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| Rev. George Kelly: You are your child's best teacher |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2021, 08:01 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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IT CANNOT be repeated too often that you are your child's most important teacher. As an adult, he will reflect your influence to a greater extent than you probably imagine-just as you reflect the personality of your own mother and father. Even if you refused to exercise your God-given responsibility to train him, you would leave your imprint upon his personality nevertheless. For instance, a father who deserts his family while his child is still an infant leaves an impression upon the youngster that will never be eradicated; he says, in effect, that parenthood is not worth the trouble and that a father's obligations are more than a man should carry. The storekeeper who calls it 'good business' when he cheats his customers by selling inferior merchandise teaches his child that honesty is unimportant. The mother who tells smutty stories need not deliver a speech downgrading purity; her actions, more effectively than words, teach this principle to her child. And against such influences of the home, it is highly unlikely that the corrective teaching of church or school can prevail.
You have an awesome responsibility, therefore, but also a challenge -a challenge to which you will rise magnificently if you realize the benefits to humanity that can be achieved if you live by true Christian principles. As we have noted, your influence as parent will extend not only to your children but to your children's children and down to many other generations yet unborn. Your simple acts of devoted motherhood or fatherhood may assist untold numbers to heaven-or your bad example may be the force which may lead them to hell.
What your child needs. In order to become an adult who will honour God and serve his fellow man in the way God intended, your child needs the sense of security that can come only from your unquestioned love and kindness. When a baby is born, he enters a strange environment-one newer and more different to him than Mars might be to the first space traveler. Before birth, your child was sheltered, warmed and fed in an automatic process. Then his world abruptly changed: he became an individual thrust from his warm, protecting shelter and forced to encounter cold, hunger and suffering. Never again on earth will he enjoy the sense of peace and well-being that he experienced in the womb.
The newborn babe needs food and shelter, of course. But even more, he needs a substitute for the security he has lost. This need can be satisfied in a physical way at first-for instance, when he is held close to his mother's body. Later, as he develops a sense of physical freedom as an individual, it must be supplied psychologically through love.
In his book 'Your Child's World,' Dr. Robert Odenwald, the psychiatrist, states that your child's need for security will be the most important part of your relationship with him. His behaviour in later life will reflect whether you have provided or denied it, and how much maturity he acquires as an adult will depend directly upon how much security you give him in his early years. 'You can best foster a feeling of security in your infant or young child by giving him uniform, sympathetic care,' Dr. Odenwald states. 'Paying loving attention to his needs, like holding him and rocking him, creates a steadfast continuity which makes him feel secure. One of the first things you will discover about your child is his urgent demand for consistency. Take him from the crib to which he has become accustomed, change some characteristic of his feedings, misplace his favourite toy, get someone new to care for him for a short period, and he may wail for hours. Is this an early evidence of perverseness on his part? No. It is evidence of his desire for security and his deep unhappiness when it is not provided for him.'
As your child develops, you can make him secure by constantly letting him know that you are interested in him as a person, and that you want him and love him. Few parents would openly admit that they do not love their child; yet many reject their offspring by their actions. Some couples find that a young child interferes with their pursuit of pleasure: they cannot go to many dancing parties or stay out until early morning when an infant demands their attention around the clock. Others may subconsciously resent the fact that they no longer can spend as much as they would like on liquor, clothes or automobiles; they must tighten their purse strings to support their baby. Other couples are immature and see the infant as a threat to their hold upon the affections of the partner.
When these resentments exist, th e parents may not express them openly; it is not the 'polite' thing to do. But they may develop attitudes which express their true feelings. One such attitude is perfectionism. Those who would not dare reject their child in an obvious way-such as by leaving him upon a doorstep-can set up standards of behaviour with which any human being would find it impossible to comply. Typical perfectionist parents usually have only one or two children; they often are more concerned about what other people will think of them than about what is truly right, and they tend to be unable to give freely of themselves emotionally. They upbraid their child for disturbing the sterile neatness of the living room, for shouting or singing in the house, or for returning dirty after playing outdoors. These parents are really saying that what their child does naturally-and what any normal child would do-is not suitable behaviour. By setting up artificial standards, they do not allow him to develop in a normal way and thus they undermine his confidence in himself as a worth-while individual- the very basis of his security.
Other parents stifle their child through over-protectiveness. Such parents also are saying that their child cannot be trusted to handle by himself the normal situations of everyday living which others of his age tackle with their own resources. Visit a public park on a Sunday and you will see over-protectiveness at its most appalling. A young child wishes to run on the grass, but his mother holds him back because she fears he might fall and hurt himself. Eight-year-olds playing a game are constantly warned not to throw the ball too far, lest they run out of the parents' sight and thus risk getting lost. These are extreme examples-the kind which often bring the child involved into a psychiatrist's office years later, as an adult, when he lacks the initiative to perform even common tasks on his own. Fortunately, few parents are guilty of such extreme behaviour, yet lesser varieties of over-protectiveness-the kind summed up in the word 'Mumism'-are more common than most persons suspect.
You are overprotective when you implore your young child to eat his dinner every night for fear that he will not get proper nourishment. If you withheld food between meals and let him hunger for a few days if necessary, he soon would eat what is offered at mealtime. You are overprotective if you constantly warn him of dangers such as falling which are a normal risk in children's games. Likewise, you are overprotective if you repeatedly beseech your teen-ager to wear his rain-coat when it rains; after a few urgings on your part, it would be better for his full development as a self-reliant individual if he contracted a cold as a result of his failure to wear them and thus learned from his own experience. For by constantly reminding your child to do what is a reasonable responsibility of his age, you indicate that you lack confidence in him and thus undermine his security.
It is obvious that a necessary chore when done for a young child may be sheer over-protectiveness when done for an older one. When your two-year-old plays in front of your house, common prudence dictates that you remain close by, because he lacks the experience to know that he must not run into the street and possibly into the path of an oncoming car. But to sit by for the same reason while your nine-year-old plays is sheer over-protectiveness. Thus, to function effectively as a parent, try to understand what may reasonably be expected of your child at various stages of his development. Many excellent books have been written by child psychologists which indicate what the normal youngster can do for himself at different ages.
Understanding your child. A second need of your child is to be understood in terms of his own native talents and capabilities. God makes each one of us different; our nervous systems may run from extremes of restlessness to extremes of placidity. One child may be born with a physique that demands constant physical exertion. Another may prefer to spend hours in one spot, if not in one position. One child may have a native curiosity which may some day make him an outstanding scientist; another may be bookish; a third given to play-acting. As was noted earlier, you should first accept your child for what he is. Then you should try to understand his particular needs which result from the fact that he is who he is. This is of great importance if he is to have a wholesome environment in which he can develop his fullest potentials.
Modern experts make much of the necessity of understanding your youngster. They are correct in this attitude. If twoyear-old Eddie constantly demands attention after the birth of a younger child, it is helpful to parents to realize that his conduct is probably caused by his fear that his parents are giving to the newcomer the love which he wants for himself. If your eight-year-old constantly picks on younger boys and is acquiring a reputation as a bully, it helps you if you realize that he probably feels frustrated in some important area of his life and is venting his frustration upon those who cannot fight back. If your thirteen-year-old daughter defies your wishes and applies rouge and lipstick when out of your sight, it may aid you if you understand that she is expressing her wish for greater freedom, and perhaps feels that you regard her too much as a little girl.
All too often, however, parents who understand why a child does a certain thing also feel that they must accept the action. This is a complete mistake-the kind of error that soft-hearted social workers make, especially in dealing with juvenile delinquents. You should understand why your child acts as he does so that you may be able to satisfy those emotional needs which he is seeking to satisfy by his improper conduct. If his actions reflect his sense of insecurity, find ways to give him a feeling of being loved and wanted. If his actions indicate his struggle for independence, provide outlets that enable him to express his own individuality without harming others. If his conduct indicates a belief that he is treated less fairly than your other children, devise ways to prove that he shares equally in your love.
But because you can explain why Johnny acts that way does not mean that his objectionable conduct itself should be tolerated. There is probably a reason why every sinner in history has performed his shameful act. But that does not make the act justifiable. The man who kills in a fit of passion may have been goaded into it; yet society rightfully demands that he pay a penalty. The bank robber may have been frustrated as a child; but if his lawyer advanced such an excuse before a judge, he would probably be laughed out of court. Therefore, when you seek to understand your child, do so not to excuse him but to gain knowledge that will help you direct him along the course of proper action.
Directing your child. Your final and fullest test as a parent lies in helping your child reach the potential of which he is capable. You must show him the way to go, and to do so you must know the way yourself.
Your child's goal is a happy, holy adulthood in which he serves God and man. He will make much progress toward this goal simply by following his natural urges to grow physically and mentally, and by observing you in your everyday relationship. But he should also be directed formally toward his goal by your direct teaching. Three principles are involved:
1. You alone have this authority to teach. It is your right given by God as an attribute of your parenthood. Moreover, no one can take it from you, so long as you fulfill your obligation to exercise it. Christian society has always recognized that the authority of the father and mother is unquestioned. For instance, in most states of the Union, a child is legally subject to his parents until he is eighteen.
2. Respect for authority is earned, not imposed. Children will always respond to authority when it is just and when they respect the parent who exercises it. They will ignore or disobey authority when it is unjust or when the parent has forfeited their respect. A father cannot expect his child to obey his rules if, for example, he consistently passes red lights and commits other traffic violations and thus shows that he himself disregards the laws of society. Likewise, your child will respect you only when you show by your actions that you respect him.
3. Your authority must be used. One 'modern' father decided not to teach his child anything about God so that the child could choose his own religion himself when he grew up. This man could just as well have argued that he would not try to inculcate any virtues; that the child could choose between honesty and dishonesty, between truth and falsehood, or between loving his country and hating it. Precisely because you are more experienced, you must decide on all matters affecting your child's welfare. You would not wait for him to decide when to see a doctor to treat his illness; you would call the doctor as soon as you decided that his services were necessary. You would not allow your seven-year-old to choose a school; you would make the decision without even consulting him.
As your child develops, he should exercise an increasing amount of authority over his own actions. When he is eight, you will decide which Mass he should attend on Sundays; when he is eighteen, the decision probably will be his. When he is seven, you will exercise a strong control over his reading matter; at seventeen, he himself will exercise a choice.
Allow your child to make decisions for himself on unimportant matters first. In questions involving the important areas-his religious duties, choice of school, etc., give freedom slowly and carefully. For instance, your teen-ager might be free to decide whether to attend a sports event on a Sunday afternoon, but he has no freedom to decide whether to attend Mass on Sunday morning.
How to instill obedience. You can teach your child to obey if you proceed in the proper way. Most youngsters want to remain on good terms with their parents and will do what they are told to maintain that relationship. Their disobedience often is due either to their ignorance of what is expected of them or to their desire to test whether the parents mean what they say. Obviously, your child's misbehaviour through ignorance of what you expect of him is not a deliberate attempt to circumvent your will and cannot be considered disobedience; and if he is promptly punished for stepping beyond the limits of conduct you have set, his experimental disobedience will cease abruptly.
Many childish actions that may seem to be disobedient are actually not that at all. A mother asked if her ten-year-old daughter would like to set the table. The girl said that she would not. The mother shook her head, remarking that the child was truly disobedient. The mother was mistaken: her daughter merely gave an honest reply to a question. When you want your child to obey you, tell him plainly that he must perform a specific action. Only then can you justifiably expect him to do as you say. If you ask him if he would like to do something or if you merely discuss a possible action without making your position plain, he may reasonably conclude that he may follow a course other than the one you advocate.
Children should not be slaves, to be ordered about at a snap of the finger. They must often be allowed freedom of choice, and should be permitted to raise reasonable and respectful objections if they feel that your instructions are not altogether correct. In doing so, they merely exercise a prerogative of individuals with minds of their own. But when an important issue arises and they must obey without questioning or quibbling, let them know that you expect strict obedience.
As children grow older, they can be appealed to more and more by reason than by stern orders. A soft approach�'suggesting or requesting, rather than commanding-is usually more effective. If you create a home atmosphere of mutual confidence and loving trust, the need to issue strict commands should diminish almost to the vanishing point by the time your youngsters enter their late teens.
Forming good habits. Your need to direct your child's actions should also diminish in proportion to his age. It will do so if you establish good habits of living which enable him to fulfill his obligations as a matter of course. By instilling good habits, you can impress upon your child that he has obligations to God and family; that authority demands his respect; that he must be reverent at his religious duties, co-operate in the home, and sacrifice his own interests where necessary for the welfare of others.
By developing good habits in many different areas of life, your child will strengthen his character. He will get many of these habits simply by watching you. From you he should learn to accept his responsibility toward Church, country and family. He should begin the habit of contributing to the support of your pastor at an early age, and be responsible for putting a small sum in the collection plate each Sunday. He should be taught to tip his hat in reverence when he meets a priest or sister. He should also bow his head when he hears the name of Jesus. Many similar habits can be developed.
In the home, he also can learn habits of responsibility at an early age. As soon as he is able, he should do some work around the house as his contribution toward family living. The boy or girl of seven may set the table for dinner or remove the dishes after it. A youngster of nine or ten can help vacuum the floors and keep his own room in order. The older girl can wash dishes and prepare meals occasionally. The older boy can maintain the lawn and wash the car. By performing all these tasks in a regular fashion and without being bribed to do so, your children learn the habit of contributing to the common welfare.
