TODAYS WèèMÈÈ. YOUTH SERIES—VII 3 f i e C a i t 3 © ^ o u t f i " Series of Radio Addresses Arranged for Sponsorship Training In cooperation with The National Broadcasting Company National Council of Catholic Women 1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. IMPRIMATUR: •jh John Francis Noli, D.D. Bishop of Fort Wayne Our Sunday Visitor Press Huntington, Indiana D ê S M é d TODAY'S APOSTOLATE YOUTH LIVES THE TWENTIETH CENTURY THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE ETERNAL HEROINES TABLE OF CONTENTS Title P a S e Foreword — - 5 Preface - 7 At the Crossroads ¡gjSKv- - - " With Sponsorship - —— -------—---—-— Service - 21 Banners Aloft - — 2 " Exploring .SsL** -- --- -.- 33 How About Your Work? ...... 39 Let Youth Have Fun : - -.--; 4 5 "Profiting From Leisure" 51 Sunlight of Beauty - - -.¿ -̂..V....---- 56 Life's Exchanges Youth Today - — 68 Keeping to the Highway 7 5 Whither Modern Youth - - 81 NCCW Youth Publications 87 Activity Aids - — 87 Addresses of Publishers ........,— 88 FOREWORD It is with especial gratitude that we dedicate to the sponsors of Youth this, the fifth collection of "Call to Youth" broadcasts of the National Couhcil of Catholic Women's Youth Committee, for this year we have been singularly able to judge the fruits of the spoken word, and we have not found them wanting. Through the training course so enthusiastically received in all corners of the country, we have become more keenly aware of the magnificent spirit of service which permeates the ranks of our Catholic youth sponsors, their alert percep- tion of the needs of young people and their gallant en- deavors to fulfill these needs. Their eagerness to give only their best efforts is emply demonstrated in the response which the offer for training brought forth. Not only was the return gratify- ing in numbers, but even more particularly in the interest evidenced by adults in being properly equipped to give to youth that guidance and inspiration which will lead them to see beyond the horizons, while finding in the world about them their own opportunities for leadership and service. We are doubly grateful for this glimpse of the effect and results of sponsorship training because it comes in an hour when more than ever we look to the youth of the nation for greatness and gallantry. We know now that when, in the confusion and bewildering maelstrom through which our boys and girls advance to maturity, they seek a steady hand, a capable judgment, an encour- aging smile, they will find them close by, in their own towns and parishes, that they can turn to their Spiritual Directors and to Catholic men and women who have their good so deeply at heart as to have sacrificed willingly precious time and toil adequately to prepare for the role and responsibility of sponsorship. To the members of the Hierarchy, clergy and laity who have contributed wholeheartedly to this series of broadcasts, and particularly to the National Broadcasting Company whose cooperation has made possible the "Call to Youth," we extend our abiding appreciation, humbly- assuring them that the seed has fallen on rich soil and will bring forth good fruit, and begging their continued interest and prayers in the work which our sponsor audience has gone forth to accomplish. Anne Sarachon Hooley, National Youth Chairman, N.C.C.W. PREFACE If ever mankind was more in action than it is in this generation, history has failed to keep the picture and the record for us. The trouble is that action, as we now see it, no longer means true progress; but it was progress we wanted. Our error was in being non-selective. We wanted progress in everything, forgetting that progresa in the good is the way of wisdom while progress in the bad, or the dangerous, is the very opposite. Progress in the arts of war threatens now to exterminate the race. There is a very old story of a poor man who had received daily reports that his sick wife was "improving"; but fin- ally she died,-"Of improvements," he said. All that we won in the past is now threatened with death from "im- provements" made in the wrong things. Happily not all of us have been trying to make "im- provements" in the wrong things; by which I mean that some have allowed their zeal for action to go along the safe way of the spirit which is protected by the wall of the truth. It has been, alas! the neglected way. But it will soon be popular, for the way of the flesh, all flowered as it was, is now being torn into bits by the bombs and shells of the wrong kind of progress. Before the kind of action that brought us to this shoots itself out, it will be plain, I am sure, that there is only one way for mankind seeking salvation to go. "The wisdom of the flesh is death," said St. Paul, "but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace." I hail this booklet as a little voice crying in the wil- derness of war's desolation, but I am certain that soon all the little voices will blend into One Mighty Voice echoing and re-echoing Truth from the mountains of hope. •I* Francis C. Kelley, D.D., Bishop of Oklahoma City-Tulsa, Episcopal Chairman, Department of Lay Organizations, N.C.W.C. AT THE CROSSROADS Anne Sarachon Hooley Good-morning, radio friends everywhere. Five years ago today we began our first radio broadcast