family

Tomato Stakes – II

Tomato Stakes – II on November 12, 2011

When “Eleison Comments” quoted (Sept. 10, 217) the Russian proverb likening woman and man to a tomato-plant and the stake around which that plant clings and climbs to bear fruit, it used the comparison to expound on the nature and role of woman. A woman reader then asked how it applies to men. Alas, our crazy age is trying to wipe out all these basics of human nature.

On God’s design for man and woman, profoundly different but sublimely complementary, there is of course much more to be said than a mere comparison from the garden can say. At every Catholic wedding Mass, the Epistle compares the relations between husband and wife to those between Christ and his Church. Worthy of note in this passage (Ephesians V, 22–33) is how St Paul lays out at length the consequent duties of the husband, briefly those of the wife. Already we may suspect that today’s men are greatly responsible for the loss of sanity between contemporary man and woman, but let us leave the supernatural mystery for another occasion and return to the garden, because it is above all the natural basics that are being attacked today by the enemies of God and man.

For a tomato-stake to serve a tomato-plant it needs two things: it must stand tall and it must stand firm. If it does not stand tall, the plant cannot climb, and if it does not stand firm the plant cannot cling, or wrap itself around the stake. The firmness, one might say, depends on a man’s wrapping himself around his work, while the tallness depends upon his reaching for God, no less.

As for the firmness, in all times and places where human nature has not been twisted out of all recognition, the man’s life revolves around his work while the woman’s life revolves around her family, starting with her man. If the man makes the woman the centre of his life, it is as though two tomato plants were clinging together – both will finish in the mud, unless the woman takes on the part of the man, which she was never meant to do, and which she should at least never wish to do. A wise woman chooses for husband precisely a man who has found his work and loves it, so that while he is firmly wrapped around it, she can wrap herself around him.

As for the tallness, just as the stake must point to the sky, so a man must reach for Heaven. Leaders need a vision with which to inspire and lead. Archbishop Lefebvre had a vision of the restoration of the true Church. Similarly when the faith of Cardinal Pie (1815–1880) saw unmanliness in the men of the 19th century all around him, he attributed it to their lack of faith. Where there is no faith, he said, there are no convictions. No convictions, no firmness of character. No firmness of character, no men. St Paul was thinking along the same lines when he said, “The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (I Cor.XI, 3). Therefore to recover his manliness, let a man turn to God, put himself in order beneath him, and it will be that much easier for a wife to put herself in order beneath her man, and the children beneath both of them.

But “beneath” is not to be understood as any kind of tyranny, either of husband over wife, or of parents over children. The stake is there for the tomato. It was a wise Jesuit who said that the best thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother. Men do not run on love as women do, so they can easily fail to understand how women need to love and to be loved. In fact, a teaspoonful of affection, and she is good for another hundred miles. The Holy Ghost says it rather more elegantly: “Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter towards them” (Col.III, 19).

Kyrie eleison.

Tomato Stakes – I

Tomato Stakes – I on September 10, 2011

A little while back a family wife and mother told me she was having a hard time communicating with her husband. They could hardly talk to one another about what was going wrong without ending up mad at each other. Rightly or wrongly, I sensed that her problem was this universal, deliberate and diabolical denial of the marvellously complementary role designed by God for man and woman in marriage. Here is what I wrote for her. She said it helped her. May it help others. By the way, ladies, I do NOT think all the problem is on your side!

I am sorry to hear of a rough passage in your marriage. Rule number One: never argue with your husband in front of, or within earshot of, the children. They come first. You cannot help the family by pulling down your husband, or arguing with him in front of them. On the contrary.

Rule number Two: RESPECT your husband, even if he may not always deserve it. Women run on love, men on ego, a huge difference. That is why St Paul – WORD OF GOD – says, “Wives, obey your husbands, husbands, cherish your wives.” Huge difference! In any marriage where the husband shows love for his wife and where the wife respects her husband, normally the essence of a contented marriage is there. And if he does not show love for you, at least make yourself lovable, which you will never do by fighting with him.

Let it cost you what it may, respect your husband. He needs your respect more than he needs your love. You need his love more than you need his respect. Obey him. Never show that you are telling him what to do. Get him to decide to do what you want him to do. And for the wife to work outside the home is not a good thing, especially if she earns more than he does. If you have to earn, and do earn more, NEVER let it show. Disguise the fact. A man needs to see himself as the breadwinner, as the head of the house. You are the heart, just as necessary as the head for the family, maybe more so, but you are not the head. And if you are sometimes forced to act as the head, do not let it show, BUT DISGUISE IT.

I would be surprised if you could not make the marriage work. It usually depends on the woman to adapt herself to the man, and not the other way round. Russian proverb –“As the tomato plant is to the stake (around which it climbs),so the woman is to the man.” If he is not a stake, do all you can to make him into one. And if you cannot, then once more disguise the fact. God makes women more adaptable than men, so that they will adapt to their men.

You once said that the family needed money to educate the children. Has it occurred to you that the best and most important education of your girls is in their mother’s kitchen? Assuming that the mother is at home. You have much more to give your girls by your example than any school outside the home can give them. And give them the precious example of a wife and mother that obeys and respects her husband despite everything. Children are very observant. Your example is of crucial importance for the happiness of their future marriages and homes.