Habits can be inculcated so that they become part of the daily pattern of living. The youngster who is taught to say his morning and night prayers will soon say them automatically, his parents will not have to remind him every day. Similarly, the youngster who is required to do his homework every evening after dinner develops a regular pattern of performance. It will become an automatic process. When he arrives at high school, he will be able to take responsibility for his studies entirely.
The art of self-denial. One of the most important things you can do for your child's development is to teach him to practice self-denial willingly. If he is to become successful as a human being, he must learn to deny himself immediate pleasures to achieve a future good. We must all deny ourselves to achieve eternal happiness in heaven. So too on a worldly level. The husband and wife who fail to deny themselves at least some material pleasures during their early years of marriage will reach old age penniless and dependent upon others. The student who cannot deny his impulse for pleasure when homework assignments must be done, pays the price ultimately by failing in his studies and finding that he cannot achieve a suitable station in life.
Learning to say no is therefore the most important single lesson that your child must learn. During his lifetime, he must say no to temptations that besiege him on all sides; he must say no to discouragements, defeatism and despair; if he is to reach any stature in the spiritual or even worldly order, he must say no to urges to take things easy, relax, or give up the fight. For this reason, parents who try to do everything for their child ultimately do nothing for him; by preventing him from developing self-discipline and the ability to say no, they prevent him from acquiring the most important attribute of a complete person.
How can you teach your child to practice self-denial? Mainly by setting up rules for his conduct and behaviour and adhering to them firmly. When you do this, you make him aware of penalties that he must pay unless he controls impulses of one kind or another. Must he be home for dinner every night at 6 p.m. or lose desserts for a week? He must then say no to playmates who urge him to play another game of ball that will last beyond the designated time. Must he maintain a certain scholastic average or spend extra hours at his books each day until the next marking period? He will then learn that it is easier to deny himself to achieve passing grades now than to make greater sacrifices later.
The concept of self-denial appeals to youngsters. It represents a challenge -an opportunity to prove their mettle as strong-willed boys and girls. When they learn how to win over their lower instincts, they prepare themselves in the best possible way for the greater challenges and battles they will face as adults.
Five principles of discipline. No laws can be effective unless penalties are imposed when they are violated. So too with rules governing your child's conduct: You will be unable to direct him properly unless he learns that undesirable conduct will cause more pain than it is worth.
The idea of disciplining a child is viewed with disfavour by some modern experts. In their progressive view, the child should be free to express himself, and 'parents who hamper this self-expression hamper the development of his personality.' Enough years have passed so that we can now examine the adult products of this progressive school of discipline, and we find that the general results are not good. Children who are permitted to do as they please without a control system to govern their actions tend to become insufferably selfish, thoughtless of the rights and needs of others, and incapable of exercising the self-discipline which adults need to live harmoniously together.
Fortunately, the let-them-do-as-they-please school of child training is rapidly becoming passé. Most authorities now recognize that a child not only needs but also wants checks over his actions. Even in adolescence, the socalled 'age of rebellion against parents,' youngsters have affirmed many times that they prefer to be guided by rules of conduct and expect to be punished for infractions. In fact, teen-agers often complain that their parents are not sufficiently precise in announcing what will and will not be allowed.
Since children vary so greatly in temperament, along with their parents, it is probably unwise to set down hard and fast rules of discipline. However, five general principles can be adapted to fit most circumstances.
1. Keep in mind what purpose your discipline is intended to serve. You should discipline your child mainly to instill in him proper methods of behaviour and to develop his ability to control himself in the future.
This principle implies that you must subjugate your own personal feelings, likes and dislikes when exercising them might not serve a useful purpose. To illustrate: A father has often slept late on Saturday mornings while his young children raced about the house making noise. Usually he merely rolled over in bed and put a pillow over his head to keep out the sounds. One morning, however, he awakened with a headache while his children pounded their drums. His first impulse was to reach out from bed and spank them. But a second thought convinced him that his children were behaving properly in the light of their past experience, since they had no way of knowing that this was different from other Saturdays. Therefore, the father spoke to them reasonably, telling them that their noise disturbed him. If, after his explanation, they had continued to pound their drums, he could legitimately punish them to stress not only the importance of obedience but also that they must sacrifice their own interests for the good of others.
The child who knows that his punishment is dictated by his parents' love for him will become a partner in the punishment-at least to some extent-because he realizes that it is for his own good. That is why wise parents sometimes permit their youngsters to choose their own punishment when they have violated rules. The youngster who recognizes the need for punishment and who willingly accepts it takes an important step toward the goal of all his training-the disciplining of himself, a process which will continue until death.
2. Let the punishment fit the crime. In applying this principle, try to put yourself in the child's place. A four-year-old girl was playing in a side yard with several boys of her age. A neighbour observed her exposing her sex organs to them and reported the fact to her mother. The mother raced to the yard, grabbed the girl by the arm, dragged her into the house and beat her with a strap, raising welts upon her back. This mother should have realized that her daughter lacked the experience to know that her action was not proper. Moreover, the punishment was entirely out of keeping with the offence. It was based on the mother's own sense of shame and not that of the child. It was an exercise of hate-not of love.
What offences call for physical punishment? In the view of most experts, very few. However, reasonable corporal punishment, sparingly used, can be more effective than some educators like to admit. If a child's actions might cause physical harm to himself or another, his punishment should be strict enough to impress upon him the dangers of his actions. For instance, a child of two does not understand why he should not play with matches or cross the street without an adult. If he reaches for matches or steps from the sidewalk, you might spank him because this is the only way he can learn a vital lesson. The very young child measures good and bad in terms of his own pleasure and pain, and since most of his experiences are still on a physical level, physical punishment has its place. But wherever possible, love and affection should hold the foremost position. When your child resists the temptation to touch matches or cross a street unaided, use praise to assure him that he is doing the right thing. Spank him if nothing else works.
Some psychologists make much of the possible harm done to a youngster by physical punishment. But the Bible's teaching that 'He that spareth the rod hateth his son' (Proverbs, 13:24) indicates that physical punishment, as such, does not harm the child emotionally. When it is accompanied by indications of hatred, it is undeniably wrong. But the parent who applies the rod in a calm way and as evidence of his desire to help the youngster's development probably does not do lasting hurt. On the other hand, some of the most brutal punishments-the kind that leave wounds for years, if not for a lifetime-come from words. One little girl was never spanked by her father. But whenever she did things which he found objectionable, he shookhis head and commented that she was certainly 'a queer one.' The girl is now a woman of fifty, and her father has been dead thirty years, but his attitude still rankles deeply. She believes that it reflected his unwillingness or inability to understand her.
It should not be necessary to punish girls physically after they reach the age of twelve. Many teachers believe, however, that teenage boys can be held in line by-and respect-authority exercised in a physical way. Girls usually respond more readily to deprivations of privileges- being denied permission to visit friends on week ends, to attend parties, etc.
3. Punish only once for each offence. One advantage of corporal punishment which is often overlooked is that it usually 'clears the air.' Once it has been applied, parents and child generally feel free to forget it and go on to other matters. When their punishment is less decisive, parents may tend to keep harping on the offence-and the child never knows when it is going to be thrown up to him again.
To apply this principle, make sure that your child thoroughly understands what his punishment will be. For instance, if you decide to deny him desserts for a week, tell him so at the outset; do not keep him wondering from day to day when the punishment will end. And do not harp on the offence after the punishment ends. Let him know that when he pays for his conduct he starts with a clean slate.
4. Be consistent. Your child deserves to know exactly what kind of conduct is tolerated, and what will be punished. Unless he knows this, he will try to find out how far he can go. If you tell him that he must be home at 8:30, he will be uneasy if he arrives at 9:00 and is not called to task for being late. Next time, he will be tempted to remain out until 9:30, and he will continue pushing the hour ahead until you step down firmly. If you berate him for arriving home at 9:00 after he returned at 10:00 the night before without comment from you, you will leave him thoroughly confused as to where the limits actually lie.
To be effective, your rules must also be fair. One child should not be punished for actions which another commits with impunity. In one family with seven children, all know that they will lose their allowances for a week if they are not at home for dinner at a designated time. One evening one youngster came home late with the excuse that the bus was delayed. His mother said that she would not punish him. The father then insisted that the boy lose his allowance, because he knew that once any excuses were accepted, the parents would be besieged with them and the entire system of fairness for all would break down. As this example indicates, parents who do not apply rules consistently actually perform a disservice to the child.
5. Investigate before you punish. In order to discipline your child properly, you must necessarily know the facts in the case. Otherwise you do not know what purpose your punishment should serve. Parents may easily misinterpret a child's action. Sometimes he does things which are wrong because no one has told him not to do them and he does not know whether they are approved or not. Be especially careful before punishing a child involved in a quarrel or fight with another. It is often difficult to find out who is at fault, since both children usually contribute to a squabble to greater or lesser extents.
NIHIL OBSTAT: John A. Goodwine, J.C.D., Censor Librorum
IMPRIMATUR: Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York
The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.
August 22, 1959
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| Rev. George Kelly: Your Job as a Parent |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2021, 07:51 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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IF YOU could carefully study families that are genuinely happy -those in which father and mother truly love each other and their children, and where children obey, respect and love their parents-you would find that they have many traits in common. These characteristics are distinct and recognizable, and sharply differentiate these families from those in which there is unending tension, bickering and bitterness.
No institution has had the opportunity to observe the characteristics of happy families as has the Church. Through the centuries, she has recognized the family as the ideal means of helping parents and children to lead holy and happy lives, and she has carefully noted which factors best encourage holiness and happiness. What she has long known has been borne out in recent years by the studies of social scientists. These researchers have questioned thousands of persons who, by their own testimony, are members of happy families; and they have questioned other thousands who admit that their family life is not happy. From such beginnings they have uncovered the characteristics of happy families which are lacking in the other kind. The findings of the Church, tested over the centuries, and of sociologists, using modern scientific methods, agree that there are five main characteristics of a happy family.
First, it places full, unquestioned trust in God. Father, mother and children accept the Almighty as their Creator without reservation. They show love and respect for Him and His laws in the everyday conduct of their lives. They pray together; they attend Mass and receive Communion together; they practice other devotions together; they make their home a little sanctuary, with pictures and statues to remind them of Our Lord or the Blessed Mother.
The father who believes and trusts in God is best equipped to perform his functions as head of the family. Aware of his responsibilities to the Lord for his children, he strives to instill moral virtues by his own example. The mother who holds the Blessed Virgin as her model develops the love and patience which nurture the spiritual and emotional growth of her children.
When father and mother give living evidence of their faith in God, they no longer need spend so much time trying to decide which course to pursue in bringing up their children. They usually know what to do, because they have a standard to guide them. They only ask: What does God want of us as parents? When they seek to understand His way and to follow it, they free themselves of the confusion which besets parents without standards upon which to rest.
Children in a home where God is worshipped also know where they stand. They are taught to respect the Creator and, in respecting Him, to respect all lawful authority. They learn in a precise way what conduct is acceptable and what is forbidden. In their study of religion and religious truths, they learn at an early age that punishment will inevitably follow wrongdoing; thus they learn the major principle which will guide their conduct throughout their lives.
Many authorities have observed that a major sign of danger in marriage arises when one or both of the partners stops attending religious services regularly. Records of the nation's courts clearly prove that the home which worships God does not produce the child who appears before a judge on charges of juvenile delinquency. Studies of unwed mothers prove that the girl who has learned the virtue of purity in a religious setting at home is not the one who gets into trouble in her adolescence.
Second, the happy family puts interest in its home in first place. Father and mother fully recognize that the most important work they can do is to train their children to be a credit in the eyes of God.
One sometimes encounters a father who spends long hours at business during the week and then spends his week ends with business associates. In pursuing success or wealth-and perhaps believing that he is a good father in doing so-he refuses his children's fundamental need to know him as a human being. On the other hand, one often sees men who hold positions which, by the worlds standards, are low in social prestige. Perhaps they sacrifice material progress by devoting their leisure time to their children-playing and talking with them, sympathizing with their problems and encouraging them in their aspirations. Regardless of what the world thinks, the first type of father is a failure and the second type is a success.
In a happy home, parents often hold firm against other allurements which tempt them to put the needs of their children in an inferior place. Such allurements include the desire for an overly active social life, the constant pursuit of pleasure in the form of commercial entertainment and the exclusive choice of hobbies (golf, cards, dancing clubs, etc.) from which children are excluded.
Obviously, men must work to provide for their families. It is also obvious that parents are entitled to entertainment away from their children-in fact, an evening alone can have a pronounced therapeutic effect. Nor is the desire to succeed in business or to enjoy one's self blameworthy. But when a father becomes overly ambitious and sacrifices his children for his career advancement, or when a mother engages in an unending round of social activities, the great bond of unity in the family is weakened. Mutual love and respect, which are born and held only in intimacy, are the ingredients that make for true family life, and they cannot thrive when the father or mother places other objectives ahead of them.
