Literary Gems with an Eternal Perspective
My favorite course when I was studying at U-M was the one I completed on the beach.
While on vacation at Lake Michigan in Grand Haven, I read the works of Hemingway, Faulkner and Saul Bellow for an American literature “summer reading” course. For the three-hour exam I had to take when I got back to campus, my memory of Mr. Sammler’s Planet and For Whom the Bell Tolls remained as crisp as it was when I was dusting the sand off the pages of these books.
It was nice getting academic credit; but most other summers I read for enjoyment, only to discover in retrospect that I had learned lifetime lessons as well. This happened especially when I read books like the ones listed below, recommended by local Catholics who say these Catholic classics are among the best they have discovered during their summer reading adventures.
Unfortunately, some of these classics are out of print; but almost all can be accessed at local libraries or, in a pinch, from Amazon.com at their out-of-print book dealer link.
* G.K. Chesterton: Orthodoxy (Image Books) and The Complete Father Brown (out of print, but Favorite Father Brown Stories and Father Brown: Selected Stories are available, and The Astonishing Father Brown will be published this September).
Critics have ranked Orthodoxy among the greatest books of Catholic apologetics. It contributed to the conversion of famous figures like C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot. Gregory DeLassus, of St. Mary Student Parish in Ann Arbor, said the Father Brown collection was the best book he had read this summer. “The great thing about this book is that it is a whole series of truly engrossing mysteries, but each one is no more than 20 minutes long, so you can read them very comfortably in little snatches,” he said.
* C. S. Lewis: Perelandra (Scribner: 1996), The Chronicles of Narnia (Harper Mass Market Paperbacks), The Great Divorce (Broadman & Holman Publishers) and Till We Have Faces (Harcourt Brace).
Lewis, a Protestant, is perhaps the most famous Christian apologist after Chesterton. No child should grow up without reading The Chronicles of Narnia. “I was driving through the Appalachian Mountains to get to college and reading The Last Battle,” related Pam Wiitala of Dexter, who attends Holy Spirit Parish in Hamburg. “Part of the story is about going ‘further up and further in’, and the book just came alive. I felt I was living it as we drove through the mountains, an incredible experience!”
* Lloyd Douglas: The Robe and The Magnificent Obsession (Mariner Books).
Douglas, the late Ann Arbor Protestant minister, wrote about the transforming power of Christianity. Douglas Memorial Chapel was named after him. Both of his most famous books were also made into movies. The Magnificent Obsession concerns a selfish young man whose life is transformed after he learns to live according to the Beatitudes.
* J. R. R. Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion (Ballantine Books).
Tolkien, a Catholic philologist who also translated part of the Jerusalem Bible, was a close friend of C. S. Lewis. Some speculate he served as a model for Dr. Ransom, Lewis’s hero in the Perelandra trilogy. After Lewis bootlegged his own copy of The Hobbit into publication, Tolkien became famous in his own right. Carol Pucchio, director of religious education for the Spiritus Sanctus Academies, said she just finished reading her “favorite series”—The Lord of the Rings—for the third time. “This fantasy series brings you into a world of amazing creatures and fascinating characters so unlike our own world. Yet, we can all relate to this world because it reflects truth, truth about good and evil, about virtue and vice, about love and hate, about life. Only a Catholic mind could have created this world,” she said. Chris Ozias, a parishioner at Holy Trinity in Ypsilanti, agreed. “Despite the lack of any overt theology, I think the books really exemplify the order of grace better than anything I’ve read. I think the books show a distinctly Catholic understanding.”
* Michael O’Brien: Fr. Elijah and the “Children of the Last Days” series, the first of which is Strangers and Sojourners : A Novel (Ignatius Press).
O’Brien’s books of apocalyptic fiction, set in contemporary times or in the near future, create images as vivid and spiritually rich as icons, but are also exciting reads.
* Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison, Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon (Harper Prism).
Like the books of Agatha Christie whom she influenced, Sayers’s delightful murder mysteries—solved by famous detectives Lord Peter Whimsey and Harriet Vane—were snapped up by women and men readers alike. Sayers was a friend of Lewis and Tolkien who belonged to their literary club, the Inklings. She was a serious scholar who translated Dante’s Paradiso from Italian to English verse.
* Thomas B. Costain: The Silver Chalice (Buccaneer Books).
Historical fiction writer Costain develops this fictional story about the Chalice of Antioch, an artifact some historians believe to be the cup Christ used at the Last Supper.
* Elizabeth Goudge: Pilgrim’s Inn, Green Dolphin Street, The Heart of the Family (all out of print) and The Dean’s Watch (Amereon Ltd.).
The daughter of an Episcopalian minister, Goudge has a genius for writing about how grace operates in family relationships.
* Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited (Little Brown & Co).
Waugh was a British wartime correspondent and satirist who reportedly wrote this novel to parallel his own conversion to Catholicism after World War II. Waugh said he intended to show “the operation of divine grace” in the affairs of the wealthy Roman Catholic Marchmain family, who, despite their indifference to the Church, are each brought back to grace in the end.
* Taylor Caldwell: Grandmother and the Priests (out of print) and Dear and Glorious Physician (Buccaneer Books).
In their reviews published on Amazon.com, readers say these books have transformed their lives. The first tells of a young girl who hears the stories of heroic priests at her Irish grandmother’s house. The other is a fictional account of Luke the Evangelist. Unfortunately, Caldwell’s later work deviates from her strong Catholic roots into quasi-prophetic visions and New Age musings.
* Graham Greene: The Power and the Glory (Penguin USA) with an introduction by John Updike.