Argue with your husband if you like, but quietly, respectfully, and away from the children. And do not say, “I too have been out working all day long, I too need understanding at home.” For mothers to work outside the home is not normal, and the men sense it, even if it is their own fault. Men are what they are. This is the man that God appointed for you to marry. Give your children the example of respecting him. That is a precious gift, especially to your girls. All families today need a lot of prayer. Mother of God, help!

Kyrie eleison.

Men’s Authority

Men’s Authority on May 28, 2011

Two young men, uncertain of getting married, begged me the other day to write a manual on how men should be men. Theirs was a real cry of distress: “When should we be nice with women, and when should we be firm? We just don’t know any longer!” Yesteryear the answer to that question was common sense for many a man, but authority today has been so widely undermined by liberal propaganda that the problem of exercising it in marriage may be one reason why now numbers of young folk prefer simply to live together rather than get married. What follows is not a manual, but it may at least point our two musketeers in the right direction.

St. Paul says: “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. III, 14,15). In other words all fatherhood or authority amongst God’s creatures is modelled upon and derives from the fatherhood and authority of God himself. As Dostoevsky has one of his characters say, “If God does not exist, then I have no business being an army officer.” So it stands to reason that if men chase God out of their society, as he is being chased today out of the whole wide world, then all authority is radically undermined. In the individual, reason will be unable to govern the passions, in the family the father will be unable to control his household, and in the State democracy will come to seem the only legitimate form of government.

Now within the family, who, observing daily life, can deny that men are stronger than women in the use of reason, while women are stronger than men in intuition and emotion? Watch any sitcom if you doubt it. Now feelings have their rightful place in life and they are scorned, like one’s wife, at one’s peril, but they come and go, they are unstable and as such they are a guide, but not a reliable guide, to action. On the contrary if reason discerns what is objectively true and just, it is stabilized by the fact that objective truth and justice are above any individual or his feelings. Therefore reason may listen to feelings, but it must rule them. That is why men have, as men, a natural authority possessed only exceptionally by women, who have as a rule other qualities. That is why the man is naturally the head of the family and home, while the woman is naturally its heart.

But the liberalism which rules the modern world dissolves all sense of objective truth or justice. By so doing it deprives the reason of its object, and of its objective anchor in a reality above and independent of the reasoning subject. Reason being the prerogative of men, liberalism hits the men before it hits the women, whose feminine instincts are not dependent on reason. By the same token liberalism undercuts the authority of men which comes down from conforming to what is above them, ultimately divine Truth and Justice, and it makes all use of authority become arbitrary.

Therefore, young men, in all your dealings with men or women, seek to be true and just, and turn to God for the help necessary to discern truth and justice amidst so much untruth and injustice and arbitrary misuse of authority all around us today. Then act upon what you discern, and you will re-build your manly authority from above, in a world undercutting it from below. In brief, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Mt. VI, 33).

Kyrie eleison.

Embattled Boys

Embattled Boys on May 29, 2010

EC 146 told of the difficulty that teaching Sisters have with today’s girls. EC 147 traced the problem back to the home.Now, some of you ask, what about the boys? Catholics know that boys and girls, as to the saving of their souls for the next life, are equal, so both must be prepared alike, first and foremost, to get to Heaven. But about there the likeness ends. God has appointed man and woman for quite different roles in this life, which is why the Church has always condemned co-education. Then what do boys specifically need?

As woman has gifts of heart to look after home and children, so man has gifts of reason to lead them and provide for them by, ever since original sin, “the sweat of his brow” (Gen. III, 19). Therefore while a girl’s formation must centre around what will serve husband and children inside the home, a boy’s formation should train him for (1) work and (2) responsibility outside the home, which will usually mean, in the big bad world. There he is going to need (3) judgment, (4) self-discipline and (5) manliness. We already have quite a programme!

In this programme, the example given to a boy by his father is all-important! Parents of today, you must have been yourselves formed 20 to 30 years ago, well after the revolutionary 1960’s. Do all of you realize what that means? Do have the humility to recognize that your own formation, in school and/or home, most likely ill prepared you to raise children so to live as to get to Heaven. Fathers, set about correcting your own indolence, irresponsibility, silliness, self-indulgence and unmanliness, and you will be doing the very best you can for your boys!

WORK outside in nature is the best. Let a boy swing an axe, cut down a tree, plant a garden, ride a horse, build a shed. Sport at best is manly recreation, but it is not meant to be any more than recreation. A genuine need of the family best teaches RESPONSIBILITY, also taught by a boy’s suffering from the consequences of his own mistakes, instead of being protected from them. JUDGMENT he will learn by being encouraged to use his mind, by discussions at the family table, by the company and instruction of his father whom he naturally hero-worships and follows, but who must take time to listen to his boy and counsel him, especially in adolescence. DISCIPLINE he will learn by getting up early in the morning, by a daily routine to which he sticks, by getting early to bed, and by not dating until, more or less, he is looking to marry. The less he gives to girls he will not marry, the more he will have to give to the girl he will marry. MANLINESS will be the reward for following out such a programme.