Third, in happy families, father and mother occupy a position of equality, but there is no misunderstanding that he is the head. The importance of the mother is an accepted fact. She is the heart of the family-the custodian of love and warmth, the first comforter and educator of the children. In according her a just status, however, we must not weaken the father's traditional position.
By nature and temperament, he should exercise headship. When he fails to do so, his children lack an appropriate male model to guide them in their conduct, and they are likely to reach maturity without properly understanding the roles they must play as men or women. But while he must be the leader, he should not be like a common type of fathers of the past-the tyrant whose word was law, and whose wife and children constantly trembled before him. Such a father does more harm than good; his children either become submissive before everyone, or become so rebellious against authority that they cannot lead normal lives as law-abiding citizens. In happy homes, the father is the just dispenser of punishment, but he also wins the respect of his children by the reasonable rules he imposes and the merciful way he enforces them.
Fourth, the happy family is based upon mutual sacrifice. In such a home, Dad will forgo desserts at lunch to save for a family vacation which all members of the family may enjoy. Mother will wear a dress that is several seasons old so that her daughter may take piano lessons; and the children will save for weeks to buy her a special gift for Mother's Day. When Dad must do extra work at home for his employer and Mother can help him, she gladly does so. When guests are coming and the house needs a thorough cleaning, Dad rolls up his sleeves and does his share of the manly work. Johnny washes the windows as his regular chore, Billy sets the table for dinner, Mary washes the dishes while Mother rests, and after school Tommy sometimes watches the baby in her playpen while Mother shops. In this family, everyone makes sacrifices for the common good.
Fifth, the happy family runs on rules. The children know exactly what they can do without offending others, and what they cannot do. They know what their punishment will be if they break the rules. And they know that it will not vary from time to time or from parent to parent.
Establishing clear-cut family rules requires complete agreement between father and mother. Few things disturb a child more than when his father establishes one standard of conduct and his mother makes continuous exceptions to it. Once a father and mother agree, neither should change the rules without consulting the other, or the child will not know what is expected of him. And both father and mother must share in enforcing them.
Probably the happiest homes are those in which each family member imposes rules upon himself. One wife becomes unduly disturbed whenever references are made to the alleged inferiority of women in any area of activity. She becomes angry at jokes about women drivers, women who are late for appointments, women who can't balance a checkbook. Out of respect for her feelings, her husband never raises such subjects even in a joking way. Many husbands have similar quirks in their make-up which may be unjustified from an objective point of view but which their wives respect for the sake of harmony. Sometimes children also become sensitive about certain points. When family members are motivated by a spirit of Christian tolerance, they willingly impose the rule upon themselves not to raise such touchy subjects.
As this review of the characteristics of happy families suggests, achievement of a genuinely Christian environment in your home will not result from mere chance. Rather you must put into effect the principles that follow from recognition of the fact that the family should be a triangle with God at its apex, or else it is doomed to failure. For the very characteristics that make a home holy, happy, and a source of strength and solace for its members come from nowhere but Almighty God. The love which the mother displays for her infant, the just and consistent way in which the father exercises his authority-these are but human copies of the loving authority which God exercises over all His children. And the respect for God and each other that family members display in the truly happy and Christian home springs from the two greatest commandments-that we love God with all our minds and all our hearts, and that we love our neighbour as ourselves.
Advantages of the large family. Before marrying, many young couples decide how many children they will have-a decision which often reveals that they are more concerned with how few children they will have rather than how many. Thus they begin their marriage with intentions of limiting the number of off spring. In this respect they reflect the birthcontrol frame of mind so prevalent today-a frame of mind which regards children as a liability rather than a blessing.
Although the first purpose of marriage is the procreation of children, Catholic couples will not necessarily have offspring. There may be many reasons why they cannot have babies or why they are limited to one or two. Some wives have difficulty in carrying a foetus to full term and have many miscarriages. Sometimes the husband or wife may be sterile-unable to do his or her part in conceiving a new life. There may be mental, eugenical, economic or social reasons which make it justifiable to practice the rhythm method. The fact that a Catholic couple has no children, therefore, is no reason for concluding that they are guilty of any moral lapse.
In most marriages, however, there probably are no physical hindrances to births or justifiable reasons to limit them beyond those limitations which nature herself and unchangeable circumstance impose. Hence the typical Catholic family will have many more children than are found in the average family of other beliefs.
The large family provides many distinct advantages for both parents and children. For instance, it brings the mother and father closer together, giving them a joint source of love, and they achieve a closer sense of unity in planning for their children's welfare. Their love for each child extends their love for each other, and in each child they can see qualities which they love in their mates.
Children help parents to develop the virtues of self-sacrifice and consideration for others. The childless husband and wife must consciously cultivate these qualities, for the very nature of their life tends to make them think first of their own interests. In contrast, a father and mother who might have innate tendencies toward selfishness learn that they must subjugate their own interests for the good of their children, and they develop a spirit of self-denial and a higher degree of sanctity than might normally be possible.
The fact that children help to increase harmony in marriage has been proved in many ways. The sociologist Harold A. Phelps, in his book 'Contemporary Social Problems, reports that 57 per cent of the divorcees in one large group had no children and another 20 per cent had only one child. Other researchers have established that the percentage of divorces and broken homes decreases as the number of children in the family increases.
Large families also teach children to live harmoniously with others. They must adjust to the wishes of those older and younger than themselves, and of their own and the other sex. In learning to work, play and, above all, share with others, the child in a large family discovers that he must often sacrifice his own interests and desires for the common good. For this reason, the 'spoiled child who always insists on having his own way is rare in the large family, if he can be found there at all. For the child who will not co-operate with others has a lesson forcibly taught to him when others refuse to cooperate with him.
In the typical large family, one often sees a sense of protectiveness in one child for another that is the embodiment of the Christian spirit. Children learn to help each other-to hold each other's hands when crossing the street, to sympathize with each other in times of sadness or hurt, and to give each other the acceptance which we all need to develop as mature human beings. This willingness to help one another is often strikingly evident in schoolwork: the oldest child instructs his younger brother in algebra, while the latter helps a still younger one in history.
Another advantage of large families is that they teach each child to accept responsibility for his own actions. Unlike the mother with one or two children, the mother of a large family usually lacks the time and energy to concern herself with every little problem of her children. She must observe sensible precautions with her children, of course, but she is not guilty of supervising her child's life to such an extent that he has no chance to develop his own resources. Precisely because she cannot devote her full time to him, he must make decisions for himself. Moreover, he acquires a better understanding of the rules by which the family is run. He sees his brothers and sisters punished for various breaches of conduct and learns what he himself may and may not do. And as he watches the progress of older children, he learns what privileges he may expect as he too advances in age. This knowledge gives him a greater sense of security.
Another reward for members of the large family, to which those who are now adults can testify, is that it gives the children close relatives upon whom they can depend all their lives. Occasionally, of course, brothers and sisters cannot agree as adults and break off relations completely. More often, however, they retain a close bond of kinship with each other and the reunions and family get-togethers on occasions like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter form one of the great joys of their lives. In most cases, the child brought up in a large family never feels utterly alone, regardless of adversities which may strike in adulthood. If he is troubled or bereaved, in desperate need of financial help or sympathetic advice, he usually can depend upon brothers and sisters to help. Forlorn indeed is the man or woman who, in time of stress, has no close and loving relatives to tell his problems to.
A final, but by no means least important, advantage is that they virtually insure the parents against loneliness, which has often been called the curse of the aged. How often do the father and mother of a large family remain young at heart because of the love they give to, and draw from, their grandchildren? In fact, many say that old age is their happiest time of life because they can enjoy to the fullest the love of the children and grandchildren without the accompanying responsibility. On the other hand, how lonely and miserable are the typical old people who have no children or grandchildren to love them?
One should not overlook the fact that there are some disadvantages to both parent and child in the large family. However, an objective review of these disadvantages would surely establish that they are outweighed by the advantages. For example, the large family may require the parents to make great financial sacrifices. They may be unable to afford as comfortable a home, own as new an automobile, or dress as well as can the husband and wife with a small family. But they have sources of lasting joy in the love, warmth and affection of their children-a joy that money cannot buy. The children of a large family may also be required to make sacrifices. Their parents may be unable to pay their way in college. But this need not mean that they will be denied educational opportunities. Thanks to scholarships, loan programs, and opportunities for student employment, the bright boy and girl who truly desires a college education can find the financial resources to obtain one. And having to earn at least a part of their own way will make them better students. Researchers have established that students who drop out of college most frequently have had all their expenses paid for them and have never learned the true value of an education.
Considerations for parents of small families. If you have but one or two children, you should try to create for them opportunities such as exist in larger families to develop their characters. In particular, you should discourage selfish tendencies-a natural hazard in the small family. Since you can concentrate all your attention upon your child, you may tend to worry about him to a greater extent and to bow to his whims more often than do parents of a large family. There is a natural danger, therefore, that he will become accustomed to having his own way and will not recognize that others have desires which should be accommodated too.
In training an only child, it may help you to remember that self-denial is the virtue from which other virtues spring. You should therefore strongly resist the tendency to do everything for him and not permit him to want for anything. So that he may learn to get along with others, encourage him to cultivate friends. Invite them to your home where he will be the host and thus must exert himself to please them.
Finally, give him the freedom to develop in his own way. You must control the impulse to worry unduly about every ailment, to stand guard over him at play, to check up constantly on his teachers to make sure that they are doing their job right. Such actions would betray a tendency to interfere abnormally in your child's affairs. Unless you avoid them you may find yourself ultimately trying to dictate where he should work and whom he should marry, and you will make it difficult for him ever to make decisions for himself.
How to be a good father. Probably nobody denies that the typical father exercises less authority in his home today than at any time in history. Reasons for this decline probably are of no interest or help in the present discussion; but the effect of it cannot be overlooked. For evidence accumulated by psychiatrists, social workers and similar experts proves unmistakably that when children lack a strong father to guide them, they suffer serious damage in many important ways. Consider these facts:
There is a startling growth in homosexual tendencies among the young, and most authorities agree that the boy who develops feminine characteristics usually has had unsatisfactory relations with his father in one or several important respects. Increases in juvenile delinquency-a headlined trend in every part of the country-are also due to the weak position of the father; the lack of an affectionate and understanding relationship between father and son is a prevalent characteristic in the background of boys charged with criminal offenses. Many authorities also blame the shocking rates of divorce and marriage breakdowns to this cause. The fathers of those who cannot succeed in marriage often never gave their children a realistic example of how a man should live with his wife in this relationship.
The importance of the father as an example of manhood to his son and daughter probably cannot be overestimated. For example, one day your son may marry and have a family. To be a successful father, he should know how to train his children; how to treat his wife and their mother in their presence; what to discuss with them about his work; how to show them manual skills, such as repairing a chair or painting furniture; how to perform in countless other important areas. The best way to learn how to act as a father is to observe one in action.
What ideals will he display as husband and father? To a large extent, that answer will depend upon those he has learned from you, his father, in your own home. What part will he play in the religious education of his children? The answer will largely depend upon whether you have led the family to Mass each Sunday, whether you say grace before meals in your home, whether you take an active part in the spiritual life of your parish. How should he act toward his wife-aloof, affectionate, domineering, docile? Here too the answer will mainly depend upon your example.
The adage, 'Like father, like son, is firmly based on fact. No matter how much he may resist your influence, your son will be like you in many different ways. If your influence is wholesome, the effect upon him will be wholesome. If you are a bad father, you will almost surely corrupt him in some significant way. Remember also that you represent God before your child because you are-or should be-the figure of authority in your home. He will be taught that he can always depend upon the mercy and goodness of the eternal Father, but it will be difficult for him to grasp the full importance of that teaching if he cannot rely upon the goodness of his earthly father.
It has been said that, in addition to giving wholesome example, a good father follows four fundamental rules in his dealing with his children. First, he shows himself to be truly and sincerely interested in their welfare. Secondly, he accepts each child for what he is, and encourages any special talent which the youngster possesses. Thirdly, he takes an active part in disciplining his children. And finally, he keeps lines of communication open with them at all times. Each of these rules is worth detailed consideration, because the typical American father often ignores one or more of them.
1. Show an interest in your child's welfare. You can do this by devoting time to him, every day if possible. Try to discuss with him his experiences, problems, successes and failures. By giving yourself to him in this intimate way, you give him the feeling that he can always depend upon you to understand and help him in his difficulties. In a large family, it is especially important that you find time for intimate moments with each child. Every youngster should know that his father is interested in him as an individual, and is sympathetic with him and devoted to his welfare.
Modern fathers may find it more difficult to make their children an intimate part of their lives than did men of a few generations ago. Today's fathers often work many miles away from home. They leave for their jobs early in the morning and do not return until late in the evening, perhaps after the children are in bed. Unlike the men of an earlier age who often worked close to their homes, today's fathers may seldom see their youngsters during the week. To offset this condition, they should try to devote as much of their week ends to them as possible. This does not mean that you should be a 'pal to your children or that you must act like a juvenile, when aging bones may not permit this. But at family gatherings, picnics, trips to the ball park or even visits to the school, you are sharing leisure moments with them.