“I had heard of it for years, I finally read it this summer,” said Jeff Wiitala of Greene’s masterpiece. “It treats of the massive persecution of Catholics in Mexico in the ‘20s and ‘30s; this was a big blank for me. It rivaled what was done during the time of Stalin.”
* Morris L. West: The Shoes of the Fisherman and The Clowns of God (both out of print).
These books also have an end-times flavor. Shoes of the Fisherman was an uncanny prediction of what the election of a saintly man as Pope might portend for the world.
* Henryk Sienkiewicz: Quo Vadis (Barbour & Co).
Critics consider this novel, set in the time of Christ, to be one of the greatest conversion stories ever written. Certainly it’s one of the greatest works of Catholic fiction.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Lepantoa poem by G.K.Chesterton
White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain--hurrah! Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria Is riding to the sea.
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii, Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still--hurrah! Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria Is gone by Alcalar.
St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
-- But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha! Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships.
King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed--
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha! Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign--
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria Has set his people free!
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain--hurrah! Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria Is riding to the sea.
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii, Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still--hurrah! Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria Is gone by Alcalar.
St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
-- But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha! Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships.
King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed--
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha! Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign--
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria Has set his people free!
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
A Marriage Made in Cyberspace
MARRIAGE MADE IN CYBERSPACE (By Kate Ernsting, Credo, June 12, 1999, Volume 5, No. 23, Reprinted with permission of Credo)
As Jim and Kate Blaney of Ypsilanti, Michigan, prepare to have their first child, they often hear people say their marriage was made in heaven. The Blaneys smile and nod, knowing that it was also made in cyberspace.
They credit Ave Maria Single Catholics Online, a new Catholic Internet service, with facilitating their meeting and getting to know each other while living in different states.
After years of seeking, they were surprised that something so simple -- it could be operated with a few clicks of the mouse -- could help them find their mates and their calling from God.
"When I was single, the thing that frustrated me the most was feeling I had no vocation in my life," said Kate. "For a woman, that's to be a wife/mother -- even if it's to be a spiritual mother of some sort -- or to be a consecrated celibate. But just being single and wandering, not being either, I felt I was wasting my life."
Despite a successful job with a local computing firm and years spent serving others through her parish, Christ the King in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kate said she told herself repeatedly, "A job is not worth spending my life on."
Her husband Jim said he also felt he should be doing something that had a more eternal impact. A native of Madison, Wisconsin, he was working in the Washington, D.C. area as a computer specialist for a company that designed health care systems for hospitals.
"I worked on computers all day, and when I came home at night, it was kind of a hobby. It was the main thing I did, frankly," he said.
He even wrote books about computers, but he said he began to realize that something had to change. "About two years ago I let my (publishing) agent know that I had to take a break to get married," he laughed.
The oldest of five, Jim by then lived away from his family in Madison. Still, he said a lot of his college friends from Christendom College in Virginia had moved to the D.C. area. He was also very active in his parish and in the Legion of Mary, a lay Catholic movement that promotes evangelism and devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
"I was getting myself involved in something several nights a week. I would do door-to-door evangelism, and I was involved in the youth group in my parish. I had a long list of things I was doing that might be called social."
Kate felt that she had a wealth of contacts as well. Most of her three sisters and six brothers settled nearby; her family still lived in Birmingham, Michigan. She followed some of her siblings to U-M, the "family school," and into membership in the Word of God charismatic community. "I always had the desire to get married and have a family, and I felt I was in the right place to pursue that vocation."
But, although both Jim and Kate found some chances to meet eligible, devout Catholics, they remained single.
"It wasn't just that all my friends were getting married," said Kate. "I was at the point now where all my friends had four kids."
Although both Jim and Kate worked in the computer industry, they said going online to find a date was the last thing they thought of trying. Both avoided traditional dating services as well.
"I had been getting those advertisements in the junk mail for years and throwing them away. I was very skeptical, because they required going on video and were very expensive," Jim said. And he was reluctant to try online services because "it seemed like I was advertising myself, like an object."
Kate had the same reluctance to publish her picture and personal information on the Internet. "You hear about all those stories. When I first got Jim's e-mails, I teased him, "You're not an ax murderer, are you?'"
Jim initially teased the friend who told him about Single Catholic Online, too. "I never let on I was the slighted bit interested."
Kate tried one method to realize her vocation that proved very effective in the end: storming Heaven.
"I just experience being pushed up against a wall. It was like, "Lord, what are you pushing me for? Tell me what to do!'" she said.
She decided to offer up sacrifices with her prayers. "In February of "98, I decided to give up chocolate. Then another series of events happened, and I really felt called to fast. I expected to offer these sacrifices for about two weeks until my prayer for direction was answered. I wasn't even praying to get married or engaged, it was much simpler. But this stage ended up going seven months."
Finally, she felt the Lord was calling her to be ready to sacrifice more: if necessary, she would give up proximity to her family, her 10 years of music service to her parish, even her parish itself.
"I was quite involved in Christ the King, but felt that if I wanted to meet single people, it was no longer the place for me. At the time, new people joining the parish were mostly families," she said.
Jim was experiencing a similar process of divestiture. "A lot of my friends were moving away from Washington, D.C., and I was becoming less and less attached to that area."
Finally, in late September of 1998, Jim decided to act on an advertisement for Ave Maria Single Catholics Online (AveMariaSCOL) he saw in a Catholic newspaper, "I decided, what the heck? So I sat down, logged onto the website and did the application. A few hours later I could do searches, and very definitely, the first person I was interested in was Katie."
As for Kate, "When I got the e-mail from Jim, I remember reading his profile and saying, 'This is the exact kind of person I'm looking for.'"