in this Call to Youth series. During those years it has been my privi- lege to make acquaintance with many of you, the leaders and sponsors of Youth Programs of all kinds throughout these United States and in Continental Europe. With some of you it has been through working happily to- gether on specific local projects; with some it has been through a fleeting visit to one of your rallies or large meetings; with many others it has been an acquaintance through correspondence, through those telegrams and letters of question and encouragement with which you have continuously responded to these radio talks. There- fore, this morning as I once again open the series I feel very deeply your nearness and our common interest. It seems fitting that we should begin by acknowledging with keen gratitude our indebtedness to the National Broad- casting Company, which makes this radio hour possible to us, and to the newly formed Catholic Youth Department whose consultation and advice has been so generously ex- tended to us. Last year the series dealt with the subject, "Eternal Heroines as They Walk in the Twentieth Century," and we continue now with an extension of that theme under the title, "Youth Lives The Twentieth Century." Were it not for the eternal newness of truth, one might hesi- tate to make the seemingly trite remark that American youth today stands at the cross-roads. Generation after generation has been greeted with this statement, and a study of the customs and society in each of them would, I presume, lead one to sanction the accuracy of the asser- tion. By the very nature of things, youth is a time of latent potentialities and sometimes the balance seems very slight between the lines which lead to good or evil, to happiness or regret, to fulfillment or failure. Yet today, perhaps because it is our own time and our own generation, conditions seem particularly preg- nant with meaning for youth. True, in a certain sense 10 THE CALL TO YOUTH they do not know the wanton, profligate waste of the mad twenties, and to some extent at least they have left behind the stark tragedies of the depression thirties when youth tramped the road, and old securities were swept from beneath their feet. But these were obvious conditions, so new to society that thinking people were instinctively armed against them. Today, influences are more insidious, influences formed and promoted by an adult society which accepted, if it did not indeed embrace the madness of the twenties and the tragedies of the thirties. There has been a gradual change in the connotation of such words as "service," "discipline" and "courage." Within the year a great nation has said that its fall was due to soft living. Economic conditions and technolo- gical developments have contributed their full part in the brisk stride of a fast-moving world. It would take an entirely different vocabulary from that of an earlier cen- tury to describe the home, the family life, and the social customs of this decade. As we congratulate ourselves upon the advantages of electricity, and plumbing, and other comfort-giving mundane things, (and I should be the last to decry them) we are apt to forget the strength that was bred around the old family hearthstone, and for- getting, fail to wonder whether we have substituted other means for giving that strength. And it is upon youth, rather than maturity, that the brunt of all these changes has fallen. The security of the home, both spiritual and economic, is maintained only through eternal vigilance. The security of conventions has vanished into thin air, and in its place have come self-expression, new freedom, and a number of other equally confusing doctrines, con- fusing largely because of the dress which they wear and the abuse of which they are capable. Resulting from all these things, and largely de- pendent upon them is one with which you as leaders and sponsors of youth are greatly concerned. That is the shifting of accent in the word "recreation." This change is more than a phonetic one; it is of the essence. How long is it since you have heard anyone test the value of a proposed recreational activity with the question, "Does it recreate in the participant anything of lasting joy or beauty or strength?" If we maintain that we use AT THE CROSSROADS 11 sports as a means of recreating health and fair play, then we cannot turn them into contests and tournaments which, to be sure, gain columns of newspaper publicity and coveted medals, but which really make of the larger portion of the group cheering spectators and occasion- ally expose even the few participants to undue tension. If we maintain that we use social affairs for recreating joy and beauty, we cannot confine them to machine-made, commercial amusements which neither stimulate to beauty nor bring any permanent joy. It is in the face of these conditions and because pre- cisely of these attitudes that we dare to believe that a youth program, if it is to justify the enormous expendi- ture of manpower for leadership and finance for carry- ing on, must be more than sports and parties. It must even be more than an insidious something hidden beneath these two, a something for which these are used as a bait. We know that in our own time, nations have met this question by complete