesty about these things and just, we just had to be honest. And we wanna surround ourselves with, with other good Catholics. We always had people involved in our family. A lot of times they would stay with us in the seventies, you know, they'd be in drugs. So they'd come out there and live with us cuz their families had sent, we knew they were up to step. Big deal. I mean, they're Catholics. My parents were gonna love 'em. We're gonna, so they're like brother and sisters to us. You know, there's one down here. You can pray for him. I won't say his name. He hasn't seen me since I've been here. And he's like a brother to me. He's in the, he's in the oil patch business. But he, he lives right over here. And he knows that he ran into me at my parents' house and told me where he lived. <laugh>,
Speaker 0 01:10:01 He's not living a good life, but, you know, but you know, you still love him. It's, that's life. It's, it's, we're not in the garden Eden. If we look at how our Lord acted, we, you know, we, we've got to be, you know, we have to use good judgment. We don't wanna bring people into the home. Like if someone is, is, is, uh, going to keep being strung out on drugs or, or is living a, a really sexualized lifestyle, you know? Okay. But people that have sinned and are are, are doing better. Well, we're all like that to some degree. Unless you're the blessed virgin, huh? So we just had to use good judgment and you have good judgment. You got the grace state. I won't worry too much about that. And especially now we're living in a brothel. This is a pagan environment. It's very much like the early church. And in the early church, look at the situations that the different saints came outta. And if you don't know, you should read some of that kind of stuff. It helped cuz you see where the people came from and the kind of pagan backgrounds they had. Huh? And yet there they were. And it isn't just St. Augustine either, okay?
Speaker 0 01:11:10 We just don't, you know, I mean, honesty, we don't, we don't have to. I don't, I don't, by honesty, I don't mean kiss and tell stuff, but I mean, just honesty about, well this isn't the ideal. We know what the ideal is. The holy family's ideal, but we're working towards that. That that's what we have to do. Gotta work with us. If we're like that, it's a willing to be honest before God and then we'll get the right people in our lives, huh? And they'll help us cuz we're all in it together. And we have to see that clearly. You know, even if there's people we don't like, we can still love 'em and pray for 'em, huh? And, and with the kids we can, we can tell 'em, you know, because they're gonna ask. We don't wanna lie or freak out. All right? When is the young adult, I already talked about that.
Speaker 0 01:11:47 How do we help our children deal with ideas, alternative lifestyles, so-called mergers cohabiting within the family of the culture at large? Well, they're somewhat subjective. I mean, as they become more aware of it, then you have to talk, you have the grace estate, but as they become more aware of it, you have to tell 'em. I mean, they're just gonna know these things. And you need to do that. How you handle boys is a little different than how you handle girls too. Um, not necessarily talking about these things, but being you, you wanna, there's a different kind of protection that you want towards the guy, the guy. You, you, you gotta be raising guys to be leaving home and going out into the world. And it's a big, bad, ugly world. And that's just the way it is. He's gonna have to make his way in life and God will give him the graces now that your husband especially putting and, and the many surrounds himself with.
Speaker 0 01:12:32 But you don't wanna smother that and, and ha no more 27 year old thumb sucking guys. I'm sick of it. I've had it up to here. And I don't, I just mean as a man, it's so frustrating to see all these women that should be married and you have these guys that are stuck on Game Boy and PO porn, you know, it's just crazy. We need to raise guys to get out the door and do things. So they're gonna find out things. They're gonna get bumps and bruises, but you're trying to raise 'em to get out there, get and, and, and get with the program. Okay? What's the best message to introduce the difference between boys and girls in early aged foster lifetime of honoring them with opposite sex? The way you treat your husband and the way your husband treats you. If you're honoring your husband, if you're acting like her lady, if you're fussing over when he comes home, stuff like that. They're learning every day from that, that that's way more important than all the words you say. And I'm not saying not to Sam 'em that and reading the lives of the saints to 'em and talking about those things and about our Lord and the scripture. If you're reading the scriptures to 'em and the lives of the saints and your example, that'll go forever. The example of a mother can't be overestimated.
