Catholic Psychology

Tell God We Love Him??!!!

2010-09-09T21:10:00.000-07:00

"What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He Caresses us, and to be cold immediately once He afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all their heart."
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Have you ever stopped to consider that likely vast quantities of people today call themselves Christians, servants and children of God, but miss the point of what God desires of them in their relationship with Him? I mean, what if He wishes to be told by us that we love Him, to utter the words "I love you, Lord" each day in a moment of quiet meditation, and that, no matter if things are going our way or not.

Does God want our love, even wait for our love? "Our" love! We humans so weak and small in comparison to him. ...

Actually it is so sad. More sad than we can perhaps comprehend. That days go by that seemingly a world of people on our planet He has made, do not stop and with our lips mouth the words, "God, you are great. You are wonderful. I do not understand the psychology of how this can possibly be important to You, from soneone as small as I. But yes, my Lord, my Creator and my God, I love You. I will speak the greatest words I can say in a lifetime. Yes God, I love you."

Maybe one way of learning how to show love to our husbands, our wives, our children and neighbors, is to begin by saying it to God. Surely the rest will follow.

"It is our part to seek, His to grant what we ask; ours to make a beginning, His to bring it to completion; ours to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot."

St. Jerome

Be not afraid to tell Jesus that you love Him; even though it be without feeling, this is the way to oblige Him to help you, and carry you like a little child too feeble to walk.
St. Therese of Lisieux

(Photos: St. Therese of Lisieux)

Is Reading Prayers "Honest"?

2010-02-28T18:01:00.000-08:00

I returned to the Catholic Church nine years ago. The last Mass I attended before then, and that, as an altar boy in that Mass, was at age thirteen on the naval "Sea-Bee" (Construction Battalion) base in Gulf-Port, Mississippi. Circumstances beyond my control determined my life after that, when, at age seventeen I entered the Protestant church in earnest. Finally, I graduated from a Baptist Bible College and became a licensed minister. Over many years I performed a host of christian tasks and roles, including missionary work to Mexico, then a christian singing soloist from church to church.

I said all this to make the following point: "In all of those years of my efforts in Protestant Christian endeavors, I never a single time saw any protestant read a prayer that had been prepared beforehand."

Strange, I've never heard anyone besides me discuss this topic. I mean, how major segments of the Protestant world choose never to pray a prayer, in private or in public, that had been thought of by someone else beforehand. The only exception to this would be the "Our Father", I suppose, but come to think of it, I don't believe I heard that prayed in public much either (unless, of course, you include "singing" it at something like a wedding).

Really, vast denominations of Protestants do not read prayers, - even if the prayers made up by other Christians before them were good ones!

I've thought of this extensively, especially since I make my living as a psychotherapist, and as a result of this, I regularly spend hours every day contemplating how people think and why they think the way they do. I conclude that this great segment of protestants believe that if they do not originate the words of a prayer in their own thinking, and speak the words they thought of at that moment with their own lips, there is no way the prayer they did not think of could in no way be sincere!

I must say that an entire book could be written on the falacies of this core premise. For the moment, I will only relate that reading great prayers of saints who have gone on before us, and reading every word of those prayers with heart-felt cognizance and sincerety, is a great path to reviving our spirits unto God, and facilitating our actions in service to Him. Oh, the psychological ehancement this can promote in the detail fabric of relational issues of family life!

It's interesting how we expect to sing words formed by believers in songs, but to "pray" words formed by believers, great saint believers in prayers, praying them as our own unto God, is viciously judged as hypocritical.

This is the argument used by many in regards to the Holy Rosary. Believe me, many people, Prostestants and Catholic, think we Catholic Christians who pray at least five decades of the Rosary every day, do this for the sake of "works alone" to "solely-earn-our-way-to-heaven!"

How mistaken these people are. For only one example, the saying of the prayer "Hail Mary" fifty-three times a day as a part of five decades of sacred Rosary prayer, can be with every word being emotionally and spiritually charged, precious and honest.

I wish to write more about this in great detail in future posts. For the moment, however, try reading the following prayer to God in a way as though it were your own. [The prayer of St. Claude de la Columbiere: (middle 1600's).] Discover how the Holy Spirit of the Blessed Trinity can go through you as a breeze within deep regions of your psychological being; your body, soul and spirit:

My God, I believe most firmly that Thou watchest over all who hope in Thee, and that we can want for nothing when we rely upon Thee in all things; therefore I am resolved for the future to have no anxieties, and to cast all my cares upon Thee.

People may deprive me of worldly goods and of honors; sickness may take from me my strength and the means of serving Thee; I may even lose Thy grace by sin; but my trust shall never leave me. I will preserve it to the last moment of my life, and the powers of hell shall seek in vain to wrestle it from me.

Let others seek happiness in their wealth, in their talents; let them trust to the purity of their lives, the severity of their mortifications, to the number of their good works, the fervor of their prayers; as for me, O my God, in my very confidence lies all my hope.'For Thou, O Lord, singularly has settled me in hope.

'This confidence can never be in vain. 'No one has hoped in the Lord and has been confounded.

'I am assured, therefore, of my eternal happiness, for I firmly hope for it, and all my hope is in Thee. 'In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be confounded.

'I know, alas! I know but too well that I am frail and changeable; I know the power of temptation against the strongest virtue. I have seen stars fall from heaven, and pillars of firmament totter; but these things alarm me not.

While I hope in Thee I am sheltered from all misfortune, and I am sure that my trust shall endure, for I rely upon Thee to sustain this unfailing hope.

Finally, I know that my confidence cannot exceed Thy bounty, and that I shall never receive less than I have hoped for from Thee. Therefore I hope that Thou wilt sustain me against my evil inclinations; that Thou wilt protect me against the most furious assaults of the evil one, and that Thou wilt cause my weakness to triumph over my most powerful enemies. I hope that Thou wilt never cease to love me, and that I shall love Thee unceasingly.

"In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded."

What "Virtual Friendship" Is Doing To Us

2009-04-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

When "Know Thyself" Becomes "Show Thyself"

(Researcher Analyzes Costs of Virtual Friendship)

By Genevieve Pollock

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 2, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Online social networking sites are gaining popularity, but they may be transforming our culture in unexpected negative ways, said a biotechnology expert.

Christine Rosen, author and senior editor of The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society, said this as part of the John Henry Cardinal Newman Lecture Series, sponsored by the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. The talk, titled "Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism," was broadcast March 13 on the Internet.

Rosen noted the popularity of online social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, stating that the latter reported 150 million members in January. If Facebook was a country, she added, it would be the eighth most populated nation worldwide.

She prompted a closer look at these sites, observing that most people ask the question, "What is it doing for us?" The author acknowledged that these tools help to bring people together and improve social networks; a person homebound with a unique illness can connect with a community of others in the same situation.

She continued: "But I'd like to ask a different question: What is it doing to us? What is it doing to our sense of social boundaries? To our sense of individuality? To our friendships?"

The researcher underlined the need to question the role of technology, and how it has changed the understanding of friendship. She stated, "Friendship in these virtual spaces is thoroughly different from real-world friendship."

Personal transformation

Rosen noted, "These sites make some certain types of connections easier," but as they are not tied to geography or a community governed by its own social norms, they are subject to personal whims.

This, she said, "frees the person from any kind of responsibility that tends to come with membership in a community, and this changes the tenor of any relationships that tend to form there."

Traditionally, she observed, "friendship is a relationship which involves the sharing of mutual interests, reciprocity, trust, and the revelation of intimate details over time and within specific contexts." It depends on mutual revelations, and can only flourish within the boundaries of privacy.

On networking sites, however, there is a concept of "public friendship," which is fluid, promiscuous and bureaucratic.

The author asserted that "the very architecture of these sites is set up to get you to behave in a certain way." It emphasizes gathering friends, ranking and managing them. She noted that it promotes a "frantic friend procurement where more is better."

Rosen affirmed that this demand to collect friends and to perform constantly by marketing ourselves can undermine "our ability to attain what the site promises, a surer sense of who we are and where we belong."

Today's social networking sites organize themselves around the person's hobbies, interests and photographs, she observed, and thus "your entry into this world is through the revelation of personal information."

The author acknowledged that these sites make it "easier to stay in contact with a wider circle of people," but she noted that they "favor interaction of greater quantity," not necessarily greater quality.

Self-absorption

Rosen also pointed that the sites "are starting to encourage a different kind of narcissism." She added, "There are definitely opportunity costs when we spend so much time grooming ourselves online."

The researcher asked whether the time spent online is well-spent: "In investing so much energy in improving how we present ourselves online, are we missing opportunities to genuinely improve ourselves?"

The sites that encourage you to "broadcast yourself," which is the tagline for the video-sharing Web site YouTube, allows greater self-promotion than before, she noted, and can reinforce a belief that every mundane detail of our lives is worth publicizing.

She pointed out that many people engage in personal broadcasting just "because they can," but that they are often unaware that it also transforms who they are.

People are not just living in the moment, but are publicizing the moment, she said. It is a different level of experience that has real implications for the human person.

There is a cost, Rosen pointed out, seen in cases like the Florida man who committed suicide while people watched online. She explained: "The distance and abstraction of our online friendships and online relationships can lead to a kind of systemic desensitization as a culture if we are not careful about it. […] We expose everything, but are we feeling anything?"

The researcher noted along with the increase in online networking, there are increasing levels of reported loneliness. The sites make connections more convenient, taking the risk and real work out of a relationship and turning it into information.

She noted the arrival of a new networking site, boffery.com, which describes itself as "a place for you to document your sexual history and map your sexual connections."

People will always feel vulnerable about being cut off from the human community, she said, but these sites depend on a person's desire to reveal things about themselves or compare themselves to others, which can increase anxiety.

"Social networking sites have made our relationships more reliable," Rosen concluded, "but whether they have made them more satisfying remains to be seen."

Reiki Therapy Considered Unchristian

2009-04-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

US Bishops Declare Reiki Therapy Unchristian
Denounce Its Use in Catholic Institutions

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 1, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Reiki, a Japanese alternative medicine, lacks scientific credibility and is outside Christian faith, making it unacceptable for Catholic health care institutions, the U.S. bishops' conference stated.

On Saturday, the conference issued the "Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy," developed by their committee on doctrine, headed by Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and approved by the administrative committee Friday.

The document notes that "the Church recognizes two kinds of healing: healing by divine grace and healing that utilizes the powers of nature," which "are not mutually exclusive.

"Reiki, however, "finds no support either in the findings of natural science or in Christian belief," it explained.

The guidelines note that this technique of healing "was invented in Japan in the late 1800s by Mikao Usui, who was studying Buddhist texts."

The report continues: "According to Reiki teaching, illness is caused by some kind of disruption or imbalance in one's 'life energy.' A Reiki practitioner effects healing by placing his or her hands in certain positions on the patient's body in order to facilitate the flow of Reiki, the 'universal life energy,' from the Reiki practitioner to the patient."

Spiritual healing

It further explains that the therapy has several aspects of a religion, being "described as a 'spiritual' kind of healing," with its own ethical precepts or "way of life."

Reiki "has not been accepted by the scientific and medical communities as an effective therapy," noted the guidelines. "Reputable scientific studies attesting to the efficacy of Reiki are lacking, as is a plausible scientific explanation as to how it could possibly be efficacious."

Nor can faith be the basis of this therapy, the bishops affirmed, as Reiki is different than the "divine healing known by Christians."

They explained, "The radical difference can be immediately seen in the fact that for the Reiki practitioner the healing power is at human disposal." For Christians, they said, "access to divine healing is by prayer to Christ as Lord and Savior," while Reiki is a technique passed from "master" to pupil, a method that will "reliably produce the anticipated results."

Insoluble problems

The guidelines state: "For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems. In terms of caring for one's physical health or the physical health of others, to employ a technique that has no scientific support -- or even plausibility -- is generally not prudent."

On a spiritual level, the document states, "there are important dangers." It explains: "To use Reiki one would have to accept at least in an implicit way central elements of the worldview that undergirds Reiki theory, elements that belong neither to Christian faith nor to natural science.

"Without justification either from Christian faith or natural science, however, a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition, the no-man's-land that is neither faith nor science.

"Superstition corrupts one's worship of God by turning one's religious feeling and practice in a false direction. While sometimes people fall into superstition through ignorance, it is the responsibility of all who teach in the name of the Church to eliminate such ignorance as much as possible.

"The document concludes, "Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health care facilities and retreat centers, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or to provide support for Reiki therapy."

Seek The Verdict Of Conscience

2009-03-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

“While we should strive for spiritual perfection of mind, purity and peace in God, it will be found to be not a little beneficial to this that we should return quietly into the inner secret place of the mind in the face of everything said, thought or done to us. There, withdrawn from everything else and completely recollected within ourselves, we can place ourselves in the knowledge of the truth before us and undoubtedly discover and understand that it does us absolutely no good, and rather the contrary, when we are praised or honoured by others while we recognise by the knowledge of the truth about ourselves within that we are blameworthy and guilty.

And just as nothing is any help if externally people praise someone if his conscience internally accuses him, in the same way on the contrary it does a man no harm to be despised, maligned and persecuted when he remains internally just as innocent, blameless and without fault. On the contrary he has all the more good reason to rejoice in the Lord with patience, in peace and silence. After all no adversity can do any harm where evil is not in control, and just as no evil goes unpunished, so no good goes unrewarded. Nor should we wish a reward with hypocrites or expect and receive profit from men, but from the Lord God alone, not in the present, but in the future, and not in fleeting time, but in eternity.

It is clear therefore that nothing is greater, and nothing better than to enter into the inner secret place of the mind always and in every tribulation and occurrence, and there to call upon the Lord Jesus Christ himself, our helper in temptations and tribulations, and to humble ourselves there by confession of sin, and praise God and Father himself, the giver of correction and the giver of consolation.

Above all one should accept everything, in general and individually, in oneself or in others, agreeable or disagreeable, with a prompt and confident spirit, as coming from the hand of his infallible Providence or the order he has arranged. This attitude will lead to the forgiveness of our sins, the deliverance from bitterness, the enjoyment of joy and security, the outpouring of grace and mercy, introduction and establishment into a close relationship with God, abundant enjoyment of his presence, and firm cleaving and union with him.

But let us not copy those who from hypocrisy and Pharisaism want to appear better and different from what they are, and to make a better impression and appearance before men of being something special, than they know in truth inside to be so. For it is absolute madness to seek, hunger for and aspire to human praise or renown, from oneself or others, when one is in spite of it all inwardly full of cravings and serious faults.

And certainly the good things we have talked about above will flee him who chases such vanities, and he will merely bring disgrace on himself. So always keep your faults and your own incapacity before your eyes, and know yourself, so that you can be humbled and not try to avoid being held as the lowest, vilest and most abject scum by everyone when you are aware of the grave sins and serious faults in yourself.

For which reason consider yourself compared to others as dross to gold, weeds to the wheat, chaff to the grain, a wolf to the sheep, Satan to the children of God. And do not seek to be respected by others and given precedence before others, but rather flee with all your heart and soul the poison of this disease, the venom of praise, the concern for boasting and vanity, lest, as the prophet says, The wicked is praised in his own heart’s desires, (Psalm 10.4) and Isaiah, They who speak good of you, deceive you and destroy the way of your feet, (Isaiah 3.12) and the Lord in Luke, Woe to you when men speak well of you! (Luke 6.26).”

That we should seek the verdict of our conscience in every decision – On Cleaving to God

– SAINT ALBERT THE GREAT

(This was taken from the internet website: AETERNUS )

A Humble Opinion Of Oneself

2009-03-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

"You don't love in your enemies what they are, but what you would have them become by your prayers." (ST. AUGUSTINE)

"If it seems to you that you know many things and thoroughly understand them all, realize that there are countless other things of which you are ignorant. Be not haughty, but admit your ignorance. Why should you prefer yourself to another, when there are many who are more learned and better trained in God's law than you are? If you are looking for knowledge and a learning that is useful to you, then love to be unknown and be esteemed as nothing. ... It is great wisdom and perfection to consider ourselves as nothing and always to judge well and highly of others. If you should see someone commit a sin or some grievous wrong, do not think of yourself as someone better, for you know not how long you will remain in good state. We are all frail; but think of yourself as one who is more frail than others." (THOMAS A' KEMPIS, from the book THE IMITATION OF CHRIST)

Prayer, A Way Of Learning Hope

2007-12-26T08:22:00.000-08:00

"... When I can no longer talk to anyone or call upon anyone, I can always talk to God. When there is no longer anyone to help me deal with a need or expectation that goes beyond the human capacity for hope, he can help me. When I have been plunged into complete solitude ... if I pray I am never totally alone. The late Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan, a prisoner for thirteen years, nine of them spent in solitary confinement, has left us a precious little book:
Prayers of Hope. During thirteen years in jail, in a situation of seemingly utter hopelessness, the fact that he could listen and speak to God became for him an increasing power of hope, which enabled him, after his release, to become for people all over the world a witness to hope - to that great hope which does not wane even in the nights of solitude."

"Saint Augustine in a homily on the First Letter of John, describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He difines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness - for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. 'By delaying [this gift], God strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him]'. ... 'Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey [a symbol of God's tenderness and goodness]; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?' The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste. This requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined. ... not only are we made free for God, but we also become open to others. ... To pray is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness. When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well. In prayer we must learn what we can truly ask of God - what is worthy of God. We must learn that we cannot pray against others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment - that meagre, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to recognize them. "But who can disceern his errors? Clear me from hidden faults." (Psalms 19:12 [18:13]) Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence, does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize the evil in me for what it is. If God does not exist, perhaps I have to seek refuge in these lies, because there is no one who can forgive me; no one who is the true criterion. Yet my encounter with God awakens my conscience in such a way that it no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere reflection of me and those of my contemporaries who shape my thinking, but it becomes a capacity for listening to the Good itself." (Spe Salvi, - Encyclical Letter of Pope Benedict XVI on Christian Hope, paragraphs 32-33)

Parenting (A Synopsis)

2007-10-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

Parenting Moment By Moment

2007-10-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel you're not a good parent? ... Do you find yourself looking at your child sometimes, and wonder where have you gone wrong? Do you sometimes conclude in your thinking that your kid's misbehavior and sometimes defiance is your fault? "Maybe I've been too hard on him," you reason with yourself. Or, "Possibly I've not been hard enough!"

The point in this reading today is, "Begin where you are in this moment, regardless of what has happened before. God has not only given you your child to parent, but He also gives you what you need, moment-by-moment, so that you "can" parent your child.

Without forgiveness as a cool soothing cream to apply gently on ourselves, there is no way we can parent our children effectively in the manner we must.

Did a while ago anger, doubt, fear or impatience surge from your lips in the heat of a moment? Then welcome the next moment. It is new. The one you are in now. View it as an opportunity to be what you can be then. Take into yourself the love, patience and forgiveness God gives you from Himself. Remember, He is a Parent too. Knowing this, you can pass this love, patience and forgiveness to your son or daughter afresh and anew.

Forgive yourself. You "are" a good enough parent. Don't let unnecessary guilt take your strength away.