She had a lot of praise for the AveMariaSCOL profile, which she said took her "days" to fill out, "because the questions they asked were very thought-provoking. It was not just your favorite song, but your favorite Bible verse, your favorite title of Our Lord and Our Lady. It was, you know, what do you think of papal authority?"
She added, "It was an excellent screening tool. I felt very safe."
The e-mails the two sent to each other were being directed through the AveMariaSCOL website. "It doesn't work like normal e-mail. When you send a message to someone, you don't know their last name or any other contact information," explained Jim.
The two started corresponding regularly, almost daily. "The e-mails got so long, we had to exchange our personal e-mail fairly soon. We started sending Word documents as attachments," said Kate.
"Soon we were inserting editorial comments in each other's attachments in different colors!" quipped Jim.
The e-mails began to go deeply into each of their family backgrounds, beliefs, dreams and hopes, Kate said. "Before we met, we had already discussed things like family dynamics, how many children we hoped to have, even men's and women's roles in the family," said Kate.
They discovered that Jim's favorite movie, Henry V, was high up on Kate's list. Kate's favorite hymn was "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones," and Jim's, "All Creatures of Our God and King" -- the same tune with different words!
The two met when Jim flew up to Detroit in early November 1998, about a month after their first e-mail contact. Kate arranged for Jim to stay with a male neighbor. She was amazed to discover Jim had already reserved plane tickets for both of them to fly to Madison a few weeks later to see his family for Thanksgiving. "I was already very interested. I thought I would just take a little risk," he said.
So the Blaneys met Kate at Thanksgiving, and the Nelsons -- Kate's family -- met Jim at Christmas. Both were received warmly and enthusiastically.
"We got engaged March 19, St. Joseph's Day, and got married Sept. 25, of 1999. So you could say, it was about a year after we met online," said Jim.
Although both had decided to be open to moving after signing up with AveMariaSCOL, Jim said it made more sense for him to come to Ann Arbor. "All of Kate's family lives around her here. I was less attached to Washington, D.C. And it's a lot closer to Madison here," he said.
Jim found a job working for Kate's company. They were married at St. Regis Parish in Birmingham where Kate grew up, and the couple now attends Christ the King.
And while they don't send multi-paged, multicolored e-mail attachments anymore, they are still discovering new things about each other as they prepare to start their family.
Kate is discovering that Jim can carry the melody while she improvises the harmony to a new song. Jim, a philosophy major, has learned his wife likes late-night theological and philosophical discussions.
Both have obviously sworn off their skepticism about on-line courtship. "I always said Catholics need to use technology for good," said Jim.
As Jim and Kate Blaney of Ypsilanti, Michigan, prepare to have their first child, they often hear people say their marriage was made in heaven. The Blaneys smile and nod, knowing that it was also made in cyberspace.
They credit Ave Maria Single Catholics Online, a new Catholic Internet service, with facilitating their meeting and getting to know each other while living in different states.
After years of seeking, they were surprised that something so simple -- it could be operated with a few clicks of the mouse -- could help them find their mates and their calling from God.
"When I was single, the thing that frustrated me the most was feeling I had no vocation in my life," said Kate. "For a woman, that's to be a wife/mother -- even if it's to be a spiritual mother of some sort -- or to be a consecrated celibate. But just being single and wandering, not being either, I felt I was wasting my life."
Despite a successful job with a local computing firm and years spent serving others through her parish, Christ the King in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kate said she told herself repeatedly, "A job is not worth spending my life on."
Her husband Jim said he also felt he should be doing something that had a more eternal impact. A native of Madison, Wisconsin, he was working in the Washington, D.C. area as a computer specialist for a company that designed health care systems for hospitals.
"I worked on computers all day, and when I came home at night, it was kind of a hobby. It was the main thing I did, frankly," he said.
He even wrote books about computers, but he said he began to realize that something had to change. "About two years ago I let my (publishing) agent know that I had to take a break to get married," he laughed.
The oldest of five, Jim by then lived away from his family in Madison. Still, he said a lot of his college friends from Christendom College in Virginia had moved to the D.C. area. He was also very active in his parish and in the Legion of Mary, a lay Catholic movement that promotes evangelism and devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
"I was getting myself involved in something several nights a week. I would do door-to-door evangelism, and I was involved in the youth group in my parish. I had a long list of things I was doing that might be called social."
Kate felt that she had a wealth of contacts as well. Most of her three sisters and six brothers settled nearby; her family still lived in Birmingham, Michigan. She followed some of her siblings to U-M, the "family school," and into membership in the Word of God charismatic community. "I always had the desire to get married and have a family, and I felt I was in the right place to pursue that vocation."
But, although both Jim and Kate found some chances to meet eligible, devout Catholics, they remained single.
"It wasn't just that all my friends were getting married," said Kate. "I was at the point now where all my friends had four kids."
Although both Jim and Kate worked in the computer industry, they said going online to find a date was the last thing they thought of trying. Both avoided traditional dating services as well.
"I had been getting those advertisements in the junk mail for years and throwing them away. I was very skeptical, because they required going on video and were very expensive," Jim said. And he was reluctant to try online services because "it seemed like I was advertising myself, like an object."
Kate had the same reluctance to publish her picture and personal information on the Internet. "You hear about all those stories. When I first got Jim's e-mails, I teased him, "You're not an ax murderer, are you?'"
Jim initially teased the friend who told him about Single Catholic Online, too. "I never let on I was the slighted bit interested."
Kate tried one method to realize her vocation that proved very effective in the end: storming Heaven.
"I just experience being pushed up against a wall. It was like, "Lord, what are you pushing me for? Tell me what to do!'" she said.
