Leap Year Indult

As long-term readers all know, I think nothing strangles a romance in the cradle like a woman asking a man out on a date.

However, it is February 29, and by tradition, British women are allowed on that day to ask men to marry them and thus I think they ought be allowed to ask them out for coffee, too.

If you are up for it, make the most of it, for you will not get another chance for four years.

Just keep in mind that the poor chap, unlike you, may feel that because of chivalry he has to go out with you whether he wants to or not. So I would recommend you ask someone you flirt with already. As long as he doesn't already have a girlfriend, of course.

Preach It, Stevie

My husband is a big Stevie Smith fan, and he introduced me to her work beyond the line everyone knows, which is "not waving, but drowning."

Her work is very quirky, with child-like rhythms and rhymes, but it also says things about love and faith with such clarity that I recognize the truth of them at once.

Take, for example, this amazing poem. Note the sudden shock halfway through with the counter to "gaze":

La Gretchen de Nos Jours (2)

O Queen of Heaven
Have pity on me,
My heart is bared
For you to see.

Forgive, forgive
The heart that lies
In anguish bared
Before your eyes.

Mother of God
Behold my heart,
Its sin and stain,
Its bitter smart;

In pity turn
Your pitying gaze
Upon my heart,
And its hopes raze

Quite to the ground
For there are yet
Some hopes that are
Too highly set.

O lop each hope
And lay it low,
And quench the fire
Of my heart's glow.

For still I hope
He may return,
And while I hope,
Still must I burn.

All with desire
That waits on hope
As doth the hangman
On the rope.

Hope and desire,
All unfulfilled,
Have more than rope
And hangman killed.

--Stevie Smith, Selected Poems, 1962

I think of these hopeless little hopes more as tiny weed flowers that spread throughout the garden of your heart unless you manage to weed them out at once. The longer you leave them to spread, the more it hurts to dig them up. But I don't say this of hope in general--just hopes about that particular man whom you hoped would call but hasn't.

And yes it hurts and when you pull the flowers out of your heart, a hole remains, but from out of the wound comes an energy that you can use for something, like writing a poem or painting a picture. One thing I have learned about heartbreak is that you can always use it for something.

Among the Sights of Krakow

I know I shouldn't laugh. But when I underscored to translator and organizer that it must be made clear in advance that I am giving my May Retreat lectures in English, I didn't expect to end up as a Polish English-language attraction.

Scroll down to Current Events.

Listen, if you live in Europe, and you're a GIRL, and Single, and you like my stuff, you should probably sign up, go to Krakow for three days and hang out with me. It's a beautiful city, and quite a lot of people there speak English. The liturgies--and two of the lectures--will be in Polish, but so what? It's an Indo-European language--like Latin!

If you're Catholic and you haven't been in a solidly Catholic culture for awhile, you will be staggered by the Catholicity of Poland. I spent my last supper there murmuring "Never change" to my puzzled but gratified marketing director.

Ignore Polish friends who mutter that Poland isn't as pious as it used to be. Just hang around and watch how many people go to Daily Mass. In Krakow there are frequent John Paul II tours, too. The local food is extremely delicious, and Lent will be over, so hey.

One of the very funny things about preparing for this retreat is that my principal Polish language program is not interested in theology or single life or business but in asking people out on dates. I am on Pimsleur Chapter 12, and we have got to "Hello Ewa, this is Bartek speaking. Would you like to have supper with me tomorrow at six?" This is an advance on earlier chapters, where there is no planning but a frank, forward "Would you like to drink something? Coffee? Beer?"

Did I mention the fire-breathing dragon? There's a fire-breathing dragon. Apart from me, I mean.

I believe it costs 200 złoty for room, board and listening to little me for three days, which is laughably small when you consider that there is something like 4 zł to the £.*

*Sorry I got that reversed earlier. I am shockingly stupid about mathematical calculations of any kind.

Auntie Seraphic & the Desperate Friend

Dear Auntie Seraphic,

I read your post about not liking your friend's man the day after I had been told that friends don't want friend's advice, they just want us to listen and support them, and if I want to keep my friends, I'm not allowed to tell them when they are doing something wrong, or try to "fix" them.

I have dated a horrible man, and my friends were just so happy I was finally dating SOMEONE that they didn't want to tell me that his constant insults towards me were not acceptable, even if I excused them because he was not American, and "it's just his culture". After I finally broke up with him, they told me how much they loathed him, and oh how I wished someone had told me earlier!