2. Accept your child and encourage his talents. One man hoped for a son, and found it impossible to conceal his disappointment when a girl was born. He now spends much time trying to inculcate masculine virtues in her and berates her constantly because she is not proficient at sports. A successful lawyer prides himself upon his intellect and once hoped that his son would achieve great scholastic success. But the lad, now in high school, has shown no pronounced ability in academic work; however, he is skilled at working with his hands. He must face unending sneers from his father about his 'stupidity. A third man married a beautiful woman and expected his daughters to be beauties too. One girl is extremely plain, however. Even at the age of ten she knows that she is a complete disappointment to her father.
All of these examples indicate ways in which fathers display a lack of acceptance of their children. It is a fact that the qualities a child inherits-his physical attributes, aptitudes, and many other characteristics-are the result of chance. He may be a genius or an idiot: you should not claim credit if the first possibility occurs any more than you should feel ashamed for the second. The moral is plain: your children are a gift from God, and you should always accept each of them in a spirit of gratitude. In fact, the saintly father will accept a defective child with greater gratitude, for God has offered him an opportunity to provide more love, affection and direction than the ordinary youngster might need.
Remember also that your child is an individual, with talents which you perhaps cannot appreciate. Let him develop them in the best way possible. In attempting to learn why many gifted children do not go to college, researchers have found that their parents often have actively discouraged them. In a typical case, a father became wealthy through real estate investments and could easily afford college for a son with a strong aptitude in science. But the father accused the boy of trying to 'put on airs whenever college was discussed. Thanks to him, the son is now a misfit.
3. Don't shirk unpleasant tasks of parenthood. 'See your mother; don't bother me is a remark commonly made by one type of father. He returns from work, eats his dinner and then settles down to an evening behind his newspaper or before the television screen. When his children seek his aid with their homework or when they become unruly and require a strong parental hand, he is 'too busy to pay attention. Such an attitude tells a child that his mother is the true figure of importance in the family, while Dad is only the boarder who pays the bills.
It is not fair for fathers to enjoy all the pleasures of parenthood -to play with the children, to boast about their growth-and to give mothers all the painful duties. A father should discipline as often as the mother. If he fails to do so, he gives the children the idea that he does not stand with the mother in her efforts to instill proper manners and acceptable forms of behaviour. As a matter of fact, in major matters the good father is likely to be the court of last resort. This is as it should be for his authority is more impressive and its effect more lasting than that of the mother.
4. Keep lines of communication open with your children. Teenagers often say that they cannot talk to their fathers about questions which disturb them. This breakdown in communication usually stems from one of three factors, or a combination of them. The father may be so severe in his discipline that he appears as a dictator in the youngster's mind; in the past he has always been 'too busy to keep on close terms with his boy; or he has not given his youngster the respectful attention he should have.
Stalin-type fathers fortunately are on the way out in America, for most men have learned that it is easier to train a child with loving kindness than with brute force. But some stern unyielding fathers remain. They may beat their child into patterns of behaviour that offend no one, but in the process they often create a bitter adult who is never able to confide fully in another human being.
The second and third possible explanations for a child's unwillingness or inability to confide in his father may have even worse effects than the first. In the first instance, unless the father is a calloused brute, his child may at least discern evidence that his father is interested in his welfare. But when a father does not even care enough to concern himself with the child's upbringing in any serious way, he evidences a complete absence of love or interest.
There are many things that human beings prefer to keep to themselves, and it is probably good that this is so. Your child should not feel that he must lay bare his innermost thoughts and desires. But he should know that in times of stress and strain he has a sympathetic and loving adviser to turn to. You will fulfill that role if you strive always to treat him with courtesy and sympathy, and with an understanding based upon your memory of the difficulties, problems, fears and aspirations of your own boyhood. Never ridicule him: it is the opposite of sympathy and probably locks more doors between father and son than any other action.
How to be a good mother . In view of the many social evils resulting from the decline in the father's influence, one of the most important functions the modern mother should perform is to help maintain or restore the father's position of authority in the family. In doing so, you will fulfill your own role as a wife and mother to a greater extent than is possible when you permit your husband to be the lesser figure. This was the secret of the success of olden fathers. Even though they worked twelve hours a day, their dominant role in the home was guaranteed and protected by the mother.
You can make your greatest contribution to your family as the heart of your home -not its head. From you, your children should learn to love others and to give of themselves unstintingly in the spirit of sacrifice. Never underestimate the importance of your role. For upon you depends the emotional growth of your children, and such growth will better prepare them to live happy and holy lives than any amount of intellectual training they may receive.
Most of us know persons who have received the finest educations which universities can bestow, who yet lead miserable lives because they have never achieved a capacity to love. On the other hand, we also know of men and women whose intellectual achievements are below normal but whose lives are filled with happiness because their mothers showed them how to love other human beings. It follows that in helping your child to satisfy his basic emotional needs to love and be loved, you give something as necessary as food for his full development. So do not be beguiled by aspirations for a worldly career or by the desire to prove yourself as intelligent as men or as capable in affairs of the world as they. The father must always remain a public figure. The mother is the domestic figure par excellence. In teaching your child the meaning of unselfish love you will achieve a greater good than almost any other accomplishment of which human beings are capable.
You are the most important person your child will ever know. Your relationship with him will transcend, in depth of feeling, any other relationship he probably will ever have-even the one with his marriage partner. As noted above, from you he will learn what true love really is. From the tenderness you show and the security you give, you will develop his attitudes toward other human beings which will always remain with him.
However, his dependence on you begins to wane soon after birth -and continues to wane for the rest of your life. In his first years, naturally, he will rely upon you almost entirely-not only for food, but also to help him perform his most elementary acts. But soon he learns to walk and to do other things for himself; when he goes to school he can dress himself; when he reaches adolescence and strives for the freedom that adults know, he will try to throw off his dependence so violently that you may fear that you have lost all hold upon him.
Your job is to help him reach this state of full and complete independence in a gradual fashion. And your success as a mother will depend to a great extent upon the amount of emancipation you permit him as he steps progressively toward adulthood. Therefore you should try to judge realistically when your child truly needs your help and when he does not.
If you can reach the happy medium wherein you do for your child only what he cannot do for himself, you will avoid dominating him or overindulging him. The dominant mother makes all decisions for Johnny and treats him as though he had no mind of his own; the overindulgent mother will never permit her Mary to be frustrated in any wish, or to be forbidden any pleasure her little heart desires. The overindulgent mother may do without the shoes she needs to buy a doll for her Annie; she may stop what she is doing to help Johnny find the comic book he has misplaced; she may eat the leftovers in the refrigerator while she gives the freshly prepared food to her children.
The overindulgent mother is a common character in literature. Probably every American woman has seen movies and television programs, and has read stories in magazines and newspapers, in which these defects were pointed out. Yet every new generation of mothers seems to practice the same extreme of behaviour. Some excuse themselves by saying that they want to give their children every advantage in life. Such an intention is laudable, perhaps, but the method is impractical. If you want to do the best for your child, let him develop so that he can face life on his own feet. Overindulging him denies him his right to develop his own resources and thus defeats the purpose of your mission as a mother.
Someone once remarked in jest that as part of her education for motherhood, every woman should visit the psychiatric ward of an army hospital. If you could see the countless examples of mental disorders caused largely by the failure of mothers to sever the apron strings to their child, you could easily understand why-for the sake of your child's emotional self-you must make it a primary aim to help him to develop as an independent person.
Priests and psychiatrists often see problems from different angles, yet they display striking agreement in pinpointing other kinds of maternal conduct which do great harm to the child. Their advice might be summarized as follows:
Don't be an autocrat who always knows best. Your child may have his own way of doing things, which may seem to be inefficient or time-consuming. Have patience and let him do things his way, thus giving him the opportunity to learn by trial and error.
Don't be a martyr. Naturally, you must make sacrifices. But do not go to such extremes that your child feels guilty when you deny yourself something which rightfully should be yours, in order to give him what rightfully should not be his. A typical martyr worked at night in a laundry to pay her son's way through college. Before his graduation, he asked her not to appear at the ceremony-he said she would be dressed so poorly that he would be embarrassed.
Don't think you have the perfect child. Some mothers, when their child receives low grades, appear at school to determine, not what is wrong with him, but what is wrong with the teachers. When such a mother learns that her son has been punished for disobedience, she descends upon the school officials and demands an apology. By her actions she undermines the child's respect for all authority-including her own. You will probably be on safe ground, until your child is canonized at St. Peter's, if you conclude that he has the same human faults and weaknesses that you see in your neighbours' children.
Don't use a sick-bed as your throne. The 'whining mother feigns illness to attract sympathy and to force her children to do as she wills. Who would deny the last wish of a dying person? In this vein she often gets what she wants-for a while. The usual, final result, however, is that her children lose both sympathy and respect for her.
Don't be a 'glamour girl. Motherhood is not a task for a woman who thinks that ordinary housework-preparing meals, making beds, washing clothes-is beneath her. Of course, mothers should strive to maintain a pleasing appearance, but they should also realize that they are most attractive when they are fulfilling the duties of their noble vocation. You would embarrass your family if you insisted on acting and dressing like a teen-ager; and, if you adopted a demeaning attitude toward household tasks, you would teach your children that motherhood and its responsibilities are unworthy of respect.
NIHIL OBSTAT:
John A. Goodwine, J.C.D., Censor Librorum
IMPRIMATUR:
Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York
The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.
August 22, 1959
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| Rev. George Kelly: Should Mothers Work? |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2021, 07:39 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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ONE of the most significant changes of our time-perhaps the most important of all-has been the gradual and insidious breakdown of the family unit which has served man since his earliest moments. And no aspect of this breakdown is more alarming than the growing number of mothers who spend their days at work outside the home.
The extent of this trend is dramatically illustrated by figures compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1890, about
4,000,000 women in the United States-one in seven-were employed outside the home. By 1920, there were about
8,000,000 female jobholders-and most were single women, widows, or mothers whose children had grown and no longer required their care. Even after World War I, the typical American husband considered it his shame if his wife worked to augment his income; it meant to him that he was an incompetent provider.
Contrast those statistics with today's. In 1958, according to the same government sources, about 23,000,000 women were in the labour force. One worker in three was female. For the first time in our history, more married than single women are employed by business and industry. Even more startling is the fact that one of every five mothers with children under five has a full-time job. Economists have estimated that if present trends continue, the married woman between 35 and 65 who remains at home will be in the minority within fifteen years; before this century ends, the woman who strives to fulfill her historic role as educator of her children will be virtually extinct.
What lies behind the frantic effort by so many American mothers to relinquish their position in the home and to place themselves on a payroll?
An obvious answer might be that their family needs the money. Actually, however, a survey by the U.S. Department of Labor has revealed that only about one woman worker in seven is the sole support of her family. Such bread-winners are usually widows or are separated from their husbands. They can see no alternative to work. They either take outside employment to support their families or go on relief.
The vast majority of mothers work for reasons other than absolute economic necessity, however. Most seek to provide higher standards of living than would be possible on the husband's income alone. For instance, many take jobs so that the family may have a more expensive home, better furniture, an automobile, the opportunity to take vacations and similar privileges. Another category of working mothers consists of those who seek creative satisfactions which they feel that they cannot obtain by caring for their children. Many in this group have been educated to work in the professions, or as secretaries, typists and the like.
Other factors-and combinations of factors-doubtless contribute to the decision of mothers to work. A woman may desire to avoid the loneliness which frequently accompanies the job of caring for small children. She may want to feel independent of her husband. She may seek the excitement often found in the business world where there are new challenges and people to meet. But regardless of why a woman leaves her children in other hands and becomes a wage-earner, one fact is paramount: unless she has a compelling economic reason for doing so, she is downgrading motherhood as her career. And since civilized people have long agreed that the development of young minds and souls is the greatest and most rewarding task that can be entrusted to humans, it is obvious that the woman who voluntarily turns away from her responsibility is changing the function of motherhood which has existed for ages. She is thus encouraging a revolution which will have a powerful effect upon society for generations to come.
In fairness to working mothers, however, it must be stated that the majority probably do not fully realize the consequences in terms of harm to their families and themselves that result from their long daily absences from the home.
Harm to the child. The young child needs his mother. No one else can adequately substitute. A child needs her constant affection and tender guidance, because only upon these foundations can he build the sense of security he needs for his full emotional development. He cannot get this affection at a nursery school. Nor can he obtain it from a succession of trained nursemaids who-however conscientious-cannot give the continuity of love essential for his growth.
The obligation of the woman who bears a child to care for it during its early formative years is recognized even by primitive societies. But what every woman instinctively knows is confirmed by the cold, analytical studies of scientists. For example, in a historic report on 'Maternal Care and Mental Health, published in Geneva in 1952, Dr. John Bowlby declared that the child's entire personality development depends upon the continuity of his relationship with his mother. If the child learns to give his love intimately and consistently to one person throughout his early years of growth, he develops a trust in human goodness and an inner security that enables him to meet confidently the problems of growing up.
What are the effects upon a child deprived of his mother's love during his early, crucial years? Medical records provide a voluminous and terrifying answer. During World War II, governmental authorities in Europe decided to evacuate children from zones in danger of enemy attack. Doctors had the opportunity to compare the psychological effect upon evacuated youngsters separated from their mothers, and upon children who remained with their mothers in areas where bombs fell. The doctors found that the incidence of neurosis and psychosis was fantastically higher among the evacuated children. Those who remained at home could endure even the threat of death without permanent psychological injury, because the security of their mothers' love sustained them in every time of danger.