She decided to offer up sacrifices with her prayers. "In February of "98, I decided to give up chocolate. Then another series of events happened, and I really felt called to fast. I expected to offer these sacrifices for about two weeks until my prayer for direction was answered. I wasn't even praying to get married or engaged, it was much simpler. But this stage ended up going seven months."
Finally, she felt the Lord was calling her to be ready to sacrifice more: if necessary, she would give up proximity to her family, her 10 years of music service to her parish, even her parish itself.
"I was quite involved in Christ the King, but felt that if I wanted to meet single people, it was no longer the place for me. At the time, new people joining the parish were mostly families," she said.
Jim was experiencing a similar process of divestiture. "A lot of my friends were moving away from Washington, D.C., and I was becoming less and less attached to that area."
Finally, in late September of 1998, Jim decided to act on an advertisement for Ave Maria Single Catholics Online (AveMariaSCOL) he saw in a Catholic newspaper, "I decided, what the heck? So I sat down, logged onto the website and did the application. A few hours later I could do searches, and very definitely, the first person I was interested in was Katie."
As for Kate, "When I got the e-mail from Jim, I remember reading his profile and saying, 'This is the exact kind of person I'm looking for.'"
She had a lot of praise for the AveMariaSCOL profile, which she said took her "days" to fill out, "because the questions they asked were very thought-provoking. It was not just your favorite song, but your favorite Bible verse, your favorite title of Our Lord and Our Lady. It was, you know, what do you think of papal authority?"
She added, "It was an excellent screening tool. I felt very safe."
The e-mails the two sent to each other were being directed through the AveMariaSCOL website. "It doesn't work like normal e-mail. When you send a message to someone, you don't know their last name or any other contact information," explained Jim.
The two started corresponding regularly, almost daily. "The e-mails got so long, we had to exchange our personal e-mail fairly soon. We started sending Word documents as attachments," said Kate.
"Soon we were inserting editorial comments in each other's attachments in different colors!" quipped Jim.
The e-mails began to go deeply into each of their family backgrounds, beliefs, dreams and hopes, Kate said. "Before we met, we had already discussed things like family dynamics, how many children we hoped to have, even men's and women's roles in the family," said Kate.
They discovered that Jim's favorite movie, Henry V, was high up on Kate's list. Kate's favorite hymn was "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones," and Jim's, "All Creatures of Our God and King" -- the same tune with different words!
The two met when Jim flew up to Detroit in early November 1998, about a month after their first e-mail contact. Kate arranged for Jim to stay with a male neighbor. She was amazed to discover Jim had already reserved plane tickets for both of them to fly to Madison a few weeks later to see his family for Thanksgiving. "I was already very interested. I thought I would just take a little risk," he said.
So the Blaneys met Kate at Thanksgiving, and the Nelsons -- Kate's family -- met Jim at Christmas. Both were received warmly and enthusiastically.
"We got engaged March 19, St. Joseph's Day, and got married Sept. 25, of 1999. So you could say, it was about a year after we met online," said Jim.
Although both had decided to be open to moving after signing up with AveMariaSCOL, Jim said it made more sense for him to come to Ann Arbor. "All of Kate's family lives around her here. I was less attached to Washington, D.C. And it's a lot closer to Madison here," he said.
Jim found a job working for Kate's company. They were married at St. Regis Parish in Birmingham where Kate grew up, and the couple now attends Christ the King.
And while they don't send multi-paged, multicolored e-mail attachments anymore, they are still discovering new things about each other as they prepare to start their family.
Kate is discovering that Jim can carry the melody while she improvises the harmony to a new song. Jim, a philosophy major, has learned his wife likes late-night theological and philosophical discussions.
Both have obviously sworn off their skepticism about on-line courtship. "I always said Catholics need to use technology for good," said Jim.
Remembering Fr. Hardon
Reflections on the Impact of Fr. Hardon
Compiled by Kate Ernsting
CredoJanuary 15, 2001
Credo asked some who have known Fr. John Hardon to tell us about the impact the Jesuit had in their lives.
"He was a man of holiness" From Dominic Aquila, Provost, Ave Maria College, Ypsilanti
This summer when I came to the position of provost here at Ave Maria College, Ave Maria Press had just received the publishing rights to Fr. Hardon's manuscripts. I met with him so that he might speak about his vision for carrying on his work. I had met him only once before, at a conference, but had been following his work for many years and even reviewed his book A Treasury of Catholic Wisdom.
It was remarkable finally getting to sit down and talk with him this summer. Although he was struggling with his short-term memory (he kept trying to remember my name and finally got it right by the end of our meeting), he was able to communicate clearly his idea about how his work should go on. Later I found out he was in incredible pain from the cancer that was afflicting him. Talking to him I could never have guessed that. What I took away was an impression of a man of tremendous holiness fighting very hard to accomplish God's purpose.
Now that we have publishing rights, Ave Maria Press plans to come out first with his book on a history of theology and grace that he never got published and also a book he wrote on the Eucharist.
Perhaps his greatest tribute is what he accomplished with his writings. During the confusion right after the Council in the '70s and '80s, if you went into a bookstore and looked up Catholicism you would find shelves full of a great deal of heterodox literature, but the only catechism you would find would be his. I've talked with a lot of friends who said this was instrumental in keeping them steady in their faith.
I was very grateful to Fr. Hardon for the way he explained the faith, simply but thoroughly, so everyone could understand it. He did the same thing with the many scholarly books he published, like the book he wrote on world religions; it still stands out as a masterpiece.
"He was a priest's priest" Fr. L. Dudley Day, OSA, St. John Cantius Parish, Chicago
I knew Fr. Hardon and worked with him for 13 years in the Institute on Religious Life, of which he was really the founder. He was an outstanding Jesuit priest, a true son of St. Ignatius. He was just a holy man. I would classify him as a priest’s priest, a priest after God’s own heart. This showed in everything he did: his writings, his lectures, when he said Mass or heard confession.
