Vol 15 Issue 11 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
March 12, 2022 ~ Saint Gregory the Great
1. Sacrament of Penance
2. Second Sunday of Lent
3. Saint Euphrasia
4. Family and Marriage
5. Articles and notices
Dear Reader:
We are in the Lenten Season, the first 10 days have already gone by. How have we fared? Have we kept up with our fasting and abstinence? Are we removing the fault, the sin from our lives? Heaven suffers violence and the violent bear it away (Matt. 11:12). There is no real effort to overcome our faults and failings unless we are ready to suffer, to deprive ourselves, to simply stop. When Christ was tempted by Satan, Christ was direct: Not by bread alone, not by tempting God (i.e., justification), only placing God first. It is one thing when it comes to doing good and deciding which is better. It is another thing to place good and evil in a balance and ask which is better in this situation. The former, only good, is because we choose God no matter how we do what is Good; the latter, we always choose ourselves because the decision is based on ourself to the exclusion of God. In our spiritual lives we must recognize that it is not an annihilation of self, but an acknowledgement that goodness increases our capacity to live a full life and evil deprives us of our capacity to live full lives. A practical example is that of smoking. I know the homeless smoke to keep themselves warm and others may say it calms them—a false crutch. But if you talk to employers about those working who smoke they will tell you that they are not as productive as non-smokers. Reasons. Always leaving for a smoke break which requires thinking of smoking instead of their work followed by having to refocus once they take up their work again. It also becomes an occasion of gossip as those smoking engage in conversation, breaking down positive relationships that would have been strengthened if they had been working with these same colleagues and seeing the success of their participation instead of the envy by their absence. It is the same with all sins—they take possession of our lives, as Scripture says, we become slaves to them [cf. 2 Peter 2:19; Titus 3:3]. Freed, we find ourselves performing more good works. Yes, there will now start the justifications in one’s mind: everyone else does it (but do you do everything others do?); I have a right to do it (from whom may I ask?); it is too hard to stop (What happened to the proverbial saying: Where there’s a will there’s a way?); it isn’t so bad (but you just said it is bad); it is a habit (but a habit you need to stop). Excuses are a sign of cowardice and we need to bravely oppose the world, the flesh and the devil—Heaven suffers violence and the violent bear it away.
As always, enjoy the readings provided for your benefit.—The Editor
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WHAT IS THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE
Summary of Church Teaching Concerning Penance*
*The same introduction to this section was included when speaking of Baptism.—The Author.
Having taken the time to present the Church’s teaching on Confirmation, it would be well to summarize what is generally presented in the theology books regarding baptism, where the sources have already been provided, modeled on the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas (III, q. 66-71.) and the Roman Catechism or Catechism of the Council of Trent (II, 2). Drawing from the Roman Catechism, in the United States of America the Baltimore Catechism was decreed to be published at the Third Council of Baltimore (1884). It was first written by the priest, Father Januarius de Concilio at the request of the Council, as a well-known and accepted author who also had experience as a parish priest. Bishop John Spalding of Peoria, Illinois, worked with de Concilio and later revised the Catechism into two parts. Both de Concilio’s and Spalding’s versions were considered the standard text until the edition of Fr. Francis J. Connell was published by the Episcopal Committee for the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD, 1941), having received the approval of the Vatican and all the Bishops in the United States. There were and are many other Catechisms, but taking consideration of place, use and approbation, the Baltimore Catechism of Francis Connell will be the text referenced. For the purpose of summarizing the doctrines of the theological books, again, several authors could be used (Pohle-Preuss, Tanqueray, Hunter, or Henry among others), but Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma will be used for practical reasons.
Some of the wording may be unfamiliar, but this is provided to present the continuum of the faith and a source to confront those who would claim the Church has constantly evolved in its faith (neo-Modernists) or that certain doctrines (Baptism in desire or by blood) were not taught and believed until the beginning of the twentieth century.
AAS means Acta Apostolicae Sedis, or all official papal documents and Vatican (Roman curia pronouncements approved by the pope) documents since 1865.
AS is for Anathema sit, or Latin for anathema—which means a condemnation of such a statement because it is opposed to Church teaching.
CIC refers one to the 1917 Code of Canon Law.
The D, such as in D 844, refers to Heinrich Denzinger’s Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, a collection of the Church’s creeds, definitions and declarations on matters of faith and morals. The number, 844, refers to numbering the documents for easy reference.