The feeling that he has been deserted is one of the most terrifying experiences a young person can face. As proof, consider the hysterical scenes in a hospital ward. A child deposited in strange surroundings may experience such an intense fear of the unknown that it etches itself into his memory for the rest of his life. Psychiatrists report that the loss of their mother- through death, desertion, divorce or other factors-gives some children a fear and insecurity that they never entirely lose. Such a child may revert to infantile habits-his attempt to recapture the days when he had his mother's love. He may resist all efforts at discipline, and may whine or cry for no apparent reason. As an adult, he may require psychiatric care, for the adult patient who lost his mother during his early childhood sometimes is unable to give unstinting love to his wife-or to any human being- because he dreads the pain he would feel anew if his love were rejected again.
Of course, few children suffer in this acute way if a working mother shows her love when she and her child are together. Nonetheless, the child suffers more psychological damage than a parent perhaps realizes. The extent of the damage depends, naturally, on the amount of maternal deprivation.
Dr. Bowlby, in a report quoted by the 'Ladies' Home Journal of November 1958, says that the commonest result is a tendency to feel anxious and unhappy and to dread solitude. These symptoms are related to a feeling of basic insecurity. Dr. Bowlby says that children who have never received continuous loving care from one person cannot learn to love and develop emotional depth. 'They act from whim, he says, 'and are very sad, unreliable people indeed.
Children who have known real mothering for a time and then have lost it before they are three sometimes grow up full of hate and mistrust, mixed with a desire for love that they are afraid to admit but which comes out in such things as stealing and promiscuity-lone wolves and lost souls, they are. Deprivation after the age of three isn't quite so bad, but it still results too often in excessive desires for affection and excessive jealousy which cause acute inner conflict and unhappiness.
Many working mothers report that on Saturdays and Sundays, when they are at home, their little ones are with them constantly and do not want to let them out of their sight. The mother interprets this as an indication that she retains her child's love and trust. True, but it also indicates the child's insecurity and his fear that she will again leave him.
Harm to the husband. The damage that a working wife may inflict upon her husband may be almost as great as that done to her child. Man by nature must be the head of the home. From our earliest day, and through all stages of our civilization, he has been the family's provider. He is best fitted for this role: he is naturally active and decisive; he is muscularly stronger than woman; his physical reflexes are better developed. These characteristics have enabled him to hunt, fish and provide the other necessities of life to enable the family to live together. Even today, when physical prowess is not the most important attribute for the provider, typical masculine traits are required to achieve success in the business world.
By taking a position outside the home, a mother throws the historic relationship with her husband out of balance. How can he be the head of the house when he is not considered capable of performing his basic function? The very qualities she must develop in the working world- masculine traits of aggressiveness, decisiveness, coldness, impersonality-are the antithesis of those she needs in dealing with husband and children. She no longer complements her husband as nature intended. She becomes his rival. However much husbands sometimes encourage or accept the employment of the wife outside the home, the situation is not normal and not conducive to a good husband-wife relationship.
In other days, the mother always was responsible for the care of the home, and boys and girls knew that it was her job to mend clothes, prepare meals, wash diapers and clean the house. Today, husbands of working wives often do all of these tasks. Their youngsters have a difficult time in determining where Father's job begins and ends, and where Mother's function begins and ends. But as we have seen, a human being's full development can come only if he knows clearly what is expected of him as an adult. Boys must know what a man's work is. Girls must know how mothers should act. When there is a vast neutralized area, neither clearly masculine nor feminine, the sexual development of youngsters and their ability to comprehend their own responsibility in marriage are impaired. One of the great causes of marital unhappiness is the uncertainty of partners as to their respective roles. This confusion was first created in their childhood experience.
In view of the fact that her act of working outside the home downgrades her husband, his resentment might often be expected. Researchers of the Marriage Council of Philadelphia found this to be a fact. They studied the causes of troubled marriages referred to them for help, and they concluded positively that tensions in a home tend to increase when both partners produce incomes. The largest number of disagreements centred around management of the house, finances, the wife's job, the husband's work, the sharing of household tasks and the upbringing of the children. The researchers concluded flatly that the very existence of the marriage is threatened if a wife works against her husband's wishes.
Harm to the family unit. A working mother may cause more subtle damage to the family unit. For instance, if she works merely to improve material standards of living and not from sheer necessity, she may tend to put false values in first place. The family may come to believe that a new rug, steak on the table instead of hamburger, or clothes that reflect the latest decrees from Paris all are necessary to the enjoyment of life. Such standards may accustom her children to view life's successes and failures from a materialistic point of view. They thus may be taught, by example if not by word, to put spiritual and emotional values in a lower place.
Once materialism takes over in a home, the birth-control mentality almost surely follows. When a mother works to raise her family's living standards, she may more easily succumb to the temptation to prevent the birth of a new life which would force her to quit her job and thus lower her standard of living. Or if she becomes pregnant, the child may be held responsible for reducing the family income-and may never receive the loving acceptance which is his right. Family limitation almost always goes hand in hand with the young working mother. The great tragedy of this arrangement is that it deprives children of brothers and sisters who contribute to a well-rounded and affectionate family life.
Harm to herself. The harm a working mother does to her children and her husband may be equaled by that she does to herself. First, she takes the risk that once she gets a job-even a temporary one-she will not be able to become a fulltime homemaker again. As millions of working wives can testify, it is all too easy for a family to live up to its new income.
One mother, by no means atypical, once took a sales clerk's position to earn extra money for Christmas. She boarded her two small children, four and two years old, with her married sister who lived a mile away. Thanks to her earnings, her children had better clothes and her husband purchased expensive photographic equipment he had always wanted. After Christmas, however, the family was as badly off financially as before, and the mother decided to continue working-just for a few months more, of course. But soon the family was spending the additional income as soon as it came in. The husband was a salesman who could take days off at his convenience-without pay-and now that his wife had a dependable income, his days off became increasingly frequent. Before long the family depended as much upon the mother's earnings as they had upon the father's. The children continued to spend their days under their aunt's care. It is now eleven years since the mother took her 'temporary job. Her husband has become steadily lazier and her children respond less warmly to her than to her sister. She has been trapped into a lifetime of unrewarding drudgery.
The emotional harm that working mothers may do to themselves is often overlooked. One group of researchers interviewed young mothers and found that 64 per cent cited neglect of their home, their family and their housework as the main disadvantages of working. It would be an odd mother who did not feel concern when she went to a place of business leaving her sick child behind to be cared for by someone else. Few mothers can remain totally serene as they give their young sons latchkeys so that they can let themselves into the home after school to spend several hours without adult supervision. Indeed, one psychologist has described the typical working mother as a person subject to opposing pressures-the pressure to concentrate all her energies and efforts on succeeding at her outside job, and the pressure of being a good wife and mother. When she devotes herself to business, she cannot help but be aware that she takes time and energy away from the service she owes her husband and her children. Few mothers can avoid the nagging, emotionally harmful sense of guilt that results.
In order to compensate for this time spent away from home, some seem determined not to let their home and family suffer. After working outside all day, they plunge into frantic housework, preparing meals, scrubbing floors, mending clothes-tasks which stay-at-home mothers perform during the day. By trying to fill two jobs, they often become so tense that they cannot relax and enjoy their family's company. They become martyrs to their dual obligations-and their conduct hardly presents to the child an appealing picture of the burden of motherhood. It is likely that more than one spinster is unmarried today because she was determined not to duplicate the life endured by her mother who worked outside the home by day and inside it far into the night.
Does it really pay mothers to work? Many economists have pointed out that the actual financial gain achieved by the average working mother may be considerably less than she imagines. Many go further and state that she often is not substantially better off financially than if she remained at home.
Economists of the Department of Agriculture recently interviewed 365 wives with jobs outside their homes. This survey established that for every dollar a working wife earns, only sixty cents is actually added to the family's income. The average wife earned $2,200 a year. But she paid almost one third of that sum'$614'for transportation, lunches and other items. In addition, she had to pay $184 for laundry, child care, etc. She also paid $105 for clothing and personal grooming which she probably would not have needed had she remained at home. Instead of $2,200, therefore, she actually had only $1,297 to show for her year's work-before taxes!
Other economists have found that a working mother's expenses may be much greater even than this survey shows. For instance, taxes must be deducted from her salary and the government usually takes a greater percentage from her than from her husband, because the tax rate increases as family income increases. A typical working woman no longer has time to prepare low-cost meals or to shop for food bargains. As a result, her family eats more prepared foods-canned or frozen foods or restaurant meals-which are naturally more expensive. Out of her earnings, she often must pay someone to care for her children, and medical bills tend to shoot up sharply. Unable to care for her children personally and often distrustful of the person she hired to do so, she seeks a doctor's advice more often than would normally be the case. There are also extra expenditures for cleaning help, laundry, and possibly for the sheer luxuries she feels entitled to because she is doing two jobs. When these factors are considered, it can be seen that the working mother often merely changes jobs and does not receive any substantial financial gain from doing so.
Alternatives to work outside the home. Deploring the fact that more and more women seek work satisfactions outside their family circle will not reverse this trend, of course. Women must come to realize anew that their greatest contribution to God and society, and their greatest personal accomplishment, can come only when they bring new lives into existence and teach these beings to walk a path to earthly and eternal happiness. Frank Gavitt, one of the country's outstanding public relations executives, has recommended that universities award honourary degrees to outstanding mothers as they do to distinguished political, business and professional leaders. His suggestion would help to confer on motherhood the dignity and prestige it apparently needs before modern women will give it their total commitment.
It is ironic that a major trend of recent years has been that of 'doing it yourself. It seems that men obtain so few satisfactions from their work that they develop projects at home to give their creative energies an outlet. But while fathers return to the home, mothers are neglecting the creative aspects of home-making. Many of us can remember mothers or grandmothers who baked bread and cake, canned fruits and vegetables, and made their own clothing. The work not only saved money but gave a feeling of worthwhile accomplishment. If today's mothers used fewer of the costly products that take much of the creative joy out of homemaking, they might contribute almost as much to their families economically as they do by taking outside jobs.
What about mothers who must work because of real financial need? They should try to obtain employment which will enable them to be near their young children when they are needed most-during the daytime. There are more of such jobs than one might imagine. One mother obtained a position soliciting magazine subscriptions; she wheels her infant in a carriage from door to door, meeting his needs whenever they arise. Another woman runs a 'day nursery, caring for the children of neighbourhood mothers who wish to shop in freedom. A mother of three small children earns the family income as a typist, working at home for local businessmen while her children play under her supervision. Books listing hundreds of jobs which mothers can profitably perform in or near their homes are available at most public libraries.
Mothers of school-age youngsters can find many opportunities for part-time employment. A typical job is that of sales clerk. Most shoppers are women with children, and they visit the stores while their own young ones attend school. Many stores therefore require special help to handle the extra crowds from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Women who work during those hours can see their children off to school and can return home when they do.
The problem of 'moonlighters. Some of the reasons which prompt mothers to take outside employment also are responsible for the growing number of 'moonlighters-men who hold jobs at night as well as in the daytime. According to the Census Bureau, one male employee in twenty holds a second job.
Like the working mother, the father who holds two jobs can harm the family unit, his mate, his children, and himself. The family suffers because in effect it lacks his leadership. The man away from home sixteen hours a day, who returns only to sleep and to eat a quick meal or two, hardly gives the personal example which his children need to learn to be adults. When mother and children do not see the father except when he is asleep, they cannot be said to have a real family at all.
The wife suffers, because she is denied her husband's companionship. As is pointed out in detail in 'The Catholic Marriage Manual, mothers are justifiably tired of childish company after a long day spent exclusively with their little ones. They have a right to expect the attention, companionship and affection of their mates for at least a few hours of the twenty-four-hour period. The man who is busy earning money may love his wife and may want to make life easier for her. But a willingness to spend his free hours with her, even at the expense of material comforts, would be a greater indication of his affection-and would do far more for her.
The 'moonlighter's children suffer because they los e the opportunity of knowing their father at leisure. It is usually only after his day's work is done and the evening is at hand that he can talk to his children-recount his own experiences, prepare them for their future, and instill standards of conduct that will guide them throughout their lives. It is the father who gives his son his ideals and ideas of manhood and who teaches his daughter by example what to expect in her own husband when she marries. By his absence for prolonged periods, therefore, themoonlighter may be denying his children direction and example as much as does the father who does not live at home.
Nor should we overlook the fact that the man who holds two jobs for long periods may cause intense physical harm to himself. When he must bolt his meals to get from one job to another, when he works such long hours that he cannot get adequate sleep, when his schedule denies him any opportunity for recreation, he increases his nervous tension and susceptibility to the many diseases, such as heart trouble, high blood pressure and ulcers, which result at least partially from an inability to develop relaxed habits of living. The man who 'moonlights over a long period of time certainly will find that some, if not much, of his increased earnings must be used to pay doctors' bills.
