Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Glory to Jesus Christ!
One of the greatest mystical saints in the history of the Church, the seventeenth century Franciscan Conceptionist nun, Venerable Mariana de Jesus Torres, was told by Our Blessed Mother that the twentieth century would see a terrible corruption of morals:
in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury, which will ensnare the rest into sin and conquer innumerable frivolous souls, who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women.
The article “The Genesis of Modesty” on the Kolbe website demonstrates that the Church’s teaching on modesty is firmly rooted in the sacred history of Genesis as it was understood in the Church from the beginning. Thus, the disappearance of modesty has been a direct result of the abandonment of the traditional Catholic reading of Genesis.
I was brought up in a secular humanist home and went to school for the most part with secular humanist peers, but even in those circles, it was unheard of for a girl to come up to a boy and give him her phone number. As I travel around the country for the Kolbe Center and speak with young people and with my own grandchildren, I have become aware that this phenomenon has become widespread and commonplace. Teenage girls routinely give their phone numbers to teenage (or even younger) boys who are complete strangers to them, which often leads to terrible outrages if and when the boy calls the young lady back, especially on a video call. Since there are many Catholic boys and young men who are being approached in this way, I was inspired to draft a message that a young man could send to a girl who gives him her phone number. I hope and pray that you will share this message with any young man who might make use of it. If we could save even one soul or prevent one sin against purity, it would be worth the effort involved in sharing and transmitting this message.
An Unexpected Grace-Filled Reply
I know a wonderful Catholic young man of about 18 years of age who is frequently approached by teenage girls and young women who give him their phone numbers in public places, without any introduction. He told me that he never calls them, but I told him that he should take advantage of the opportunity to message them and evangelize them. This led me to ask Our Lord to help me to draft a message that young men could adapt to their own circumstances and use for evangelization:
Dear Mary,
You gave me your phone number yesterday in the parking lot of the gas station where I had stopped to put gas in my truck, so I wanted to send you this message as soon as possible.
I don’t know what you have been taught about God and creation or if you have been taught that everything just “evolved” or happened by itself without a Creator. But I can assure you that if you look into the matter you will find that there is no doubt that there is an almighty God who created the world, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He loves us, that He suffered and died to make up for our sins, rose again from the dead and founded the Catholic Church to be the Family of God on earth, to lead everyone to Heaven to be happy with Him forever. I have included a link below to a pamphlet that explains more about that and a link to a recording of the pamphlet so that you can also listen to it.
God made you out of love and He has a special plan for your life. From the beginning He made us male and female. As a man, I know that God created me to serve Him and my brothers and sisters as a priest, as a brother who doesn’t marry but dedicates himself to the service of God in the Church, as a husband and father, or, which is rare, to be single in the world so that I can carry out a special mission for Him. I am still asking Him to show me which of these paths He wants me to take, but I know that if He wants me to get married and have a family, He has already chosen someone to be my wife and that He wants me to save myself completely for that person.
The same thing is true for you as a woman. God has created you to serve Him and your brothers and sisters as a nun who doesn’t marry but dedicates herself to the service of God in the Church, as a wife and mother, or, in a few cases, to be single in the world so that you can carry out a special mission for Him there. I hope and pray that you will start asking Him to show you which of these paths He wants you to take, but you should know that if He wants you to get married and have a family, He has already chosen someone to be your husband and that He wants you to save yourself completely for that person. That is why in the Bible God says that we should dress modestly, in the first place because our bodies belong to Him, but also because, if you are called to marriage, God wants you to be able to give yourself completely and exclusively to your husband, in openness to life, so that God can bring forth children from your union.
The devil tries to dupe us into thinking that we will be happy if we just do whatever we feel like doing and give ourselves to anyone we take a fancy to. But that is a lie. In the end, everyone who lives like that ends up being miserable—and if they don’t repent before they die, they will be miserable apart from God forever.
I hope and pray that you will read or listen to the pamphlet I recommended to you. If you pray the prayer to Jesus at the end of the pamphlet and try to follow Him from now on, you will find out how wonderful He is, and how much happier you will be following Him in His Church than going the way of the world.
Your friend,
James Howell
P.S. You can listen to a recording of the pamphlet “Eternal Life and Common Sense” at this link.
You can read it here.
It should go without saying that if a girl is on the receiving end of a request for her phone number, she should not follow the recommendation I have made to young men who are in the state of grace and strong in their faith. A young lady should get away from any such person immediately, pray for his conversion, call upon St. Joseph, and fly to her father, her older brother or nearest trustworthy Catholic male protector.
Yours in Christ through the Immaculata in union with St. Joseph,
Hugh Owen
P.S. Today is a First Saturday. Please be sure to answer Our Lady’s appeal for the First Saturday devotions as described by the Fatima Center at this link.
P.P.S. We are going to extend our Give, Send, Go fundraiser to the end of year. If you have not donated, please do so now, and encourage like-minded friends and family to join you in doing so.