regimentation of youth and we can well do more than wishful thinking to avoid a similar catastrophe in our own beloved country. All the great experiences of life, save one, fall short this side of glory, and that one is the discharge of the mission of living. If we wanted human testimony to this fact, and we do not, we could secure it in scores from those who have reached the heights of power, of fame, or of wealth. And the extent to which all these other ex- periences approximate happiness is determined by the ratio in which they are used for this one great purpose. Why then, should we be fearful of building a youth pro- gram whose major part was devoted to the preparation for this one important task? Why should we stoop to hiding it beneath less important ones ? The answer which springs most quickly to the tongue might be that it is necessary to use artificial means with which to attract large numbers. But then again, the answer to that might be that here as in many other great undertakings we must be content to begin with solid fundamentals, small and unglamorous as they may appear on the surface. If you are to merit the name of leader, of sponsor of youth, you will need courage founded upon a deep conviction that the task is worthy of your mettle and that the re- 12 THE CALL TO YOUTH suits, although they may be slow, are none the less to be gloriously genuine in their satisfactions. This series of radio talks will treat of various means by which you may find suggestions for carrying out the standards and policies set by your own Ordinary or his representative. It is humbly put together as a service, in- spiration, and interchange of experiences. It assumes some kind of adult sponsorship of men and women. This seems only an elementary piece of logic for if youth itself had the maturity, the judgment, and the inspiration to set standards, to express ideals, and to provide all necessary means, there would be little need for the program itself because singly or in groups they would, of their own volition, spend their leisure time in the most productive manner. When youth doe"8 this, it will be adult, for youth is essentially a time of building and of formation. For that very reason, it is so priceless a time. This association of the adult with youth is ex- quisitely described by the Great White Shepherd when he says, "Need we add that in order to have order and peace prevail about them, your leagues must first safeguard them within themselves? In this re- spect, it is particularly pleasing to Us to see, in your International Union, the Youth Section juxtaposed in harmony with the Adult Section. They are like blossoms and fruits which sometimes together adorn certain privileged trees. At the side of work- ers already laden with merit and rich with experi- ence, are happily ranged the apprentices who aspire to devote themselves to this work and 'preparation and training' for- it, receiving the counsels of those who have gone before, not as lessons imposed, but rather as treasures proffered to them. Each of the two sections has its own methods and projects; for here again the adaptation of each to its own environ- ment is essential. But, underneath these external differences, there burns in souls—for which there is no age—the same interior flame of pure supernatural zeal."* commends Youth Sponsorship To the Congress International Union S S S H ? XS?f e n iSai Ja e a g u^ l n , a . d d r e l ? A Message to the Catholic Women of the World, April, 1939. Complete address available N.O.C.W. AT THE CROSSROADS 13 We assume also a balanced program with activities (simple or elaborate according to the locality) in each division—recreational, cultural, vocational, and spiritual definitely apportioned. We assume also, as we have held for many years, that it is parochial in function, diocesan in authority, and national in its scope. We hope it is built on the intention to develop leadership in youth itself. We would not ask youth to accept this; we should rather ask them to enjoy it, to evaluate it, and to know its tremendous satisfactions. We would do this with the greatest confidence because we honor the dignity of youth, and we trust their response. Occasionally we have heard that youth cannot be interested in any of the divisions excepting the recreational, but strangely enough we have always heard this remark from an adult, never from a youth. On the contrary, we heard not long ago a meeting opened with this statement, "Now we are or- ganized; we must first become acquainted with the pur- pose of this great organization." More often than not with the right leadership we have seen their responses come with such gallantry and generosity that it put sus- picion to shame. And why not? Centuries ago in the valley of Nazareth a simple maiden busy with her distaif and loom responded with the Magnificat and followed through Bethlehem, through Calvary with such courage that generations have learned to describe it in a litany of praises. At fourteen years of age, a little peasant girl tending her sheep on the hill- sides of Domremy heard a call which she followed through Orleans, through Rheims, and even to the burning fagots at the stake. And today a nation perhaps prays for her return. There was Catherine the Flame who braved