We Americans make a fetish of our high standard of living. Advertisers and others bombard us with the concept that we can achieve happiness only if we have a better house, richer food, thicker rugs, more powerful cars than those commonly possessed even ten years ago. Acceptance of this false set of values is generally what prompts the mother to work and the father to 'moonlight. They overlook the basic fact that a family's essentials for life-food, shelter, clothing-cangenerally be obtained on the father's salary. When misguided ambition makes it necessary for the mother to work or the father to take a second job, the family achieves not true happiness but only a few materialistic substitutes for it.
NIHIL OBSTAT:
John A. Goodwine, J.C.D., Censor Librorum
IMPRIMATUR:
Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York
The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained
therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed. August 22, 1959[/b][/b]
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| Pfizer documents reveal variety of vaccine side effects |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2021, 07:10 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Pfizer documents reveal variety of vaccine side effects
RT | 12 Dec, 2021
Documents released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reveal that drugmaker Pfizer recorded nearly 160,000 adverse reactions to its Covid-19 vaccine in the initial months of its rollout.
The documents were obtained by a group of doctors, professors, and journalists calling themselves Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, who filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FDA for their release.
The first tranche of documents reveal that, as of February 2021, when Pfizer’s shot was being rolled out worldwide on an emergency basis, the drugmaker had compiled more than 42,000 case reports detailing nearly 160,000 adverse reactions to the jab.
These reactions ranged from the mild to the severe, and 1,223 were fatal. The majority of these case reports involved people aged between 31 and 50 in the United States.
More than 25,000 nervous system disorders were reported, along with 17,000 musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders and 14,000 gastrointestinal disorders. A range of different autoimmune conditions were reported, along with some peculiar maladies, including 270 “spontaneous abortions,” and incidences of herpes, epilepsy, heart failure and strokes, among thousands of others.
BioNTech CEO replies to claims he refused vaccinationREAD MORE: BioNTech CEO replies to claims he refused vaccination
These side effects were previously known, and have all been logged on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database, which as of Sunday has tracked 3,300 deaths following vaccination with Pfizer’s vaccine, a figure broadly in keeping with the company’s own data.
Critics say that some of these deaths cannot be conclusively linked to vaccination, while others argue that the true number of deaths and adverse effects is underreported.
Critically, Pfizer’s documents were used by the FDA to declare the company’s jab safe, which it did for Americans aged 16 and older in August. It has since been approved for children as young as five, and booster doses for people aged 16 and up were approved last week.
The FDA says it may take until 2096 to release all 451,000 pages it used to approve Pfizer’s vaccine.
In the face of the more transmissible and apparently more vaccine-resistant Omicron strain of the coronavirus, the US government has continued to tout vaccination as key to defeating Covid-19. So too has Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who said on Wednesday that a fourth shot of his company’s vaccine may be needed to keep immunity levels up.
With one South African study showing Pfizer’s vaccine up to 40 times less effective against Omicron than previous variants, the company says it could have an Omicron-specific vaccine on the market by March 2022.
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| “This is the Largest Experiment Performed on Human Beings in the History of the World.” |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2021, 07:06 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Dr. Robert Malone: “This is the Largest Experiment Performed on Human Beings in the History of the World.”
New American | November 9, 2021
In an exclusive and explosive one-hour interview with Veronika Kyrylenko of The New American, pioneering mRNA scientist Dr. Robert Malone explains the intensely corrupt workings of the government regulatory bodies that have mismanaged the pandemic, discusses the problems with the vaccine program and delves into potentially explosive and game-changing revelations about the shady origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China.
Who is Dr. Robert Malone? While working at the Salk Institute in 1988, Dr. Malone discovered important findings about in-vivo and in-vitro RNA transfection. He continued his work on the technology a year later at the biopharma start-up Vical where he conducted additional experiments. According to his bio, “The mRNA, constructs, reagents were developed at the Salk institute and Vical by Dr. Malone.” His research has also included important work on DNA vaccines. In addition to his fundamental work developing mRNA and DNA vaccine technology, Malone is also a medical doctor. According to his bio, Dr. Malone “received his medical training at Northwestern University (MD) and Harvard University (Clinical Research Post Graduate) medical school, and in Pathology at UC Davis.”
Few people are as qualified to comment on the course of the COVID pandemic and the mass vaccination campaign as Dr. Malone. In this important interview he shares his unique and deep insights on matters of critical national and international importance.
Bio source: https://www.rwmalonemd.com/about-us
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| Vatican explains new ‘ministry of catechists’ instituted by Pope Francis |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-13-2021, 04:02 PM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Vatican explains new ‘ministry of catechists’ instituted by Pope Francis
![[Image: 20211213T0945-CATECHISTS-MINISTRY-RITE-1...k=6_njKiPh]](https://www.americamagazine.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_image_750_x_503_/public/main_image/2021/12/13/20211213T0945-CATECHISTS-MINISTRY-RITE-1514116.JPG.JPG?itok=6_njKiPh)
Abraham Luque, a catechist from the Scalabrinian Parish of Our Lady of the Perpetual Help,
prays during a Christmas event at the Scalabrini welcome center in Lima, Peru, in this Dec. 16, 2018, file photo.
America Magazine | December 13, 2021
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Catholic men and women formally installed in the new ministry of catechists are not simply religious education teachers but are engaged in “the proclamation and transmission of the faith, carrying out this role in collaboration with the ordained ministers and under their guidance,” said a letter accompanying the Latin text of the Rite of Institution of Catechists.
Archbishop Arthur Roche, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, released the Latin text and a letter Dec. 13, seven months after Pope Francis instituted the “ministry of catechist” as a formal office and vocation in the church.
Bishops’ conferences will be responsible for translating the rite into their local languages and seeking Vatican approval for local adaptations, which are expected given the variety of roles catechists play in different parts of the world.
In 2022, Archbishop Roche said, his office would release the revised text for the Rite for the Institution of Lectors and Acolytes, a ministry Pope Francis opened to women in January.
“The term ‘catechist’ indicates different realities in relation to the ecclesial context in which it is used,” Archbishop Roche wrote. “Catechists in mission territories differ from those working in churches of long-standing tradition. Moreover, individual ecclesial experiences also produce very different characteristics and patterns of action, so much so that it is difficult to give it a unitary and synthetic description.”
Quote:NB: Ambiguity is a hallmark of modernism. The following is an observation made by Archbishop Lefebvre concerning the Second Vatican Council:
I shall stress the fact that the Council steadily refused to give exact definitions of the matters under discussion. It is this rejection of definitions, this refusal to examine philosophically and theologically the questions under discussion which meant that we could do no more than describe them, not define them. Not only were they not defined, but very often in the course of discussions on the subjects, the traditional definition was falsified. I believe that we are now confronted with a whole system which we cannot accept, manage to grasp and can keep in check only with because the traditional definitions, the true definitions, are no longer accepted.
In different parts of the world, he said, formally recognized catechists can be found “guiding community prayer, especially the Sunday liturgy in the absence of a priest or deacon; assisting the sick; leading funeral celebrations; training and guiding other catechists; coordinating pastoral initiatives; human promotion according to the church’s social doctrine; helping the poor; fostering the relationship between the community and the ordained ministers.”
Archbishop Roche said people should not be surprised by the “breadth and variety of functions” associated with catechists because “the exercise of this lay ministry fully expresses the consequences of being baptized and, in the particular situation of the lack of a stable presence of ordained ministers, it is a participation in their pastoral action.”
“This is what the Code of Canon Law affirms when it provides for the possibility of entrusting to a non-ordained person a share in the exercise of pastoral care in a parish, always under the moderation of a priest,” he wrote. “It is necessary, therefore, to form the community so that it does not see the catechist as a substitute for the priest or deacon, but as a member of the lay faithful who lives their baptism in fruitful collaboration and shared responsibility with the ordained ministers, so that their pastoral care may reach everyone.”
Those chosen for the ministry of catechist, he said, are to be called by their bishop and instituted in what the church calls a “stable” way. While the specific terms of their ministry are up to the local bishop, they are installed in the ministry only once and for a substantial period of time.
Archbishop Roche also include a list of those who “should not be instituted as catechists”:
- “Those who have already begun their journey toward holy orders and in particular have been admitted among the candidates for the diaconate and the priesthood,” because the ministry of catechist is a lay ministry.
- “Men and women religious -- irrespective of whether they belong to Institutes whose charism is catechesis -- unless they act as leaders of a parish community or coordinators of catechetical activity.”
- “Those who carry out a role exclusively for the members of an ecclesial movement” since that role is assigned by leaders of the movement and not by the diocesan bishop.
- “Those who teach Catholic religion in schools, unless they also carry out other ecclesiastical tasks in the service of the parish or diocese.”
The pope’s institution of a formal ministry of catechist, he said, also should not end the practice of all a parish’s or school’s religion teachers being commissioned and given a mandate at the beginning of each school year.
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| Federal judge rejects DOD claim that Pfizer EUA and Comirnaty vaccines are ‘interchangeable’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-13-2021, 03:32 PM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Federal judge rejects DOD claim that Pfizer EUA and Comirnaty vaccines are ‘interchangeable’
A federal district court judge rejected a claim by the U.S. Department of Defense that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine being administered under Emergency Use Authorization is interchangeable with Pfizer’s fully licensed Comirnaty vaccine.
![[Image: Comirnaty-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Comirnaty-810x500.jpg)
(Children’s Health Defense - see original link for all hyperlinks) – A federal district court judge has rejected a claim by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine being administered under Emergency Use Authorization is interchangeable with Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine, which in August was fully licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In an order issued Nov. 12 in Doe et al. v. Austin, U.S. Federal District Judge Allen Winsor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida denied a preliminary injunction requested by 16 service members against the U.S. Military’s COVID vaccine mandate. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 14, 2022.
However, the judge’s acknowledgment that “the DOD cannot mandate vaccines that only have an EUA” is significant for two reasons.
One reason pertains to the difference in ingredients and manufacturing process between Pfizer’s EUA vaccine and the approved Comirnaty vaccine, and the other pertains to the legal difference between a fully licensed vaccine and an EUA vaccine.
The latter reason would apply not just to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but also to the vaccines produced by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (Janssen), both of which are authorized only as EUA products.
Under law, everyone has ‘right to refuse’ EUA product
When the FDA approved Pfizer’s Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine in August, approval was accompanied by a series of confusing documents and equally confusing public statements.
One such confounding statement reads as follows:
Quote:“The licensed vaccine has the same formulation as the EUA-authorized vaccine and the products can be used interchangeably to provide the vaccination series without presenting any safety or effectiveness concerns. The products are legally distinct with certain differences that do not impact safety or effectiveness.”
The FDA provided no explanation as to how the licensed Comirnaty vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine could “be used interchangeably” despite having “certain differences” that make them “legally distinct.”
There are key differences between fully licensed vaccines and those authorized under EUA. EUA products are considered experimental under U.S. law. This means they cannot be mandated, and everyone has the right to refuse such vaccines without consequences.
Τhe Nuremberg Code, as well as federal law, provide that no human being can be forced to participate in a medical experiment. Under 21 U.S. Code Sec.360bbb-3(e)(1)(A)(ii)(III), “authorization for medical products for use in emergencies,” it is unlawful to deny someone a job or an education because they refuse to be an experimental subject.
This is also made clear in the FDA fact sheet provided to patients receiving any Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It states:
Quote:“Under the EUA, it is your choice to receive or not receive the vaccine. Should you decide not to receive it, it will not change your standard medical care.”
However, U.S. law does allow employers and schools to require students and workers to take licensed vaccines.
EUA products can’t be used once fully licensed product becomes available
Another key difference between fully licensed and EUA vaccines is that, under the 2005 Public Readiness and Preparedness Act (PREP Act), EUA vaccines are accompanied by a far-reaching liability shield that protects all parties involved with the product from lawsuits.
Specifically, if one is injured by an EUA vaccine, the only way to claim damages and receive compensation is to apply to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), an administrative process under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which authorized the vaccines.
This scheme potentially covers only unpaid medical expenses and lost wages and creates significant barriers for filing a vaccine injury lawsuit.
Notably, under 4% of claims made through this program have been compensated. To date, CICP has not compensated any claims for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
At this time, the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine may have no liability shield, making it subject to product liability laws that allow those injured by it to potentially sue for damages, although Pfizer asserts that the vaccine is protected under the PREP Act as well.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes a fully licensed vaccine on its recommended vaccination schedule, the vaccines similarly enjoy generous liability protections, but those protections are not as complete as under the PREP Act.
The FDA fact sheet states:
Quote:“This EUA for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and COMIRNATY will end when the Secretary of HHS determines that the circumstances justifying the EUA no longer exist or when there is a change in the approval status of the product such that an EUA is no longer needed.”
This appears to contradict black-letter law — defined as well-established legal rules that are certain, no longer disputable, free from doubt and generally well-known — in addition to well-established case law.
In this case, an EUA is considered illegal and invalid if there is a fully licensed alternative available. This appears to be the case with Pfizer’s licensed Comirnaty while its EUA Pfizer-BioNTech is still on the market.
As stated by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) in its lawsuit against the FDA and Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner:
Quote:“The black letter law is clear. There can be no biologic license approved to a medical product for diagnosing, preventing or treating COVID-19 if there is also still an Emergency Use Authorization for the same medical product serving the same purpose.”
In another CHD lawsuit, pertaining to mask mandates for school children issued under an EUA, CHD President Mary Holland, co-counsel on the case, stated that “[i]t is black-letter law that EUA devices … cannot be mandated at all.”