Written by Jim Hogue, MA, MFTI
Supervisor: Peter Mosgofian, MA, MFC

************

Has your parent broken the "law" in any way? I mean specifically in relationship with you. Has your mom or dad "abused" you, as it were, in a way that is legislatively declared "illegal"? ... OK. If not, then you have the responsibility as their kid to be "respectful" and "kind" to them. It is necessary that you speak and act toward your father and mother in ways that do not bring stress upon them.

You see, it's your parents duty to provide a place for you to live. You are to have food and clothing. Beyond this, the rest is just "icing on the cake", so to speak.

My point is this, "Being a parent is difficult." If that was all your parents had to do was "parent you", then "parenting you" would not be so difficult!

But you see, you are "not" the only thing going on in your parents' lives. Your mom and dad have jobs to do, bills to pay, a house to clean, and grocery carts to push at the store to keep you fed. I mean there's like a "thousand" other details they have to care of beyond just thinking of you!

A good idea would be for you to sometime "thank your parents for how they are so nice to you." (They don't have to be so nice, and you know it!)

I know telling your parents you appreciate them asking a lot. (Or so you might think.) But actually, doing this is not as "difficult" as you might think. Yet, if it "is" that difficult for you, then "write something nice on a piece of paper and act like you accidently dropped the paper at their feet while passing by them! If you have to, run out of the building rapidly after doing so. Do "anything" it takes to get a the least bit of thankfulness across to them!!!

Remember, you might be a parent yourself someday. If this happens, may God help you, because you will need it!!!

Written by Jim Hogue, MA, MFTI
Supervisor: Peter Mosgofian, MA, MFC

Train Up A Child??? (Help!!!)

2007-10-11T11:05:00.001-07:00

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

Is this statement from the Bible true? Based on what we see today, it is easy to believe that this well known and much studied verse is out of date, insignificant, and has entirely lost its influence.

Let me tell you now, this profound psychological principal embedded in scripture, remains valid today. It is more true today than perhaps ever before.

Then why are we losing confidence in this ancient proverb? For what reason have we "lost touch" with this vital principle, as we as well-meaning parents, search for ways to raise our children?

It is because, in many families, it is the "children" who are training "parents" in how "they", the children, wish to be raised!

A child can "turn-the-tables" on his or her parents. A mom and a dad can "think" they are parenting when they're not! A child can "parent the parents" on how to parent. All this, remarkably, while the child, not even for a second, assumes no responsibility to respect the needs and wishes of others.

There are many ways this is accomplished in homes. For now let me ask you, do you ever become "weary" of the fight? Do you ever just "give-in" to the demands of your son or daughter, just so there can be some "peace" at the end of the day? Then your child, regardless of age or weight beyond infancy, is using "shere fatigue", your fatigue, to train you in how he (or she) will be parented.

There are many other tricks used against parents to rob you of your empowerment as a parent. Not only from children, but also from the society we live in. ... More on this later. ...

Written by Jim Hogue, MA, MFTI
Supervisor: Peter Mosgofian, MA, MFT

The Umbrella Of Parental Authority

2007-10-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

When a kid shows basic respect and honor to his parents or guardians, he or she is "protected" under that parental "umbrella of authority." One example of this is when a child continues angry defiance against parents, that child is left to depend upon his or her own "reasoning" to "make sense of the world."

All adults understand how confusing matters of the world can be. Think of how that is like for s newly maturing mind of a child or teenager. Because of this, when a son or daughter gives basic respect to the thoughts and feelings of his or her parents, that child can trust that the adults in charge in the family know best what decisions and actions are best for the problems in the world. Then, for the periods of childhood and adolescence, the young one has the luxury and safety to not "worry" about such complicated and profound matters. Instead he or she need only experience childhood and adolescence with all its enjoyments and opportunities as they happen daily towards personal growth.

"What about the war in Iraq," ... "World hunger", ... "Who will be our country's next president, and what will happen when that president is elected?" A child who has reasonable respect for mom and dad need not worry about such matters, for he or she knows decisions of this kind can be trusted to the more experienced intellects of father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, teacher, principal, pastor or priest.

Basically, if a child thinks his parents are "stupid", then that child's mind has no alternative but to default to solving major problems in life "alone" intellectually, before he has acquired coping skills to do so. This subtle, but stressful, mental experience is enough to drive any kid to anger, depression, drugs, fighting, arguing, defiance and many other bad decisions and behaviors.

Let's return to realizing the great honor of being a parent in our childrens' lives. And if they defy our healthy judgment, may we remember the valuable, God-given position we occupy.

Written by Jim Hogue, MA, MFTI
(Supervised by Peter Mosgofian, MA, MFT)

Unborn Worthy To Live

2007-09-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

Building Emotional Walls

2007-09-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a family who lived in a beautiful house. The family had lots of the material things that many people think are important for contentment. The family, however, was not contented. With one misunderstanding and another, the situation grew worse and worse. Nobody would give way an inch in their bitter arguments, until at last the family's love turned to hate. Finally certain ones in the family insisted that inside the house they would build brick walls to divide other family members. Each went his and her own way, and each never spoke to the others again as long as they lived. The family had many wretched years in their isolation.

Today's Reminder
Am I unknowingly building walls between myself and the people in my family? Are the walls being made of stubbornness, self-will, self-righteousness and a desire to punish? Such walls can be as hard and unyielding as though they were made of real bricks. It would leave me no space in which to grow.

"God grant me the wisdom to recognize the faults I am building into walls, such walls as cannot be penetrated even by love."

[Taken and fashioned from "One Day At A Time In Al-Anon
for general family relationships by Jim Hogue, MA, MFTI]

The Role of Father in Raising Children

2007-09-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

A father must “come between” a mother and her child to sever the child’s natural bond of dependence on the mother and to lead the child out into the world so that the child can develop his or her talents and take up a meaningful, productive life of honesty and integrity.

All of us have experienced the delight of being fed and protected when we were helpless infants. In fact, if we don’t experience it, we die. And the delight of this early infantile experience, which makes no demands on us and leaves us free simply to enjoy it, is at the root of our adult yearnings for a “utopia” in which all of our needs are taken care of effortlessly.

But to function responsibly as an adult, a child must pass beyond this care-free infantile state of dependence. If this task fails, the child will remain neurotically dependent on maternal protection and will be afflicted with doubts and anxieties about assuming personal responsibility in the world. Moreover, the child’s talents will either remain buried in fear or will be expressed largely through an unconscious grandiosity. And, in its most severe manifestations, alcoholism and drug addictions can develop in adolescence and adulthood, because all addictions have their roots in a desire to escape the demands of personal responsibilities and return to an idyllic feeling of care-free bliss.

A child, therefore, has three essential tasks which must be accomplished under the guidance of a father.

1. To learn how the world works.
The father must teach the child not only about the abstract—and often dangerous—dynamics of social relationships beyond the family itself but must also provide instruction in the practical rules governing the physical world, including honest, productive work in the world.

Imagine a primitive society of forest dwellers. To teach the child how the world “works,” the father must take the child out into the depths of the forest and show the child how to survive and eat by using weapons, building fires, and making shelters. Now, the modern world may not be a forest anymore—though it is often enough called a jungle—yet the forest metaphor aptly describes the process by which a father must teach a child “how the world works.”

2. To learn to trust.

Yes, a child will more-or-less “trust” a nurturing mother. This sort of trust, though, is a necessary part of mother-infant bonding for the sake of the infant’s physical survival.

Real trust requires that the child grow to depend on and respect the father, a person different from the mother from whom the child originated; that is, the father is a different body and a different gender from the mother. The father—and only a father—can therefore teach the child to enter the world and encounter difference confidently. But, to be a successful teacher, the father must teach this from the place of his own faith and obedience. In other words, the father must live from his heart by the rules he teaches to his children. In this way the children can learn to trust him through his own integrity. Otherwise, the children will see him for a hypocrite and will disavow—openly or secretly—everything he represents.

3. To learn to trust oneself.

As a child receives instruction from a trustworthy father and develops a sense of confidence under the father’s compassionate guidance, the child will then be able to function more and more independently, assimilating the father’s external guidance into an internal, psychological confidence.

First the father builds a fire, saying to the child, “Watch me.” Then the father encourages the child to build the fire. Finally the child goes off into the forest alone, and builds a fire on his own, confident in what he learned from his father.

*Lack*

Now, considering all of this about the role of a father, look about you and see how many fathers fail miserably in their responsibilities. How many fathers are absent from the family because they were nothing more than sperm donors in a moment of lust? How many fathers are absent from the family because of divorce? How many fathers are absent from the family because their adultery draws them away to another woman? How many fathers are absent from the family because they are emotionally insensitive to their children’s needs? How many fathers are absent from the family because they are preoccupied with work or sports? How many fathers are absent from the family because they are preoccupied with their own pride and arrogance? How many fathers are absent from the family because of alcoholism? How many fathers are absent from the family because of illness? How many fathers are absent from the family because a woman decided she didn’t need a man to have a child? It can go on and on. And it does.

And the sad thing is that when a father is absent—whether physically or emotionally—his lack causes a lack in the children. Lacking understanding of how the world works, lacking trust in others, and lacking trust in themselves, children—whether they be boys or girls—become lost, insecure, and confused. They lack confidence. They lack real faith. They lack a spiritually meaningful future. They lack life. All because their fathers were lacking.

Please note, though, that all of this lack resulting from the lack of a father is, in many cases, largely unconscious.

Yes, some persons are truly crippled—both emotionally and socially—by the lack of a father, and their lives become dysfunctional and stuck.

But other persons are able to keep up a surface appearance of functionality; they hold jobs, they get married, and they have children. Yet under the surface of normality a deep secret of anger and victimization is buried. Here are the dark roots of symptom after symptom of secret resentment for the father. Argumentativeness. Passive-aggression. Suspiciousness. Trying to make others “face the truth.” Being late for appointments. Procrastination. Learning disorders. Difficulty following directions or reading maps. Getting lost. Mental confusion at just the times when clarity of thought is needed. And all addictions—not just drug and alcohol addiction, but also obesity, cigarette smoking, and pornography. This list can go on and on. And it does. All because a father, in his physical, emotional, or spiritual absence, failed to instill in a child a sense of inner stability, trust, and confidence.

(This article is again a work of Dr. Raymond Lloyd Richmond.
For this and other writings by him, go to The Role Of Father .)

Depression & Suicide

2007-09-09T21:51:00.001-07:00

He was about 7 years old. It was after dinner, and the evening sun of midsummer still hung low in the sky. Suddenly, he ran into the house and threw himself onto his bed, crying, saying, over and over through his tears, “I wish I were dead.”

Dr. Raymond Lloyd Richmond continues to write: ... As I look back on this event, I can now also recall the rest of the story. My mother had denied me something I wanted (though what it was is long forgotten), I felt unrecognized and unloved, and I was angry at her. In my mind, I began to wish she were dead—but only for a split second, because on the edge of consciousness it occurred to me that if she were to die, I would have no mother and that I would be left all alone in the world with no one to take care of me. So my mind quickly turned away from that wish for her death, with all of it’s lonely implications, and, feeling quite guilty about the whole thing, I began to wish for my own death. After all, what kind of a person could be so dependent on someone else, so helpless and afraid? A no good piece of nothing, that’s who, and he deserves to die.

In psychological terms, I repressed my anger for my mother and ended up turning my frustration against myself. The proverb “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” sums this up nicely. It’s a terrible bind for a child. And, if it happens often enough, it can prevent the child from being able to express emotions appropriately—because with every angry thought comes the fear of losing someone’s love or protection.

In my own life, beginning with my psychoanalysis as a student, I have had to come to terms with this event and how it has affected my life. I, like many of my own patients, have been forced as an adult to learn how to come to terms honestly with feelings of insult and hurt.

Now, the fleeting suicidal fantasy that I encountered in that moment of childhood frustration was not a clinical case of suicidal depression. Nevertheless, in my professional experience I have seen the dynamic of suppressed anger as a major motive behind clinical depression, and ultimately, as the unconscious motive for serious suicidal thoughts. Someone close to you hurts you, and “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” kicks in from childhood. Fearing the loss of that person’s love, you keep silent about your feelings and ultimately—as a way to escape the guilt of your dependency—you begin wishing for your own destruction. (Which, as an adult, you actually have the power to bring about.)

But there is one other element to the process.

It isn’t just that a person fails to communicate with others honestly. If you are hurt often enough, in keeping silent about it, and in feeling guilty about being so dependent on someone’s love, you can begin to believe not just that you are unloved but that you are despised. If you ever reach this point you then seemingly become a “partner” in your own destruction.

In fact, some persons will even kill themselves to avoid admitting that their parents did not love them—that is, that the parents did not acknowledge the child’s individual needs with true love.

Has anyone ever pushed you away when you wanted to be held? Has anyone ever given more attention to a bottle of alcohol than to you? Has anyone ever laughed at you when you were hurt? Has anyone ever told you that you were too dumb to succeed? Has anyone ever refused you help when you asked for it? Do you get the idea? No one may have actually told you to kill yourself, but all these sorts of behavioral cues give a clear impression: “You are of no importance to me.” “I have no concern for you.” “You’re not special.” “You don’t deserve to be alive.” “You are garbage.”

So, to the “Other,” you (and all of us, for that matter) are just an object to be manipulated to satisfy someone else. It’s a losing game to try to make the “Other” love you. It’s a losing game to make the “Other” say you’re special. Sure, you can try to do all the right things, like drink the right brand of cola, eat at the right fast-food place, wear the right jeans, expose all the right pieces of flesh, pierce and tattoo yourself in the right places, use the right lingo, work for the right company—but once you slip up, then it’s the garbage can for you.

Thus you can “tune in” to the resentment of others subliminally, and, if you’re not psychologically aware, you can come to believe that these perceptions you receive from others are truth and reality about your personal value—or lack of it.

I’m not trying to tell you here that no one feels affection for you. You can argue all you want that your mother and father care about you somehow, and I won’t object, because on some level they do care about you. The real point is that many persons who claim to care about you also give indications, through behaviors and things they say and think, that their affection for you is mixed with resentment. Thus, instead of teaching you how to love by the example of true love, they “infect” you emotionally with a fear of love. It’s not pretty to see this directly, so that’s why you have defenses that blind you to it. But it’s real. At the core, that’s where suicidal feelings originate. Not that anyone is necessarily literally wishing you to die, but that the feeling of resentment that they project can get so strong that you end up feeling like garbage. And from there it is only one small step to make yourself garbage.

So, once your psychotherapy drags you through the pain of this realization about human nature—and you accept it all without defense and resistance—you will then have the strength to “see through” the illusions of the “Other” and claim your own right to exist.

(For the above quote, go to Depression And Suicide by Dr. Raymond Lloyd Richmond.)

True Love (What Is It?) [1 of 8]

2007-08-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

True Love (Many Don't Understand) [2 of 8]

2007-08-31T10:09:00.000-07:00

True Love (What Is Imitation Love?) [3 of 8]

2007-08-31T10:06:00.000-07:00

True Love (How It Can Turn Bad) [4 of 8]

2007-08-31T10:02:00.000-07:00

True Love (When A Relationship Dies) [5 of 8]

2007-08-31T09:59:00.000-07:00

True Love (The Problem Of Anger) [6 of 8]

2007-08-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

True Love (How To Find It) [7 of 8]

2007-08-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

True Love (How To Change Someone) [8 of 8]

2007-08-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

Psalm 23 (Recited by a little girl!!!)

2007-08-29T00:27:00.000-07:00

Parent Digest (a Blog also by Jim Hogue)

2007-08-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

This is to introduce another one of my blogs: PARENT DIGEST .

I have worked for years with teens and children with problem behaviors and/ or users of drugs. The following is a growing list of videos that are available as a portion of assignments to families I'm counseling. Readers to "Catholic Psychology Blogspot" are also welcome to access this valuable video collection. (In parenthesis you find the length of each video in minutes and seconds.)

* Dealing With Deception And Lies (3:33)
* How To Discipline Teenagers (2:41)
* Causes Of Compusions And Addiction (32:22)
* Kids Who Say "Don't Drink!" (6:21)
* Daughter Having Sex With Boyfriend (Help!) (2:27)
* Why A Daughter Needs A Dad (2:12)
* House Of Tiny Terrors!!! (2:53)
* Marijuana (What Many Teens Think) (22:22)
* What Age To Begin Consequences (1:51)
* The Teenager's Brain (7:12)
* Have Kids Changed, - or Parents? (4:55)
* "I'm Afraid To Let Others Help Me Parent!!!" (1:49)
* How To Not Spoil Your Kid (1:26)
* Tolerating Poor Behavior? (4:38)
* Daughter Cutting Herself (Help!) (2:11)
* "Is My Kid Too Old To Control?" (2:44)
* Consequences (to Drugs and Alcohol) (10:00)
* Prescription Drug Abuse (60:00)
* Marijuana (The Facts) (60:00)
* Electronic Game Addiction? [1 of 4] (5:22)
* Electronic Game Addiction? [2 of 4] (7:08)
* Electronic Game Addiction? [3 of 4] (7:46)
* Electronic Game Addiction? [4 of 4] (9:08)
* Bill Cosby On Parenting [1 of 3] (7:39)
* Bill Cosby On Parenting [2 of 3] (9:35)
* Bill Cosby On Parenting [3 of 3] (8:06)
* Using Consequences (4:45)
* Creating Boundaries (4:17)
* Warning Signs Of Drug Use (2:06)
* Introduction To Alcohol And Drug Use (3:04)
* Protective Parenting (1:31)
* Parenting style (2:57)
* Adolescent Development (3:47)

Last Rites / Anointing of the Sick

2007-08-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

This is a beautiful story by Aimee Milburn of Historical Christian, regarding her brother Mark, his death, and how the Catholic Sacrament of "Last Rites" played such a vital role in both of their lives. In her own words she writes the following:

Mark was born just 17 months ahead of me, and we grew up together, one grade apart in school. We fought like cats and dogs when we were little, but by the time we got into high school we realized we could be allies against mom and dad, and became friends.

It was a pretty free-wheeling time, the sexual revolution was in full swing, and I decided I was a liberated feminist, and my brother decided he was gay. We both embarked on our respective free-wheeling lifestyles, my brother plunging into the gay lifestyle. We traded stories with each other, commiserated about relationships, went dancing together when we got old enough to get into clubs, and traveled together. We really had some adventures, and I loved my brother dearly.

This was before anybody had heard of AIDS, but within a few years we did hear about it. And one Christmas afternoon I received a phone call I will never forget: my brother, telling me he had contracted the virus. I was 25. I knew my brother had just received a death sentence. I cried that night like I’d never cried before.

As it turns out, my brother was a long-term survivor, lived 15 years with the disease. During those years I lived in different parts of the country, but we stayed in touch, carried on long talks on the phone, and always sent each other $20 on our birthdays. One year I received a $20 bill on which he had written, “This is the $20 bill we always exchange on our birthdays.” I kept it, still have it packed away somewhere.

I always told my brother during those years that if he really got sick and it looked like the end was coming, I’d move back and help him, and be with him when he died. He managed to stay somewhat healthy for several years, with the help of drugs and good diet, but gradually he declined. He went on full disability for a few more years, but hated it, so developed hobbies to stay busy. He turned his entire front yard into a flower garden, filling it with rose bushes and giant sunflowers and all kinds of other flowers. He filled his apartment with plants and aquariums.