PG refers to Migne’s collection of Greek Fathers, e.g., Basil and John Chrysostom.
PL refers to Migne’s collection of Latin Fathers, e.g., Ambrose and Augustine.
Where the Latin was not translated, the English translation was inserted by the author.
In Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Cork: Mercier Press, 1955 (pages 350- 360), there is this following theological outline on Confirmation:
IV. The Sacrament of Penance
§ 1. The Concept of Penance
1. The Sacrament of Penance
The Sacrament of Penance (poenitentia, μετάνοια) is that Sacrament by which the sinner, who repents of his sins, acknowledges them sincerely and has the will to render atonement, has his sins, committed after his Baptism, remitted in the absolution pronounced by the priest. The word penance is also used to designate a particular part of the Sacrament of Penance, i.e., the satisfaction.
2. Virtue of Penance
The virtue of penance, which is insistently recommended in both the Old and New Testaments (cf. Ez. 18, 30 et seq.; 33, 11; Jer. 18, n; 25, 5 et seq.; Joel 2, 12 et seq.; Ecclus. 2, 22; 17, 21 et seq.; Mt. 3,2; 4, 17; Acts 2, 38), and which at all times was a necessary precondition for the forgiveness of sins (D 894), is that moral virtue, which inclines the will to turn away inwardly from sin, and to render atonement to God for it. It consists in sorrow of the soul for sins committed, in as much as sin is an insult to God, together with a purpose of amendment: dolor de peccato comisso, in quantum est offensia Dei, cum emendationis propositio (S. Th. III 85, 3). External manifestations of the virtue of penance are the confession of sins, the performance of penitential works of every kind, for example, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, mortifications, and the patient bearing of all trials sent by God.
Luther’s teaching that penance is simply the amendment of our lives (optima poenitentia nova vita, i.e., “a new life”) has been rejected as error by the Church. D 747, 923. Holy Writ exhorts the sinner to do penance for sins committed; it demands an internal penitential disposition as well as external works of penance. Cf. Ez. 18, 21 et seq.; Joel 2, 12 et seq.: “Be converted to Me with all your Heart, in fasting and in weeping and in mourning. And rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God!” The new life is the end-term of penance, not the essence of penance. Cf. St. Augustine, Sermo 351, 5, 12.
In the order of grace in the New Covenant the Sacrament of Penance and the virtue of penance are intimately connected. Since the acts of sorrow, confession and atonement (or of the will to render atonement), which appertain to the nature of the Sacrament of Penance, are applications of the virtue of penance, the Sacrament of Penance in fact cannot be accomplished without the virtue of penance. On the other hand, in the present order of grace the acts of the virtue of penance of themselves alone cannot bring a baptised mortal sinner to justification, if they are not associated at least with a desire to receive the Sacrament of Penance.
(To be continued)
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The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers
M. F. Toal
THE GOSPEL OF THE SUNDAY
MATTHEW xvii. 1-9
At that time Jesus taketh unto him Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow. And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him. And Peter answering, said to Jesus: Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And lo, a voice out of the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him. And the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very much afraid. And Jesus came and touched them: and said to them, Arise, and fear not. And they lifting up their eyes saw no one but only Jesus. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead.
ST EPHRAEM, CONFESSOR AND DOCTOR
On the Transfiguration of Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ
Then he said: Let us make here three dwelling-places, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. Simon was sent to build the Church in the world, and he wishes to build three dwellings upon a mountain: for he still continues to speak with Christ as one speaks with a man, placing Him on a level with Moses and Elias. But immediately the Lord shows him that He has no need of dwelling-places. For He it was who concealed His dwelling-place in a cloud among their forefathers in the wilderness throughout forty years (Num. ix. 10). For as He was speaking to them a bright cloud overshadowed them. Behold, O Simon, a dwelling-place made without hands; a dwelling-place that protects you from the heat, and that is without any darkness: a dwelling-place that shines as the sun. And to the great wonder of the Disciples, behold a Voice, Which proceeds from the Father, is heard from the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him.
The Father having spoken Moses returns to his own place and Elias to his fatherland; and the Apostles fall down with their faces to the earth; and Jesus stands alone, since only in Him were these words fulfilled. The Prophets are gone, and the Apostles lie prone upon the earth, for it is not in any of these that the words are fulfilled which the Father spoke: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.