Still, many media outlets refer to COVID vaccine mandates as an inevitability, based on a narrative which attempts to (mis)lead the public into believing the COVID vaccines have been fully licensed.
The same media narratives, such as a recent USA Today “fact check,” also claim the Comirnaty and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are the same.
CHD though, in its lawsuit against the FDA, argues that Comirnaty’s licensure was a classic “bait and switch,” and that there is no legal basis to retain the EUA status for other COVID vaccines once the FDA has fully licensed a COVID vaccine.
A recent lawsuit filed by Arizona’s attorney general against the Biden administration over its vaccine mandates made a similar argument:
Quote:“…the whole point of the mandates is to deny any such ‘option’ to those governed by them. Notably, only the Pfizer vaccine has received [U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] approval, and none of the stock of it in the U.S. is actually the FDA-approved version (and instead is entirely under the EUA label subject to the EUA-mandated conference of choice).”
Do vaccines labeled ‘Comirnaty’ even exist?
All of these issues came to the fore in Judge Winsor’s Nov. 12 decision.
As recognized by the judge, “[u]nder the EUA statute, recipients of EUA drugs must be ‘informed … of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.”
The judge further noted that with regard to the administration of an EUA product to members of the armed forces, such a right of refusal may be waived only by the president.
As noted, “[t]he DOD acknowledges that the president has not executed a [waiver], so as things now stand, the DOD cannot mandate vaccines that only have an EUA.”
Judge Winsor also pointed out that “DOD’s guidance documents explicitly say only FDA-licensed COVID-19 vaccines are mandated.”
While this would be applicable to the Comirnaty vaccine, the judge noted “the plaintiffs have shown that the DOD is requiring injections from vials not labeled ‘Comirnaty.’ Indeed, defense counsel could not even say whether vaccines labeled ‘Comirnaty’ exist at all.”
The judge also noted that the DOD “later clarified that it was mandating vaccines from EUA-labeled vials,” adding that “[i]n the DOD’s view, this is fine because the contents of EUA-labeled vials are chemically identical to the contents of vials labeled ‘Comirnaty’ (if there are any such vials).”
The judge found this argument “unconvincing,” stating that “FDA licensure does not retroactively apply to vials shipped before BLA approval.”
He further noted that EUA provisions suggest “drugs mandated for military personnel be actually BLA-approved, not merely chemically similar to a BLA-approved drug,” not just in terms of labeling, but also in terms of being produced at BLA-compliant facilities.
As the judge stated, “there is no indication that all EUA-labeled vials are from BLA-approved facilities,” adding that “the DOD cannot rely on the FDA to find that the two drugs are legally identical.”
What comes next?
Despite the federal judge’s opinion in Doe et al. v. Austin, no court has yet issued a final, definitive ruling that an institution may not mandate a COVID EUA product.
Some courts, most notably in Bridges et al. v. Houston Methodist Hospital, have upheld EUA mandates for employees in a case where 116 hospital employees filed a lawsuit disputing their employer’s vaccine mandate on the grounds the vaccines were being administered under an EUA.
This decision was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, and a decision is far from final.
Previous case law also appears to provide a precedent against mandating EUA vaccines, especially in the military context.
The DOD’s anthrax vaccine immunization program (AVIP), established in 1997, sought to mandate a vaccine previously used for cutaneous anthrax, to protect service members against inhalation anthrax. This alternate use was legally considered off-label usage, requiring informed consent from each individual or a presidential waiver of informed consent.
Service members filed a lawsuit in 2003, seeking to halt the AVIP. Later that year, a federal court, in response to the lawsuit, halted AVIP, due to the DOD’s failure to adhere to informed consent requirements.
The FDA, eight days after this decision, expanded the vaccine’s label to include inhalation anthrax. This decision was challenged by service members on procedural grounds, based on the claim that the FDA did not follow its own regulations regarding label amendments.
In October 2004, a federal district court sided with the service members, vacating the FDA’s decision. Subsequently, then-President Bush signed the Project BioShield Act into law, which amended the Public Health Service Act to “provide protections and countermeasures against chemical, radiological or nuclear agents.”
Following this, the FDA, in December 2004, filed for an EUA for the anthrax vaccine, which was issued within weeks. The new EUA encompassed inhalation anthrax. Vaccinations of service members resumed, but only on a voluntary basis.
It was not until December 2005 that the FDA formally approved a label expansion for the anthrax vaccine, and only after this did mandatory vaccinations resume for certain categories of service members.
This prior precedent seems to lend legal credence to the argument that EUA vaccines cannot be mandated, at least for military service members, based on a narrow interpretation of the relevant case law.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how courts will ultimately rule in relation to mandating COVID vaccines administered under an EUA.
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| Please Pray for Those Affected by the December 10th Tornadoes |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-11-2021, 09:19 AM - Forum: Appeals for Prayer
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Please keep the souls of those affected by the tornadoes that fiercely ripped through several states Friday night, December 10th in your prayers.
Tornadoes bring death, injuries, damage to several states
Destruction was reported in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee
Fox News | December 11, 2021
Tornadoes and severe storms swept across several states Friday night, leaving in their wake multiple deaths, numerous injuries and severe structural damage, according to reports.
Affected states included Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, where the governor said it's likely that more than 50 people are dead.
Major incidents included heavy damage to an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, where two people are confirmed dead and dozens of workers were reportedly trapped inside the building, and the destruction of a nursing home in Arkansas, where at least two people were killed and five were hurt, according to reports.
Illinois
The Amazon collapse – just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis – was being called a "mass casualty incident" by local emergency responders. At least 30 people were bused away from the scene to be reunited with family, officials said.
As many as 50 to 100 employees were believed to be inside the building, FOX 2 of St. Louis reported.
Police received word of the collapse around 8:30 p.m., police told FOX 2 early Saturday. Officials said the emergency response was expected to continue far into Saturday morning.
About 40 employees were transported to the Pontoon Beach Police Department, KMOV-TV of St. Louis reported.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker expressed support for those affected in Edwardsville.
"My prayers are with the people of Edwardsville tonight," Pritzker wrote, "and I've reached out to the mayor to provide any needed state resources."
Missouri
In St. Charles County, Missouri, to the west of St. Louis, at least one person was killed and three injured when a tornado struck in the town of Defiance, according to FOX 2.
Arkansas
In Craighead County, Arkanas, emergency responders were dealing with a tragedy at the Monette Manor Nursing Home in Monette, FOX 16 of Little Rock reported.
At least 20 people were initially trapped inside the building after a suspected tornado struck, the report said. The damage left at least two people dead and five hurt, the report said.
The nursing home’s roof was ripped off and other buildings in town also were damaged, according to FOX 16.
Survivors were being directed to a local church to reunite with loved ones, the station reported.
Another fatality was reported at a Dollar General store in Leachville, according to The Weather Channel.
Kentucky
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear warned the commonwealth's residents early Saturday that the tornado death toll there may exceed 50.
Beshear made the comments by phone with Louisville station WLKY-TV. He said a single tornado ripped across the state for about 200 miles.
Earlier, the governor declared a state of emergency after major tornado damage was reported in the western part of the state, according to Louisville FOX station WDRB-TV.
"Last night Western Kentucky experienced some of the worst tornado damage we’ve seen, and we are urging everyone to please stay safe as there are still active cells," Beshear wrote on Twitter around 2 a.m.
"Loss of life is expected," in western Kentucky, the Kentucky State Police wrote on Twitter.
Southwest Kentucky saw "twin tornadoes" strike around 2:20 a.m. near Bowling Green, WDRB reported.
In Madisonville, Kentucky, a freight-train derailment was reported shortly after midnight, related to severe weather. No injuries were immediately reported, a spokeswoman for rail company CSX Corp. told Fox News.
Tennessee
At least two people were confirmed dead in Obion County, Tennessee, after dangerous storms tore through the area, FOX 17 of Nashville reported. No details were immediately available on how the deaths occurred.
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| Pope Francis was Advisor for Pachamama Park(?) |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2021, 09:30 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Happy Francis Was Adviser For Pachamama Park
![[Image: 3fad70dg7czlj8o853umvtlipsgtiv0tzo5jwdd....ormat=webp]](https://assistant.gloria.tv/FxK6pqhk7ZiS1AZwTDoBU6KMY/3fad70dg7czlj8o853umvtlipsgtiv0tzo5jwdd.webp?format=webp)
gloria.tv | December 10, 2021
Santiago del Estero, Argentina, inaugurated on October 20 an inter-religious Parque del Encuentro (Park of Encounter).
It includes buildings representing Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism. A five-sided "Obelisk of Human Fraternity" climaxes the structure. According to Urgente24.com, Francis was an adviser to the project.
According to Telam.com.ar, Pachamama is recognised with an amphitheatre which represents "the South American cult of the Pachamama" and is "built with stone terraces, an expression of the fertility of Mother Earth."
For the inauguration, Francis wrote that the news of this venture made him "happy" because "in the midst of so many disagreements, a community has the courage to do something like this supposes courage, bravery and, above all, the desire to walk together.”
He added that mankind is “in the midst of this ‘Third World War in bits and pieces and in stages’” while the park is creating peace and harmony.
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| UN Unveils a Statue at its NYC Headquarters that Resembles the Beast from the Apocalypse |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2021, 09:21 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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PURE EVIL: The United Nations Unveils a Statue at its NYC Headquarters that Resembles the Beast from the Book of Revelation
![[Image: UN-Beast-Sculpture.jpg]](https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/UN-Beast-Sculpture.jpg)
GP| December 9, 2021
The United Nations just unveiled a statue of a beast outside its headquarters in New York City. The statue is bizarre and resembles the beast from the book of Revelation.
The Most Important News reports:
Quote:One of the strangest statues that I have ever seen in my entire life has just been set up right outside UN Headquarters in New York City. When I first heard about this, I could hardly believe that the global elite would be so brazen, and so I checked into this very carefully. Unfortunately, this is not just a bad rumor. This absolutely gigantic statue is called “The Guardian of International Peace and Security”, and it looks like something out of a science fiction movie. It does not resemble any known creature on this planet. Instead, it appears to very closely resemble a “beast” that is described in the Book of Revelation. If you have not seen it yet, you can see video footage of this “beast” right here. Did they really think that they could put this up without anyone noticing?
The Most Important News continues:
Quote:Of course when Christians see this monstrosity, they are immediately going to think of the “beast” that is described in Revelation chapter 13…
Edited to Douay Rheims: [2] And the beast, which I saw, was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his own strength, and great power.
Jaguars and leopards have builds that are at least somewhat similar, and so I guess one could make an argument that the body of the statue resembles either one.
As for the feet, they do seem to resemble those of a bear, and it is noteworthy that the feet are a totally different color from the rest of the body.
The UN tweeted a picture of the beast.
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| Calvary and the Mass [1936] by Bishop Fulton Sheen |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-09-2021, 12:16 PM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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Calvary and the Mass: A Missal Companion
by Fulton J. Sheen
1936 by P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, US.
Quote:Excerpt from the Angelus Press:
CALVARY AND THE MASS
Fulton J. Sheen, D.D.
In this 1936 work, then Msgr. Sheen takes Our Lord's seven last words from the Cross and correlates them to appropriate parts of the Mass - the sacramental representation of that same sacrifice. A fascinating book that will give you a new perspective on the Mass:
1)The Confiteor: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
2) The Offertory: Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.
3) The Sanctus: Woman, behold thy Son...Behold thy mother.
4) The Consecration: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me!
5) The Communion: I thirst.
6) Ite, Missa Est: It is finished.
7) The Last Gospel: Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit.
Bishop Sheen says, "Hence the Mass is to us the crowning act of Christian worship. A pulpit in which the words of our Lord are repeated does not unite us to Him; a choir in which sweet sentiments are sung brings us no closer to His Cross than to His garments. A temple without an altar of sacrifice is non-existent among primitive peoples, and is meaningless among Christians. And so in the Catholic Church the altar, and not the pulpit or the choir or the organ, is the center of worship, for there is re - enacted the memorial of His Passion." (from the Prologue).
PROLOGUE
THERE are certain things in life which are too beautiful to be forgotten, such as the love of a mother. Hence we treasure her picture. The love of soldiers who sacrificed themselves for their country is likewise too beautiful to be forgotten, hence we revere their memory on Memorial Day. But the greatest blessing which ever came to this earth was the visitation of the Son of God in the form and habit of man. His life, above all lives, is too beautiful to be forgotten, hence we treasure the divinity of His Words in Sacred Scripture, and the charity of His Deeds in our daily actions. Unfortunately this is all some souls remember, namely His Words and His Deeds; important as these are, they are not the greatest characteristic of the Divine Saviour.
The most sublime act in the history of Christ was His Death. Death is always important for it seals a destiny. Any dying man is a scene. Any dying scene is a sacred place. That is why the great literature of the past which has touched on the emotions surrounding death has never passed out of date. But of all deaths in the record of man, none was more important than the Death of Christ. Everyone else who was ever born into the world, came into it to live; our Lord came into it to die. Death was a stumbling block to the life of Socrates, but it was the crown to the life of Christ. He Himself told us that He came “to give his life a redemption for many”; that no one could take away His Life; but He would lay it down of Himself.