He never turned an assignment down. When he gave retreats, he also heard all the confessions and said the Masses. He always kept himself open for everybody. I helped him on the retreats and we'd be up until 1:30 in the morning every night. People wanted to see him because they felt that he would understand them and have something to offer to them.
In the '70s things got a little confusing in the Church. Fr. Hardon met with a group every two weeks at the Dominican House of Studies in River Forest on Sunday afternoons. He had 250 people there, even in cold weather – many of them homeschooling mothers, teachers, religious. They wanted to know what the Church really teaches.
At the Institute we soon found out that if he wasn't the speaker our audience dwindled quickly.
His idea was that a catechist should be true to the teaching of the Church. Even when he was sick he was concerned with fulfilling this mission.
"He was a great gift for our time" Charles Rice Professor of Law Notre Dame University Law School
He was unique. I knew him for 30 years, probably. He was just invaluable to the Church; there was no one like him.
I know people you have never heard of for whom Fr. Hardon was a personal confessor – not famous people, but ordinary people. He maintained contact with them, he helped them through hard times.
The guy was a saint.
When I was president of the Wanderer Forum, we had asked Fr. Hardon to speak. I was running around doing last-minute things and I stuck my head in to see if he had started speaking yet. He had just started talking and I couldn’t believe it; everyone was listening intently.
You could hardly hear him, but he was captivating.
It was a great grace to have him here in our time. I can speak primarily of his work in catechetics because I used his writings for my jurisprudence class (at Notre Dame Law School) and in teaching a high-school class. He was truly exceptional because he took the most complicated theological truths and made them easy to understand.
He made a tape on the pro-life movement that I’ve never forgotten; I still have it.
He said the greatest curse is human respect – the vice that makes us compromise to gain other people’s approval. He once implored the national RTL people to take a stand on contraception, but they refused to do it. Fr. Hardon put his finger on the problems in the pro-life movement.
I think the mission that we have is to carry on his work through his publications and tapes, particularly through Eternal Life and Ave Maria Press. We just have to take these materials of his and disseminate them. Fr. Hardon still lives through his works.
"His theology didn't have any waves" Eileen Farrell, Catholic author, Oakbrook, Illinois
I started going to the Dominican Priory of SS. Thomas and Albert in River Forest, where Fr. Hardon had started teaching a catechetical class for lay people. He’d speak and we’d study from his outlines. I believe this was in preparation for the publication of his catechism. We didn’t have the Catechism then, in the late ‘70s, so everyone flocked to hear him.
He was just absolutely great. You listened and listened. He was so clear and so definite about everything. His theology didn't have any waves.
"Meeting him changed my life" Dave Armstrong, Detroit
Meeting him proved to be a watershed event in my life and that of my family. He helped me to convert in 1990, received me into the Church, and baptized my first two children.
Fr. Hardon might be said to be the "Father of Internet Evangelism," as he always stressed the use of writing, the modem media and assertive evangelism. He was fond of saying that it was great to share the faith one-on-one but that, if a Catholic wrote, then potentially "thousands" of people could benefit from Catholic truths
He especially encouraged the laity to become more active in the Church and had been training Marian and Ignatian catechists for at least the past ten years, at the direct request of the Holy Father.
"He made the faith come alive" Bill Smith, Eternal Life, Kentucky
The prestige of having Fr. Hardon as one of our founders and our spiritual directors was a huge help to our work at Eternal Life, where we host talks and produce tapes centered on the problems of our times. His greatest gift to the Church was to really explain the truths in simple, understandable language for any level of intellect. He made the faith come. alive to thousands of people – His ability to move hearts never stopped, he was able to do it until the last. We are coming out with a last tape series on Fr. Hardon and I understand there are about 2,000 unpublished manuscripts. Many of these were written on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament.
"A tremendous gift from God" Bishop Raymond Burke
"Getting to know Fr. Hardon, hearing him speak, and having occasion to visit with him and working with him have been tremendous gifts from God to me for which I am very grateful." Bishop Raymond Burke of the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wis., is taking over the helm of one of Fr. John Hardon's most ambitious undertakings, the Marian Catechist apostolate, which has its origins in the program of instruction Fr. Hardon developed for Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. There are 700 Marian Catechists in the world.
Fr. Hardon was "a real champion of the priesthood" Deacon Richard Bloomfield
My wife Debbie and I attended Fr. Hardon's classes, Theology for the Laity, at Domino's Farms and continued with him when he moved his classes to Assumption Grotto. He had a way of making the Catholic Faith become a part of us. I completed his Home Study Course on the Essentials of the Faith before I began studying to become a permanent deacon.
It was because of Fr. Hardon that I joined the Institute on Religious Life. In 1994, when my oldest son Andy was 18, we attended our first Institute conference in Mundelein, Illinois. Cardinal Sanchez, Prefect for the congregation of the Clergy, spoke on the new Catechism, and after his talk he said to Andy, “You should be a priest.” The seed was planted, Andy graduated from Franciscan University and is currently studying for the priesthood with the Society of St. John in Shohola, Pennsylvania. It was around that time that I accepted the call to the permanent diaconate. Fr. Hardon was a real champion of the priesthood and responsible for many vocations. He knew that without priests there would be no Eucharist and without the Eucharist, there would be no Catholic Church as we know it.
Fr. Hardon was concerned about the Church in the United States and one of his favorite phrases was: "Americans are living in a dream world." He worked tirelessly, catechizing the laity, believing that they were the best hope for resolving problems in the Church. He hoped that his Marian Catechists could continue his work catechizing others. One of his most used and most meaningful expressions was, "Embrace the Cross! Love the Cross! I mean it!" Fr. Hardon did mean it and he lived it more than any one I know. He was a martyr living in the age of martyrs.