Tus- cany and Avignon and Rome only to end with the sigh, "There is so much still to do." There is still much for youth to do. In all the hysteria of war, well-founded though it may be, there is a destiny of youth for peace or war. We can only hope that in this mad turmoil of today which passes for twentieth century civilization, there can be salvaged for American youth the sanctity of the home and the integrity of the school. But while hoping we can at least turn our small efforts to such a 14 THE CALL TO YOUTH utilization of their leisure time as may help them build for tomorrow happy fruitful homes, a citizenship which understands and believes in the presuppositions of a great Christian democracy, and a spirit of service which will lead them to walk in the vanguard of the King. AT THE CROSSROADS 15 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "There burns in souls the same interior flame of pure supernatural zeal." 1. Give your definition of recreation. 2. Why is sponsorship essential to any lasting youth program? 3. What are the values of a balanced program? 4. How can you lead youth to "discharge the mission of living"? 5. What is the goal of the Catholic Youth Council ? 6. If you found a girls' parish youth group whose pro- gram consisted entirely of basketball, dramatics, and a monthly dance what would you do ? WITH SPONSORSHIP Most Rev. Francis C. Kelley, D.D. Looking back over a life that is about to enter the hours of its sunset, bright spots always stand out above the mists that we call our memories; some are persons, some events, but the brightest of all are opportunities which our immaturity might have missed but which, by the grace of God and the wise counsel of experienced men, we grasped and held. Most of these opportunities were strictly personal; for each man or woman born on this earth is destined to live a life of his or her own, as surely as he or she is destined to wear a different kind of face. We may wonder how Mother Nature could arrange so many different faces for people, but we might wonder more how we managed to live so many different kinds of lives. The process of education that has had much to do with making these lives never, of course, ends. We are learning at seventy as surely as we were learning at seven; for, being human, we have to be taught. Chickens seem to do better, for they break out of the shell as chil- dren break out of school and go right to work while children must go on studying. It is because the children have intelligence while the chicken's instinct never teaches him even how to avoid the ax. Who is the best teacher? The best teacher for a human being is teaching. I can say that with assurance, because teaching others before I was off the lecture hall benches myself was for me one of those grand oppor- tunities I mentioned, one of the things that stand out in the memory mists as big as a giant monument. I got more out of teaching than I got out of being taught, but I had first to be taught in order that I might teach. There was a wise man who founded a religious order called the Society of Jesus, and his name was Ignatius of Loyola. His plans for the making of teachers were good, but no part of them was better than this: when the novices of Ignatius finished their college work and were ready to go higher, he took them off the student benches for five whole years and set them on the rostrum WITH SPONSORSHIP 17 to teach. There is one great big reason why Jesuits are great big teachers. They learned to teach by teaching. Now about this business of sponsorship to youth which, by the way, is supposed to be the subject of this little talk, and which, you might think, I am neglecting I am not neglecting it at all. From the start I was right in the middle of it. The National Council of Catholic Women, in its Work for youth insists on the sponsorship of maturity in what it tries to do for immaturity. Why? In order that youth may not miss its big opportunities and that the sponsor may not miss his or her big opportunity of learning by teaching, doing and directing. If you, for example,—I mean all you mature folks who are lis- tening in—if you think, when you are invited to help youth by sponsoring an activity for youth, that you are being asked to work without remuneration you are wrong. The business of being a sponsor is not one-sided in its benefits. It is a teaching job, good for both teacher and taught. I am tempted—backed by my own experiences to say that the taught teaches more to the teacher than the teacher teaches the taught. What do we get out of sponsoring youth activities? For one thing we get actual knowledge by the necessity of imparting actual knowledge. Now, keeping up with knowledge is one thing that maturity too often fails to do, but the sponsor has to do it under penalty of failure, and the job of thus keeping up with knowledge is in it- self a reward because it is a mental discipline of a very high order. But what is discipline? Just this: it is the education that the chicken does not need before being introduced to the ax, but that we humans do need to the day we die. If you want to be one of the "knowledgeable people" I know of no better, more useful and more pleas- ant way to be that than to take on the job of sponsorship which is a job