Finally, one day I got a call from my parents that Mark had gone into a real decline, and it wasn’t clear how long he would last. I was living in Seattle, a place I loved with a job and a community I loved, but I resigned the job and moved back home, to help my brother and be with him when he died, as I always said I would.

Continue reading "The Death of my Brother, and Hope" »

Morning After Pill (An Abortifacient)

2007-08-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

The Teenager's Brain (Not Yet Complete!)

2007-08-18T00:05:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wondered why it is sometimes difficult to get a teenager to listen and do what you want him to do? Have you ever wondered why it is often best to not entirely leave an adolescent alone to make his or her decisions? Well, watch this video and the proof will become very clear to you. It makes me think of Proverbs 22:6 ...

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

I mean, literally, there are "Neronic Pathways" permanently formed in the organicity of your kid's brain matter, as you do what that Bible tells you to do in training him!!!

(NOTE: The Frontal Lobe Cortex of the brain of young men and women do not mature to full growth for functional decsion-making until about ages 22-24.)

"Be Not Afraid!!!" (Pope John Paul the Great)

2007-08-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

How To Love Others (Mother Teresa)

2007-08-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

Finding Purpose in Life ("The Station")

2007-08-09T23:01:00.000-07:00

As fish in a pond, describing something outside ourselves is impossible for us to do. Yet, God looks in on time and sees our lives from beginning to end.

We, however, being mortal, possess only one thing, that is this moment. The past is not here, it has already gone. The future is not real, for it is beyond our reach and may never arrive. The only thing that is real to us, is this moment, and only that which is in this moment.

Too often we think of a "made up" future we invent with our minds, but actually, this made up future does not exist in the real world. We do this, sometimes feverishly, while the moment that is real eludes us.

The past is not here, to us, it has already left. Still we think on it and think on it, as if the past were now with us. It is not.

All that is real is what is in this moment. The sensation of feeling the chair we sit in. Awareness of the air we breathe. The experience of realizing thirst, then quinching that thirst in the moment, with cool, clean life-giving water.

And it is in this moment that God is on His throne. We are not seated on that throone, neither should we be.

How do we do this? I mean, give command of our lives to a Higher Power? It is by staying in the moment, knowing that our Creator promises to give us what we need to survive, to thrive, completely, but only one moment at a time. Then it is in the moment that we see opportunities to love where love is needed. Only then, in each moment, do we see what is beautiful, beauty we would normaly miss by being busy in our heads.

We don't need to save the world. God is busy doing that. We need only take in life as it comes, and thus, let God do His work through us, each moment. Only then can we perform acts of kindness that we would otherwise fail to attain.

And, oh yes, this God loves us more than our minds in this life can possibly conceive.

Bill Cosby on Parenting

2007-08-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

In North America so many of us value Bill Cosby as a person, not only for his marvelous humor for decades. One thing that is interesting in this video presentation of Mr. Cosby speaking at the coronation of a mission for children, is when he says he thinks churches should remain open at all costs, and be always available to answer the perplexing questions of young people. Also interesting about this talk by Bill Cosby, is the context of his humor, yet good advise, having experienced the murder of his own son several years ago.

Moral Compass Examination for Couples

2007-08-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

The following "Moral-Compass-Examination- for-Couples" is not the creation of "Catholic Psychology Blogspot", but is solely to be credited to Susan Vogt, MA, CFLE at the valuable Christian internet website "For Your Marriage" . I place Counselor Susan Vogt's statements and examination here to call complete attention to this much needed testing instrument. For access to the examination in PDF, click on "Do The Two Of You Have The Same Moral Compass?".

"Couples don't have to always agree on what color to paint the kitchen, but disagreeing on when to have a baby or whether both spouses should work outside the home are decisions of values and conscience. If it's a matter of morality, the rule of thumb is to not violate the stricter partner's conscience."

*********
Circle the number that best reflects how much you care about the following moral issues:

(The scale is from 1 to 5. Beginning with "Don't Care", "Some What", then number "5" is "Very Important".)

1. Attending religious services religiously, i.e. weekly. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

2. Raising our children in a religious faith. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

3. Have our children attend religious schools even if it's a financial hardship. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

4. Having our children attend a religious education program if they don't go to a religious school. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

5. Donating a portion of our income (ideally a tithe of 10%) to charity. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

6. Planning our family in accordance with church teaching. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

7. Having one parent at home while the children are young. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

8. Paying our legitimate taxes even if others do not. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

9. Caring for the environment by doing things like recycling, avoiding excessive packaging, minimizing car use, composting ... ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

10. Taking good care of my physical health through eating nutritious foods, exercising, notsmoking, and avoiding excessive alcohol or drugs. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

11. Living simply, avoiding undo consumption and a luxurious lifestyle. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

12. Live within our means. If our means are great, then our moral responsibility is to use our excess to help others. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

13. Being responsive to my spouse's requests for sexual intimacy. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

14. Being an active citizen, voting, working for political issues or candidates, doing volunteer comunity work, etc.. ( 1 2 3 4 5 )

*************
Bonus questions for discussion:

What social and religious causes are you most passionate about?

Politics is grounded in many moral assumptions. What political candidate did you support in the last election? Does your spouse share your politics?

SCORING:
Add up all your points. If your totals vary by:

Less than 15 points: Your moral compasses are very compatible. You may not always be right, but at least you share similar values. Consider if there are many moral issues that call you to become more generous or life-giving.

16 to 49 points: Time to discuss the issues you differ on by more than one number. Try to balance rationalizing away differences with being overly scrupulous.

Over 50 points: You're living on different planets. Talk with a priest or a pastoral counselor soon.

Abortion (Post Abortion Distress Symptoms)

2007-08-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

Post Abortion Distress Symptoms
(Immediate and/or delayed symptoms may include):

* Anxiety/stress;
* Severe guilt;
* Regret;
* Sadness/sorrow;
* Feelings of loss and emptiness;
* Crying (sometimes for hours or days at a time);
* Depression;
* Inability to concentrate or work;
* Lowered self esteem/self-hatred;
* Desire for secrecy about abortion;
* Nightmares or flashbacks;
* Inability to sustain an intimate relationship;
* Anger or rage;
* Hatred towards anyone connected with the abortion;
* Emotional numbness;
* Severe emotional pain;
* Drug or alcohol abuse;
* Eating disorders;
* Sexual dysfunction (loss of pleasure, frigidity, and/or increased sexual activity);
* Desire to become pregnant again;
* Compulsions to touch or avoid babies;
* Repeat abortions; and
* Suicidal impulses.

(Women may experience some, all, or none of these symptoms. If these symptoms occur or persist, it is important to get help. )

[Taken from the internet site Abortion Concern . ]

Homosexuality (Catholic Moral Perspective)

2007-08-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

Parents, Stop Feeling Guilty!!!

2007-08-05T22:33:00.000-07:00

Stop feeling guilty parents. As long as you're not breaking the law, nothing says you have to be a "perfect" parent! Just be a PARENT! Speak frankly to your children about what you know to be true, and don't fall for the "guilt trip". Your kids will respect you and love you more for it later.

For short videos of excellent professional teaching on how to deal with problem behavior in children and adolescents, go to my new developing website entitled Parent Digest .

In my counseling practice in Eureka, California, I do much work in the area of changing the behaviors of acting-out youth. Some posts in the future on "Catholic Psychology Blogspot" will address this very important issue in our society.

For now, just know this, in the Ten Commandments it says that a son or daughter is to "honor their father and mother". It says further that this is the one of all the ten commandments that has a promise. That if the kid "does" honor their father and mother, "the rest of their life will go well!" ... Note the commandment does "not" say, for example, to honor your mother, "unless she happened to have gotten up that morning in a bad mood", or, "if she didn't select the best of words when telling you to wash your plate after eating breakfast!!!"

Remember, not only did God give you your child with all that child's uniqueness, so that you will survive and raise that child up to be an adult, but God also gave your child "YOU" as his "PARENT", so that that child will survive "YOU" who are also "UNIQUE"!!! ... Some how this is to prepare that kid for other trials that will come in his or her future ...

Yes, speak the truth to your children. Tell them what they need to hear. They need it. (And don't feel guilty.)

How To Love Those We Live With!!!

2007-08-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

.
To All The Mothers...

This is for all the mothers who froze their buns off on metal bleachers at football games Friday night instead of watching from cars, so that when their kids asked, "Did you see me?" they could say, "Of course, I wouldn't have missed it for the world," and mean it.
.
This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Mayer wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's OK honey, Mommy's here."
.
This is for all the mothers of Kosovo who fled in the night and can't find their children.
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This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And the mothers who took those babies and made them homes.
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For all the mothers of the victims of the Colorado shooting, and the mothers of the murderers. For the mothers of the survivors, and the mothers who sat in front of their TV's in horror, hugging their child who just came home from school, safely.
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For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes. And all the mothers who DON'T.
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What makes a good Mother anyway? Is it patience? Compassion? Broad hips? The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all at the same time? Or is it heart? Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to School alone for the very first time? The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread, from bed to crib at 2 A.M. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?
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The need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear news of a school shooting, a fire, a car accident, a baby dying?
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This is for all the mothers that sat down with their children and explained all about making babies. And for all the mothers who wanted to but just couldn't.
.
This is for reading "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then reading it again. "Just one more time."
.
This is for all the mothers who mess up. Who yell at their kids in the grocery store and swat them in despair and stomp their feet like a tired two-year old who wants ice cream before dinner.
.
This is for all the mothers who taught their daughters to tie their shoelaces before they started school. And for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.
.
For all the mothers who bite their lips -- sometimes until they bleed -- when their 14-year-olds dye their hair green. Who lock themselves in the bathroom when babies keep crying and won't stop.
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This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up in their hair and milk stains on their blouses and diapers in their purse. This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their daughters to sink a jump shot.
.
This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at home.
.
This is for mothers who put pinwheels and teddy bears on their children's graves.
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This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the words to reach them.
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This is for all the mothers who sent their sons to school with stomachaches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there, only to get calls from the school nurse and hour later asking them to please pick them up. Right away.
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This is for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation. And mature mothers learning to let go. For working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. Single mothers and married mothers. Mothers with money, mothers without. This is for you all. So hang in there.
.
Please pass along to all the moms in your life. "Home" is what catches you when we fall - and we all fall. PLEASE PASS THIS TO A WONDERFUL MOTHER YOU KNOW.

Author Unknown
Since the writer wanted her message passed along --
We share it with you.
( http://www.butlerwebs.com/holidays/mothersday.htm )

Fearing Life's Monsters (Grown-Up Phobia's)

2007-08-01T12:06:00.000-07:00

It is a grave mistake to believe that just because the words "religion", "faith", "prayer" and "God" are used in a sentence, that the sentence is no longer a psychological application and solution for life's problems.

Psychology means "the study of the soul". It was from religion, and particularly from the Bible, that the initial concept of "soul" came to be truly grasped, studied and applied in personal relationships. Shall we throw all this away in the name of theories of our own reasoning?

And what if "making our souls comfortable", with acrobatics of human reason, is merely placing a small "bandaide" on a "gapping wound" in a world that has gone mad!

What if all that we fear today, is a projection of what is our greatest fear, that is, "Will there be a loving God at the end of our lives, who will love our souls and protect us from harm in the events of the coming eternity?"

Perhaps knowing what to do with our souls now; what to do with our thoughts, feelings, desires, hopes and wishes (our psychology), more completely includes knowing there is something beyond psychology, - beyond just ourselves. Maybe then, and only then, do we completely see that the things we fear in life, ... each phobia, each situation, each word, each person, each event, are in fact opportunities to witness the endless ocean of God's love when we turn to Him for strength, love and salvation.

How Big Is God? (Our Source of Wisdom)

2007-08-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

For review of this video:

The Milky Way is 588 quadrillion miles across.

There are 50 billion other galaxies in the universe.

At the Pacific Ocean's deepest point, Mt. Everest could be submerged and the summit would still be nearly 2 miles from the surface.

Your body makes and destroys 10 million red blood cells every hour. If that ratio is off 1% your life ends.

It is true that no two snoflakes have ever, or will ever, look alike.

Scientists believe there are 2,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe. (Note: Our sun is a star, and not among the largest of stars.)

It's estimated as many as 5 million species in the world have yet to be discovered.

The energy in one hurricane is equal to 500,000 atomic bombs.

"Who endowed the heart with wisdom, or gave understanding to the mind? Tell me if you know all this." (Job 38:36)

Pick-&-Choose Cafeteria Catholics (#2)

2007-07-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

I hope the readers of "Catholic Psychology Blogspot" realize the relevance of humor in the past two posts. However, we must agree we are discussing a very serious issue here. There were generations once referred to as "Baby Boomers". Then there was the "Love" generation. Some how what resulted from that was "Generation X", then finally "Generation Me"!

Let's examine ourselves carefully. In so many ways, and on so many levels, much of what we say and do can rotate solely around ourselves, and it is possible we won't even know it. This is a sobering thought if we will think about it in connection to our individual lives.

It is like this question I will now ask you. ... "Of all the creatures in the world, what is the one creature that does not know of the existence of water?" ... The answer to that question in many cases is the "fish". Often it is the "fish" that "does not know of the existence of water!" ... The reason many fish do not know of there is water, is because the fish is immersed in water constantly, thus fails to realize water exists!!!

This cannot be said regarding a "deer" for example. The deer definitely "knows" there is "water", and knows where to go get water when it needs it. When the deer is thirsty, the deer walks to the edge of a pond, bends down, then drinks from the pond which contains water. ... Being separat socially at times with the water, a deer has a profound consciousness of water! The deer realizes itself as a separate entity from water itself, and can thus go to water to drink it, or can choose not to on occasion.

This cannot be easily said for we humans in our relationship with selfishness. We people at this point of what has become a narcissistic generation. Truly "Generation Me".

In a highly technological age we are so surrounded, so immersed in selfishness in all fabrics of culture around us, that we can easily fail to see ourselves as self centered in what we do with our time, how we make our decisions, and how we honestly conduct ourselves in our personal relationships. Even doing something sacrificial for someone else, can interestingly turn out to be more for our own selfish desires, than than to be truly sacrificial for the interest of a person we say we are doing a thing for.

This is a psychological frame of mind, a process of thinking and feeling in relation to the world around us, that robs us of what we can do and be as Christians, thus Catholics, in service to our God who we say we truly believe in.

"And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, 'These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then because you are luke warm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing' - and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked" ... "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me." (Revelation 3:14-17, and 3:20)

Pick-&-Choose Cafeteria Catholics (#1)

2007-07-26T10:13:00.002-07:00

Most of us, at one time or another, have enjoyed a meal in a cafeteria. Customers pass down the line of a great variety of foods, picking this or that according to their taste, and passing up other things they do not want. You might say it is a “pick and choose" kind of eating house.

It seems that some Catholics look upon their Church in the same way, that is, as regards the doctrines of the Catholic Church. They are sometimes referred to as “Cafeteria Catholics.” They feel they can “pick and choose” among the various doctrines and laws of the Church, some of which they accept, others they feel they are not obliged to obey. More and more today there are those who call themselves Catholic, who feel they can, and must, decide for themselves which of the teachings of the Church they will accept, and which they will not. How many, for example, do not accept the clear teaching of the Church in regard to such basic things as birth control, or premarital sex, or divorce and remarriage, etc. They look upon these teachings not as laws, but, at best, as ideals that they may not be able to live up to. Many things have changed in the Church, they say, since the second Vatican Council.

Yet, Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now Pope Benedict), stated clearly and emphatically in the book “The Cardinal Ratzinger Report,” that it is absolutely incorrect to refer to Pre-Vatican Council II and Post-Vatican Council II, as if there were changes in the Church’s position in matters of faith and morals. The only changes in that respect have sprung from erroneous interpretations of the Council.

As regards the “picking and choosing” of what teachings of the Church some will follow or not follow, Pope John Paul II stated in his talk to the Bishops in Los Angeles in 1987:

>“It is sometimes reported that a large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the Catholic Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage. Some are reported as not accepting the clear position on abortion. It has to be noted that there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in their adherence to the Church’s moral teaching. It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the magisterium is totally compatible with being a “good Catholic,” and poses no obstacle to the reception of the Sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching of the Bishops in the United States and elsewhere.”

If we can believe the polls, we are experiencing in the Church at the present time a considerable amount of dissent from the teaching of the Church. ... (All of the above was written in an article by Father Paul A. Duffner, O.P., The Rosary Light & Life - Vol 46, No 4, Jul.-Aug. 1993 )

The Psychology Of Seeking Poverty

2007-07-25T15:55:00.000-07:00

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Let us not be fooled. ... There is a Christian Psychology, thus a Catholic Psychology. Among others, we see it in St. Francis of Assisi. His father was a wealthy merchant, but St. Francis chose to leave his life of wealth to pursue utter devotion to Christ in poverty. Before Catholic religious, he stripped himself of his clothing and took on a poor man's garb to symbolize his devotion.

The Catholic Church was in need of reformation. That reformation happened not by protesting reformers, but by people like St. Francis of Assisi, who stayed in the Church and created change from the inside as a servant.

He had a dream that God wanted him to repair His Church. St. Francis saw an old church building, and thought this was what God wanted him to repair. He did so, but then realized that perhaps God meant more than simply this.

Then St. Francis asked to see the Pope. Arriving at his door, the man at the door would not let him in, because St. Francis looked like a beggar from the street. The Pope finally let him in, then knew God would use St. Francis to do that very thing. The Roman Catholic reformation that St. Francis influenced has continued to this day.

We do not all need seek utter poverty as powerful ministries to our Lord. However, the principle remains true and has great application in our modern time.

Do you find yourself misrepresented in the things you do and say for others? Are you sometimes taken advantage of in ways that are truly not fair? Is your husband, wife or children sometimes cruel or impatient with ? Does your employer take advantage, or place someone of less skill in your place? God wishes that the spirit that was in St. Francis of Assisi, also be in us who follow Him in these times of persecution. Persecution, although sometimes mild, remain very real none the less, and painful.

Remember what St. Paul wrote under inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

"Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Corinthians 12:10)

How To Deal With Change

2007-07-24T00:29:00.001-07:00

In a world where it is believed there is no "right or wrong", think about it, it can be psychologically satisfying to know you are moving in the correct direction. That "knowing" you are moving in the right direction is not always related to how you "feel", neither is it necessarily dependant on what you might "think".

Sometimes "thinking" gets in the way. You know, our "busy-ness" of thought. Even sometimes we must ignore what we feel, not because God doesn't care about our feelings, but because feelings at times cloud our judgment. In many decisions of life this can be dangerous.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away." (James 1:5-10)

Chastity Ring In British School (Rejected)

2007-07-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is an update in the case of 16 year old "Lydia Playfoot" of England who has worn a small silver ring to school as a symbol of Christian purity. "The ‘Silver Ring Thing’ is a Christian education project aimed at helping teenage girls value themselves, make right choices about their futures, and reduce Britain's ever-increasing rise in sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies amongst teenagers." (For the first post on this situation by "Catholic Psychology Blogspot", click on Silver Ring In High Court (Britain) .