Speaker 0 01:13:34 You know, these guys, sorry, you'll meet guys that come back from these crazy wars that have stayed pure. And I don't think you have any idea what our military's like. They've stayed pure because they wouldn't want their mom to think the less of 'em or our lady. And you can get away with anything and who's gonna know?
Speaker 0 01:14:07 So you'll, you'll get it just by being a good woman. I would like to know the rules for Catholic court. Oh, we talked about that. What books to help with education on Catholic court, adding actually two books that are kind of, it seems like one's not related at all. This one is all for love of Mothers Memoirs of a Catholic midwife. This is one of the more interesting books you can ever read. It's, she's a German midwife from the 1880s to the First World War. And, you know, eminently practical single woman, but a real view into life, families, the different kind of things. It's just another way of approaching, uh, femininity and what it is to be a Catholic woman on the hard end of life. A great one at a certain age to talk about those stories with your girls as they're getting to a certain age. You just read it, you'll see what I mean. Someone sent this to me when I was really, really sick. A a a wonderful woman. 12 kids sent it to me and said, father, this reminds me so much of you and I'm really sick and I'm hoping this thing up at Christmas. And I'm thinking
Speaker 0 01:15:09 A midwife
Speaker 4 01:15:11 <laugh>,
Speaker 0 01:15:15 It's the closest thing to being a priest that I think a woman could write. So I know what she meant, but I was just like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 01:15:23 <laugh>,
Speaker 0 01:15:25 I have the other one out. He's got the same thing. Steve would, ABC's are choosing a good husband. I have girls reading it just pass around. It's, it's a, a place to start and they can read and it just gives 'em some, so I I I lend that out to girls when they're 13, 14, you know, when they start first they quit thinking about horses and start thinking about guys kind of thing. And uh, so that one, you know, ABC's it's something you read it first, you give it to 'em, you know, it's, it's not gonna hurt. So it it, because what you wanna do, you're trying to get 'em ready for a vocation. So they're thinking about what to do. You don't, we wouldn't have had to do this. Like, why were people able to get married when I was 16? Because everybody kind of knew what it was.
Speaker 0 01:16:05 And people got married and stayed married and I'm from the fifth fight social class. I mean, there are plenty of these things that were, boy, you didn't know if it was a prize fight or marriage, but they stayed married and raised those kids. That doesn't happen anymore. It's all falling apart. It's all falling apart. So we, we, we need to do a little, you know, those kind of things like that. Okay, so let's see here. Uh, alright, got that. In your experience of one of the young adults in the courtship relationship tends to Nova Soda, one of the chances your child will leave the extraordinary form. Uh, I'm not worried about that because if you've formed your kids to be holy, if they're really serious about their holiness, I mean, I'm just gonna, you know, I don't mind saying this at all. Why do I do what I do?
Speaker 0 01:16:50 Because I think it's a more perfect expression as the priest of a submission of truth. I can speak for the priest when I'm saying mass, it's there, it's, there's almost nothing in it if I'm saying it right, huh? It's not about me. Every single thing is orchestrated. I don't get to pick anything I don't get. I know where my hands have to be. I know where my eyes have to be. I know what mine has to be thinking about. I know where I'm supposed to be stepping all these things so that I grow littler than Christ grows bigger. But it's not an exterior thing. It's an exterior expression of an interior desire to submit to the truth. And I think if we're bringing people up to understand what it is that we're doing, that we're being called to holiness. I just think that the reception of communion itself is enough to do it.
Speaker 0 01:17:42 Re Bishop Athe Snyder's booked domino assessed on communion. This guy's holy, he, he gave us our retreat this, this year. He's a pre, he's a bishop from Kazakhstan. So he grew up, you can look at his interview with Mitch Paqua, it's online and you can watch it. But he grew up in Kazakhstan. They're, they're from Black Sea German. So Katherine, the great invited, uh, Germans to gold on the Vulcan Black Sea. And my brother-in-law's black seed German, my cousins are at VGA Deutch. Uh, but, uh, so some of 'em escape B before a lot of 'em got out right in the early 19 hundreds before everything went purely Cady Wampus. And they're mostly settled, you know, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, there's gobs of them in that part of our country there. But the ones that didn't get away, Stalin rounded 'em up and sent him to, to Kazakhstan like that.