The Father teaches them that the Dispensation of Moses had been fulfilled; and now they must hearken to the voice of His Son. For the former, as a servant, had spoken that which he was commanded; and that which was told him he had made known: and in like manner all the Prophets, until He had come in place of them, namely, Jesus, Who is the Son, not a servant of His household, the Lord, not a slave, the Ruler, not one subject to rule, the Lawgiver, not one subject to the law; His Son by nature, not by adoption.
Accordingly, the Father makes manifest upon the mountain what was yet obscure to the Apostles regarding the divinity of His Son. He Who is signifies to them Who He is. The Father by His voice gives testimony to His Son; and at the sound of His voice the Apostles fall prone upon the ground. Since it was awesome as the thunder, and as the earth trembled at His voice, so likewise they sink down upon the earth. It told them that the Father had come nigh them, and had called Him Son Who by His voice had comforted them. For as that dread voice of the Father cast them prone upon the earth, so the voice of the Son caused them to rise up again by the power of His divinity. Which, since It dwells in His flesh, is united unchangeably to Him: Both dwell within the one hypostasis, and in the one Person abide without separation and without commingling.
Nor did He appear as Moses, outwardly beautiful, but shone as God; for it was from the light of the glory of His countenance that the face of Moses was clothed with beauty. But Jesus shone forth in His own Body, as the sun in the midst of its rays; from the glory of His divinity. The Father indeed cried out: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Hear ye him. He is not separate from the glory of the divinity of His Son. For One is the Nature of the Father, and of the Son, together with the Holy Ghost: One is the Power, One the Essence, One the Kingdom, and it calls Him with one voice, by a name that is simple, but of a glory that is fearful.
And Mary called Him her Son, Who was undivided by His human body from the glory of His Divinity: since One is God, seen in this world in our body. His glory reveals His divine nature, which is from the Father; and His body reveals His human nature, which is from Mary. Both natures have united, and, without change and without commingling, have been joined together in one hypostasis or person. The Same is the Only-begotten of the Father Who is the Only-begotten of Mary. And he who separates them is himself separated from His Kingdom; and he who commingles His natures into one will have no part in His life. He that denies that Mary gave birth to God shall not see the glory of His divinity; and whosoever denies that He was clothed in flesh Who was free from the stain of every sin shall be shut out from salvation, and from the life which is given by His Body.
The events of His life, and His own divine powers, teach those who can learn that He is true God, and His sufferings openly proclaim Him true man. And if this does not convince those who are weak and foolish of mind, they shall suffer punishment on the day of His dread judgement. For if He were not flesh, for what reason did Mary bring Him forth? And if He was not God, who then did Gabriel call Lord?
If He was not flesh, who then lay in the manger? If He was not God, to whom did the angels coming on earth give glory?
If He was not man, who was wrapped in swaddling clothes? If He was not God, whom then did the Shepherds adore?
If He was not man, whom did Joseph circumcize? And if He was not God, in whose honour did a new star appear in the heavens?
If He was not man, whom did Mary nourish at the breast? And if He were not God, to whom did the Magi offer gifts?
If He was not man, whom did Simeon take in His arms? And if He was not God, to whom did Simeon say: Dismiss me in peace?
If He was not man, whom did Joseph take and fly with him into Egypt? And if He was not God, in whom was the prophecy fulfilled: Out of Egypt have I called my son? (Mt. ii. 15; Os. xi. 1).
If He was not man, whom did John baptize? And if He was not God, of whom did the Father from heaven say: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased? (Mt.iii.17).
If He was not man, who fasted and hungered in the desert? And if He was not God, to whom did the descending angels minister?
If He was not man, who was invited to the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee? And if He was not God, who changed the water into wine?
If He was not man, in whose hands were the loaves of bread placed? And if He were not God, who fed and filled from five barley loaves and two fishes the multitude in the desert, five thousand men, not counting the women and children?
If He was not a man, who slept in the boat? And if He were not God, who was it rebuked the winds and the sea?
If He was not man, who was it ate with Simon the Pharisee? And if He were not God, who forgave the woman her sins?
If He was not a man, who sat by the well weary from the journey? And if He was not God, who gave the Samaritan woman the water of life; and who rebuked her, she that had already five husbands?
If He was not of our flesh, who wore the garments of a man? And if He were not God, who then was it that wrought signs and wonders?
If He was not a man, who spat upon the earth, and made mud from the clay? And if He were not God, who caused eyes to see because of the clay? (Jn. ix).
If He was not man, who wept at the tomb of Lazarus? And if He were not God, who by his command alone called forth the four days dead?