Finally, parents, notice how electronics as a rule make a boy 1 idle, 2 irresponsible, 3 silly, 4 soft and 5 frustrated.

Cast out of the home electronics’ spell,

If your boys are not to drop into Hell!

Kyrie eleison.

Restoring Fatherhood

Restoring Fatherhood on May 22, 2010

It is easy to blame parents today for not knowing how to raise their children. It will be more useful to help all of them wishing to be helped to see where the problem of their estranged children is coming from. The problem is, in a way, as majestic as God, because it comes from the modern world’s wholesale refusal and denial of God.

The human family is a small society, consisting basically of father, mother and children. Now common sense tells us that every human society needs a head to be able to function. If no head directs or commands, the society loses its direction and falls apart. A football team needs a captain, a corporation needs a chief executive officer, a country needs a king or president, a town needs a mayor, a fire brigade needs a chief, an army needs a general, a university needs a rector, a court needs a judge, and so on, and so on.

Above all, a family needs a father, because the human family is not only a human society, it is the most basic and natural of human societies, in fact it is the basic model for all other societies. This is because in no other society can the bonds which tie the members together be so deep or natural as the bonds which tie husband to wife and parents to children. Also in no other society is it so clear how the head must both command and care for the members. If a father commands without caring, the family suffers from his harshness. If he cares without commanding – rather more often the case today – it suffers from his softness. Thus family fatherhood is the model for all human authority. That is why (cf. EC 145) the Fourth Commandment to honour father and mother stands at the head of the seven Commandments governing relations in human society.

Now family fatherhood, like all fatherhood or authority, derives from God the Father. St Paul says, “I bow my knees to the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all fatherhood is named” (Eph. III, 14,15). In other words, says the Word of God, from the fatherhood of God the Father all fatherhood in the human family, all headship in any human society, derives its nature, because the “name,” or word, signifies the nature or thing. Then it stands to reason that in any world which kicks out God the Father, as our world is now doing, the name and nature of fatherhood will be drained out of our minds, and all fatherhood and all authority will be emptied out of our lives.

Family fathers, lead your families to God! Put yourselves under him, and your wives and children will put themselves that much more easily under you. “The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God,” says St Paul (I Cor. XI, 3). Give to wife and children the example of a manly piety, as natural as it is “supernatural,” and whatever our mad world may get up to for its part, you at least will be doing the best you can for the family that God has entrusted to you.

Specifics for boys will follow in another “Eleison Comments,” if God wills.

Kyrie eleison.

Embattled Parents

Embattled Parents on May 8, 2010

Sister’s words from last week’s “Eleison Comments” remain in my mind: “The world has a tight grip on our girls.” Over a mere three years “the change of their mentality is noticeable. We struggle to maintain principles and morality.” Now the world is hardly going to ease off its pressure on the girls, on the contrary. Then either our Catholic Faith has ceased to be “our victory over the world” (I Jn.V,4), or Sister’s words may be a red light flashing to warn us all that our Faith needs to be activated, or Catholic Tradition may need to be sifted again?

For between home and school, if school is responsible for, say, two-sevenths of a child’s formation, home is responsible for at least five-sevenths. That is why, as was suggested here last week, it is a grave error for parents to think that if they have entrusted their child to a good school, their duty is done. The main responsibility for children’s formation has always belonged in the home. Sister would certainly not shuck off onto the home what is her own responsibility, but on the other hand her main hope, after the mercy of God, must be good homes.

Now nobody reasonable can today not have compassion on parents. For instance, father is liable to be run ragged by commuting, by unsatisfying work, by an anti-catholic work-place, while mother is liable to be exhausted by the series of children God can send if she and her husband are to obey the laws of Catholic marriage, by schooling them at home if outside schools are too corrupt, by work outside the home as well as inside if an incorrupt school outside is expensive, and by people’s scorn if she stays at home. In any such worst case scenario, God expects of none of us to do the impossible. But he does expect us to carry our Cross, and to do the possible.

Fathers, are you acting as the manly – not tyrannical! – head of the family? Do you put family before money, or money before family? Are you giving your girls the example of loving and supporting their mother? Do you listen to her? Are you encouraging her to dress or behave for your own pleasure in such a way as can only give to your daughters bad example? They will do much more what she does than what she says. Do you take time with your girls? Do you give them that wise attention and care which they so much need from their father? Mothers, only one question: do you give to your girls the example of respecting and obeying their father (even if he may not always deserve it), or do you use your tongue to make him small in front of them? Do both of you give to them an example of respect for the priest?

One last question for fathers and mothers: have you ever listened to those Catholic parents of children around the time of Vatican II who were asleep at the switch of their children’s formation, woke up too late and have now nothing but tears to shed for their children living, and being prepared to die, outside the Faith? Throw out that TV set! Fellow-priests and Sisters, let us not be afraid of making ourselves unpopular! And let us all beware of our Catholic Tradition becoming so cosy that for our own good the Lord God must let us do a re-run of Vatican II!

Kyrie eleison.