Speaker 0 01:18:32 So you have these Catholics in a Muslim part of the world just out there and getting abused and all that. And when he talks about the reverence of the women in his family for the most blessed sacrament, it's extraordinary. So these underground priests would show up by rituals, say, you know, sin Eastern St. John, Ture St. John Christ, the Latin mass. He'd show up and uh, and he'd hear confessions all night and they, they, they'd try to say, father, father, no. He says, no, I have to hear everybody's confessions cuz if the police come, I might not get hurt later on. He's martyred. But her, his grandma was dying. Now his grandma was an extraordinary woman. They shot Stalin's secret police, shot his, his grandfather, and then they started to tear the religious pictures off the wall. And she started yelling at him. You didn't put 'em up, you're not gonna take 'em down.
Speaker 0 01:19:17 And they, and they stopped and they never did that. Later on when she's in a camp, they were, they were ordered to work on Sunday. She says, I don't work on the Sabbath. And uh, and she wouldn't and they didn't shoot her <laugh>. So she's dying anyway later on. And the mother says, can I get communion? So is to, so the priest gives her communion in an envelope cuz he, he he's out of there, this underground trigger stuff. So she takes, she buys, she takes new white gloves and a tweezers and gives her mother communion and then burns the envelope.
Speaker 0 01:19:49 How different that is. Then they got a permission to move to Germany, eh? And their priest warned them. They received communion in the hand. She goes, what? I mean they totally scandalized. I she swore we will never do this. Never. When they get to the village, there's four Catholic churches. The first Sunday they go there, it's comedian in the hand. The next one they, they go all. And she's just weeping. What is going on with our Lord like this? Huh? When Bishop Schneider got made a bishop and Kazakhstan, they had the bi meeting, a bishops, a Kazakhstan, and he made uh, a proposal which they voted on and agreed to and the Holy Seas approved. It doesn't matter what, right? You go to in Kazakhstan, you must receive communion on the tongue. Kneeling.
Speaker 0 01:20:40 That's the Lord. If we really under, there's too much trady politics that don't mean anything. We have to think about who it is that we're receiving and we'll speak to if we're going to something at any Catholic that really understands his face, wants to express to our Lord is, and this is not the only way. Go to the divine literature, Saint John Christ's to, it's beautiful. We have a maronite in here. It's beautiful. You know, cuz you're expressing something about our Lord. I don't think it's a worry if we really understand our faith and have a, have a really eucharistic understanding of it. I don't think that's a worry at all. And it's certainly not a, you know, I don't worry about it when I, when I'm, I know it does happen with people, but when I'm, I'm preparing people, that's one of the kind of things we talk about. Cuz you can't have this kind of schizophrenic type thing. And it is and it's unfortunate, but it is. There's no real when I go home, so I haven't been any masses in Texas except the ones I say are him or father. When I go home, you know, I have to hear about what's going on.
