The CatholiCity Message
Volume XIV, Number 6 – July 30, 2010
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Everything in this message will be...different. We hope. Away we go...
A. IS FOR AIRBAGS, ANGELS, AND ANTHONY
We were recently taken aback while reviewing the life of our unabashedly favorite saint, Anthony of Padua, by how strongly and often he preached about hell. There is a hell. It is a real place, where any soul might ultimately dwell in bodily form. We hope and pray that no soul has ever gone there or ever will, while always remembering that Our Lord of Mercy warned that the path to eternal fire is wide and well-traveled.
On a very-much related topic, your author's eighteen-year-old son recently emerged from a violent car accident without a scratch (nor were the other car's passengers seriously injured). Airbags deployed. Wreckage abounded. Police, EMS, and tow trucks were called to the scene. Given minuscule changes in vectors and/or timing, it was the kind of accident that could have killed all three persons involved. The following day, I asked my son, who goes to Confession regularly with me, if he was prepared to die. We discussed the absolute importance of sincerely and consciously relying upon our Guardian Angels not only for protection, but also for governance. That is, we should make a humble promise every morning to obey our angel's commands. Because our angels know perfectly God's will for us, and have His mandate to persuade us, our obedience to their silent suggestions and commands could mean the difference between life and avoidable death, and, in the context of what Saint Anthony preached, avoiding a death for which one is not prepared.
Catholics, above all other kinds of Christian, fear dying least, because Our Church teaches the endless Mercy of God, and because we have the means here on earth to be assured of salvation--through the sacraments, with our guardian angels, the intercession of the Saints and our relatives in heaven. Protestants worry if they are "saved." Saved at baptism, we are concerned whether we are in a state of grace when we draw our last breath. There is a big difference.
REGARDING NOT WEARING THE PANTS
Consider the following food for thought, rather than a hard-and-fast directive. Ladies, please, discard your pants. Instead, consider wearing comfortable skirts or dresses whenever possible, which means, in practice, in pretty much every normal daily circumstance. Consider the following:
1.Regardless of your size, shape, or age, the attractiveness of your female figure is virtually always enhanced, while adding to your modesty, when you wear a dress.
2. Do this for us, the minority of chaste men who merit the gift of enjoying your beauty in such a way as to be grateful to your creator without temptation. Make it so it is good for men to look upon you, rather than requiring us to look away (which is a tragedy).
3. The godless, sexed-up, secular fashion industry is out to make money and convince you that vice is virtue. They, and their damned pants, accentuate your flaws. If you think the fashion industry is about beauty, I have two words for you: The Seventies.
4. Sadly, and we understand you may not be aware of this, but almost every style of pants reveals private information about your figure (by way of contour) what only your husband (and if not him, no man, including your sons, if you have sons) should perceive.
5. Thus, even a woman endowed with the most spectacular genetic form, in the bloom of her youth, can be given the illusion of ugliness, if not cheapness, by wearing pants. Likewise, pants rarely do anything but exaggerate extra volume on our figures.
6. While some styles of pants can be attractive, in terms of beauty, pants will never trump a tasteful dress or skirt of similar material, pattern, and quality.
7. Furthermore, we must reject the counter-argument that pants are more comfortable; as a kilt-wearing Scotsman, your author roundly rejects this claim. In the immortal cry of Braveheart, dresses and skirts offer FREEDOM!
8. Of course, we defer and appeal to our male readers to make clear your moral clothing preferences to the women and girls within your realm of responsibility or influence.
9. We understand, ladies, that changing what you wear on a daily basis is a major change. If you forsake pants, it will be a big, big deal. Even financially, as pants are so commonplace that skirt and dress wardrobes may need to be rebuilt.
10. Yet, ponder this: the biggest impact for upgrading to dresses may be the change in how you view yourself, and perhaps as crucially, in how you are looked upon and treated by men, which profoundly influences how you view yourself and your value.
11. Also, you, as a Catholic lady of dignity, are responsible for avoiding any practice or habit that increases the likelihood of being viewed as an object by men. You are also responsible for presenting the best, most beautiful, most chaste version of yourself to the world.