If He was not a man, who was it sat upon an ass’s colt? And if He were not God, before whom did the crowd march to give Him glory?
If He was not a man, whom did the Jews make prisoner? And if He were not God, who commanded the earth, and it threw them flat to the ground?
If He was not a man, who was beaten with blows? And if He were not God, who healed the ear which Peter had cut off, and who restored it to its place?
If He was not a man, whose face was spat upon? And if He were not God, who breathed the Holy Spirit upon the faces of the Apostles (Jn. xx. 22).
If He was not a man, who was it stood before Pilate at the judgement seat? And if He were not God, who caused the wife of Pilate to suffer many things in a dream?
If He was not a man, upon whose garments did the soldiers cast lots, dividing them amongst them? And if He were not God, for what reason did the sun grow dark above the Cross?
If He was not a man, who was it hung upon a cross? And if He were not God, who moved the earth from its foundations?
If He was not a man, whose hands were pierced by the nails? And if He were not God, how was the veil of the temple rent in two, and the rocks split asunder, and the graves opened?
If He was not a man, who cried out: My God, My God, why hast Thou abandoned me? And if He were not God, who then hath said: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do?
If He was not man, who hung with thieves upon a cross? And if He were not God, for what cause did He say: This day thou shalt be with me in paradise?
If He was not man, to whom did they offer gall and vinegar? And if He were not God, at whose voice did they shake and tremble? (Ps. lxxvi. 19).
If He was not a man, whose side was opened by a lance, and there came out blood and water? (Jn. xix. 34). And if He were not God, who hath broken the gates of hell, and burst the iron bars? (Ps. cvi. 16). And by whose command did the dead that slept in their graves come forth?
If He was not a man, whom did the Apostles behold in the Upper Room? And if He was not God, in what manner did He enter, the doors being closed?
If He was not a man, in whose hand did Thomas feel the wounds of the nails and the lance? And if He was not God, to whom did Thomas cry out saying: My Lord and My God?
If He was not a man, who ate food by the sea of Tiberiades? And if He were not God, at whose command was the net filled with fishes?
If He was not man, whom did the Apostles and the Angels see received into the heavens? If He was not God, to whom were the heavens opened, whom did the powers adore in fear and trembling, and to whom had the Father said: Sit thou on my right hand, and the rest which follows? (Ps. cix. 1).
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13: ST EUPHRASIA, OR EUPRAXIA, VIRGIN (c. A.D. 420)
THE Emperor Theodosius I had a kinsman Antigonus, who died within a year of the birth of his daughter Euphrasia, and the emperor took the widow and her child under his protection. When the little girl was five years old he arranged to betroth her to the son of a wealthy senator—in accordance with the custom of the time—the marriage being deferred until the maiden should have reached a suitable age. The widow herself began to be sought in marriage, and she withdrew from court and went with Euphrasia to Egypt, where she settled down near a convent of nuns. Euphrasia, then seven years of age, was greatly drawn to the nuns and begged to be allowed to stay with them. To humour her and thinking it was only a childish fancy, her mother left her there for a little, expecting her soon to weary of the life, but the child was persistent, although she was told that she would have to fast and to sleep on the ground and to learn the whole Psalter if she remained. The abbess then said to the mother, “Leave the little girl with us, for the grace of God is working in her heart. Your piety and that of Antigonus have opened to her the most perfect way.” The good woman wept for joy, and leading her child before the image of our Lord she said, ” Lord Jesus Christ, receive this child. Thee alone doth she love and seek, and to thy service alone doth she commend herself.” Then turning to Euphrasia she exclaimed, “May God who laid the foundations of the mountains, keep you always steadfast in His holy fear”. A few days later the child was clothed in the nun’s habit, and her mother asked if she were satisfied. “Oh, mother!” cried the little novice, “it is my bridal robe, given me to do honour to Jesus my beloved.” Soon afterwards the mother went to rejoin her husband in a better world, and as the years went by Euphrasia grew up a beautiful girl in the seclusion of the convent.