Speaker 0 01:21:55 And it has effects on the guys too. You know, you can take a lot more than we can
Speaker 0 01:22:01 A lot more, a lot more the social class. Where most of the priests in this country have traditionally come from is the lower class. Cuz that's where we're from and it just went up. There hasn't, you know, those were the big families, the guys with Inground, you know, they had to take lava soap to try to get the grease and and stuff off their knuckles. And they're kneeling there leading the rosary at mass and they're all gone almost now at home when I drive to town, I can point well that ranch, they were Catholic and they were Catholic. I can go all the way up there we're the only ones on our road I think left. Some of the women still go, but the husbands don't go. And when the husbands don't go, guess who else doesn't go? The boys don't go and they don't have the vocations. So in Eastern Montana we got two diocese and they're big, they're really big because in a state it's, sure it's not as big as Texas, but when you just have two diocese in, in a state that size, they're big. I was talking to one of the priests when I was home. There's under 30 priests
Speaker 0 01:23:05 In an area the size of West Tech because there's not a eucharistic devotion that there needs to be. And it's all this hallelujah stuff. It's not gonna happen. It does happen to some people, but I wouldn't, you know, if, if, if we really have that eucharistic devotion and then the proper preparation by the priest, I don't worry about that. I don't worry about that. That I, I'm just gonna skip some of these questions because of the time. I don't wanna,
Speaker 0 01:23:44 Once you have a child living at home, courting any hard and fast rules in one way, they can be alone to talk, go to restaurants, activities alone. They, they should mostly, I mean, if you're raising to be adults, you're letting off more and more of the reins. Maybe this is one of the things that guy's talking about. If you're asking me, I already said, I don't think they should be cat calling he and home and running around on the, on the phone much chapter 10 o'clock. Unless there's a proportional reason. Like if they're both working until 10 o'clock, then yeah, but they should, they should be careful about, and that's the first thing I tell 'em, you just be careful because we're weak and you're not gonna talk all this kind of over the top stuff when it's bright sunlight. And I tell 'em, don't be alone together, except in public. You know, if you got little brother or little sister, take him with you. They'll tell mom everything. You don't have to worry <laugh>.
Speaker 0 01:24:33 But it's important. I think a lot of this is common. It's just horse sense, it's common sense. You don't, you know, it, it, it is common sense. So I don't think hard and fast rules, I don't think that's the place really. The priest, the hard and fast rules are that they got, they, they shouldn't be going out unless this is going towards marriage at least potentially, you know, in other words, we're ready to get married, this might be the one I'm getting married to, you know, and I'll see. But the corollary of that is as soon as you realize, well I'm not really interested in marrying this person, they break up right then. Cuz otherwise you're gonna get, look, if you keep going, you get attached to somebody, even you realize it's gonna be dumb. Cuz that's just human nature too. And you're gonna get in trouble if you keep going out with somebody, you know, that's just, that's dumb too.
Speaker 0 01:25:16 See you get married or you don't. So after a while you realize this isn't going anywhere, break it off right? Then before you got all this emotional investment and becomes a fake divorce, you don't want to get emotionally invested in somebody that's not going somewhere. So you go out with 'em for a little while. That's why with this it sounded, he says it's the same as engagement. Well, I don't know what they mean in the evangelical world and I, I'm not picking on, but I don't, I don't really care about that cuz I'm, I'm not talking to them. If I was, I try to understand that. But I'm talking to you. What we wanna do is just, it's a, it's a practical thing where you say, I'm ready to get married this, you know, if it's a girl, this guy can take care of me.
Speaker 0 01:25:51 You know, look, and I, I don't really care. I mean if they're, if she wants to be a trapper's wife and live in a wall tent, that's fine. Good to go. Cuz a roof over your head and food on the table doesn't mean anything fancy to me, especially where I'm from. I could care less, but it has to be something she'd tr trail along behind. But as long as he can do that, then what's the big deal? Same with him. He looks at her and he realizes, I don't want this to be the mother of my children. Break it off, then you owe it to her. He especially owes it more to her than she does to him cuz he's the guy and he's wasting her time. But that's the kind of thing you wanna tell the guys. Don't waste the girl's time. It's fisher cut bait.
Speaker 0 01:26:25 You don't string her along well, you're looking for somebody else cuz that's not honest before God. And God will punish you in your marriage if you do that. And he will, he will punish somebody in their marriage. If a guy tries pulling that stunt, he's gonna get punished. That's not gonna be a good marriage. Okay? Yeah. How do we respond out of fear of our mistakes, but let our children see the beauty of heart should be, that's the whole idea of, of reading. I'm just proposing these things by Stinson and other ones and, and the one about preparing guys to have a single parent. So you sit down and your husband read these things and you kind of come up with where are we trying to go with this Hummer, it's a, i I mentioned a horse cause it's the same idea. If you don't know where you're trying to go, when you're starting that horse, forget about it.