Copyright © 2003 by Credo
Compiled by Kate Ernsting
CredoJanuary 15, 2001
Credo asked some who have known Fr. John Hardon to tell us about the impact the Jesuit had in their lives.
"He was a man of holiness" From Dominic Aquila, Provost, Ave Maria College, Ypsilanti
This summer when I came to the position of provost here at Ave Maria College, Ave Maria Press had just received the publishing rights to Fr. Hardon's manuscripts. I met with him so that he might speak about his vision for carrying on his work. I had met him only once before, at a conference, but had been following his work for many years and even reviewed his book A Treasury of Catholic Wisdom.
It was remarkable finally getting to sit down and talk with him this summer. Although he was struggling with his short-term memory (he kept trying to remember my name and finally got it right by the end of our meeting), he was able to communicate clearly his idea about how his work should go on. Later I found out he was in incredible pain from the cancer that was afflicting him. Talking to him I could never have guessed that. What I took away was an impression of a man of tremendous holiness fighting very hard to accomplish God's purpose.
Now that we have publishing rights, Ave Maria Press plans to come out first with his book on a history of theology and grace that he never got published and also a book he wrote on the Eucharist.
Perhaps his greatest tribute is what he accomplished with his writings. During the confusion right after the Council in the '70s and '80s, if you went into a bookstore and looked up Catholicism you would find shelves full of a great deal of heterodox literature, but the only catechism you would find would be his. I've talked with a lot of friends who said this was instrumental in keeping them steady in their faith.
I was very grateful to Fr. Hardon for the way he explained the faith, simply but thoroughly, so everyone could understand it. He did the same thing with the many scholarly books he published, like the book he wrote on world religions; it still stands out as a masterpiece.
"He was a priest's priest" Fr. L. Dudley Day, OSA, St. John Cantius Parish, Chicago
I knew Fr. Hardon and worked with him for 13 years in the Institute on Religious Life, of which he was really the founder. He was an outstanding Jesuit priest, a true son of St. Ignatius. He was just a holy man. I would classify him as a priest’s priest, a priest after God’s own heart. This showed in everything he did: his writings, his lectures, when he said Mass or heard confession.
He never turned an assignment down. When he gave retreats, he also heard all the confessions and said the Masses. He always kept himself open for everybody. I helped him on the retreats and we'd be up until 1:30 in the morning every night. People wanted to see him because they felt that he would understand them and have something to offer to them.
In the '70s things got a little confusing in the Church. Fr. Hardon met with a group every two weeks at the Dominican House of Studies in River Forest on Sunday afternoons. He had 250 people there, even in cold weather – many of them homeschooling mothers, teachers, religious. They wanted to know what the Church really teaches.
At the Institute we soon found out that if he wasn't the speaker our audience dwindled quickly.
His idea was that a catechist should be true to the teaching of the Church. Even when he was sick he was concerned with fulfilling this mission.
"He was a great gift for our time" Charles Rice Professor of Law Notre Dame University Law School
He was unique. I knew him for 30 years, probably. He was just invaluable to the Church; there was no one like him.
I know people you have never heard of for whom Fr. Hardon was a personal confessor – not famous people, but ordinary people. He maintained contact with them, he helped them through hard times.
The guy was a saint.
When I was president of the Wanderer Forum, we had asked Fr. Hardon to speak. I was running around doing last-minute things and I stuck my head in to see if he had started speaking yet. He had just started talking and I couldn’t believe it; everyone was listening intently.
You could hardly hear him, but he was captivating.
It was a great grace to have him here in our time. I can speak primarily of his work in catechetics because I used his writings for my jurisprudence class (at Notre Dame Law School) and in teaching a high-school class. He was truly exceptional because he took the most complicated theological truths and made them easy to understand.
He made a tape on the pro-life movement that I’ve never forgotten; I still have it.
He said the greatest curse is human respect – the vice that makes us compromise to gain other people’s approval. He once implored the national RTL people to take a stand on contraception, but they refused to do it. Fr. Hardon put his finger on the problems in the pro-life movement.
I think the mission that we have is to carry on his work through his publications and tapes, particularly through Eternal Life and Ave Maria Press. We just have to take these materials of his and disseminate them. Fr. Hardon still lives through his works.
"His theology didn't have any waves" Eileen Farrell, Catholic author, Oakbrook, Illinois
I started going to the Dominican Priory of SS. Thomas and Albert in River Forest, where Fr. Hardon had started teaching a catechetical class for lay people. He’d speak and we’d study from his outlines. I believe this was in preparation for the publication of his catechism. We didn’t have the Catechism then, in the late ‘70s, so everyone flocked to hear him.
He was just absolutely great. You listened and listened. He was so clear and so definite about everything. His theology didn't have any waves.
"Meeting him changed my life" Dave Armstrong, Detroit
Meeting him proved to be a watershed event in my life and that of my family. He helped me to convert in 1990, received me into the Church, and baptized my first two children.
Fr. Hardon might be said to be the "Father of Internet Evangelism," as he always stressed the use of writing, the modem media and assertive evangelism. He was fond of saying that it was great to share the faith one-on-one but that, if a Catholic wrote, then potentially "thousands" of people could benefit from Catholic truths
He especially encouraged the laity to become more active in the Church and had been training Marian and Ignatian catechists for at least the past ten years, at the direct request of the Holy Father.