In due time the emperor, presumably Arcadius, sent for her to come to Constantinople to marry the senator to whom he had betrothed her. She was now twelve years old and an heiress, but she wrote him a letter begging him to allow her to follow her vocation and requesting him to distribute her parents’ property to the poor as well as to enfranchise all her slaves. The emperor carried out her requests; but Euphrasia was sorely tried by vain imaginations and temptations to know more of the world she had forsaken. The abbess, to whom she opened her heart, set her some hard and humbling tasks to divert her attention and to drive away the evil spirits from which she suffered in body as well as in soul. Once the abbess ordered her to remove a pile of stones from one place to another, and when the task was completed she continued to make her carry them backwards and forwards thirty times. In this and in whatever else she was bidden to do, Euphrasia complied cheerfully and promptly: she cleaned out the cells of the other nuns, carried water for the kitchen, chopped the wood, baked the bread and cooked the food. The nun who performed these arduous duties was generally excused the night offices, but Euphrasia was never missing from her place in the choir, and yet at the age of twenty she was taller, better developed and more beautiful than any of the others.
Her meekness and humility were extraordinary. A maid in the kitchen once asked her why she sometimes went without food for the entire week, a thing no one but the abbess ever attempted. When the saint said she did it out of obedience, the woman called her a hypocrite, who sought to make herself conspicuous in the hope of being chosen superior. Far from resenting this unjust accusation, Euphrasia fell at her feet and besought her to pray for her. As the saint lay on her death-bed, Julia, a beloved sister who shared her cell, besought Euphrasia to obtain for her the grace of being with her in Heaven as she had been her companion on earth, and three days after her friend’s demise, Julia was taken also. The aged abbess who had originally received Euphrasia remained for a month together very sad at the loss of her dear ones. She prayed earnestly that she might not have to linger on now that the others had gone to their reward. The following morning when the nuns entered her cell they found only her lifeless body, for her soul had fled in the night to join the other two. According to Russian usage St Euphrasia is named in the preparation of the Byzantine Mass.
(Butler’s Lives of the Saints)
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CANA IS FOREVER
COUNSELS FOR BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE
By Charles Hugo Doyle (1949)
Chapter Four: PROXIMATE PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE
“Choose your horse from a hundred, your friend from a thousand, and your wife from ten thousand.” That is an Arabian proverb, and it is startling in its blunt annunciation of a patent truth. The choice of a life partner in marriage is a great and grave responsibility. It obligates one to love and serve another, to rear children and govern them, and, at the same time, to serve God with one’s whole heart and soul and mind—works any one of which alone requires great faith and perseverance, and which, taken together, cannot be accomplished without special aid from Heaven.
To choose a life mate for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until his or her death, is obviously a task that requires sane and sage judgment. So much depends on the right choice that a prayerful proximate preparation is imperative. Upon the choice of a husband or a wife depends happiness or bitter regrets during this life and even heaven or hell in the next.
Important as the remote preparation for marriage is, the proximate preparation is vastly more important, since it must serve as a novitiate for wedded life. Speaking of novitiate, I am reminded of the words of St. Francis de Sales, who said: “Marriage is an order where the profession is made before the novitiate,” and then he adds this startling observation: “But if there was a year of trial or testing as is required before the profession of vows in monasteries, few would be professed.”
St. Francis de Sales’ observation has been borne out by a recent nation-wide survey made by a great American woman’s magazine. The interviewers talked to a cross section of the country’s married adults and found out that one married person in five doubted he or she chose the right partner and stated they would choose differently if given a second chance.
The importance of making a correct choice is stressed in Holy Scripture. Here are but a few salient quotations:
“Happy is the husband of a good wife, for the number of his years is double.”
“A virtuous woman rejoices her husband; and he shall fulfill the years of his life in peace.”
“It will be more agreeable to abide with a lion and a dragon than to dwell with a wicked woman.”
“As the climbing of a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of tongue to a quiet man.”
“Roofs dropping through on a cold day, and a contentious woman, are alike.”
Few readers will have experienced the calamity of having a roof fall in on them on a cold day, but I feel that the married reader of this page who steals a look across the room at the face of a belligerent wife, or at a sullen, gloomy husband whose face constantly bears the grieved look of an untipped waiter, will readily understand what the Holy Ghost had in mind.
Broken hearts and homes would be the rare exception if more serious thought was given to this matter of preparedness for wedlock. An adequate proximate preparation for marriage demands:
(1) A healthy moral and social teen-age development
(2) Physical, intellectual, emotional, and vocational maturity
(3) Prudence in choosing a potential mate
(4) Persevering prayer for guidance
(5) Parental counsel
(6) Consultation with your pastor or confessor
(7) A proper period of engagement
Some may wonder at the inclusion of teen-age development problems in a chapter dealing with proximate preparation for marriage, and the point is well taken until one considers that it is during the teen-age that many friendships are formed from which love and marriage later result. Again, since many of the virtues and vices acquired in the teen-age period find their way into marriage as good or evil habits, it can be readily seen that the teen-age can truly be said to be a part of the proximate preparation for marriage and the venture may succeed or fail according to what is blended in the joint alchemy of “keeping company.”