I have many girlfriends with wonderful men in their lives, and I make sure to tell them this. I also have many with horrible men in their lives... but I don't know how to help them.
[...]
I have one very dear friend that I have had since high school, whose life is spiraled out of control, who doesn't even realize it. Our friendship was almost ruined when she confessed her destructive behavior to me, and instead of saying, "That's alright, you can do what you want", I told her she should stop. So I have learned to listen and let her talk because if I say something negative about anything she tells me (like the way boys treat her) she has a ready defense.

Yesterday she told me she had a pregnancy scare and was considering abortion though... and then casually told me about the latest boy to spend the night in her bed. No matter how I tried to change the subject, she would continue to leak the graphic details to me. I have heard this story from her dozens of times over the past year: Meet guy online, text him, tell him they can't have s*x, but can do anything else, have a make out session with him = guy never calls again. She says wants a nice husband who will go to church with her and raise children, and that is why she has to keep on trying.

Every month her stories get more graphic though, as everything the boys ask from her become less shocking and more tempting as she gets more experience. Now she is letting them pressure her into having s*x, because they say they won't commit to her unless she does. My heart breaks for her. I pray for her constantly. I want to be supportive, but it has gotten to the point where listening to her hurts my own sexual purity struggle.

Other friends in our circle have told me there is nothing more to do: I have to let her hit rock bottom and ask for help; trying to fix her won't work, and will just make her resent me. I miss my sweet, generous and funny friend, who used to have a life that didn't revolve around dating endless streams of abusive men. Is there nothing left that I can do, or say to help her?

Sincerely,
Desperate Friend

Dear Desperate Friend,

I am very sorry that you are in this situation. And I am afraid I must agree with the other friends who tell you that there is nothing you can do but walk away and let her hit bottom. She seems hooked on Drama.

If she really cannot change the subject and constantly needs to fill your ears with the graphic details of her s*x life, whether or not you have the courage to tell her flat out to stop, you need some distance. The very fact that your own purity struggle is becoming more difficult because of these stories is a clear warning to you. Your friend is becoming an occasion of sin for you.

From your description, her behaviour has been foolish from first to last. She seems to believe that physical signs of affection are bargaining chips in a game to win a lasting love relationship. This is a truly messed up vision of what relationships between men and women are and should be. (For a thinking adult's take on the whole "How Far Can We Go?" question, I recommend How Far Can We Go? by Leah Perrault and Brett Salkeld.)

Unless she wants help, you can't help your friend. And if you get too caught up in her craziness, you are in danger of becoming what is known as a co-dependent. (For a great book on co-dependency, please read Melodie Beattie's Co-dependent No More.) I very much recommend you get some distance. If you are hooked on her drama, get unhooked. Now.

Pray for her, by all means, but minimize how much time you spend with her, and set a clear boundary that if she persists in talking about subjects that make you uncomfortable, you will not spend any time with her. And perhaps losing you will help her "hit bottom" and smarten up. The most important thing, however, is that you protect your heart from her insanity.

Grace and peace,
Seraphic

Readers: It appalls me that young women, young women who are not prostitutes, are willing to negotiate sexual activity with strangers or near-strangers over the internet. It is so shockingly stupid to tell men that you "can't have sex but can do anything else" that I am almost speechless. Anything else? ANYTHING else?

How did we get to the point where ordinary young women talk like prostitutes? (And I am not dissing poor prostitutes, who are trying to make a living. They turn tricks for cash, not for the much less certain promise of a "relationship".) For heaven's sake, there is such a thing as modesty of speech. If a young woman thinks that a near-stranger would have an iota of respect for her after she said "I can't have sex but I can do anything else", then she simply knows nothing about men.

Update: Reader age poll as of today (see top right). Please take a moment and tell me how old you are.

Temples of the Holy Ghost

It occurred to me this weekend that we get all those chastity lectures in the wrong circumstances. As training for the battle, they fall rather short. Can you imagine if soldiers did all their training in classrooms and auditoriums instead of ever playing war games, climbing over walls and running through the gas hut? How useless they would be!

And yet when we are up against one of the most powerful forces in the universe--sexual attraction--we get a few goodhearted lectures in broad daylight and then sent out to cope without any supervision. Really, we should recreate battlefield conditions for chastity training: dark, drink, hours of conversation with the best looking man/girl around, a sofa.