"He made the faith come alive" Bill Smith, Eternal Life, Kentucky
The prestige of having Fr. Hardon as one of our founders and our spiritual directors was a huge help to our work at Eternal Life, where we host talks and produce tapes centered on the problems of our times. His greatest gift to the Church was to really explain the truths in simple, understandable language for any level of intellect. He made the faith come. alive to thousands of people – His ability to move hearts never stopped, he was able to do it until the last. We are coming out with a last tape series on Fr. Hardon and I understand there are about 2,000 unpublished manuscripts. Many of these were written on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament.
"A tremendous gift from God" Bishop Raymond Burke
"Getting to know Fr. Hardon, hearing him speak, and having occasion to visit with him and working with him have been tremendous gifts from God to me for which I am very grateful." Bishop Raymond Burke of the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wis., is taking over the helm of one of Fr. John Hardon's most ambitious undertakings, the Marian Catechist apostolate, which has its origins in the program of instruction Fr. Hardon developed for Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. There are 700 Marian Catechists in the world.
Fr. Hardon was "a real champion of the priesthood" Deacon Richard Bloomfield
My wife Debbie and I attended Fr. Hardon's classes, Theology for the Laity, at Domino's Farms and continued with him when he moved his classes to Assumption Grotto. He had a way of making the Catholic Faith become a part of us. I completed his Home Study Course on the Essentials of the Faith before I began studying to become a permanent deacon.
It was because of Fr. Hardon that I joined the Institute on Religious Life. In 1994, when my oldest son Andy was 18, we attended our first Institute conference in Mundelein, Illinois. Cardinal Sanchez, Prefect for the congregation of the Clergy, spoke on the new Catechism, and after his talk he said to Andy, “You should be a priest.” The seed was planted, Andy graduated from Franciscan University and is currently studying for the priesthood with the Society of St. John in Shohola, Pennsylvania. It was around that time that I accepted the call to the permanent diaconate. Fr. Hardon was a real champion of the priesthood and responsible for many vocations. He knew that without priests there would be no Eucharist and without the Eucharist, there would be no Catholic Church as we know it.
Fr. Hardon was concerned about the Church in the United States and one of his favorite phrases was: "Americans are living in a dream world." He worked tirelessly, catechizing the laity, believing that they were the best hope for resolving problems in the Church. He hoped that his Marian Catechists could continue his work catechizing others. One of his most used and most meaningful expressions was, "Embrace the Cross! Love the Cross! I mean it!" Fr. Hardon did mean it and he lived it more than any one I know. He was a martyr living in the age of martyrs.
Copyright © 2003 by Credo
Beyond Dating
Beyond DatingKATE ERNSTING
Most parents have happy memories of dating. But today youth ministers, and even some teens, are sounding an alarm, that dating may be more intense and destructive than it was for their parents. Here is how one parish leads their young adults on the narrow path to real love.
But is there a good alternative to dating? One local parish, Christ the King, is trying one out with success. Members of the parish Life Teen group can socialize and have fun without being forced into steady dating before they are ready. Other parishes, like St. Thomas in Ann Arbor, are considering starting Life Teen, according to Outreach Minister Glenn Smith.
Like many of her peers, Anna Bolster started dating in middle school and kept it up in high school. But, near the end of her junior year at Father Gabriel Richard, she decided to give it up completely.
"When I started dating at Forsythe it was, like, you said you were 'going out' and you did this for two weeks; it wasn't very serious. But when I went to high school I was getting emotionally involved," explained Bolster, now 19.
"Whenever I had a crush on someone I would date him; it was pretty frivolous. But it wasn't until I got hurt that I became convinced there had to be a better way," she said.
After her last "inevitable" painful experience, Bolster read the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris and decided to do just that. Following through on a decision she made on her Confirmation day years before, she decided to "give my heart to the Lord instead." She stole moments to visit the FGRHS chapel during lunch breaks and study hours. As she sought to deepen her relationship with Him, she asked God to reveal His plans for her vocation.
"When I read that book, I realized you aren't just supposed to date for dating, you are looking to marry someone." She started thinking about what Christian marriage would mean, what kind of man would be a good husband for her and father for her children.
"If I could change it, I wish I hadn't been so focused on the present. I feel some regrets about the guys I dated in high school and wish I hadn't wasted my time on relationships that weren't going to last," she said.
Did Bolster's decision not to date hurt her future? Not at all, she points out. As she prepares to finish her sophomore year in nursing school at Madonna University in Livonia, Bolster is also planning for her marriage next December to fiancé Jesse Ray, 20. The couple, engaged since Dec. 8, met while serving alongside each other babysitting for a Bible study at their parish, Christ the King in Ann Arbor.
The hidden cost of dating
According to Debbie Herbeck of Ann Arbor, Bolster's experience is typical. Herbeck has seen the pattern repeated when she counsels junior-high and high-school girls at Huron Valley School and at the junior-high summer camp she organizes every year at Pine Hills in Hamburg.
"It's the pressure of society that makes these kids feel they have to pretend to be older: the movies, the TV, the music they are listening to," she pointed out.
Herbeck said parishes often approach these trends with naïveté. "All those junior-high dances — even at Catholic schools. They don't need to be doing this right now, when they are in seventh or eighth grade; it just puts more pressure on them."
Many of the girls she has met as counselor at the Pine Hills camps keep her updated throughout high school and college about the challenges they are facing. "If you are at Pioneer or FGRHS and you are going to date, you will usually have serious relationships. If you do that, you are probably going to have sex," she said.
An April 26 front-page article in the Detroit Free Press confirms this trend towards hedonism in modern casual dating. The article, titled "Sun, sex and tequila," shocked local parents with an exposé on the extremely heavy drinking and sex orgies taking place among high-school kids who purchased tour packages to visit Cancun during spring break.