Ms. Playfoot lost her case. Now she is considering if she should appeal. On Monday, July 16th, she said, "I am very disappointed by the decision this morning by the High Court not to allow me to wear my purity ring to school as an expression of my Christian faith not to have sex outside marriage.” ... “I believe that the judge’s decision will mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organizations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practicing their faith.”

An article put out the next day by Reuters News Service stated: "Playfoot’s legal challenge was the latest in a series of disputes in British schools in recent years over the right of pupils to wear religious symbols or clothing, such as crucifixes and veils." ... "Playfoot’s parents are key members of the British arm of the American chastity campaign group the "Silver Ring Thing", a religious group which urges abstinence among young people. Those who sign up wear a ring on the third finger of the left hand. It is inscribed with “Thess. 4:3-4,” a reference to a Biblical passage from Thessalonians which reads: “God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin.”

"During the case, Playfoot’s lawyers argued that the ban by her school in Horsham, West Sussex, breached her human rights to 'freedom of thought, conscience and religion” which are protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.' "

It is interesting to me how during the interview recorded in the video above, the man and woman presenting the questions to Lydia and her father, would not dare pose a positively directed question or comment regarding teenagers who wish to remain chaste and save sex for marriage. The questioning was more like an "interogation", as if young Lydia Playfoot had some how "set fire to her school", or arrogantly "adorned herself in Nazi war clothing".
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Regarding an adult who wrote in saying she "had been a Christian for 50 years, and never had need to use a ring to represent her Christianity." I wonder if this woman was ever married. If she had ever been married, being married would have included the Christian ritual and tradition to use a "RING" to "SYMBOLIZE" sexual devotion to her HUSBAND!!! I assure you at the beginning of the Christian Church, most citizens of Rome had virtually no concern for remaining chaste and devoting the sexual act to their spouses alone!
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Hmmmmm, it's interesting how history appears to come around full circle. I believe if this interview had been with a young lady who had been promiscuous given birth to a child outside of wedlock, the interviewers would have raced to the young lady's aide with nothing negative to say or question her about.
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Let us keep young Ms. Lydia Playfoot in prayer for her courage to stand up for Chastity in what is, and always has been, true Christian belief and devotion.
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How To Love Your Family

2007-07-20T01:21:00.000-07:00

Can I ask you a question? Actually two. The first question I wish to ask you is, "Do you think these things are true?" I mean, "The life of Christ as we know it to be through the words of the gospels in the Bible?" ... If your answer to the first question is "yes", then the second question I wish to ask you is, "Do you love Jesus?" - I mean, do you "really" love Jesus?

You see, if we love Jesus, and "really" love Him, then perhaps it is of great importance that we also love His "family".

Yes, I know, this "loving-the-family-of-Christ" can mean many things, and can be acted out on many levels. A few of which are:

(1) Loving the saints, brothers and sisters in the Lord who have gone on before us.

(2) Loving fellow believers, ... men, women and children, who are with us now on this earth at this time.

(3) Loving the family that Christ was born into when He was birthed in the flesh as an infant in Bethlehem.

It is to number "3" I wish to respond at this moment.

Yes, it is true the men and women in these videos only depict events as they believe them to have been at the time of Christ. Yet, there are many truths in the acting of these events by these dear people which are valid. That are personally true historically, because Christ, very God, took on flesh, and like us, dwelt among the human race in human form.

My point is this, "Catholic Psychology" that is particularly relevant for personal application in our modern day, is "To love Christ, the Trinity, and His Church through also loving the family within which Christ Himself was born into in the event of his initial infancy upon earth. I’m referring to our opportunity to discover a very real joyous relationship within the sacred emotional bond that existed and continues to exist between Jesus and His mother Mary.

Great passion was involved in these events for the sake of our salvation. And certainly, Jesus loved his mother, and she loved Him. There can be great healing and growth for you, the more you make real in your life, closeness in the family that included Jesus and His mother Mary. Feel yourself in that family. Share in that family. The beauty, the sacred. The easiness, joy and difficulties. The passion and the glory. ... Cry with them, and laugh with them. See what they see. Feel what they feel and grow by it. ... It is then when we find more to give to our families who are with us now on this earth.

Knowing since ancient times how the words "brother/sister" were culturally interchangeable with "cousins", and that Mary was loved by Jesus in ways that are commonly honorable between a son and his mother, view the following as an invitation for each of us to join intimately with that sacred family, Jesus and Mary, and personally apply that familial relationship to the desires of our hearts, as well as to the personal needs of others in our daily lives. (Together let’s say, "Jesus and Mary, our Lord and our Mother, we love you, and together we will share with you the sacred story of your most holy passion!!!")

"Then one said to Him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.’ But He answered and said to the one who told Him, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother."
(Matthew 12:47-50)

Events Greater Than Our Own

2007-07-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

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It helps us to remember that there are events happening in the universe far greater than the casual activities of our ordinary daily lives. Actually, there is a war raging all around us. A war that is fought between spiritual forces far greater than our human intellect can now conceive. A Christian Psychology, thus a Catholic psychology, takes into account the entire picture of human existance and history. It places into perspective mankind's petty relational contentions, and views them in the context of all creation.
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"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12)
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These forces are envious because very God in Christ took on human flesh, thereby welcoming and paving the way for the human race to become God's very family for those who will be His disciples. ... So now Satan, and one third of the angels that he brought down with him with vicious lies and defiance against God, jealously battle to destroy we of flesh who are made in the Creator's image.
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This is our psychology, our thinking, our manner of inter-relating in this great war that goes beyond just ourselves:
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"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (of the flesh) but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, " (II Corinthians 10:4-5)
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Internet Pornography ("Out of Control!!!")

2007-07-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

"One hears a lot about how pornography harms women, children, families, and society. And it does victimize these groups, no question about it." ... "Feminist rhetoric aimed at pornography is couched in the language of the ‘victimization of women.’ But what about the victimization of MEN? I rarely hear pornography spoken of in terms of the harm it does to men. There seems to be an underlying assumption that because men enjoy pornography, then it’s not really bad for them. It’s taken for granted that men are just doing what comes naturally, what they’re hardwired for, being the visual, testosterone-driven creatures that they are. I submit that men are not only victimized by pornography, but that they are the primary victims of pornography. Men are the targeted audience for pornography. If you’re a man reading this, you must realize that pornography is aimed at you, at your mind, your soul, and your pocketbook – to the tune of billions of dollars a year." (Aimee Milburn of the highly informative Catholic Blog Historical Christian.)

In her post Aimee Milburn says further: "And men are very susceptible to it. I think we’re all familiar with the reaction of the ordinary, healthy male to the sight of an attractive, half-clad female form: the eyes-wide instant double-take, faster than thought. Men are wired to respond, and they do. ... pornography is carefully filmed, airbrushed, glossed, manipulated in every way precisely to get the man hooked, so he keeps coming back for more, keeps on feeding the giant sucking hole of hell that pornography is – feeding it not just with money, but with the priceless currency of the eternal agony of souls, the real wealth of hell. ..."

"Pornography is a giant dragnet for hell. A man hooked on pornography not only becomes a slave of hell himself, he becomes a pimp for hell, feeding the demand for men, women and children to be used in porn, and victimizing them directly when, driven by porn, he acts on his porn-fed fantasies. And then everyone, men, women, children, and society, is victimized by porn."

In her post Aimee also quotes from a pastoral letter written by Bishop Paul S. Loverde of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, entitled "Bought With A Price: (Pornography and the Attack on the Living Temple of God)". In the pastoral letter Bishop Loverde states: "While husbands and wives share equal dignity as persons, they do not share temptations equally - especially the temptations associated with the scourge of pornography. It must be admitted that the use of pornography is largely, although certainly not exclusively, associated with males. If a marriage begins to be damaged by pornography, it will most likely be introduced by the husband."

In the pastoral letter he goes on, "Husbands, be aware that your solemn promise of faithfulness, which is the foundation of the formation of your family, is damaged by any use of pornography. Strive to bring honor to the promise you made at the beginning of your married life. The times where intimacy is difficult are opportunities to practice the sacrificial love of a spouse that only your noble vocation illustrates most perfectly." ... "Seeking comfort in the illusion of pornography will incrementally corrupt your understanding of self, your perception of your beloved wife, and the model you present to your children. It is futile to believe that this secret preoccupation can be contained and isolated from family life. In small ways, the self-centeredness and disrespect of self and others, which lie at the heart of this vice, will become manifest within your relationships with your family."

To conclude this post on "Internet Pornography", here are three minutes of counseling strategy explained by a counselor, George Collins, MA, the founder and director of "Compulsion Solutions" (an outpatient counseling service specifically for the treatment of men who suffer from the results of sexually compulsive behavior).

How To Love A Woman

2007-07-15T23:16:00.000-07:00

"Complacency is an enemy, easy to recognize in others but difficult to admit in ourselves. It is rarely listed among the major human faults, yet it can hinder us in every form of personal growth. Complacency simply means being sure we're right, taking it for granted that our view couldn't possibly be wrong. It means judging others by what we think is right. It blocks out understanding and kindness, and justifies qualities in ourselves that we wouldn't find tolerable in other people. Smug complacency is often at the root of family dissension. ..."

"Let me not be quite so sure that my thinking is always correct. Let me begin by being a little critical of my iron resolution to have things my way. I will keep my ears and my mind open to the ideas of others, even when they don't square with mine. Then I'll be opening the door to growth. ..."

"My serenity does not depend on my winning every round in my battle with life. It does depend on my acceptance of others on their own terms. God grant me that serenity." ("One Day At A Time In Al-Anon", page 197)

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself." (Ephesians 5:25-27)

Commercializing Of Women

2007-07-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end there of is the way of death." (Proverbs 16:25)

We are all greatly affected by the way we view women in our homes, our lives and society.

1. Women, used as objects to sale products, if not to sale themselves.

2. Women, made to appear as something they are not.

3. To fulfill fantasies in men. Fantasies women cannot live up to.

4. Women, left wondering what is beauty, not seeing their own beauty.

5. Women, unable to leave their homes for fear of how they look without make-up.

6. Women, when being loved, hate their lovers, for they know they are not being loved for what they truly are, but for what they pretend to be.

7. Women, living in society of fundamental dishonesty, inspired to place fantasy above what is true and real.

8. A society where men are no longer respected, and women are no longer cherished.

9. A society where teenaged girls call boys on their cell phones, and "going-on-a-date" means something different than it once did.

10. A socity where women are promised love, but are used instead, then left to swim in loneliness, despair and resentment.

12. A society where men hate themselves, having no examples to follow for knowing how to be men for their wives and children. Grasping for anything to fill the void of their own shame and guilt.

Divorce ("Nobody's Home")

2007-07-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

"Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasures with trouble. Better is a dinner of herbs were love is, than a fatted calf with hatred." (Proverbs 15:16-17)

"Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails ..." (1 Corinthians 13:4-8[a])

The Perverting Of Catholic Religious (Part 2)

2007-07-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

There was another psychologist of high acclaim at the time Rogers and Coulson were pumping philosophies of relativism into the minds of a large number of American Catholic nuns and priests. His name was Dr. Abraham Maslow. Coulson said Dr. Maslow warned both of them (He and Rogers) that their problem was their "total confusion with evil". However, the documented research on innate evil by Maslow, a humanist himself, and the father of "Hierarchy Of Needs", was not published in journals until 1979. By then the damage had already be done.

Among other activities, Rogers and Coulson had distributed a teaching tape promulgating that "when people do what they deeply want to do, it isn't immoral." About this Dr. Coulson later stated that it became obvious to both he and Rogers that they had not waited long enough for the results of their pilot testing. "The lesbian nuns' book, for example, hadn't come out yet; and we hadn't gotten the reports of seductions in psychotherapy, which became virtually routine in California."

Regarding the intervention teams of therapists that were intitiated under his direct supervision, that eventually dotted parts of the nation, Coulson replied in an interview, "We had trained people who didn't have Rogers' innate discipline from his own fundamentalist Protestant background, people who thought that being themselves meant unleashing libido." ... "Maslow saw that we failed to understand the reality of evil in human life. When we implied to people that they could trust their impulses, they also understood us to mean that they could trust their evil impulses, that they weren't really evil." ... "But they were really evil."

"We did similar programs for the Jesuits, for the Franciscans, for the Sisters of Providence, Sisters of Charity, and the Mercy Sisters. We did dozens of Catholic religious organizations, because as you recall, in the excitement following Vatican II, everybody wanted to update, everybody wanted to renew; and we offered a way for people to renew, without having to bother to study. We said, we'll help you look within. After all, is not God in your heart? Is it not sufficient to be yourself, and wouldn't that make you a good Catholic? And if it doesn't, then perhaps you shouldn't have been a Catholic in the first place. Well, after a while there weren't many Catholics left."

One example of the negative effect of this "Therapy For Normals" presented as Truth to Catholic Religious, was in the Summer of 1965 when Dr. Rogers and Dr. Coulson did a workshop at a Jesuit University. One young Jesuit, about to be ordained, wrote a letter. Here are the words of that letter in verbatim:

"It seemed like a beautiful birth to a new existence. It was as if so many of the things that I valued in word, were now becoming true for me in fact. It is extremely difficult to describe the experience. I had not known how unaware I was of my deepest feelings, nor how valuable they might be to other people. Only when I began to express what was rising somewhere deep within the center of me, and saw the tears in the eyes of the other group members because I was saying something so true for them, too - only then did I begin to really feel that I was deeply a part of the human race. Never in my life before that group experience, had I experienced me so intently; ..."

Dr. Coulson, again I remind you, the supervisor of the entire Rogerian encounter group program at the time, said later the following in response to this letter by the soon to be ordained Jesuit priest: "The proof of authenticity on the humanistic psychology model is to go against what you were trained to be, to call all of that phoniness, and to say what is deepest within you. What's deepest within you, however, are certain unrequited longings, including sexual longings. ... We provoked an epidemic of sexual misconduct among clergy and therapists."

He went further, "... I'll tell you what Rogers came to see, and he came to see it pretty quickly, because he really loved those women (the nuns of "The Immaculate Heart of Mary"). They were a wonderful order, unconventional in the best sense, for example going around in their old habits playing Mozart for Catholic school kids; and that doesn't exist any more. Rogers came to call it, "this damned thing." I'm going to quote him in a tape that he and I made in '76:" ... (Thus the words of Dr. Carl Rogers himself:) ... "I left there feeling, well, I started this damned thing, and look where it's taking us; I don't even know where it's taking me. I don't have any idea what's going to happen next. And I woke up the next morning feeling so depressed, that I could hardly stand it. And then I realized what was wrong." ... "did I start something that is in some fundamental way mistaken, and will lead us off into paths that we will regret?"

Regarding more history in the movement of relative psychology into American leadership of the Catholic Church, Dr. Coulson stated: "Well, actually we started with the Jesuits before we started with the nuns. We did our first Jesuit workshop in '65. Rogers got two honorary doctorates from Jesuit universities. They thought we were saviors." ... "I don't know whether you remember, but in '67 the Jesuits had a big conference at Santa Clara, and there was a lot of talk about the"Third Way" among the Jesuits." ... "The first two ways are faithful marriage and faithful celibacy. But now there was this more humane way, a more human way - all too human as I see it today. The idea was that priests could date. One priest, for example, defined his celibacy for me as, "It means I don't have to marry the girl." (This was not a Jesuit priest. Dr. Coulson believed that at least the Jesuits could rebound from the teaching of relativism, because at list their history was immersed in strong Catholic tradition.) ... [Note: A "Father Becker" wrote a book on "the collapse of Jesuit training" between 1965 and 1975, documenting what he referred to as influences of Rogerian teaching.]

To conclude this post on "The Perverting of Catholic Religious", read the following two excepts as short recent examples of where the aforementioned Rogerian humanist relativism has taken some IHM's:

From "Turning Chapters" ... "The IHM Sisters began in 1845 steeped in Christianity within the Catholic Church. Now, we know we are rooted also in a much older story - that of the universe itself. Integrating the older universe story into our familiar IHM history and faith will play an important part of our next six years. Using the UN Earth Charter as a resource will inform our conversations, decisions and actions."

From "The Universe Story" ... "the universe story reveals that we carry within us the very energy that fashioned the stars, that we are related to all creation, that our ancestry is a family tree inclusive of all life forms, a family much larger than we have ever imagined possible." ... "We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations: that we are only fellow voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow creatures; a wish to live and let live..." ... "The IHM Sisters and many religious have begun to study the universe story through the lens of the Gospel." ... "The Body of Christ, rather than simply being a group of like-minded human beings, includes all of life" ... "The revelation in and through Jesus was not intended to be an end in itself, but instead was meant to usher in a new age of connectedness that Jesus called the "Kingdom of God," ... "This reign of God would unfold as the human species embraced a new way of living. The keeping of the memory and mission of Jesus is not about making him the object of our worship, but about making ourselves the locus of the reign of God."

All I will say now as the writer of this post, when I was a child, I attended a traditional Catholic school." The nuns there were Godly and they did me good. The above quotes "do not" represent those nuns, neither the Catholic Church governed by the Vatican in worship of Christ as He revealed Himself! ... I understand not all nuns of the Church, not even all IHM's, believe what is quoted above. However, I say for the increasing numbers of Religious who believe this is our mission, those who promote this gross distortion of our Lord's very words, they truly do not represent, nor do they deserve the title, the "Immaculate Heart of Mary"!

* Does Marriage Need "Luck" To Survive? *

2007-07-08T23:16:00.000-07:00

Please click on "Does Marriage Need LUCK To Survive?" for Sister Mary Martha's creative and inisightful comments!

The Perverting Of Catholic Religious (Part 1)

2007-07-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

The year was 1966. Psychologists Dr. Carl Rogers and Dr. William Coulson requested to conduct a "pilot study" of a new emerging therapy with nuns of the order of the "Immaculate Heart of Mary". The nunship, desiring to do a good deed, agreed to allow their schools to be the first to experience Dr. Rogers' "Therapy For Normals" (TFN).

Dr. Rogers and Dr. Coulson arrived at the initial "testing-of-nuns-to-improve-them" location to begin their therapeutic intervention, well funded from the "National Institutes of MentalHealth". Eventually they brought with them a total of 58 additional psychological testers and group facilitators. Dr. Coulson himself described years later in his own words, "We inundated that system with humanistic psychology." ... "They agreed to let us come into their schools and work with their normal faculty, and with their normal students, and influence the development of normal Catholic life."

The large team of well funded Rogerian psychologists, under the inventor and master of Rogerianism himself, Dr. Carl Rogers (shown on the right), began their TFN intervention with certain enthusiasm. What did Dr. William Coulson later conclude regarding the work of the psychological teams he personally supervised? ... He said, "It was a disaster!"

In a personal well documented interview he stated regarding the "Immaculate Heart Of Mary" order of nuns, "The IHM's had some 60 schools when we started; at the end, they had "one". There were some 615 nuns when we began. Within a year after our first interventions, 300 of them were petitioning Rome to get out of their vows. They did not want to be under anyone's authority, except the authority of their imperial inner selves."