of teaching. If you want to "get on " help someone else to "get on". W h ^ t does youth get from such a sponsorship? Where Catholic young people come together under the name of "Catholic Youth," adult sponsorship is necessary and desired. It is both a security and a stimulation. It is fortunate for both when youth and age can travel life's way together, when youth can bring enthusiasm and 18 THE CALL TO YOUTH courage and age may point the way of experience. Adult sponsorship should never be dictatorial, but should lead youth by tactful, unobtrusive and intelligent guidance to genuinely Christian standards of leisure time activit- ies. It should find and develop leadership among the youth itself and aid in securing a well-balanced program for the whole youth and for every youth. Whenever girls constitute the whole or part of the membership, women sponsors are vitally necessary, for only women can completely understand the physiological and psychological need of girls. If we are to develop in our girls a high standard of Christian womanhood that will enable them to fill their rightful places in the world, we do not want to have them ape a men's program of recreation, of sports, but rather to enjoy activities that will be a source of happiness to them during their whole lives. Wise sponsorship demands training and work. For this reason the National Council of Catholic Women has arranged this radio series as a training course for women sponsors. Let us hope that every Catholic sponsor will take full advantage of the opportunity offered by writing for the training sheets offered free each week with a copy of the broadcast. Training leaders will give, to our girls the high standards of Christian womanhood and lead them into the fullness of life. Years ago—twenty-five at leas1>—I wrote a book for young men just starting out in their first jobs and called it Letters to Jack.{1) There was a significant chapter entitled "Burden Bearers" which was written in an at- tempt to explain myself to myself. It seemed to me at the time that I had drawn the hard lot in life of bearing more of other people's burdens than was fair to my own. That chapter really wrote itself and became a bit of consolation to me. It remains as a larger bit of consola- tion now, when I have still more of other people's burdens to carry. May I, urging the need and utility of sponsor- ship for youth activities, quote a little from it? "Do I counsel you to be a burden bearer? I do, if there is a burden you feel you should carry for the sake (1) Letters to Jack, Most Key. F. O. Kelley. D.P. , St. Anthony Guild Press, Faterson, N. J. WITH SPONSORSHIP 19 of others; I do, if you feel that you have none. Take unto yourself a responsibility for the sake of others. GoQd men and women should bear burdens not their own, for there are so many who will not bear even their own. The burden bearers serve to equalize things—they are a necessity if the world is to be kept from going to ruin. He who does 'just enough' falls short of doing what is required of him. The 'just enough* man is the man who is only tolerable. It takes more than that to be accept- able. "Do I counsel you to be a burden bearer? I do, be- cause I counsel you to be good, wise, noble and patriotic. I counsel you to have a heart, and I know that you have a soul. If I did not counsel you to be a burden bearer, I should be thus counseling you to let the world have its way with you—which God forbid! 'Our soul' (I quote Abbe Roux), 'which the world pretends to divert with its vanities, resembles the child which is consoled by the offer of a rattle instead of a star.' To have the star you must in some degree be a burden bearer."*2» I was glad to note later that Chateaubriand wrote: "Everyone in dying remits the heavy things of life to another; at each grave there is a man who receives the burden from the hand of the man who passes unto his rest; the new messenger carries this burden in his turn as far as the next grave." Sponsorship is burden bearing. It is a teacher. It brings happiness to us. It is useful and necessary if youth is to be led by a straight and fair road to the Kingdom of God. The National Council of Catholic Women practices it and tries to make that practice per- fect. God bless them. And He will bless them because He loves burden bearers who work with Him in bring- ing others "unto justice"; which means, unto Himself, (2) Pen sees, Abbe Roux, Crowell Publishing Company, 20 THE CALL TO YOUTH TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "Adult sponsorship is necessary and desired" 1. What is meant by sponsorship? 2. Name five values of sponsorship to sponsors. 3. Name five values to youth. 4. Why do we need women sponsors for girl youth? 5. If you met a fine Catholic woman with splendid tal- ents for sponsorship, interested only in bridge and parties, how would you influence her to become active in Catholic Action? SERVICE Anne Sarachon Hooley Tucked away in one of Jorgensen's delightful bio- graphies is a sentence which might well headline any youth program. "The ultimate wisdom of living," he says, "is to serve."