12. There is a myth that men determine the fashions women wear. In the depraved business sense, this is superficially true in the sense that clothing is often designed to appeal to the lower, if not lustful, appetites of men (and not all lower appetites are strictly lustful). In the day-to-day reality of the suburban lives most of us live, men almost always delegate the purchase of clothing to their wives. Women then make virtually all the fashion choices, mistakenly relying upon the opinions of other women (who know either too little or too much about how fashion choices affect men morally). Good women are always tempted to buy the styles they see other women and young girls wearing; inevitably everyone, men and women, are pulled downward by the undertow of the constantly lowered bar of our sexualized and superficial culture.
13. Do not misunderstand us: we have no problem with men delegating clothing purchases to their wives; we only object to men who abandon the responsibility they have to guide and influence the moral, psychological, and practical implications of clothing that is purchased. Men should set the highest standard for their wives and daughters in this respect.
14. May we suggest (or perhaps you wives and daughters might suggest) that your husbands and fathers take you shopping for the expressed purpose of choosing everyday clothing for you. Men, for your part, be sure your women love the choices you make with them. No woman or girl can deny that there is a superb and wonderful emotional benefit to donning an outfit that was chosen to enhance your beauty by your beloved husband or devoted father. Ladies, when he chooses an outfit for you, you know beyond doubt that in his eyes, you are beautiful in it. As a rule, men abhor shopping, but in our experience, this practice proves the exception if the man is the final arbiter on fashion choices.
We hope we have provided you with food for thought in your discussions with your loved ones. As for men's fashion, we have one word: Jacket.
B. MAJOR SHIFTS
On the topic of major shifts, fashion-related or otherwise, years ago we read a report which reviewed the scientific data supporting the notion that larger, major changes in daily behavior have a much better chance of long-term success that gradual, incremental changes. For example, you are more likely to be successful if you resolve and to attend daily Mass every day of the week rather than resolving to attend once or twice a week. It is easier to give up popcorn altogether than to eat small portions of it. You will have more long-term success if you set out to exercise every day rather than twice a week. If you want to be a prayerful person, it is better to plan on praying for thirty minutes a day than five minutes. Go for it.
C. MISSAL ATTACK
Your spiritual experience at Mass may be significantly deepened by using a missal, which contains the readings, rites of the Mass, prayers, Eucharistic rites, and commentary. Be patient, it can take weeks before the knack for flipping to the proper sections becomes second nature. For a test drive, we recommend a wonderful monthly subscription of the missal from Magnificat, which offers a sample copy:
http://www.magnificat.net/english/exemplaire_gratuit.asp
And the Daughters of the Saint Paul publish a leatherbound missal which contains years worth of daily Mass readings and commentary:
D. QUOTATIONS
"For Christian modesty, it is not enough to do be so, but to seem so, too."
Tertullian
"Chastity shares the Supreme Court's definition of pornography: I know it when I see it."
Joseph Wood
"The chastity of widows and virgins is above the chastity of marriage."
Saint Augustine
"After all what does a strict guard avail, as a lewd wife cannot be watched and a chaste one does not have to be?"
John of Salisbury
"The virtue of chastity does not mean that we are insensible to the urge of concupiscence, but that we subordinate it to reason and the law of grace, by striving wholeheartedly after what is noblest in human and Christian life."
Pius XII
"When men give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming."
Oscar Wilde
"To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school."
G.K. Chesterton
"No one can say in five words or five hundred what Chesterton said in fifty."
G.K. McBrien
"Not long after reading the man's writings, no Catholic thinker or writer has been less surprised than when he is surprised by the surprises of Chesterton. There is both the sense of wishing you had thought of that first, and the certainty that you never would have in the first place."
Harley McCloskey
PRAY WITH US
Join your fellow CatholiCity Citizens, tens of thousands strong, in the following simple prayer, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit:
"Dear Mary, Help us to be chaste and modest in our dress, comportment, frankness, and language, as you surely were for Jesus and Joseph. We love you, Mary. Amen."
Thank you for reading and thinking and praying with us to the end. Until next time, remember, you guys are the best!
With the Immaculata,
Your Friends at CatholiCity