Aware of the excesses, the tour companies marketed their specials to high-school students anyway. Instead of attempting to limit these excesses, the companies organized activities with free alcohol and made sure the teens knew the list of rules. First on the list, according to the Free Press, was the rule "What happens in Cancun stays in Cancun."
Herbeck said she makes sure she gives the lowdown on high school — especially the speed with which casual dating moves into casual sex — to Huron Valley eighth-graders during their retreat.
She said the pressure to rush into intense emotional and/or sexual relationships is strongest on the girls. "The ninth-grade year may be the hardest. At that age girls are looking for affirmation of who they are: they need attention and want to know people like them and think they look nice. They look to peers, and often guys, for that affirmation."
'Recreational' dating
Herbeck said strong friendships are key to resisting peer pressure during high school. "The girls who want to follow the Lord, who have agreed to stay virgins, need very strong peer relationships to go against the pressure. Parental support is also very important for both sexes during the teen years," she said.
Patti Cousino of Ypsilanti agreed. The homeschooling mom of 11 said family and peer support has helped her older children. "We've seen several of our children through this," she said. "We've asked them, 'Are you ready for marriage, or are you just infatuated?' "
One of her sons, Brendan, held himself back from dating the girl he is now dating seriously, Hannah Hendricks, when he first met her in high school. "They chose to see each other only in groups. They both maintained good friendship relationships with peers of both sexes during that time," she explained.
"My daughter Kathleen had her head on pretty clear about what she wanted in high school," Cousino added. When Kathleen was supplementing her homeschool curriculum with classes at Washtenaw Community College, her mother said, she was often approached about dating. "When asked out she would say, 'Are you Christian?' If the young man hesitated she would respond, 'If that's a hard question the answer is no.' "
Jesse Ray, Bolster's fiancé, said he tried to enter the recreational dating game before he met Anna, but it didn't work. "In the summer of 1997 I was girl-crazy. I asked a lot of girls on dates, but no one would go out with me! God was protecting me."
Finally, Ray said, he started to pull back. "I decided not to date for a period of several months. When I met Anna, we were both in a situation where we weren't desiring to be dating, and that turned out to be a good position to be in."
Both were babysitting for their parish's Catholic Bible study put on by Ray's father, Steve. "I remember watching her with the kids and thinking, 'She would make a good wife,' " said Ray.
Before dating — for courtship this time — both teens consulted with their families and even their pastor, Fr. Ed Fride. Anna also made sure Jesse did a lot of reading. "She put me through the ropes, because she wasn't planning for this to be for nothing," he laughed. "She made me read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, among other things. She made me promise that we would date for six months. At the end of that time we would either decide to marry each other or break up. At that point it would just be recreational, and she didn't want that."
Ray said that, although he didn't really date much in the conventional sense, he had many close friends of both sexes whom he met through his family's homeschooling network of friends.
"When I pulled back from dating, I began to discover that I didn't really have many close friends," explained Anna. "I was amazed to see how many friends Jesse had. I soon developed my own friendships with these people."
Jesse, who started taking courses at Washtenaw Community College at age 16, will graduate in December from EMU with a degree in business administration.
A parish's strategy
Christ the King Parish is now recommending to parish families that they try to steer parish teens away from recreational dating. Fr. Fride and Youth Minister Christa Ozog developed the recommendations.
"Fr. Ed meets with the teens every four to six weeks for 'Stump the Pastor' sessions, and most of the questions a few years ago were about dating," said Ozog.
Fr. Fride said the questions — such as, How far is too far? Is French kissing a mortal sin? Is it true a guy should be the one to pursue a girl? — showed confusion and anxiety among the teens.
"Our policy is pretty simple," he said. "If you aren't ready to get married, then you aren't ready to date. We have the teens look at seven or eight criteria that need to be in place before they date. We ask them to ask themselves: Do you have a stable relationship with Jesus? Are the primary relationships in your life — parents, siblings, peers, authority figures — healthy? Are you free of serious sin?"
The priest said the parish is only making recommendations for the families and the teenagers to discuss and, hopefully, act upon. But he emphasized that, if Christian families don't develop an approach to dating, then modern secular American culture may settle the matter in ways they can't accept.
"We've been lobbying all along to have the teens resist the onslaught of lust and promiscuity. We have a set of pregnant teens, like any other parish. Lots of things get delayed when you are building a church, but we want to move chastity education in the parish from junior high down to fifth and sixth grade," he said.
Parents can request copies of the criteria from the parish office, but it is the teens who eventually must decide to use them, Fr. Fride said.
"We are expecting the teens to become mature, to form their judgment and know themselves," he said. "If we can't expect them to handle this much responsibility for honest self-examination, then how can we expect them to judge rightly in the emotionally charged context of a steady dating relationship?"
Ozog said healthy peer relationships are essential. Teens use the parish youth group, Life Teen, to build friendships and have fun without dating.
"Teens need to develop healthy, strong friendships with both sexes. They can have male-female relationships that are non-dating and healthy. They don't have to flirt with a boy to hang out with him," she explained.
Parishioner Connie Hansen said this tactic must be working. Although she didn't know the parish made recommendations against it, she said her teens, 17 and 15, don't engage in recreational dating. "They are involved in Pioneers for Christ (see page 7, this issue), in Mission Christ high-school prayer meetings on Fridays, and in Life Teen," she said. "They have that active fun environment and they really build close relationships with their friends. They love going to these things and wouldn't give them up for something else. They don't need dating," she concluded.
To read a sample chapter from I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris see The Seven Habits of Highly Defective Dating
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Kate Ernsting. "Beyond Dating." Credo (June 2001).
Credo is an independent Catholic weekly newspaper based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
THE AUTHOR
Kate Ernsting writes for Credo.
Copyright © 2001 Credo
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