(1) And what is service? The retreat master of the National Catholic School of Social Service last week defined it as the "disposition of one's self in relation to others—first in relation to God, and secondly in relation to one's fellow-men as creatures of God." That seems to cover a pretty large slice of anyone's activ- ities and especially of the so-called leisure time activities. Service is such a natural thing. Every element in the universe regularly, consistently, hour upon hour, year upon year's end, performs its service. The swift waters of river and ocean rush on through well-marked currents that they may carry men and ships, spices and silks, his- tory and civilization, from shore to shore. The stars shine with unfailing brilliance to point the way for wan- derer and pioneer; the sun bends its healing ray upon fruit and men alike to generate new power; the wind carries its soft caress and its slashing storm to complete its task; the seed in the field sends up its spike of grain, ripens and bears itself before the reaper that it may yield the harvest. Even the flowers by the wayside or in the garden, bud and blossom, bursting into a golden riot of color that men seeing their beauty may be moved to humility, to charity, to gratitude, to greatness. Only we human beings, rich beyond measure, fail to serve regular- ly and generously. It is a bit difficult to understand exactly why, for as Jorgensen says, the wisdom is so apparent, even to the material-minded. There is no alchemy for making charm like service; there is no power for building strength like service; and only he who has never tried it will deny that there is no open road to happiness like service. ( 1 > S t S ; ; 8 ^ 1 1 ^ Assisi" Johannes Jorgenson, Longmans, Green 22 THE CALL TO YOUTH A well-known newspaper columnist said, not long ago, that it would be a wise thing if every youth upon arriving at his majority should give a year of service to his community in payment, as it were, of his citizenship and the privileges he would enjoy as a resident of that city. The writer specifies that this work should be in the nature of beautifying or improving the community, not as any instrument of militarization, but even so there is that angle of regimentation which instinctively we shy at because we know its dangers and its potential terror. Surely it is possible to develop that spirit of service, that absorption of its wisdom by voluntary giving rather than by regimentation. It is for this reason that service be- comes one entire section of our youth program. In the practical presentation of service projects to a group there are a few definite policies and approaches to be considered. If these are not observed, the under- taking can work out something like the casting of a Christmas play I once saw, when a very talented director had been brought in for the occasion. The reading try- outs had progressed rather smoothly but in a grim, tense sort of way, and finally the director turned his attention to the younger choruses. Pointing to one black-eyed little cherub, he said, "You will be an angel." Whereupon eight- year old Raphael burst into sobs, crying to high heaven that he would not be an angel, that he did not want to die even for a coveted part in the Christmas play. But a leader with more understanding, though perhaps less dramatic ability, took Raphael aside and explained to him that he could easily be an angel, that it did not in- volve dying, but that he would wear a-beautiful costume, and without him there would be no one to announce the glad tidings of Christmas. So Raphael, looking too sera- phic for description wore his silver wings, and sang lustily of Peace on earth to men of good will. At eight years of age, Raphael sobbed; at sixteen, he might have sulked when asked to do something he did not under- stand; at nineteen, not knowing whether he could do it, he might have assumed an air of boredom; and at twenty- one, he might have walked out. The' reaction to some vague plan for doing good, a plan whose value seems uncertain and whose requirement seem too exacting is SERVICE 23 apt to be the same, though the method of expressing it varies at different ages. The activity then must be clearly within the power of whatever age level undertakes it. It must be some- thing which has a tangible value, a value which the group considers and discusses, for at the very beginning the sponsor or leader must be so well-informed on the details that she can point out what is practical and what is apt to render the whole thing unusable. Once the project is begun, it must be carried through so that the results can be seen. Early in the undertaking it will inevitably ap- pear that a few have caught the spirit of the thing and a vision, which will carry that spirit along. If these are given some phase of leadership and responsibility, they will, on their own initiative, spread this enthusiasm through the group. Too, there should be some continuity about it so that one piece of work leads very logically to another of equal or greater interest. And when the pro- ject is finished, there must be time taken by the group for evaluation and consideration of the methods used. Stumbling blocks and errors cannot be totally ignored if the interest which comes from real achievement is to be held. Your national committee is sending to press this week a publication on the various service activities sug- gested for parish youth