In the summer of 1966 a "Sister Mary Benjamin, IHM" got involved with the Rogerian therapists. Dr. Coulson explained later in a book written by him, that Sister Mary Benjamin "... became the victim of a lesbian seduction. An older nun in the group, ‘freeing herself to be more expressive of who she really was internally,' decided that she wanted to make love with Sister Mary Benjamin. Well, Sister Mary Benjamin engaged in this; and then she was stricken with guilt, and wondered, to quote from her (own) book, ‘Was I doing something wrong, was I doing something terrible? I talked to a priest.' (Dr. Coulson interjects: "Unfortunately we spoke to the priest first!") ... ‘I talked to a priest,' she says, ‘who refused to pass judgment on my actions. He said it was up to me to decide if they were right or wrong. He opened a door, and I walked through the door, realizing I was on my own.'"

So how exactly did all this get started in the Catholic Church of America, the "destruction of tradition, break from the Vatican, defying original vows made by nuns?" ... Dr. Coulson goes on. ... "As I said, the IHM's were pretty progressive, but some of the leadership was a little bit nervous about the secular psychologist from LaJolla coming in, so I met with the whole community, some 600 nuns gathered in the Immaculate Heart High School gymnasium, in Hollywood, on an April day in 1967. ‘We've already done the pilot study.' we told them, ‘Now we want to get everybody in the system involved in no directive self-exploration. We call it encounter groups, but if that name doesn't please you, we'll call it something else. We'll call it the "person group".' So they went along with us, and that is partly my responsibility, because they thought, ‘These people wouldn't hurt us; the project coordinator is a Catholic. ..."

"Rogers, however, was the principal investigator. He was the brains behind the project, and he was probably anti-Catholic; at the time I didn't recognize it because I probably was, too. We both had a bias against hierarchy. I was flush with Vatican II, and I thought, ‘I am the Church, I am as Catholic as the Pope. Didn't Pope John XIII want us to open the windows and let in the fresh air? Here we come!' And we did, and within a year those nuns wanted out of their vows."

But once the 600 nuns were broken down into "encounter groups" (to make them better nuns, you know, ... psychologically) precisely how long did it take for most of those dedicated nuns to turn their backs on everything they previously held sacred? The project coordinator himself went further:

"Well, in the summer of 1967 the IHM's were having their chapter. They had been
called, as religious orders were, to re-evaluate their mode of living, and to bring it more in line with the charisms of their founder. So they were ready for us. They were ready for an intensive look at themselves with the help of humanistic psychologists. We overcame their traditions, we overcame their faith. ..."

In this same interview Dr. Coulson explained that there was a Father Elwood "Bud" Kaiser in the vicinity of this psychological implosion. He was a Paulist priest, who also wrote a book, it was called "Hollywood". In one of the chapters of that book the priest describes a "romantic involvement" he had with one of the IHM nuns afterwards. He explained in writing regarding the nun that "... she got in the spirit of Rogerian non-directive encounter," and "she propositioned him sexually." Further explanation of the event documents that the priest refused her sexual advances, but that "she got sexually involved with her Rogerian therapist."

Dr. Coulson explained further in the interview: "He (the therapist) got her (the nun) involved in sex games, in therapy. Rogers (Dr. Carl Rogers) didn't get people involved in sex games, but he couldn't prevent his followers from doing it, because all he could say was, ‘Well, I don't do that.' Then his followers would say, ‘Well, of course you don't do that, because you grew up in an earlier era; but we do, and its marvelous: you have set us free to be ourselves and not (be) carbon copies of you."

So how many years did it take to destroy the "Immaculate Heart of Mary" order, or at least drastically change it from what sacrificial, traditional devotion it was? And what came of the 615 nuns?

Dr. Coulson: "It took about a year and a half." ... " There might be a couple of dozen left all together, apart from whom, they're gone. The college campus was sold. There is no more "Immaculate Heart College". ... "One mother pulled her daughter out before it closed, saying, ‘Listen, she can lose her faith for free at the state college.' ... Our grant had been for three years, but we called off the study after two, because we were alarmed about the results. We thought we could make the IHM's better than they were, and we destroyed them."

Dr. William (Bill) Coulson went on to lecture, speak on interviews, write articles and a book. He's done whatever he could do to assuage the guilt and shame he felt for having created what he clearly has referred to as the destruction of Catholic Tradition and Sacramental Devotion among many Religious.

Dr. Coulson has a three tape series on the topic of what this post has merely touched on, but even more directly addressing humanistic psychological in both Catholic and Public schools. As you see, to the left the lecture series is entitled "". PSYCHOLOGY IN EDUCATION, FRIEND OR FOE

Please note that more will be said in future posts on this vital topic on CatholicPsychology.Blogspot. This post, "The Perverting Of Catholic Religious", is the first in a series of posts. Part Two will arrive soon.

(Comments, positive or negative, are welcome. If anyone wish to argue from the opposing side of this issue, feel free to do so. Only expect that what I refer to as the true "Catholic Psychology" will be staunchly defended.)

Early Church Psychology

2007-07-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

So much for getting mad because your toaster stopped working this morning.
Or being "upset" and "holding a grudge" because someone spoke to you in the wrong tone of voice.
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The above picture depicts a day when all Christians were Catholics. Just the mere "thought" of the Church dividing into factions in dispute against one another was deplorable and considered "heresy". ... How today we've grown accustomed to divisions and disagreements. Differences of opinion, or "Your-truth-being-your-truth,-and-my-truth-being-my-truth."
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And then the world was without "psychology". ... Or was it?
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** I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
** And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
** For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
** For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.
** Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them; if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation, he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
** Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.
** Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
** Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.
** Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
** Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
** Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord.
** Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head." (Romans chapter 12)
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(Note: The "coals of fire" mentioned in this scripture, refers to a neighbor giving "extra burning coals" to another neighbor who needed a warm fire in his home. The neighbor receiving the coals would then carry the "coals of fire" in a basket safely on his head to his home to start a fire for the benefit of he and his family. ... The illustration meant nothing that was negative or harmful.)
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When Giving Advice Is Difficult!

2007-07-01T17:32:00.000-07:00

Do you see this face? ... I warn you, this is "not" someone you want to "mess" with! ... I'm talking about "Sister Mary Martha". ... A receiver of questions, and giver of advice. ... At the top of her blog ensconced forever are the words: "Life is tough. But Nuns are tougher. If you need helpful advice just "ASK SISTER MARY MARTHA". She'll help you. Just don't expect any sympathy."
.

Still, mercifully, she admits there are times she doesn't know what to say to peoples' questions. (Admitting that answering to a few sentences can be dangerous.) ... Let's read her own words:

... Suppose you tell me that your brother is a very sweet man but is somewhat neglectful of his wife. You go on to explain that he loves her very much, he is always there for her when it is really important, he's a good bread winner, a good provider. He just misses a birthday sometimes or shows up really late for family gatherings and his wife is embarrassed and it causes them to fight.

What do I say? I would say, keep your trap shut and say a rosary in his behalf and thank the Good Lord that they are more happy than not, that he is there where he really needs to be, that he loves her and that maybe she is being a little needy. If I had to talk with his wife, if she told me about all the things she needs from him, I might say, "Drop some needs."

But you've neglected to tell me, in your question, that the reason your brother is late is because he is being detained by the police, that his nickname is "Sonny"(always a red flag) and that his good behavior always coincides with the periods in which he is on the wagon.

Now my advice is really, "really" bad.

That's why I can't touch this. (Then she shows a letter!):

"I've been in a rocky relationship for over half a year now. Lately I've been wondering what it is I am supposed to do. Do I stay and stick it out even though I am suffering right now because God wants us to persevere through the dark times for what is important to us? Or is the fact that I'm so unhappy lately a definite sign that I'm not on God's path for me? Nothing at all seemed odd to me but then I tell my best friend about my dilemma and she looks at me like I'm nuts to think about it that way. So I started wondering if God really does work that way. Does He have a specific plan for each of us? Or just some of us? Or is it more general like 'do good, be good, love God'? Is He really concerned about my love life? Or just the condition of my immortal soul as in I can date whoever I please so long as there is no sinning? I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter, Sister. I feel sort of ignorant at the moment. Thanks."

Unhappy for the entire year and a half, or just the last six months or just last couple of weeks? Unhappy because he makes you feel unsafe and unloved?

He makes you feel unsafe. Because he's been known to fly into a rage? Or because he's never on time to pick you up from work?

He makes you feel unloved. Because he is cold and dismissive? Or because he forgot to get you a birthday card?

Or unhappy because he doesn't do what you think he should do? ....... He can't hold down a job? Or he doesn't pick up his socks?

Is his nickname, "Sonny"?

My question is: Why ask me? You should be telling "him" this stuff.

But what do I know? I'm a nun. Jesus doesn't even "wear" socks, so that's never an issue. ...

....... I understand that this is a very "real" and a very "important" problem. I just what to explain as fully as I can why it would be "BAD" for me to try to give you dating advice. You can see how this could really go right off the rails. I could be doing you "serious harm".

As for God's plan. .... He "does" have a plan and He does care about "every aspect of your life". Unfortunately, He doesn't mail you a copy of the plan. But that's why we have the Catholic Church! So you and God can be as close as possible.

And His nickname isn't "Sonny".

Healing Grief Before The Eucharistic Host

2007-06-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

(Anyone who reads the following story from a friend of mine will be deeply touched. Please give it your time.)

I just want to relate an experience I had through using the Sacrament of Confession and praying to Jesus through the exposed Host, the Blessed Sacrament.

For 13 years I suffered heartbreaking guilt and turmoil over the death of my infant son, whom I will call "John". My son was four months old at the time of his death. He had died from a head injury caused by a car accident where he was with his father at the time, alone.

I was washing diapers and couldn’t stop to hold John, who was crying to be held. I had 23 diapers and needed to wash them every day. It took some time since we had one of those old wringer washing machines. His father, whom I will call "Thomas", said he would take him for a ride to calm him down. That was the reason I was not there when the accident occurred, and can’t say what truly happened.

Thomas said he hit a bump on the road, and that John fell to the car floor and must have hit his head. (This was before infant car seats were developed.) The car was fine and so was his father. John was the only one with a head injury. This, I thought was suspicious. I quickly developed a hatred for Thomas, thinking that he must have done something to our son. My suspicion was based on the fact that Thomas never wanted to have children and never enjoyed John.

I lived with a sorrow that ached to the core of my being, to my soul. I felt I didn’t deserve to live. Somehow I kept an outward face of a fairly normal person, at least in my view. Every now and then, through these years, I would wake in the night and weep copiously with the heartache of a grieving mother, and one who felt tremendous guilt, who really just wanted to die.

Within four months after John’s death, the relationship deteriorated into drunkenness and abuse. I shall say that I escaped from Thomas because he had threatened to kill me. A number of years later I found out that Thomas had died of a drug overdose and exposure.

I eventually returned to the Catholic Faith and the Sacraments. I had been away for 20 years.

A few years after my return to the Church, I attended a retreat that was directed by a Jesuit priest who was also a psychiatrist. During the retreat, which was a silent one, he led us in a probing history of our pasts which allowed me to really scrutinize my part in this hurtful situation in which I was holding resentments against myself and my baby son’s father.

I discovered that, in the beginning of our relationship, I did not have any respect or concern for his feelings. He told me he didn’t want to have children, and I thought that somehow things would work out even if I did get pregnant. I thought he would rise to the occasion and be a good father anyway. I did not consider that he could really be serious about not wanting children. So my fault was in not respecting his wishes. I never believed in using birth control so I should have ended the relationship then and there, but I didn’t. I confessed this sin because in the end it did cause him hurt and emotional turmoil, the extent of which I am unaware.

During the four months of our son’s life he did not prove to be a loving father and this was evidenced to me by various things he would say, as well as just a general annoyed attitude he kept towards our son.

I owed it to my son to leave his father, for I did fear for my son’s safety. However, I didn’t have a faith that was strong enough to leave, while at the same time I had been convinced by Thomas telling me that no one would help me. I thought he was right. It really did seem that there was no one. We were isolated, living in the country and I had lost touch with friends and family because they didn’t approve of our relationship.

The priest I went to for Confession during the retreat was a Jesuit too (though as far as I am aware, he was not a psychiatrist or a psychologist). During the confession I told him the above. I told him that by my not ending the relationship, I hurt a lot of people. Specifically, myself, my family, and most of all, my son and his father.

The priest told me to go sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament (they were having adoration in the afternoon) and to ask Jesus to allow my son to hear my apology and for Thomas to hear my apology. He also absolved me from my sins which, anyone who gets absolution in the Sacrament of Confession, will experience as a sort of lightness of being.

That afternoon I went to the Blessed Sacrament that was exposed, and prayed that God would allow my son to hear my apology. I then made my apology. I looked at the Host in the monstrance and saw the outline of a mother holding a baby. I seemed to know it was Mary, the Mother of Jesus, holding my son. I closed my eyes and saw very clearly my son’s face bathed in a warm bright light. He had the greatest smile on his face, and I knew now he knows no sorrow, only continual joy. I knew my little baby boy had forgiven me.

I then asked God to allow Thomas to hear my sorrowful apology for not considering his feelings and wants. ...... I made my apology, understanding that he was listening since Jesus was allowing this. For just a second my mind wandered to the thought, ........... "I wonder if Thomas did something to hurt our son and if he will end up in Hell". Immediately I heard a man’s voice around my right ear whom I am sure was the voice of Jesus. He said, "That’s between me and him." ... I became so aware of my judging Thomas and that I had overstepped my boundaries there. I thought of what a frightening thing that can be, to make God’s business of justice my own.

I left the spiritual exercise feeling deep gratitude and joy for Christ truly present in the Eucharistic Host. Also, I felt deep appreciation for the priests He uses to guide us and direct us on our souls’ journeys.
*****

"In many ways, Our Lord, is calling us to worship and receive Him in the Eucharist. He speaks this desire in many ways: through the Pope and the Magisterium of the Church, in the Bible (John chapter 6), through his Blessed Mother in approved Marian apparitions, through the testimonies of Saints and Martyrs, through Eucharistic miracles, through Church approved messages given by Jesus by Divine Revelation, through our souls who long for Jesus in Communion, and through our suffering world which is in much need of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Unfortunately many of us disbelieve or have grown indifferent towards Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament." .......... (From THE REAL PRESENCE )

*****

Paragraph 174 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

...

"The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."

Playing God (in "Virtual Reality")

2007-06-25T09:27:00.000-07:00

We used to "pretend" at "Playing God". Now it's real, or at least "virtually real". - I'm talking about video games. The "new" ones. You know, the places where so many of our children do their clicking like crazy. .......

Let's begin with "Black and White 2" . Here your child plays the god of a Greek tribe. As god, he is to win a nation's affection (and their worship) with good city management, careful military planning, and raising an impressive creature servant to do his bidding.

Then there's the video game "Spore" . ...
It won't be out for at least another year, however, experts say it has the potential to be the most amazing ... "god-game" ever made. How would you like to design your own life-form, guiding it from lowly beginnings through sentience, civilization ...
and finally space exploration? ... One of the industry's best, Will Wright, is responsible for this, and such popular games like Sim City and The Sims. ........ Also in these are virtual worlds the video game player governs like a god over his own universe.

In our review, let us go further with "God Of War 2" . This is not so much a god game as it is a game "about" gods. ... Steeped in Greek mythology, the "God of War" series combines breathtaking visuals with addictive, button-mashing combat and more than what the advertisers call a "touch of grown-up type content". You play Kratos, who starts the game as the God of War, and you drop in on numerous notable figures from classic stories: Icarus, Perseus, Theseus, Athena...and kill them.

"Viva Pinata" , is referred to by distributors as "kid-friendly". With a saccharine-sweet presentation. Under its Saturday morning cartoon facade (Not shown here), lurks a devastatingly addictive combination of building, management and economics: the "three pillars of all great god games."

In the ever popular "The Sims 2" video game, you get to "play god" for a small group of people. You control their surroundings, their activities, and their lives (Or just wall the people into a kitchen and set the place on fire.). ...... As you see from aspects of the video game's cover, the player is involved in many dimensions of his virtual reality world. ... His creation.
"Darwinia" is another video that makes your kid a "god"in his "own mind". The game, by simply clicking, casts the user into a "disembodied leader of a race of blobby, pixilated Space Invaders". These beings ramble over wire-frame landscapes populated by enemy beasts that blow people away without remorse.

"Evil Genius" (Sounds innocent enough!) constructs the perfect super-villain lair. Then the virtual reality game player packs the lair with traps to snare unwary spies, and sets about distributing minions cunningly to enslave an unsuspecting world.

Do you still feel you want to be "God"? (Or I mean your child ...) Here is another one for you. It's ..... "Mega Lo Mania" .......... This marvel of technological superiority affords the video player the opportunity to pilot a civilization from stone huts and sticks all the way to nukes, jet fighters and flying saucers. All with a pleasantly whimsy (guilt free) presentation!

All this "God Making" began with "Populous: The Beginning". Developed by Peter Molyneux's celebrated Bullfrog studio. Widely credited with giving birth to the "god game" genre way back in 1989.

I know it looks like I'm selling this stuff, but I'm not. Actually, I look around and see how entertainment devices like these are negatively impacting our youth. In my field of psychology, I know for a fact that the teen and young-adult male, where the frontal lobe (decision-making location of the brain) does not fully develop until about the age of 24; and the usual "linear-thinking tendency" of the normal male, video games especially become addicting to our male youth.

And when it comes to matters of God. ... Is it not already sad how we, His children, ignore the true God on so many levels through the course of each day? Shall we now further "invent" virtual realities of worlds in our minds we lord over with fingers as deities in His place? Do we not realize how much this must hurt true Deity, when He loved us so much that He sent His Son, very God, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place?

Let us please pray for ourselves and others. ... For often we fail to realize the deeper meaning of what we do.

Priests Who Molest Children

2007-06-24T17:43:00.000-07:00

As a counselor who has long worked in therapy with sexual abusers, as well as survivors of sexual abuse, let me tell you in short, what I believe about "Priests Who Molest Children":

(1) Statistically, less than one percent of Catholic priests have been accused of sexual abusing children. Of that amount, only a portion of that 1% have in fact done so.

(2) Thus, more than 99% of priests have "not" sexually abused children.

(3) What is said of Catholic priests is also said of Protestant ministers. In Protestant Christian denominations a very small minority of church leaders have been accused of sexually abusing, and a lesser amount of that portion has been substantiated as valid.in such accusations.

(4) Of the two, Catholic and Protestant, the Catholic Church especially is generally targeted as sexually abusive to children. At times in the media it is made to appear that the Catholic Church alone is plagued with problems of sexual abuse.

(5) Catholic priests are often accused to be sexual abusers, because they practice celibacy. It is purported in major media that because Catholic priests do not entertain a sexual experience in their lifestyle, their natural passions are suppressed, thus acted out in ways that are harmful to others.

(6) It is precisely "because" of both the "gift" and "sacrifice" of celibacy, that priests are chaste, and capable to perform their duties without preoccupation with personal sexual gratification.