"McAmbrose! What do you say?"

"I have to go home now, SIR!"

"I can't hear you, McAmbrose!"

"I HAVE TO GO HOME NOW, SIR!!!"

My guess is that many of my readers are really solid on chastity theory but just not as brilliant in the field. But I am not blaming you but chastity lecturers, who lack imagination and talk too much.

One of the mistakes of chastity lecturers is to assume that girls and women don't want to engage in sexual activity, but are interested only in getting attention, and all they need is enough self-esteem to tell the monsters pawing at them to leave them alone. Now, my guess is that this may true for the under-16 set, particularly the under-14 set, but it is not so true for the over-16 set, whose crafty little bodies have but one thought and one thought alone, which is to reproduce.

The brains in the crafty little bodies may think they are up to something completely different from reproduction, but they are not in charge. The hormones are in charge. The sneaky bodies control the hormones, and this is one reason why Old Time Religion doesn't seem to like bodies and wants to fast them into submission. Look at poor old Saint Augustine wondering why his body will not do what his brain wants, but quite the other way around.

So it really is quite foolish to pretend that girls and women over 15 or 16 have only lustful boys to battle when, in fact, their principal enemies are themselves. Usually Single women do not want to reproduce, but that is what their bodies are after, and so the bodies scheme against the brains, and ordinarily chaste, continent women discover that the unthinkable has suddenly become thinkable. "Good heavens," they think, startled by the onslaught of sweet, sweet dopamine, "Were Moses, St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Maria Goretti, St. Edith Stein and Blessed John Paul II wrong all along?"

"McAmbrose! What did Saint Maria Goretti say about mortal sin?"

"SIR! She said it was better to die than to commit a mortal sin, SIR!"

"McAmbrose! I am not convinced by your tone. Which pontiff ruled that prolongued premarital kissing was itself a serious sin?"

"Alexander VII, SIR!"

"WHOOOO did you say?"

"Alexander SEVENTH, SIR!"

"Get out of that car and give me 100 push-ups."

The best safeguard of chastity is humility, I heard somewhere or other, which is why it is better to face up to the fact that, although one has managed to look like an angel of purity and innocence, one is actually a normal fallen human being. Obviously you can't go around telling men that, since it spooks the little darlings*, but you have to tell yourself that and take all due precautions.

Take, for example, my new sisterhood, married ladies. You would think that married ladies, having our own nice (we hope) men at home, would simply become non-combatants in the battle against the world, the flesh and the devil, and never again reflect upon the fact that men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life. But this is not so. Years ago, whenever I made visits to a married friend, she always asked me searching questions about her ex-boyfriend and eventually told me about her crush on a sportscaster. These confidences were in hushed, excited tones, as if my pal had been storing them up until she could tell a woman who would not say, "But you're married!". Quite obviously she could not simply call up her ex-boyfriend and suggest coffee, or figure out a way to meet the sportscaster. Ah ha ha ha. No.

The spirit of "But you're married!" helps keep married women in line, but perhaps this is a subject for another post. It is my Single reader I am thinking of today, particularly the kind who has always grieved for Single friends who have inexplicably fallen off the chastity bandwagon but is now herself assailed with temptations that, having shown up in person, don't FEEL like temptations but The Right Thing To Do. And so I channel to Saint Paul, the ultimate chastity speaker, who got right to the heart of things:

19. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

20. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

(1 Corinthians 19-20, KJV)

In other words, Saint Paul doesn't give a tinker's damn if temptations feel like the right thing to do. First of all, feelings are not facts. And second, you have no right to do them. Your body, including your sweet, sweet dopamine, does not belong to you but to God. Now get off that sofa, soldier, and give me 100.

*Especially the ones who have virgin-whore complexes. Oooh la la!

Nowa Recenzja

A new online review, this time in Polish! Tutaj.

(The Google translation is ridiculous; don't bother!)

Retire the Jumper

One day I will give up this blog secure in the knowledge that there are a lot of other dames writing about the Single life. Currently the Crescat is Single, and she had this to say about the Church as matchmaker. It is partly a response to the incomparable Simcha Fischer, mother of nine, who recently asked Single readers what it is that you want the Church to do for you.