A healthy moral and social teen-age development.
Morality may be defined as “human conduct in so far as it is freely subordinated to the ideal of what is right and fitting,” and the Church has always maintained that morality and religion are essentially connected. She contends that without religion the observance of the moral law is impossible. For this reason Holy Mother Church states that certain conditions are required for the growth and development of morality in the individual and the community, namely: (1) a right education of the young, (2) a healthy public opinion, and (3) sound legislation. Since we are primarily concerned here with right education of the young as it concerns morality, let us endeavor to find out what constitutes a solid basis for such an education.
According to the mind of Holy Mother Church, right education of the young includes the early training in the home as well as the subsequent years of school and college life. The family is the true school of morality and its good or bad effects will remain with one during the whole of life. It is in the home that we learn obedience, truthfulness, purity, and self-restraint and the other primary virtues. The Church also maintains that the best scholastic education is the one that is given in a moral and religious atmosphere. Morality and religion go hand in hand. Mark Hopkins once remarked that “Everywhere the tendency has been to separate religion from morality, to set them in opposition even. But religion without morality is a superstition and a curse; and anything like adequate and complete morality without religion is impossible.
The only salvation for man is in the union of the two as Christianity unites them.”[1] Father Joseph Roux, in Meditations of a Parish Priest, remarks that “morality is the fruit of religion: to desire morality without religion is to desire an orange without an orange tree.” To the above we simply add the warning that morality will be terribly difficult for the person who does not pray.
Two persons who want to find success and happiness in the marriage career must bring to their marriage a healthy moral development founded on the teachings of the one true religion. G. A. Coe, writing in “Education in Religion and Morality,”[2] states that “the capacity for love between persons of the opposite sex, the beginning of which is the central fact of adolescent psychology, is usually treated as a matter of indifference to religion or else as a positive hindrance to spiritual development. Yet the worst evils are always perversions of the best goods. The higher sentiments that cluster about the relation of the sexes are, in their normal development, precisely the ones that constitute a spiritual as distinguished from an unspiritual life. The great unselfishness that knows no life except through losing its life is not an experience of childhood; it awaits adolescence, and it is an upshot of our capacity for devoted love to a person of the opposite sex. So, also, it is love that refines away the grossness of our nature. It spreads through the life of lovers and is communicated to the whole of society.”
From this quotation the reader may grasp something of the importance of what we have listed as a prime requisite for a healthy moral development—namely, the good moral education in the home or a good Catholic education in the school. Religion as a basis for morality is essential for good living. It was Jung, the psychiatrist, who said: “Among all my patients, there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religion of every age has given to its followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.”[3]
All we have stated so far may be resolved into the following sentences:
Love, honor, obey and respect your parents.
Attend Catholic schools.
Learn your religion.
Frequent the sacraments.
Avoid the company of those without faith or those who criticize or scoff at religion.
Base your morality on the teachings of the Church.
Before quitting this topic of morality, I feel I should say a few words on good manners, for good manners are nothing less than little morals. If not virtues themselves, they are shadows of virtues. Burke once said that “Manners are of more importance than laws. According to this quality, they aid morals, they supply laws, or they totally destroy them.”
But what are good manners? One aspect is the art of putting others at their ease. The person who makes the fewest persons uncomfortable is the best-mannered. It is worthy of note that ill manners spring from vanity, ill-nature, want of sympathy, and want of common sense. Avoid the pitfall of being unmannerly yourself and above all avoid the company of a person who is ill-mannered.
Manners are not idle, but the fruit
noble nature and of loyal mind.
I once read that “he is an ill-mannered man who is always loud in the praise of himself or his family; who, boasting of his rank, of his business, of his achievements in his calling, looks down upon lower orders of people; who cannot refrain from having his joke at the expense of another’s character; who tries always to say the smart and cutting thing.” That is not a bad observation and might be used as a yardstick to measure your own manners or the manners of others. Take care, however, not to confuse etiquette with good manners. The former is quite arbitrary, varies in different ages and places and, very often, is absurd; whereas good manners, founded as they are on common sense, are universally the same.
(To be continued.)
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Father Krier will be in Eureka, Nevada, on March 17.
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