Speaker 0 01:27:07 It's going to out pose as far as I'm concerned, it's not, you're not gonna have anything worth it. Any, you gotta sit here and say, where am I going with this child? Where do we see this child in, in 20 years? And then you work back and if you have some kind of goals, and I'm not talking about their exact vocation because that's between them and God, but you at least get 'em so they can go into any vocation because they have the virtue. So you see what are, and if you have that kind of thing, then you can start, you and your husband are watching 'em and saying, you know, this child lies too much. What are we gonna do about that? That isn't insane. And you know, cuz there's ways that doing it the wrong way. This child shirks on work, you know, you're looking at what are their weaknesses and what can we do to make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult.
Speaker 0 01:27:47 Cuz that's what it is. It's just the same as training horses. I'm not trying to be rude about or dogs and I'm not trying to pick on your kids in the same, but the concepts are the same. Consistency. Having a clear goal and having expectations that are always the same in that way. And you're gonna, you're gonna have some flex because every child isn't the same. Every horse isn't the same. You gotta have some flex in this. The perfect enemy goods. You say that's good enough right now we're gonna work on that, but we got a few more years. Do you see what I mean? But you're working on that kind of thing and just keep on trying to show up the weak things. You don't have little discussion. I see sometimes parents having these discussions with a four year old shut up. He's not the age of reason.
Speaker 0 01:28:24 No. Let us know. Let you're yes, esp yes and your no be, no he doesn't need an explanation. Teenagers need an explanation. Sometimes a detailed explanation cuz you're trying to teach 'em how to be an adult. So that time you're setting him down and saying, here's why blah blah. Because you're giving him more information as it's needed. Cuz you want him to leave home and see how to, and it doesn't mean we're perfect. And if you screw up, you say, I'm sorry we were wrong on that. We'd have done this a little different. That's it. That's just being humble. But that's what you want. You want to have those kind of things. And uh, and we don't want to go go from fear of our mistakes. Fear is not a good principle to act from. But the principle is, we got goals, we're gonna go that way. And what you got the grace estate. You got, you got Catholicism. What more? It's the greatest. I mean it's unbelievable. All the martyrs, we have the best thing going. We've got everything we possibly could need that we just have to cooperate with God and get there. And he lets you be the parents of immortal beings. He could have made babies from scratch, just like Adam and Eve. He lets you and your husband make babies. It's so amazing to me. You know, you baptize a baby. See, this is an immortal being.
Speaker 0 01:29:36 It's amazing to me when you're pregnant, I just, it's amazing to me. Cause I think there's an immortal being in this person. It's immortal. I mean, I know you know that, but you could meditate on that and he's put in charge of it. So in so many ways, you're determining where this person is gonna spend eternity. And so that's what you do. You're saying, all right, I want him to be in heaven. We're gonna, and so what are we gonna do do to make sure that happens? And we're not doing it from fear. We're doing it from the love of the Lord. We wanna do it from the love of the Lord. I wanna read you something about the liturgy, which is interesting. Why are you going with this father? You'll see now, this is from a hundred years ago by Lambert Boen, Don Boen liturgy life of the church. It, it's incredible
Speaker 0 01:30:20 Wish, a perhaps surprise more than one reader by saying that in order to remedy the evil from which the faithful our generation are suffering in regard to liturgy, it will not suffice to initiate them into the ritual formulas and ceremonies and the dogmatic symbolic meanings of the latter and into the historical origin. This knowledge is undoubtedly necessary for rendering the meaning of this Sunday or the participation of mysteries in other functions of the church, properly intelligible, instructive, attractive and fruitful. But the work of liturgical re restoration is intended to combat and evil. It lies deeper to pursue its purpose more thoroughly. So this is before the liturgical, uh, uh, movement went off the rails toilet the piety of the Christian people and hence their actions life are not grounded sufficiently in the fundamental truths that constitute the soul of the liturgy and therefore should be the soul of our lives.