If then Death was the supreme moment for which Christ lived, it was therefore the one thing He wished to have remembered. He did not ask that men should write down His Words into a Scripture; He did not ask that His kindness to the poor should be recorded in history; but He did ask that men remember His Death. And in order that its memory might not be any haphazard narrative on the part of men, He Himself instituted the precise way it should be recalled.
The memorial was instituted the night before He died, at what has since been called “The Last Supper.” Taking bread into His Hands, He said: “This is my body, which shall be delivered for you,” i.e., delivered unto death. Then over the chalice of wine, He said, “This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.” Thus in an unbloody symbol of the parting of the Blood from the Body, by the separate consecration of Bread and Wine, did Christ pledge Himself to death in the sight of God and men, and represent His death which was to come the next afternoon at three.1 He was offering Himself as a Victim to be immolated, and that men might never forget that “greater love than this no man hash, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” He gave the divine command to the Church: “Do this for a commemoration of me.”
The following day that which He had prefigured and foreshadowed, He realized in its completeness, as He was crucified between two thieves and His Blood drained from His Body for the redemption of the world.
The Church which Christ founded has not only preserved the Word He spoke, and the wonders He wrought; it has also taken Him seriously when He said: “Do this for a commemoration of me.” And that action whereby we re-enact His Death on the Cross is the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which we do as a memorial what He did at the Last Supper as the prefiguration of His Passion.2
Hence the Mass is to us the crowning act of Christian worship. A pulpit in which the words of our Lord are repeated does not unite us to Him; a choir in which sweet sentiments are sung brings us no closer to His Cross than to His garments. A temple without an altar of sacrifice is non-existent among primitive peoples, and is meaningless among Christians. And so in the Catholic Church the altar, and not the pulpit or the choir or the organ, is the center of worship, for there is re-enacted the memorial of His Passion. Its value does not depend on him who says it, or on him who hears it; it depends on Him who is the One High Priest and Victim, Jesus Christ our Lord. With Him we are united, in spite of our nothingness; in a certain sense, we lose our individuality for the time being; we unite our intellect and our will, our heart and our soul, our body and our blood, so intimately with Christ, that the Heavenly Father sees not so much us with our imperfection, but rather sees us in Him, the Beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. The Mass is for that reason the greatest event in the history of mankind; the only Holy Act which keeps the wrath of God from a sinful world, because it holds the Cross between heaven and earth, thus renewing that decisive moment when our sad and tragic humanity journeyed suddenly forth to the fullness of supernatural life.
What is important at this point is that we take the proper mental attitude toward the Mass, and remember this important fact, that the Sacrifice of the Cross is not something which happened nineteen hundred years ago. It is still happening. It is not something past like the signing of the Declaration of Independence; it is an abiding drama on which the curtain has not yet rung down. Let it not be believed that it happened a long time ago, and therefore no more concerns us than anything else in the past. Calvary belongs to all times and to all places. That is why, when our Blessed Lord ascended the heights of Calvary, He was fittingly stripped of His garments: He would save the world without the trappings of a passing world. His garments belonged to time, for they localized Him, and fixed Him as a dweller in Galilee. Now that He was shorn of them and utterly dispossessed of earthly things, He belonged not to Galilee, not to a Roman province, but to the world. He became the universal poor man of the world, belonging to no one people, but to all men.
To express further the universality of the Redemption, the cross was erected at the crossroads of civilization, at a central point between the three great cultures of Jerusalem, Rome, and Athens, in whose names He was crucified. The cross was thus placarded before the eyes of men, to arrest the careless, to appeal to the thoughtless, to arouse the worldly. It was the one inescapable fact that the cultures and civilizations of His day could not resist. It is also the one inescapable fact of our day which we cannot resist.
The figures at the Cross were symbols of all who crucify. We were there in our representatives. What we are doing now to the Mystical Christ, they were doing in our names to the historical Christ. If we are envious of the good, we were there in the Scribes and Pharisees. If we are fearful of losing some temporal advantage by embracing Divine Truth and Love, we were there in Pilate. If we trust in material forces and seek to conquer through the world instead of through the spirit, we were there in Herod. And so the story goes on for the typical sins of the world. They all blind us to the fact that He is God. There was therefore a kind of inevitability about the Crucifixion. Men who were free to sin were also free to crucify.
As long as there is sin in the world the Crucifixion is a reality. As the poet has put it:
“I saw the son of man go by, Crowned with a crown of thorns. ‘Was it not finished Lord,’ said I, ‘And all the anguish borne?’
“He turned on me His awful eyes; ‘Hast Thou not understood? So every soul is a Calvary And every sin a rood.’”
We were there then during that Crucifixion. The drama was already completed
as far as the vision of Christ was concerned, but it had not yet been unfolded to all men and all places and all times. If a motion picture reel, for example, were conscious of itself, it would know the drama from beginning to end, but the spectators in the theater would not know it until they had seen it unrolled upon the screen. In like manner, our Lord on the Cross saw His eternal mind, the whole drama of history, the story of each individual soul, and how later on it would react to His Crucifixion; but though He saw all, we could not know how we would react to the Cross until we were unrolled upon the screen of time. We were not conscious of being present there on Calvary that day, but He was conscious of our presence. Today we know the role we played in the theater of Calvary, by the way we live and act now in the theater of the twentieth century.
That is why Calvary is actual; why the Cross is the Crisis; why in a certain sense the scars are still open; why Pain still stands deified, and why blood like falling stars is still dropping upon our souls. There is no escaping the Cross not even by denying it as the Pharisees did; not even by selling Christ as Judas did; not even by crucifying Him as the executioners did. We all see it, either to embrace it in salvation, or to fly from it into misery.
But how is it made visible? Where shall we find Calvary perpetuated? We shall find Calvary renewed, re-enacted, re- presented, as we have seen, in the Mass. Calvary is one with the Mass, and the Mass is one with Calvary, for in both there is the same Priest and Victim. The Seven Last Words are like the seven parts of the Mass. And just as there are seven notes in music admitting an infinite variety of harmonies and combinations, so too on the Cross there are seven divine notes, which the dying Christ rang down the centuries, all of which combine to form the beautiful harmony of the world’s redemption.
Each word is a part of the Mass. The First Word, “Forgive,” is the Confiteor; the Second Word, “This Day in Paradise,” is the Offertory; the Third Word, “Behold Thy Mother,” is the Sanctus; the Fourth Word, “Why hast Thou abandoned Me,” is the Consecration; the Fifth Word, “I thirst,” is the Communion; the Sixth Word, “It is finished,” is the Ite, Missa Est; the Seventh Word, “Father, into Thy Hands,” is the Last Gospel.
Picture then the High Priest Christ leaving the sacristy of heaven for the altar of Calvary. He has already put on the vestment of our human nature, the maniple of our suffering, the stole of priesthood, the chasuble of the Cross. Calvary is his cathedral; the rock of Calvary is the altar stone; the sun turning to red is the sanctuary lamp; Mary and John are the living side altars; the Host is His Body; the wine is His Blood. He is upright as Priest, yet He is prostrate as Victim. His Mass is about to begin.
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| Four Discourses by St. John Chrysostom |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-09-2021, 11:51 AM - Forum: Doctors of the Church
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FOUR DISCOURSES OF SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
CHIEFLY ON THE PARABLE OF THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS
TRANSLATED BY F. ALLEN, B. A.
LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYER 1869
![[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fprodimage.images-bn.com%...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fprodimage.images-bn.com%2Fpimages%2F2940016374031_p0_v1_s1200x630.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
PREFACE
OF the Christian Fathers, none have gained such fame, and few have left remains so voluminous as Chrysostom. In the melancholy narrative of Gibbon, two Christian champions are presented as men of real power and vigour of mind. The historian pauses to detail their acts and estimate their influence, but his admiration seems rather spontaneously and involuntarily shown, than formally expressed. These two men are Athanasius and John Chrysostom. The one is the man of unyielding polemical skill, of undaunted courage and astounding energy. The latter possesses in a remarkable degree, that which the former lacked or repressed, imaginative genius. As an orator, Chrysostom must have been as pre-eminent as Athanasius was as a polemical champion. “They [the critics of succeeding times] unanimously attribute to the Christian orator the free command of an elegant and copious language, the judgment to conceal the advantages which he derived from the knowledge of rhetoric and philosophy, an inexhaustible fund of metaphors and similitudes, of ideas and images to vary and illustrate the most familiar topics, the happy art of engaging the passions in the service of virtue, and of exposing the folly as well as the turpitude of vice, almost with the truth and spirit of a dramatic representation.” As a writer, too, the same historian, though speaking of the Letters only, which are of far less value than his Essays and Commentaries, (speaking of his last days in exile) says, “The respectful attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among the mountains of Taurus. From that solitude the Archbishop, whose active mind was invigorated by misfortunes, maintained a strict and frequent correspondence with the most distant provinces.” And, in a footnote, “Two hundred and forty two of the epistles of Chrysostom are still extant. They are addressed to a variety of persons, and show a firmness of mind much superior to that of Cicero in his exile.”
The orator must always fail to leave any worthy memorial of his genius. As might have been expected, the best remains of Chrysostom are those of his works which were not orally delivered, or which may be supposed to have been at least committed to writing by himself. The Sermons must of necessity be inadequately represented. And since the genius of Chrysostom worked chiefly by these oral discourses, it follows that his remains are weakest in that point in which the man himself was strongest. There are, however, traces even in the Sermons of the power that originated them.
The name of scarcely any other writer of antiquity has, after his death, been attached to so many spurious compositions as this great name. The Benedictine editor (Montfaucon) appends some of these. The reason for their rejection is usually founded, not on external evidence, but on the inferiority of the matter contained in them, (Multa peregrinitatem olent. Peregrinitatis notas deprehendimus, &c.) Writings by hands more able, but not more scrupulous, may have retained the borrowed name by means of their vigour.
There are, however, as has been remarked, many traces, even in the oral Discourses, of their original power. Those now submitted to the reader contain many things which the translator ventures to hope may be deemed worth attention or even remembering. The series in the Paris edition consists of seven Discourses. Of these, the first four only are here translated. The fifth is an integral part of the series, but contains different subjects, the parable having been completed in the fourth. The sixth and seventh, though partly on the parable, were delivered at another period, and repeat in some degree the earlier ones.
It would not be difficult to call up in imagination the crowded cathedral at Antioch, with the audience in rapt attention to the already most famous orator of the time, and the voice and manner of a man absolutely on fire with emotion. The “Send Lazarus,” (Πέμψον Λάζαρον,) repeated after measured intervals of thundering denunciation, would pierce the ear like a real cry of despair; or would seem like the monotonous recurring toll at the execution of some criminal.
No attempt can be made here to estimate worthily the character of Chrysostom, or to give an account of his life and times. It should, however, be suggested that he was an Oriental. Consideration should be taken of the state of society in his day, and of the open and vigorous and mutual hostility of Christians, Jews, and Pagans, in immediate juxtaposition in a magnificent city like Antioch or Constantinople. Allusions occur in these Discourses to customs belonging to the past. In Discourses ii. and iv. (pp. 45 and 93) it is implied that a criminal tried for capital offences was not permitted to see his judge. Poverty then was dependent absolutely on direct charity. This fact (and the well-known customs of the East about stranger guests) adds force to the remarks about hospitality in Discourse ii.
Applause in religious assemblies was then commonly and loudly uttered. In his Sermons on Genesis (see No. vii.) this custom is alluded to: “Yesterday ye shouted aloud and testified your pleasure,” (χθὲς μέγα ἀνακεκράγετε, δηλοῦντες τὴν ἡδονήν.) In the second of these Discourses, (3,) the silence of the assembly is remarked upon as unusual.
Chrysostom was himself strongly imbued with the ascetic notions of his age, and with the prevalent ideas about the superior sanctity of unmarried life.
He lived before the prominent development of the doctrine of Justification by Faith. Though speaking freely about the benefit of good works, he, nevertheless, manifests the Christian inner consciousness of the inefficacy of these or of mere penitence as a means of salvation. “If thou art grieved and humbly penitent, thy penitence is in a manner accompanied by salvation, (ἔχει τινὰ σωτηρίαν,)—not through the essential nature of penitence, but through the kindness of the Lord.” (Discourse vi. in the Paris edition.)
These considerations may be useful in estimating the extant works of Chrysostom. It is believed that the Discourses now translated have not hitherto been rendered into English. Our countryman Savile, in the beginning of the 17th century, published a splendid edition of the complete works of Chrysostom, in Greek. His notes (in Latin) are declared by Montfaucon to be of those then written the best. The able translation in the “Library of the Fathers” gives other works of Chrysostom. The fact, however, that those volumes form part of a large series renders the diffusion of even those of Chrysostom’s writings less extensive than might otherwise be.
It is hoped that this separate publication of another work of Chrysostom may increase the tendency now existing to read more generally the remains of Christian Antiquity, and the writings of the great instructors of the Church, of which Christ is the Head.
“Μεθʼ οὖ τῷ Πατρὶ ἅμα τῷ ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, δόξα, τιμὴ, κράτος, νῦν καὶ ἀὲι, καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.”
F. A.
DERBY, November 1868.
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