But what really got my interest was the first comment on Kat's post, which was from a Single woman noting that more men seem to go to Traditional Latin Masses but that she did not want to wear a jumper. I'm assuming this woman is Canadian or American because in the UK a jumper is not a utilitarian frock but a sweater/pullover. And at the risk of being one of those Catholic bloggers who fixates on women's clothing, I'm going to fixate on women's clothing. (As a stunning innovation, I'll mention men's, too.)

Now, I have nothing against jumpers, per se. I had a very nice charcoal grey jumper (utilitarian frock) when I was four years old. There is a time and place for jumpers, like your elementary school photographs. For girls under twelve, I recommend the trusty old jumper, perhaps with a fetching ladybug pin.

I do not recommend the jumper for girls and women over twelve, and I am staggered that anyone would mention the TLM and jumper in the same breath. I suppose girls and women don these things as a sort of modesty uniform, a sartorial placard reading "I am a chaste and modest woman who would not have shoddy, unthinkable affairs with local tradesmen while you are at work." But I assure you that such modesty uniforms are completely unnecessary. Modesty is a good and noble thing, but it is all the sweeter when it is subtle. The virgin who reminds people constantly that she is a virgin is not as modest as the virgin who keep her mouth shut on such a personal subject.

And as a husband-attracting device, modesty is highly over-rated and always has been. Back in Jane Austen's day, elegantly dressed young ladies made their Empire-waist frocks stick to their bodies by spraying them with water. Desperate matchmaking mothers prompted their scandalized daughters to smile more, to flirt more, to give more encouragement, for heaven's sake, Laetitia. Modesty should of course be on the list of your womanly attributes, but it is down around #5. It is not #1, except in places like rural Afghanistan.

Now I go to a TLM myself, and being a reasonably observant woman, I note who else is there and what they are wearing, and who looks good, and who needs to have a little talk with me. And one thing I can tell you about my TLM community is that there are a lot of men in it. A goodish percentage of these men are bachelors under 40, and with the exception of the rebel in the rugby shirt, these young bachelors are sartorial romantics. They are dressed according to their personal, and yet shared, vision of what men dressed like in 1948.

They wear jackets, naturally. These jackets are usually tweed and very often bought secondhand, either from the internet or from a vintage shop. Occasionally a sharp piece of non-tweed tailoring--either made-to-measure or pret-a-porter--makes an appearance. Then there are the woolly pullovers (aka UK jumpers), for Britain is cold and there wasn't much by way of central heating in 1948. Less attention is paid to trousers, but they tend to be corduroy and sometimes bright red. (N.B. Bright red corduroy trousers are best left to broad-shouldered men, mes vieux.)

There are, of course, ties--including school ties, even if that school was a comprehensive, and university ties. Sometimes there are a bow-ties and a keen flutter of interest amongst the bow-tie fans when an new initiate takes the plunge. Then there are the socks and the shoes, the pocket squares and the handkerchiefs, and, I am told (for of course I never see these things), the braces, the sleeve bands and the sock garters.

And this all makes complete sense. If a man wants back all the beauty, romance and fittingness of the Mass before 1963, he might very well want back all the beauty, romance and fittingness of men's fashion before 1963. And if he is that interested in men's fashion before 1963, imagine how he thinks women should dress. The Well Dressed Woman of 1948 was not wearing what Americans call a jumper, people. You should not be thinking Laura Ingalls Wilder; you should be thinking Veronica Lake.

Now I know somebody is itching to write in and tell me that women don't dress for men, we dress for ourselves, and blah blah blah blah. This has to be complete garbage because I cannot think why any woman would wear a stupid "jumper" unless she were worried about her audience. I certainly dress for an audience, and it is for the sake of politeness as much as for anything else, like not wearing jeans to a Goth bar because it would ruin the ambiance for the Goths. And as too often I am the only woman at TLM soirees, I owe it to everybody to look as well as possible.

Besides, there is the singular thrill of giving men whiplash. You gorgeous young things are probably too, too used to this sort of thing, but it was a revelation for your belle-laide Auntie when she wore a dashing new hat and (she was told) every Young Fogey in the congregation craned his head to get a better look. Elderly widowers danced attendance; it was a very pleasant morning.

And that thought brings me back to the question of what the Church can do for Singles. As feminists say, when they are not calling the Church a "male monolith", WE are the Church--which is to say, helpful older married ladies like me. And I am telling you not to wear dumb, shapeless, what-Americans-call-jumpers to Mass, particularly not the TLM Mass. I am telling you to have a look at the best sartorial zeitgeist of your parish and then look wonderful.

You're welcome.