Speaker 0 01:31:10 That is in the destiny of all things under the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The necessary universal contemplation of Jesus Christ. The central praise of the eucharistic sacrifice in the Christian life. The mission of the hierarchy in regards to our union with God. This is really important to keep in, in mind in spite of the fact that so many of us with the collars on are wackos, heretics and immoral. It's still of divine constitution. The church, pope, bishop, priest, faithful, it can't begotten around. It's part of salvation. Even if not everybody in the vine is going to heaven. It's necessarily being a branch that's connected to the vine. Okay? Then the, the, the mission, the hierarchy in regard to our union with God, the visible realization of the communion of saints. All these truths which fight an expression, every liturgical actor is sleep in men's souls.
Speaker 0 01:32:02 The faith of lost consciousness of it. You're trying to raise saints in a brothel. They have to see what are we doing here? I had kids. It, it just is a contrast and it's not sufficient. The catechism is not sufficient. It's necessary, but it's not sufficient. It has to be from the inside out. It has to be something that they understand. And you're the mothers more than anybody else. Since you have the, that daily contact with 'em, they have to get it from the earliest age if possible. I, years ago, some, some kids had interviewed me. There was, uh, one of these high schools where the parents had to spend a fortune to send 'em to one of these fancy Catholic high schools. And accidentally they got a theology teacher that it was Catholic. And so he had, he had a list of priests that they were allowed to interview.
Speaker 0 01:32:47 And I was the only guy. So it was driving me crazy <laugh>. Um, but anyway, I had to meet with a bunch of these kids, you know, about, about vocations. So I'm dressed like this big clue and we have to meet at Starbucks. They're starting off on the wrong foot with me. But, you know, <laugh>, okay, so there I am and for an hour they're asking me all these questions about vocations and all this. And so I'm asking 'em what they want to do. They're telling me all this, you know, stuff. These are nice kids, nice kids. I'm not picking on 'em, but I, I, you know, you'll see where I'm going. So at the end all that, I said, okay, you know, we've spent an hour, an hour and a half, thank you for the cough. I just wanna ask you one question. What's the purpose of your life?
Speaker 0 01:33:29 And I let everyone answer. And I'm not being irreverent when I say an atheistic Jew could have made the same kind of answers. They weren't horrible answers. But you'd think after an hour of talking to a priest dressed like this about religious matters, somewhere in that the Trinity, god heaven, I don't know anything to do with what we're doing here. I told him, you know, that's question number two. Question number one is who made me? And question number two is, why did God make me? And so I told 'em, none of you are ready for your first communion. I'm sorry I wouldn't give you a communion. And that got, you know, these are seniors in high school with all these rich kids driving fancy CARSs got their nose really bent outta shape. But I wanted to bend their nose outta shape because it isn't enough to just go through the motions. It has to come from the inside out. And that can only come barring divine grace set comes in the home. Our Catholic homes had to be Catholic homes, not American homes with some Catholic, you know, holy water spread around or something. They had to be Catholic homes. They had to replace a prayer. And you have to be praying.
Speaker 0 01:34:47 And I wanna encourage you now and then I'll end on this because I could keep going. And I, I realize the time and I'm sorry, sorry, of the holiness that I've personally dealt with as a priest and I've dealt with some real holiness. And I mean that in the formal sense. There's a remarkable amount of it in the homes. And I mean formally holy people, I mean people that are gonna die and go to heaven if they don't change what they're doing. I mean go right to heaven if they don't change what they're doing. There's real holiness. And it isn't by doing extraordinary things, it's by doing your duties and your state and life as best as you can and praying and try to conform yourself to our lady and really trying to enter in to the holy sacrifice of the mass. And you don't have to be some mystic and you don't have to be St. Thomas Aquinas and I'm certainly not making fun of either of them. You have to be who you are and love God cuz he loved you first and he died for you. And he let you be a Catholic. And he let you have a faith and a time of heresy and aposty and sin and chaos.
Speaker 0 01:36:24 And maybe somebody even come out of that. It doesn't matter cuz it's not opposed to becoming a saint. But you have to make the sacrifice, you have to do the prayer. I can't do the prayer for you. You have to do the spiritu reading and you have to spend that time and prayer. And if you do, you will become holy. You will become holy. And if you become holy, your family become holy. I'll give you a blessing. <unk>.