(7) The more than 99% of priests who have "not" abused children, perform their duties amidst sadness and grief, having been falsely labelled as child abusers (or being united in service with other priests who are child abusers).

(8) It is the Catholic Church that remains united and committed, worldwide, on pro-life issues. Strongly advocating for traditional marriage and family, and against abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex and use of contraceptives.

(9) The small percentage of priests who have been proven to abuse children, are referred to as pedophiles. (Pedophilia is defined as an adult having fantasy, desire, and engaging in sexual activity with a child 13 years old or younger.)

(10) Until the mid 1980's, most professionals in the field of psychology believed and taught that sexual abusers could be rehabilitated through mental health therapy and treatment.

(11) Much hierarchy in the Catholic Church, particularly in North America, thought resorting to advice from the secular counseling community was wise on such matters as abuse to children.

(12) Cases of accused priests for alleged molestation of children were not always easy to substantiate.

(13) In most cases where possible sexual abusing priests were relocated to distant perishes after accusation of abuse, Catholic Bishops usually responded in principle to advice and general teaching of secular psychologists.

(14) The vast majority of cases where priests were in fact proven to have molested children, those cases did not include harm to young children.

(15 ) Sexual abuse by these priests were not found to have taken place against children who were "female".

(16) Sexual abuse by these priests happened against older teenagers who were "male".

(17) The proper term for these priests who have sexually acted out upon older teen aged boys is not "pedophile", but instead "homosexual".

(18) If a Catholic priest does, or ever had, heterosexual or homosexual tendencies, this is of little concern or consequence in his life, duties and service as a priest. Because a Catholic priest by pledge, definition, service and function is "celibate".

(19) Catholic priests who have transgressed sexual boundaries with anyone, including a child, is "not" a Catholic priest in that title's rightful definition. The one who claims to be a priest and has done these things, has broken the vow he made before God to be priest.

(20) A sexual abuser, by criteria and definition, chooses his or her profession, position, hobby and daily activities, to have access to those he or she wishes to sexually molest.

(21) Any Christian leader who has harmed a child in the manner described, never was a leader of a Christian church. His leadership of a church was only access to abuse, not a correct function of ministry.

(22) A priest who has abused a child never was of the Church. He is an "outsider", and in the truest sense of the term, always was. (Excommunication from the Catholic Church is a process of similar relevance, but general application remains functional for our cause here in my opinion.)

(23) For media or any other person to call a sexually abusing priest a Catholic, has scandalously misrepresented what the Catholic Church and Christianity in general stands for.

(24) Critics who are secularists and against the Church, cannot have it both ways. Which is it? ... "Does the Catholic Church stand for marriage, family, right to life and accountability to a moral God? Or does Catholicism stand for 'priests who practise their homosexuality lawlessly upon older teen aged boys'?"

(25) The answer to this final question is clear. A priest who has sexually molested a child, or anyone else for that matter, is not a priest or a representative for the Church. It is very possible he is not a Christian, thus not Catholic. This person is a "wolf in sheep's' clothing". Whatever vows this man has made while prostrate in holy ceremony before God, were instead lies and falsehood.

In conclusion to this post, consider the following scriptures, words spoken directly by the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself:

"Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!" (Matthew 18:5-7)

***

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name"' And then I will declare to them. 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" (Matthew 7:21-23)

Silver Ring In High Court (Britain)

2007-06-22T08:46:00.000-07:00

Say a prayer for Lydia Playfoot who is today taking her school to the High Court over her claim to the right to wear the Silver Ring as a symbol of Christian purity.

The ‘Silver Ring Thing’ is a Christian education project aimed at helping teenage girls value themselves, make right choices about their futures, and reduce Britain's ever-increasing rise in sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies amongst teenagers.

The case is being brought under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights which reads:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

The Lawyers Christian Fellowship support Lydia in her challenge. Lydia will be represented today in Court by barrister Paul Diamond, who also represents Nadia of the ‘British Airways 'Cross' case.

The Governors at Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, banned Lydia from wearing her small silver ring, saying that it broke the school’s uniform policy. However, any "public order" argument on this basis is somewhat undermined by the fact that their uniform policy allows Muslims to wear headscarves and Sikhs to wear Kara bracelets. As Lydia has said, the school's uniform policy is 'discriminatory' as it allows all faiths, except Christians, to wear items symbolic of their beliefs.

This is an important case which highlights the general trend in public life that bans all forms of discrimination except discrimination against Christians. It is a good day for the case to be held as it is the feast of St John Fisher and St Thomas More. May their prayers aid Lydia and her barrister!
*****
This valuable information comes to us from Father Tim Finigan of "Our Lady Of the Rosary" parish in Blackfen, England.

Talk To Your Spouse

2007-06-21T02:44:00.000-07:00

Do you know the secret of holograms, 3-D movies, and depth perception? The answer is, it takes two? A split laser beam, a couple of camera lenses, a pair of eyes. With just one, all you get is a flat, one-dimensional image. Add another, and the result seems to jump off the page or leap out of the silver screen.

***

You need your spouse's viewpoint to more accurately perceive the world you live in. Ask for their input. With the insight your partner can provide, you will better understand not only your mate but also your children, other family members, your friends, coworkers, and associates.

Your better half can help you sort out situations you are facing at work, evaluate investment opportunities that come your way, and decide which purchase decisions make the most sense.

Best of all, your spouse can help you to see God more clearly, to experience His grace, to "grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ" (Ephesians 3:18). - Talk about 3-D!

And if two vantage points give you three dimensions, imagine what a third, omniscient viewpoint would contribute. Prayerfully seek the Lord's wisdom as you try to understand your spouse, attempt to relate to others, and in everything you do. A godly perspective will add an entirely new dimension to yours. (The book "Married For Life", Bill Morelan, page 92)

"The Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding." (Proverbs 2:6)

Husband-Wife DATE to CONFESSIONAL?

2007-06-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

A TRUE STORY

[Husband says to wife:]

"Honey!" ... "Excuse me!"

[Wife replies:]

"Yes, husband." ..... "Are you talking to me?" ... "Are you talking to 'ME'! ... "What do you want now?" ... "You know you've been absolutely driving me 'crazy' lately and I've had just about enough of you! ... So tell me. What precisely is it you want from me now? ... I suppose you want me to wash your clothes, feed you food, wash your dishes, fold your clothes and clean up after you again!" ... I tell you, between you and those kids you forced me to bring into the world, I am so 'MAD' that I could 'CHEW NAILS'! ... One more word from you mister, and I 'SWEAR' I will run out of this house 'SCREAMING'!!!"

[Husband clears his throat. Nervously he speaks further:]

"Oh, it's nothing dear. I just thought you and I would have some time alone together." ... "You know, ... Mmmm ... Like go on a 'date" or something." ... "What do you think? Would you like to go on a 'date' with me??!!!" ...

[Wife:] A date? ... You said you want to go on a 'DATE'!!!' ... "Are you completely 'CRAZY'!!!!!!!" ... "Being seen with you on a 'DATE' is the "LAST" thing I "EVER" want to do!!!"

[Courageously husband says:] Well, darling, I was just praying the rosary (You know the one you bought me for my birthday?) and I thought you and I would go get some coffee together and sit alone for a while. Perhaps then you can tell me in more detail how your day is going!

(I told you this husband was "courageous!)

[Husband:] Oh, yes. ... One more thing. ... I thought we would stop off at the church before we go on our, MMmmmm, "date". ... You see, it's Saturday and our priest is offering the Sacrament of Reconciliation." (Confession) ... "Honey, I know we've hurt each other lately with words we've said and not said. Also, that we've hurt each other in things we've done and not done." ... "Well, sweetheart. I tell you what. I'll go in the Confessional and talk to the priest first. Yes, I've got things I need to tell him I've done wrong. Afterwards, if you wish, you can have your turn.

***

This "does" happen you know. We Catholics get criticized a lot for kneeling at certain times, standing at certain times, making the sign of the cross with holy water at certain times, and attending elaborate Mass as often as we can. ... There are feast days, times of fasting, garments worn at certain times and so on. But what many non-catholics don't realize, there is meaning in every tradition, every procedure, every prayer, every nuance. Many of these activities dating back "hundreds" of years (if not thousands). Every detail is a symbol, a "form of worship" if you will. Honorable and sacred approaches to our Heavenly Father.

***

My point is this. To a good Catholic man, to a good Catholic woman, when you say, "It is time to go to Confession", the shirts come on and the shoes are laced. Everybody gets in the car, and off they go!!!" ... Then, in the moving of the lips and speaking to a man across the room (a man who's role and duty in life is to be a priest) a practising Catholic who is "worth his salt" (so to speak) confesses what he or she has done wrong in life, even if making that confession is difficult.

***

[Confessing sins in your head can be easier than confessing to God in front of a human being!] ... "This", my friend, is a great and ancient psychology. A "therapy" actually (to say the least). ... I will venture to say (speaking as a psychotherapist myself), attending Confession can be as productive and emotionally exhilarating as some professional therapies. - Not to mention "cheaper!"

***

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

1440 (a): "Sin is before all else an offense against God, a rupture of communion with him. At the same time it damages communion with the Church. ..."

***

1441 (a): "Only God forgives sins. Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, "The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" and exercises this divine power: "Your sins are forgiven. ..."

***

1442: "Christ has willed that in her prayer and life and action his whole Church should be the sign and instrument of the forgiveness and reconciliation that he acquired for us at the price of his blood. But he entrusted the exercise of the power of absolution to the apostolic ministry which he charged with the "ministry of reconciliation." The apostle is sent out "on behalf of Christ" with "God making his appeal" through him and pleading: "Be reconciled to God.""

How Bad Things Happen ("Scandal")

2007-06-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

No person ever just sets out in life to be "bad". A robber never robs, a killer never kills, a man or woman never insults or lies, entirely for the purpose to be "mean".

Think about it. In all of history, no human has ever harmed another human consciously, in any way, merely for the sake of inflicting pain. No, in every experience of destruction, conflict, death and heartache, there has always been a "cause" fabricated in the mind of the wrongdoer to render havoc on every level.

I mean literally, there is always a "cause".

***

....

Hitler convinced an army that murdering millions and millions of innocent men, women and children, was well founded for the sake of creating a dominant "Arian Race", and his misdirected rant that the "Jews killed Jesus". Then he influenced an entire nation to take on the world, by placing Polish uniforms on German soldiers, faking an attack by Poland on Germany, thus provoking the events of World War II.

We can go on and on without end. Throughout the annals of human history. ... Cain had his cause for murdering Abel, then roamed the earth with a mark of a wrong doer. Moses had his cause for throwing down and destroying the stone tablets, and was denied for himself entrance into the long awaited Promised Land. The Pharisees had their reason for demanding the crucifixion of Christ. Yet at the moment of the crucifixion of our Lord, the earth quaked, the Temple curtain was rent from top to bottom. God wept, the angels marveled, souls were were received into heaven, and these bellowing Pharisees will forever be referred to as hypocrites, whitewashed tombs, a brood of vipers making proselytes twice as greater children of hell as themselves. (Matthew 23)

*** (Here is a photo of my son, Justin, who I love so much!!!!!)

***

Yet, my point in this post is this. The reason your relationships with people are sometimes difficult and confusing, is because at times when you give thoughtful consideration to do what is right, "right" will be distorted by someone to appear "wrong", then with further manipulation by that someone, "wrong" will be made to appear "right".

***

Basically, we contrive a false premise to do the wrong we do, so that while doing that wrong we can feel, even with enthusiasm, that we are right. ... Right to hate, right to judge, right to lie, right to speak badly of our parents, our neighbors, our boss, our husband, our wife ... even feeling right to kill, - when the killing is not for the sake of the helpless, but for the sake of our own selfish purposes and desires.

There is a word for this. It is the word "Scandal" (or the act of being "scandalous"). A psychology of devious manipulation. Creating conspiracy where no conspiracy exists, that silently but remarkably has serious repercussions on our homes, families and churches in the most personal of intimate relationships.

In very specific ways a husband can be scandalous to his wife, a wife can be scandalous to her husband, parents can be scandalous to their children, and children can be scandalous to their parents.

For now, let us consider the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

(2284) "Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense."

(2285) "Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: 'Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.' (Matthew 18:6) ..."

(2287) "Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!" (Luke 17:1)

Sexual Abuse, Incest and Rape

2007-06-10T20:00:00.000-07:00

The Catechism Of The Catholic Church states:

"Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them". (Paragraph 2356)

**********

It is like a rabbit that is chased by a fox or wolves. The rabbit was made by God to run rapidly, but when cornered, and no place else to run, the mind of the little animal shuts down, it stops working. It is not that the rabbit resigns itself to the fate of destruction. No. Instead the tiny creature no longer resists, while its mind stops processing the event that is happening. For in the beginning, God did not make the mind to absorb trauma, insisting that it make sense or endure the event of it's own destruction.

The same is true for adults and children raped and incested. Not knowing how to make sense of what's happened to them, the delicate soft personality of the one abused, made remarkably in God's image, fractures, implodes upon itself. Creating, as it were, a "compartment" inside the one traumatized. This "compartmentalization" is more than a suppression of feelings, a repression of emotions (i.e.,shame, fear, humiliation, loneliness, despair). ... It is more dramatically a suppression of an "entire event". ..... A little girl or boy locked in a closet by no wish of their own. Forced to stay there, alone and feeling blamed, keeping their mouth shut for a lifetime quite possibly. Burying the secret, living a lie, going on with life as if life would somehow make sense afterwards.

Has this happened to you? If so, I am certain you have wondered in your heart, "Why did God let this happen?" ... and ... "Where was God when this happened to me?"

*****

For now let me say this to you. When God made you in the beautiful way you are dear one, God did not make you so that you would be violated in this way. On the contrary, He made you to be cherished, loved and protected.

Then where was our Lord when this terrible injustice was done (and maybe done over and over)??? ..... Listen to me. God was there with you and He wept. If you were too frightened to cry, then He cried for both of you.

And it was not your fault. Mary our Mother, all the saints and angels, the Triune Person of God Himself, knows intimately every dynamic of trauma psychology that echoed through your hurting soul the instant you were wronged, then blamed for the wrong by the perpetrator who took no responsibility.

Take care of yourself. You are "not" living a lie. Christ Himself was raped and mocked before he was nailed to a cross. He knows how you feel.

Finally, as to the closet, the "compartment" the child inside you sits inside, frightened and alone. Remember what Jesus said In Revelation 3:20-22 ...

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Decide For Children, Religion & School?

2007-06-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

Some parents have the idea that they should wait to inform their children of the faith so that they can make their own decision of what to believe. This is a huge mistake on many levels.

[Level 1:] Your child will have a weaker connection with Christ if you do not introduce them to Christ from the start. If you love someone it would be selfish to not introduce them to the source of all love. It would be worse then not introducing them to their grandparents and extended family. And who would
rationally make the argument that you want your children to decide for themselves if they want to love their grandparents when they are better able to understand what love is?

[Level 2:] Your child will not be exposed to the best that western culture has produce with it’s over 2,000 year wisdom Tradition. This is the truth that Christ gave to the Church that it has handed down through the centuries to us. This is the Tradition that produced saints like St. Teresa, St. Francis, St. Clair, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas Moore...and on and on and on. It is failing to give the best of what Christ’s bride (the Church) has to offer.

[Level 3:] It is impossible to raise a child to be neutral. By not teaching the faith you are producing a vacuum that will be filled by some other source. A source that is likely to be shallow and superficial.

[Level 4:] By teaching your children the truth of the Catholic Faith you are not taking away their free will. There will be a time where they will have to make the decision to ether pick up the cross and follow Christ or reject it. In the end it still is their choice.

************************

All of these are great points on this topic. The last I will state again:

"... you are not taking away their (your children's) free will. There will be a time where they will have to make the decision to either pick up the cross and follow Christ or reject it. In the end it still is their choice."

Thanks for this list from the informative website: "The Art Of Apologetics" .

The Rosary (For Men)

2007-06-07T00:44:00.000-07:00

Men, we have a problem. Don't tell anyone, especially the women. But men, we "do" have a problem.

Yes, we men love women. We cherish women, we appreciate women. Women are our joy, our light, our treasure in life. But to be honest, men, we have also used women, abused women, manipulated, ravaged, promised women love, but then each of us, at some time, have rejected, lost patience with, forgotten and abandoned women.

If you're a man, you know what I mean.

But in defiling what is conceptually sacred in women, with our male minds, hearts, and bodies, we defile as well ourselves for it's from women we are born, nursed, caressed and made to grow, only to return and defile again. And sometimes, again, again and again.

Can a man find his innocence? We men of God's good earth who call ourselves Catholics, but sometimes wonder because of currents of passion we feel deep inside us.

There "is" a place for men in the rosary. Mary, the mother of Jesus, the queen of all saints, welcomes us through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, to be our mother, and we of both genders to be the very family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Gentleman, many of us need this. Women do not always know how deeply we men hurt. So often we must truly be the providers, the protectors of our wives, our children, our families.

And yes, let us say it here, many of us men have been walked on and ignored. We do not all know the love of a mother. Many of us do not even know the love of a lover, who did not in the end manipulate with lies.

Sir, let me tell you something. As a man, you can survive almost "anything" for 20 minutes, right? (God knows you've had to!). I suggest that you seriously consider the relevance of praying the rosary on a daily basis.

You see, we men need the beauty and grace of a beautiful woman. Sometimes we demand this from our wives, but sometimes they do not have it to give. We men, too, need healing deep in our souls. Coming from broken homes, trauma after trauma, still we press on and pretend we don't feel pain. Yet we do, then quickly bury it in shame and doubt, and whatever else is nearest to us to pretend.

God understands. He knows you need love to be a man. Actually, love that respects you, not love that hurts you, then makes the world believe it is your fault.

Listen, saying the rosary in private, feeling the beads in your hands as you do so, this can awaken your manly heart to a beauty and love, a respect that a man needs from the elogence, grace, even charm of our immaculate virgin holy mother. This, with the passion of Christ's crusifixion, is where you find healing and wholeness for the man you can be.

Let us men not be embarrassed. We can keep a manly rosary somewhere in a pocket, a box. No one needs to know. God knows. He hears. He sees.

Stop thinking you have to "make" yourself a man. Ask God to do it. Let Him be your Protector, the Giver of manly stamina. Let our Holy Mother nurture you where you have not been before. She is full of grace, a Virgin. Not someone who will tempt you, nor will be tempted by you. She, and the Trinity that is God, is all that you need.

Pray the rosary. Daily if you can. Then return to your family and be the man you can truly be. Remember, you will forever be with the family of God. There will never be an end to that eternity.

"FOR MEN WHO PRAY THE ROSARY, OR WISH TO, WHO ALSO THINK DOING SO IS A MASCULINE THING TO DO, PLEASE LEAVE A BRIEF COMMENT FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF OTHER MEN TO PRACTICE THIS VALUABLE FORM OF REFLECTION, PRAYER AND MEDITATION. (THANKS!)"

Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always #3

2007-06-04T23:38:00.000-07:00

[Consider reading first "PART 1" and "PART 2". .....
..... Now we have "PART 3" in the series.]
******************************************
(***) As a matter of illustration, notice how when a wooden ship is being built, there is careful attention to place a wooden beam through the base and center of the ship's construction. From the position of this wooden beam, all other parts are attached and built one upon another. Eventually, the vessel is completed, then placed on the ocean to float for the purpose of carrying valuable cargo and passengers.
(***) Imagine if the beam of wood, upon which all other smaller parts are attached, was instead a "bamboo shoot!" What do you imagine would happen to the ship once it is placed on ocean swirls and set stressfully in rocking motion?
(***) Yes, you're right, the ship would fall apart, then embarassingly sink in pieces to the depth of the sea! Without a reliable, sturdy object upon which to build the ship, nothing would last, and destruction would soon be the result! The same is true in human relationships, and this serves as another explanation as to why "Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always!"
(***) Remember in Part 1 and Part 2 of "Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always". We discussed how he who angrily criticizes with words, is guilty of the offense of which he criticizes. We saw also, that not only is the angry accuser guilty of the thing that he criticizes, but he is also "most" guilty of that offense, while the one accussed is "most innocent" of the accusation. Case after case, and situation after situation, I find this consistently to be true. Yes, we briefly consider how it is so true what Christ our Lord said at the start of the seventh chapter of the book of Matthew.
(***) However, this brings to another step of grasping further the words of the greatest psychologist that has ever lived, the Creator Himself, Jesus Christ. That is, "Why some people who dislike you, seem always to dislike you the 'SAME WAY'!"
(***) Well, it is like the ship. You know, with the "strong beam of wood" built through its center! People who criticize you judgmentally and angrily for the same thing over and over (and over, and over, and over), do so "not because you are 'WEAK' in the thing for which they criticize you, but precisely because you are 'STRONG' in the thing for which they criticize you!!!
(***) OK, I'll give you time to recover. (Get up off the floor if you fell down.) I know it must be difficult to imagine. The fact that its "shocking" and sounds "ludicrous" and all. Still, what I've said is true. Completely, an amazing amount of the time!
(***) Reveiw again, some things for which people have criticizec you rudely and uncaringly in one or two specific ways. In principle, one or two specific messages have followed you all of your life. Literally, you can choose from the following list (For someone else, the choice might be different):
1. You are irresponsible. ("I always have to tell you what to do!")
2. You will never amount to much. ("You will always be less of a person than you should be!")
3. You care only about yourself. ("You are selfish, and do not love anyone but yourself!")
4. You never listen. ("I could talk until I am "blue in the face, and you will sit there and not listen!")
5. You are stupid. You know nothing. ("Everyone else is more intelligent than you are!")
6. Nothing good comes out of your mouth. ("Everything you say is not worth hearing!")
7. You are ugly. ("Nothing about you is attractive!" ... "People are repulsed by you!")
(***) I wish to tell you that when it dawns on you that one or two of these negative messages, negative scripts, has followed you through the course of your entire life, it is in that precise negative criticism where is found your greatest strength. Yes, precisely on that specific subject exists the healthy, strong, core of your personality given to you by God.
(***) You see, the instant you feel within you the sting of pain or anger because of what someone else said against you to hurt you, you are at that moment the "beam of wood at the center of the ship". Stress in a home, business, church, family moves and targets itself at "someone to blame!" You believe the falsehood of the blame. The reason the rude criticism hurts you is because it is not true. In fact, it is the "opposite" that is true. And you've heard the same wrong message for so long all your life that, in your anger you've believed it and doubt the gifts God gave you.
(***) You might ask, "But why do some people always say this bad thing against me?" ... My answer, because what those people say bad about you says more about "them" than it does about "you". Also, your believing what they are saying is true continues to make it convenient for those people to continue to criticize you in the same way, again and again, day after day. You become those peoples' "drug", so to speak, to maintain the denial of truth they do not wish to see in themselves.
(***) In other words, while feeling ashamed and less than others, you, my friend, are the "strong beam of wood that holds the ship together!
(***) To conclude this post, let me give only one illustration to explain what I mean. Let's take the classic example of a mother standing over her son screaming at him. The young man is sitting in a chair and the mother is standing over him. She yells, "You never listen to me!" ... "I could talk to you until I'm blue in the face, and it will make no difference!" ... "You will be the death of me!" ... "It matters not what I say, with you it only 'goes-in-one-ear-and-comes-out-the-other!"
(***) I ask you, in this situation, who is not listening? Actually, it is the "mother" who is not listening. This mother at this moment is grossly at fault for not listening herself, for she cannot listen if she is constantly screaming. And as for the young man, I assure you he has the "gift" of listening. For one reason because the mother is angrily criticisizing him for not listening, in order to hide the fact that it is "she" who is not listening.
******* (Please look for the next post in this series on this important topic "WHY-SOME-PEOPLE-DISLIKE-YOU-THE-SAME-WAY-ALWAYS") *******

The "Thrill Of The Chaste"

2007-06-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

For those who valued the post ..............."CASUAL-SEX-IS-A-Con", note that the author will be appearing on "CATHOLIC ANSWERS LIVE" Wenesday, June 6th.. Click on "Radio" to see guests. Programs can be accessed by internet on EWTN . Here is the program schedule for internet radio programming on that site.
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Dawn Eden, a writer and editor, is a self-described "agnostic Reform Jew" and veteran of the New York City singles jungle who became an evangelical Christian and then a Catholic. In her new book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On, she describes her conversion from a "Sex and the City" lifestyle that made her miserable to a realization that saving sex for marriage was a liberating experience. She also encourages unmarried women to think of themselves not as "single" but as "singular"--defined by their relationship to God, not a man.
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Thanks for this information being made available to "Catholic Psychology Blogpot" regarding Dawn Eden, by a listener of "Catholic Answers Radio".. Let us be sure to listen to the program (as well as others), either live, or download at a future date. This should surely prove to be valuable listening for the serious Catholic who has love for our Lord!

Casual Sex Is A Con

2007-06-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

(From the author, Dawn Eden, comes these portion from an article where she admits, based on her own personal experience, that "Casual Sex Is A Con". )
******************

(***) The Sixties generation thought everything should be free. But only a few decades later the hippies were selling water at rock festivals for $5 a bottle. But for me the price of “free love” was even higher. I sacrificed what should have been the best years of my life for the black lie of free love. All the sex I ever had — and I had more than my fair share — far from bringing me the lasting relationship I sought, only made marriage a more distant prospect.
(***) And I am not alone. Count me among the dissatisfied daughters of the sexual revolution, a new counterculture of women who are realising that casual sex is a con and are choosing to remain chaste instead.

(***) I am 37, and like millions of other girls, was born into a world which encouraged young women to explore their sexuality. It was almost presented to us as a feminist act. In the 1960s the future Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown famously asked: Can a woman have sex like a man? Yes, she answered because “like a man, [a woman] is a sexual creature”. ...

(***) As a historian of pop music and daughter of the sexual revolution I embraced Greer’s call to (men’s) arms. My job was to write the sleeve notes to 1960s pop CDs and I gained a reputation for having an encyclopedic knowledge base, interviewing the original artists and recording personnel. It was all a joy for me, as I was obsessed with the sounds of the era. ...

(***) ... the touring rock musician was my ideal sexual partner. By bedding them I could enjoy a temporary sort of fairy-tale bond; knowing it was bound to be fleeting as we would both move on meant that I never had to confront my own vulnerability about properly making a connection with someone. I could establish a transient intimacy and never have to deal with the real thing — and the real rejection that might entail. ...

(***) Of course the rejection would come as the latest lover moved on to the next town and the next woman — but somehow, being able to see it coming made me feel more in control. I was choosing, I thought, the lesser pain. ...

(***) But in all that casual sex, there was one moment I learnt to dread more than any other. I dreaded it not out of fear that the sex would be bad, but out of fear that it would be good. If the sex was good, then, even if I knew in my heart that the relationship wouldn’t work, I would still feel as though the act had bonded me with my sex partner in a deeper way than we had been bonded before. It’s in the nature of sex to awaken deep emotions within us, emotions that are unwelcome when one is trying to keep it light.
(***) On such nights the worst moment was when it was all over. Suddenly I was jarred back to earth. Then I’d lie back and feel bereft. He would still be there, and if I was really lucky, he’d lie down next to me. Yet, I couldn’t help feeling like the spell had been broken. ... — it had just been a game. ... The circus had left town.

(***) ... I’ve tried their philosophy ... and it doesn’t work. We’re not built like that. Women are built for bonding. We are vessels and we seek to be filled. For that reason, however much we try and convince ourselves that it isn’t so, sex will always leave us feeling empty unless we are certain that we are loved, that the act is part of a bigger picture that we are loved for our whole selves not just our bodies.

(***) It took me a long time to realise this. My earliest attitudes about sex were shaped from what I saw in the lives of my older sister and my mother — especially my mother, a free spirit who was desperately trying to make up missing out on the hippie era.

(***) ... This was the 1970s and early 1980s, the age of the Sensitive New Age Guy or aptly named “snag”. My mother attracted them because she was new age herself, doing kundalini yoga and attending lectures by various gurus.
(***) The snags treated her with what passed for respect in that world but they never gave much of themselves and didn’t appreciate Mom in the way I did — I wondered if there were any men capable of valuing inner beauty. In both her search for a husband and her quest for a fulfilling spirituality, Mom was, in my eyes, fuelled by a longing to fill the empty space.

(***) As a teenager with no moral foundation for my resolution to save my virginity for Mr Right — other than a fear of being hurt by Mr Wrong ... But in a wider sense, losing my virginity, far from being the demarcation between past and future, was just a blip on the continuum of my sexual degradation. The decline had begun when I first sought sexual pleasure for its own sake.

(***) Our culture — both in the media via programmes such as Sex and the City and in everyday interactions — relentlessly puts forth the idea that lust is a way station on the road to love. It isn’t. It left me with a brittle facade incapable of real intimacy. Occasionally a man would tell me I appeared hard, which surprised me as I thought I was so vulnerable. In truth, underneath my attempts to appear bubbly, I was hard — it was the only way I could cope with what I was doing to my self and my body.

(***) The misguided, hedonistic philosophy which urges young women into this kind of behaviour harms both men and women; but it is particularly damaging to women, as it pressures them to subvert their deepest emotional desires. The champions of the sexual revolution are cynical. They know in their tin hearts that casual sex doesn’t make women happy. That’s why they feel the need continually to promote it.

(***) These days I live a very different kind of life. I still touch base with old musician pals now and again, but I’m more likely to hang out with members of church choirs. I am chaste. My decision to resist casual sex was, once again, influenced by my mother — though not in the way she initially hoped.

(***) Although she was Jewish, she gave up her new age beliefs for Christianity when I was a teenager. ... As far as I could see, Christians were a dull, faceless mass who ruled the world. My mission in life, as I saw it, was to be different; creative, liberal, rebellious.

(***) Then one day in December 1995, I was doing a phone interview with Ben Eshbach, leader of a Los Angeles rock band called the Sugarplastic, and asked him what he was reading. His answer was The Man Who Was Thursday by G K Chesterton. I picked it up out of curiosity and was captivated. Soon I was picking up everything by Chesterton that I could get my hands on, starting with his book Orthodoxy, his attempt to explain why he believed in the Christian faith.
(***) That was the first time it struck me that there was something exciting about Christianity. I kept reading Chesterton even as I continued my dissipated lifestyle, and then one night in October 1999 I had a hypnagogic experience — the sort in which you’re not sure if you are asleep or awake. I heard a woman’s voice saying: “Some things are not meant to be known. Some things are meant to be understood.” I got on my knees and prayed — and eventually entered the Catholic church.

(***) My chances are better now than they’ve ever been, because before I was chaste, I was looking for love in all the wrong places. It’s only now that I’m truly ready for marriage and have a clear vision of the kind of man I want.

(***) I may be 37, ... “but in husband-seeking years, I’m only 22.”

******************************
(Consult "The Thrill Of The Chaste: (Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On)", by Dawn Eden, was published by W Publishing Group/ Thomas Nelson last month.

(***) To access Dawn Eden's blog click on "The Dawn Patrol" .)

To order Ms. Eden's book click on "The Thrill Of The Chaste"

******************************

(Much thanks to the blog The Art of Apologetics for the information received on this valuable article!)

How To Be A Good Counselor (101)

2007-06-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

(***) Good day students. Thanks for arriving on time for your class. ..... (Just kidding. ... Well, sort of.) Now, let's begin our first lesson in the course "How To Be A Good Counselor 101". Are you ready? OK, here we go. Now, listen to this. ... When counseling, pay close attention to what your clients are saying to you.
(***) Of course, we all know to do this, but I recommend you listen carefully to your client (when finally you're a therapist) while confidently figuring out "Who-Dislikes-Who-For-What-Reason-Always" (a future post).
(***) But,, before doing that, maybe you should read what this has to do with marriage, "When You Are Right And Your Spouse Is Wrong" Part 1 and Part 2.
(***) On second thought, before you do that, I think maybe it's a good idea to read "What Has Been Forgotten About Women" (At least women would appreciate you reading that one!)
(***) Oh, and while we're on the subject of "women", (A topic that can be complicated at times for us men!) consult "The Adam And Eve Syndrome (Destruction Of Marital Oneness)".
(***) Yet, now that I think about it, if any of those women we just referred to know you've read "that" post, then the secret is out, and we're in "big-trouble". That being the case, I strongly recommend, urgently, that you immediately (if not sooner) go to "What Does It Mean To Be IN Love," even if you don't read it! (At least "look" like you're reading it.).
(***) ... Oh, know! What's "wrong" with me! "If you 'pretended' at doing anything, I mean "anything", then it's a "fact" your wife knows about it!
(***) Oh, man. This is "not" good! (Women have a "sense" for that kind of thing you know!)
(***) OK. Don't panic. It'll be OK. Trust me. (I've been in your shoes before.) ... Try this. Tell your wife you "promise" you will read Husband-Wife Need for Each other. This will gain you "points" with your wife. Get-you-in-good-standing-with-her, if you knowhat I mean! (Remember, I'm a "professional.) And while you do this, for "goodness sakes"-"swear" to your wife that you "will" read "Why One Woman Is Not Enough For Some Men". ...
(***) Oh no!!! What am I saying??!!! What's gotten into me??? That's "TERRIBLE" advice!!!
(***) (Is your wife in the room, or worse, is she "reading" this?) - I hope not!!! That could be "tragic"!
(***) OK, I'm panicking, but you don't have to. (Not yet anyway.) Stop. - Let me think. ... Yes, I know. If you want out of this mess you've got yourself into, I'm afraid you have no choice but to come clean. What I mean is, get honest with this woman that is your wife!! (I know that's asking a lot, but man,"your back is against a wall here!")
(***) So, listen closely. Follow my directives precisely. Do not deviate, understand? Pay attention to every word I will now tell you, and follow it to a "tee"!!!
(***) Wait a minute. Maybe "this" will work. For better luck, have your wife "watch" you while you read something good that she's actually been trying to tell you for years (only you wouldn't listen). But to be effective, it might be smart that you not tell her that it was "me" who put you up to reading this stuff. ...
(***) You ready? ... Now, read. But smile while you do it, (as you at the same time move your lips as if articulating each sylable dramatically). How to Listen To Your Wife (For Husbands). If you're lucky, your wife will be peering tenderly over your shoulder. Maybe then your wife will notice the post next to that one, How To Make Husbands Better (For Wives).
(***) Oh. Excuse me. No, no, no, no, no...! I can't believe I just said that! We "can't" have women "making-us-men-be-better"! I'm not sure it works that way anyway. ... (Not to mention "my own kind" that I have turned against by saying this!)
(***) OK, try this. If by chance your wife "did" read that post over your shoulder (You know, the one about "fixing us men"), look her square in the face and "lie." (You heard me right, "lie" man. Lie like there's no tomorrow!) Tell this woman you married that it was "you" who thought of passing such a lovely evening, parousing together with her these precious writings on scroll designed to "enhance" your "relationship" with her romantically, - this your beautiful wife! ... You understand? ... Good. ...
(***) Now, on the count of three, while your wife's looking across the at you, move your lips where she can see them. Do so and at least "pretend" with all your might that you're reading "Vital Oneness In Marriage" and "Sex That Is Meaningful". Now if you can do "that", my friend, I guarantee you will capture your wife's attention, get you out of trouble, "and" score points with her at the same time!!! . (Unless I'm mistaken, of course, which I don't believe I am.)
(***) Oh, but one more thing. Do not (and I mean absolutely "do not") send an e-mail to my wife telling her I told you this stuff!!! Understand me? If you "do" tell my wife I said these things, I'll deny every bit of it!!! I mean it!
(***) On second thought, this whole conversation we're having is getting awfully embarrassing!!! ... I tell you what, let's just forget we even met, OK? ...
(***) I know you've got a problem with your wife now, but personally, I claim no responsibility for it. You're on your own Bud. I've got my own problems.
(***) And about the "unfinished business" you stirred up here. As far as I'm concerned, you're on your own! And if by some strange chance you sill have an inkling of desire to aide humankind by being some sort of counselor, my advice to you is "Don't". Forget the whole thing. Get a job fixing computers, being a plumber. Train dogs to "sit" or something. .....
(***) Alright, I tell you what. Just do what you want, OK? Just leave me out of it. Get it? And while you're doing that, maybe it is best we just end this class, this post, this article (whatever it is) right now. ..... However, now that I think about it, judging by the emotional "wrecks" you and I both are now, perhaps before quitting and leaving the classroom to face this confusing world, we should read together calmly One Reason For Feeling Bad, and Having A Humble Opinion Of Oneself. ...
If not, well then let's exit the building in single file.. ... See you soon for our next lesson. (Remember, ... be on time.)

(Jim Hogue has been working in the field of counseling and psychotherapy, on various levels, for a total of 27 years. Having clinically created and assisted in maintaining dual diagnosis drug treatment programs and counseling centers, he has especially applied himself professionally for clients in areas of sexual abuse trauma, marital communication and Parent/Child problem relationships. Jim is a devout Catholic, having returned to the Catholic Church after years as a Protestant minister and missionary. Some say Mr. Hogue is a gifted musician as a vocalist and guitarist, including an exhaustive repertoire of both traditional and contemporary Christian music that he leads in Catholic Church worship and Mass. He believes that much of psychology that is productive for life and personal relationships, already exists remarkably, and always has, in forms of sacraments, traditions, prayers and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. [May God bless all we Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, as we seek to be His servants.]

Other posts on http://www.catholicpsychology.blogspot.com/ at this point include: Catholic Family Systems Theory, ... Healing For Emotional Pain, ... What Catholics Believe About Marriage, ... What Does It Mean To Be "IN LOVE", ... The Psychology Of Love, ... How To Not Be Anxious, ... Husband And Wife, Love And Priority, ... Neuro-Theology And Nuns ... A Mother Ponders Her Blog Addiction ... Catholic Psychology 101, ...and ...Why Do People Criticize (Part 1) and (Part 2). [For feedback, contributions and comments please e-mail: http://www.catholicpsychology@hotmail.com/ .]

Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always,#2

2007-05-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

This is the hillside upon which Jesus Christ gave His "Sermon On The Mount" to a large multitude of men, women and children almost two thousand years ago. In the last post, we mentioned a portion of our Lord's words from that sermon.

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:1-3)

Let's look closely at these words of Jesus, for there has never been a psychologist like Him. In His words our Lord states a principle of life. To the multitude He instructs that there are those of the multitude who inappropriately judge and criticize others, looking at the "speck" in their brother's eye, while ignoring the "plank" in their own eye!

Now, are we to suppose that from within this large gathering were the only people who arrogantly judged and criticized this way? Of course not. Jesus told the people, thus tells us today, that this "speck and plank psychology" emanates potentially from the sinful hearts of all we who walk the earth.

In psychoanalytic terms, the phenomena is referred to as "Negative Projection". What Sigmund Freud called an "Ego Defense Mechanism". Something of a natural human psyche "reflex action". Defined more specifically as a projecting and amplifying upon someone innocent, a fault that is in the one projecting, in order to avoid seeing that fault that is in the one projecting. (Like light beaming through movie film, projecting and reflecting upon a theater cinema screen.)

The point is, heartless criticism, cruel judgements, callous blaming, gossip and a sharp tongue in negative thought and speech, are always done, sadly, at someone else's expense. And when so done, it subverts and distracts in order to ignore and draw attention away from that very thing that is wrong in ourselves.

Christ had strong words against this. He didn't only call it some simple "mental-process-of-assimilating-thought" that an accusing negative thinker needs to improve upon when it is convenient. No, Jesus, being God personified, used harsh words for those who persist in such behavior. Why is this? Because people accusing wrongly, accuse falsely the innocent. But even more, they accuse "most falsely" the "most innocent", with use of the very thing for which "they themselves" are guilty.

And this principle surrounds us in the world today on many levels and in many places. In our personal interactions with others, and in a myriad of human institutions.

(Future blogs on "Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always", will develop further how this has personal application in our lives, and what to we can do about it. ... This particular post was more an establishing of a basis further for the thesis written in "Part 1". I decided to do this in response to comments received in "Part 1". ... Your attention and patience is appreciated.)

[Feel free to offer your thoughts or comments by contacting: http://www.catholicpsychology.blogspot.com/ .]

Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always,#1

2007-05-30T21:41:00.001-07:00

(***) What I'm referring to began with you when you were little. Already by then God had placed in your little heart, your DNA, strengths and talents. Already the loving Almighty had sculptured the basis to your personality and predestined gifts. But not everyone recognizes what is good about you. Not everyone appreciates your talents, your strengths. Regardless of what you do, or how hard you try, there will always be people who will ignore the good in you, and set out to convince you of what they insist is bad inside you.

(***) Sometimes it is family who does this. Sometimes not. Occasionally it's a friend who "stabs you in the back", then make it look like it's your fault while people race to take sides. Or maybe it's someone you thought was your friend. It can happen in your home, school or church. Anywhere. Painful criticism that is unwarranted and for subverted purposes, can happen when you least expect it, or can always happen and you know it's always present.

(***) Why does this happen? Cruel words. And practically the same stinging judgments that follow you where ever you go for a lifetime! It's like someone can walk into a room of ten people, and out of the ten, it will be "you" and "you alone" who will be criticized for an alleged, specific failing, always!

(***) I remember when I was very young. I actually considered that maybe all of the people in my life had somehow gathered in a room behind my back and held a meeting. There all the children and adults who knew me must have decided how I was bad in one certain way, and they would all at various times of my life make sure I knew it! ... After a while I concluded it could not be. If all those people had ever met to talk about me in that way, some of those people would have had to have driven for great distances, and some how I would have found out about it!

(***) Yet, to accurately understand "why-some-people-dislike-you-the-same-way-always", you must first understand the "reason" people, who are some, say they dislike you. At first you might think these people criticize you because there are legitimate reasons for which you should be criticized. And you might think further that if there are legitimate reasons for some people to dislike you, then perhaps those people accurately select the thing for which you should to be criticized!

(***) If you believe this, you are absolutely incorrect. It turns out that the reason people criticize you, judge you, gossip and blame you unkindly on a particular matter, has nothing to do with you being wrong about anything, but you being right and "they" being wrong about everything.

(***) It's amazing how this works. A wire or battery never reveals the presence of electricity, unless first either conduit supports a positive and a negative. Then instantly, and only in that instant, the positive and the negative electrodes connect and there is powerful sparks that can cause great pain!

**************

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." (Jeremiah 17:19-20)

*****

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:1-5)

*****

Several future posts are planned as sequels for this important topic of ..... "Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always". Your responses by e-mail in the form of comments, contributions, challenges or appreciation will be valued. Feel free to contact Jim Hogue at: http://www.catholicpsychology@hotmail.com/ .

New Pill For Sale To Stop Monthly Menstruation

2007-05-30T01:17:00.000-07:00

A birth control pill designed to eliminate a woman's monthly period will be available for purchase over the counter in July. The contraceptive, Lybrel, created by the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, is a low-dose birth control pill that if taken daily, can prevent pregnancy and suppress menstuation. Lybrel was approved last week by the United States Federal Food and Drug Administration. It's use is meant for women whose cycles are painful, unpleasant, or for those who just don't want to experience monthly bleeding. "It's yet another option for women," said Six Rivers Planned Parenthood CEO Tina Mackenzie. "Women are, unfortunately, the ones responsible for the birth control methods," said Dr. Kim Ervin, an obstetrician/gynecologist at North Coast Women's Health in Eureka, California. "The more choices we have, the more options, the better women can choose and have control over their lives."

This news came out yesterday in some newspapers. If the article was found at all, it was short comment tucked back on less important pages. The matter was hardly in other media outlets.

Yawn ..., Oh well, not a big deal. Just another "major-step-in-the-direction-of-tampering-with-the-God-created-natural-body-made-in-His-sacred-image-who's-developement-and-functioning-processes-are-that-of-the-increasingly-less-significantly-recognized-being-we-call-"Woman".

The first mistake was made in the year 1930. Before then, Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants stood together in unified condemnation of any attempt to sterilize the marital act with the use of contraceptives. It was first the Anglican Church that broke with more than 1,900 years of uninterrupted Christian teaching. In time, other churches and denominations followed. In 1968, however, Pope Paul VI shocked the world when he reaffirmed the traditional teaching against contraception in his encyclical letter "Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life)". Today, as Christians, almost entirely the Roman Catholic Church stands alone, or certainly the leader, to hold true to this issue of sanctity of woman and marriage before God.

Christopher West writes, "Modern men and women have lost sight of the greatness, dignity, and divine purpose of human life (Humanae Vitae). When that happens, we no longer see the sexual union as a "great mystery" proclaiming God's love for humanity and foreshadowing heaven. We quickly reduce sex to a biological process subject to all sorts of human manipulations. Today, because of this mind-set, most men and women give no more thought to tinkering with their fertility than they do to tinkering with their hair color."

As a final note in this post, recognize that no contraceptive on the market claims 100% success rate. Instead, contraceptives are designed to merely "fool a woman's body" into "believing it is continually pregnant." Allegedly, this is so that sperm does not make it to the egg inside the woman. However, read the small print on the packages at your nearest drug store. Pharmaceuticals never claim that this process occurs a hundred percent of the time. Actually, they state emphatically that the contraceptive process is not always completed. Thus, sometimes sperm and egg "do" unite, conceiving human life. Only after we've "lied" to the woman's body simulating false pregnancy, do we also "lie" to ourselves pretending there are not occasions when human life is conceived inside the child's mother, then is flushed out (but not immediately) through the mother's menstrual system at the time of her monthly cycle. ......... Now, in a matter of weeks, the pill "Lybrel" will be purchased to remove from women the natural experience of menstruation. ... I am not a woman, I'm a man, but I still I cannot help but feel greatly saddened that there is likely something very wrong about this.

Consider the following quotes:

The person who is truly chaste is able to direct erotic desire "towards the true, good, and beautiful - so that what is 'erotic' also becomes true, good, and beautiful" (Nov. 12, 1980) Contracepted intercourse not only attacks the procreative meaning of sex, it "ceases also to be an act of love" (Aug. 22, 1984) Hence, the asceticism required by chastity doesn't impoverish or impede a couple's expressions of love and affection. Rather, it "makes them spiritually more intense and therefore enriches them." (Oct. 24, 1984) [Pope John Paul II]

"Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy." [Catechism Of The Catholic Church, #2339]

(If you wish to comment, ask questions, offer opinions, submit additions or challenge with criticism, please feel free to write to: http://www.catholicpsychology@hotmail.com/ . )

How To Make Husbands Better (For Wives)

2007-05-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

(***) No woman can make a man be a man. If a woman ever "did" make a man be a man, the woman would be dissatisfied with the man she made, because the man's love and appreciation of the woman would have been based on the woman having been required to "make" the man do so. Obviously, that is not meaningful to wives.

(***) So women are in a difficult position. Needing to be loved by men, yet feeling helpless in knowing how to get men to translate their love to women in real life events. You know, like, "Take out the trash when it is full without me always having to tell you to do so!" Or, "Can't you just give me ten minutes at the end of your day to listen to my feelings!" ... "Which is more important to you, me or the television!!!" , and so on.

(***) Not knowing what else to do, many wives threaten and control their husbands. Some do so overtly, and some covertly. To these women, having tried all they know to reason and communicate with their husbands, resort finally to "forcing" their husbands to be the kind of men and husbands they are supposed to be.

(***) Essentially, it's women trying to be bigger men than the men they are married to. It could be a good idea, accept there is one problem with this. It doesn't work. It never has, and never will. A man is a man when he decides to be one. For life in general, as well as each moment of each day, if a woman makes a man be a man, he is no longer a man, and this is one thing men can't stand. Simply put.

(***) The fact is, men don't "hear" women when they make demands on them in the activity of severe criticism. This is especially true when verbalized pressure to change a man is attempted in the context of an intimate, couple relationship.

(***) Then, if even screaming, threatening, blackmailing, lying, bringing up the past, and nervous break downs women have had to resort to fail to get through to men, what are women to do???

(***) Good question. My advice to you is this, "manipulate" the guy. ... Yes, you heard me right. Manipulate the man. "Trick" your husband, and do so with all your God given female creative capacity to deceive him.

(***) I'm not joking. I'm serious, very serious. ... You see, it is "women" who "detest" the idea of being manipulated. Men, on the other hand, really don't mind it. But with a man who is good, or Godly, there will be certain conditions you must first know as a woman before you begin confounding him with your trickery. That is that the initiator of the gross manipulatings on this man must be performed by an elogant, charming Godly woman, who will practice her art of deception in a prayerful spirit of love and respect. Also, that this special and powerful woman in this man's life will continue this brilliant plan to manipulate him will cotninue graciously until the conclusion of both his and her lives (i.e.: his wife).

(***) The point is this, the enormous power wifes have over husbands, is their "influence". Over shere "man power", I'd choose what women have to change their husbands, lovingly, any day.

(***) By your mere presence. By the manner you approach and leave. Your pauses, your appreciation. By the sound of your voice, by your intelligence in carefully chosen words you speak and win. Remind your husband who he is. Tell him what he will become, and yes, even before he has become it. Be positive in ways only you can be positive to your husband. ... Oh, and yes, pray for him. I must tell you Satan and his army of lies will be beaten, scattered, and in flight.

(***) (More will be in future blog posts. If you wish to comment, ask questions, offer opinions, submit additions or challenge with criticism, please feel free to write to: http://www.catholicpsychology@hotmail.com/ .

How To Listen To Your Wife (For Husbands)

2007-05-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

It is important that we remember men are not women, and women are not men. Forgive me for beginning this way, but the point is important. Literally, both brain constructruction and brain chemistry of men are greatly different than that of women. This contributes generally to men wishing to speak less, and women wishing to speak more. Especially during instances of stress, confusion, conflict and sadness.

You see, almost always, when men talk, the act of speech itself is for a particular purpose, with a precise mission or goal in mind. "Talk" alone among men becomes boring, unless it is one joke to another, or something in common to "figure-out".

With women, however, when women speak, it is most often for the experience of "speaking itself." Remarkably, it is the act of speech alone, with that articulation listened to, that brings meaning and procedure of process to the thoughts and feelings of our wives.

But in way of comparison, notice how that when men are troubled over a situation, they tend to fixate on something insignificant in order for thoughts and feelings to position themselves automatically into "drawers" and "cubbards" so to speak, quietly in the male's mind. This can be done often when a husband reads a newspaper, watches a sporting event, or sharpens his collection of knives just to have something to do. Over time, as if by a magic, the answer the man is looking for to the problem he thinks he's having, arrives to his awareness. It is then that the husband is ready to share his solution to the problem with his wife.

With wives, on the other hand, generally speaking, a woman does not always easily formulate what she wishes to say based on a time table. Verbalizing what is troubling her usually requires freedom of expression of her thoughts and feelings, without restraint, and that, to someone the woman considers meaningful and important to her (husband). [The experience can be described as she saying things that fall to the floor as fragments. The fragments put together at the end make sense both to her and the listener.]

At first, however, this confuses and confounds men. Most of us never had this explained to us, nor did the majority of we husbands grow up in homes where we saw father's show loving patience and grace with their wives. As a result, husbands tend to try to "fix" the problem they think their wives are sharing with them about 30 seconds into the wife's conversation. This "attempt-to-fix-the-problem-by-the-husband" interupts the process of speaking by the wife, which offends and sometimes hurts her deeply. The reason this hurts the wife, is basically because the wife is not sharing with her husband in order that he might "fix" either "her" or "something", but that he might "listen" and be witness to her repairing of herself merely by his listening presence!

But men state their main point in the first sentence of conversation (Like I just did). Whatever a husband mentions after that is either wasted speach, or less important words to support his original statement. With women it is different. The first point a woman makes in the activity of conversation with her husband is "never" her main point. No, the main point that a woman makes with her husband is always her "last" point, and that last point, or statement, will often arrive in the conversation at some unpredictable time in the future!

Or so it seems to men, for husbands generally grow weary of listening to their wives. ... Why is this?

The answer is simple. Actually, so simple that we miss it. ... Men keep trying to think like women, and this is unfortunate. For God made husbands brains male for a reason. First of all, that is not possible for men to think like women, and second, even if men "were" able to think like women, it would "kill" them!!!

No, the reason men become weary of listening to their wives, is because men think in ways that are "linear" and "one dimensinal". What I mean is, it is not meant that a husband "connect-the-dots", so to speak, on everything his wife discloses in her efforts to speak with him. The up's and the down's, the "roller-coaster" a wife goes through in her mind and heart as a course of life would render any man's brain physically exhausted. Instead, a husband is to exercise his one dimentional, linear mind for the single purpose of again falling in love with the mere sound of his wife's voice. The husband is to call to his remeberance what he originally found beautiful in his wife's eyes and detailed expressions. The twinkle as she speaks of things that the husband would normally not find important, but now find important because his wife speaks them and makes them beautiful because she is beautiful. A loving husband that wishes to listen, cannot do this if he mistakenly believes he must keep track with what would leave him tired and fatigued.
.
In conclusion, husband. Do yourself a favor, as well as do your wife a favor. Stop thinking you've got to solve everything. Stop believing that you were even meant to ever keep up with every complexity of your wife's words and statements as she discloses with you experiences of thought and feeling only "she" can survive! Thank God that your wife is the woman, and that you remain the husband in your marriage. If she moves from issue-to-issue, let her do so. It simply means that's what she needs to do. Your job, sir, is only to love and cherish her. That's more simple than what your wife goes through being a woman.

In other words, let "your wife" be the "thinker", let "your wife" be the "feeler", let "your wife" be the "speaker", while you watch in confidence as she performs what is necessary for her own normal female emotional processing. Cherish the mere sound of her voice as you once did. Watch her eyes and love them like you once did. ... When finally your wife stops talking, ask her something about what she just said, so that she talks a little longer. Do this just so you can watch how beautiful she is to you as she honors you by sharing the things she wishes you to know and no one else.

In time, every time, a twinkle will come into her eyes. Then in the end when your wife's process of speach is completed, something amazing will happen few men today have witnessed in women around them. What earlier seemed caotic and confusing in your wife's speach, will suddenly become clear and make sense to you. She will sigh a heavy sigh, then finally tell you what is her main point. Her final statement will be a relief to stress, and a blessing of truth for both of you. To me, as a man, frankly, I remain a bit amazed each time I see this process take place in women, both in my marriage with my wife, as well as the marriages of couples I counsel.

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What "Virtual Friendship" Is Doing To Us

Reiki Therapy Considered Unchristian

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A Humble Opinion Of Oneself

Prayer, A Way Of Learning Hope

Parenting (A Synopsis)

Parenting Moment By Moment

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Building Emotional Walls

The Role of Father in Raising Children

Depression & Suicide

True Love (What Is It?) [1 of 8]

True Love (Many Don't Understand) [2 of 8]

True Love (What Is Imitation Love?) [3 of 8]

True Love (How It Can Turn Bad) [4 of 8]

True Love (When A Relationship Dies) [5 of 8]

True Love (The Problem Of Anger) [6 of 8]

True Love (How To Find It) [7 of 8]

True Love (How To Change Someone) [8 of 8]

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How To Deal With Change

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How To Love Your Family

Events Greater Than Our Own

*Internet Pornography ("Out of Control!!!")*

*How To Love A Woman*

*Commercializing Of Women*

*Divorce ("Nobody's Home")*

*The Perverting Of Catholic Religious (Part 2)*

* Does Marriage Need "Luck" To Survive? *

*The Perverting Of Catholic Religious (Part 1)*

*Early Church Psychology*

*When Giving Advice Is Difficult!*

*Healing Grief Before The Eucharistic Host*

** Playing God (in "Virtual Reality") **

** Priests Who Molest Children **

** Silver Ring In High Court (Britain) **

** Talk To Your Spouse **

*Husband-Wife DATE to CONFESSIONAL?*

** How Bad Things Happen ("Scandal") **

** Sexual Abuse, Incest and Rape **

**Decide For Children, Religion & School?**

**The Rosary (For Men)**

** Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always #3 **

** The "Thrill Of The Chaste" **

** Casual Sex Is A Con **

** How To Be A Good Counselor (101) **

Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always,#2

Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always,#1

New Pill For Sale To Stop Monthly Menstruation

How To Make Husbands Better (For Wives)

How To Listen To Your Wife (For Husbands)

Internet Pornography ("Out of Control!!!")

How To Love A Woman

Commercializing Of Women

Divorce ("Nobody's Home")

The Perverting Of Catholic Religious (Part 2)

The Perverting Of Catholic Religious (Part 1)

Early Church Psychology

When Giving Advice Is Difficult!

Healing Grief Before The Eucharistic Host

Playing God (in "Virtual Reality")

Priests Who Molest Children

Silver Ring In High Court (Britain)

Talk To Your Spouse

Husband-Wife DATE to CONFESSIONAL?

How Bad Things Happen ("Scandal")

Sexual Abuse, Incest and Rape

Decide For Children, Religion & School?

The Rosary (For Men)

Why Some People Dislike You The Same Way Always #3

The "Thrill Of The Chaste"

Casual Sex Is A Con

How To Be A Good Counselor (101)