groups. Naturally, this cannot be an exhaustive study, because the size, the geographic location, the facilities, the sponsorship, and the general plan of the director make possible an infinite variety of situations. However, it will give a basis of comparison with what other groups have found satisfactory, and will suggest a beginning for those organizations which thus fa r have not attempted anything under this division of the program. A copy of this booklet may be secured from the national headquarters. Probably the first service project which comes to mind will be in the field of national defense. America today, as well as every other country on the face of the globe, is geared to that complicated and far-reaching task of coordinating the resources of the nation. And those resources are more than armies and ships and munitions; they reach into morale, into community living, into health, 24 THE CALL TO YOUTH into recreation, and a myriad of other seemingly remote fields. It is only natural then that youth should be caught up in the seething activity of this national pro- gram, that it should seek to have a part in the great emergency. For young men, there is, of course, military service and its definite arrangements. For the girls and young women in our youth groups are beginning valiant- ly what promises to be a real contribution. They want to do more than wear the red, white, and blue gadgets on their lapel; and through the service program of the C.Y.C. they are finding a satisfying and worthwhile means of assisting. First of all there is the work of the Chaplains' Aid Association which has issued requests for a quantity of altar linens, Mass kits, prayer books, and rosaries. For girls, the Red Cross offers an interesting and valuable list of projects. Possibly the department of production, the motor-corps, or the nursing aide will be more nearly within the interest and ability of most groups. This, of course, will be done through your local chapter, but in an interview with the head of the volunteer service in Washington last week, your national chairman arranged for suggestions which might be most desirable. You will probably like also the idea of doing it together. Where- ever any of those projects involve training, there is a double service, because it means that additional people are being added to the strength which a community al- ready possesses. The opening of new industrial areas where an immense city rises up almost overnight creates housing conditions and an influx of new population. C.Y.C. groups are undertaking to welcome these new girls into the parish organizations, and assist them in the housing problem. Where sponsors are actively work- ing, the senior girls can join in the recreational program being offered to soldiers by the local boards, but this needs well-organized sponsorship. In all of it, care must be taken to proceed in an orderly fashion and through proper channels. But as has been said before, there is a destiny of youth for war and peace. Both now and for that blessed time when the world at large shall be restored, and we on this continent shall enjoy confidently the American SERVICE 25 way of life again, one of the prime essentials is to main- tain the safeguards of sane and fruitful living, to keep that balance on which the Christian democracy is built. For this reason, youth groups can find community pro- jects in safety, health, clean-up campaigns, and volun- teer social service, as directed by local agencies. There are crusades for good literature on public news stands, the Legion of Decency, interest in good radio programs, and many others of a similar type. Citizenship, and its allied interests suggest a large, number of activities. There are discussion clubs, panels, and youth forums on the obligations and privileges of citizenship; there are Twenty-first Birthday Celebrations, where groups appropriately celebrate their entrance into governmental affairs; there are Americanization days; there are community youth weeks and youth days at State Fairs. But, more important than the nature of the activ- ity, or the manner in which it functions, is the fact that it develops the genuine spirit of service. Youth need the security and the riches which this will give. For- tunate they will be, if they learn now that the fallen ruler marked his failure on the day he ceased to serve his people, that the outcast mourned in isolation his inability to serve real authority, that lonely age looked bitterly upon empty hands. Fortunate youth will be if they accumulate now the mastery of that ultimate wis- dom, for no matter how troubled the times may be ahead, they will have acquired through action the gentleness of charity, the power of generous obedience to constituted authority, and the gallant strength of loving to serve. They will have acquired the freedom of service that neither poverty nor the most menial task can rob them of their royal dignity. 26 THE CALL TO YOUTH TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "To keep that balance on which the Christian democracy is built." 1. What is service? Of what value to youth? 2. Why is voluntary service preferable to regimentation ? 3. What norms should be observed in selecting a service project ? 4. How is your youth group aiding in the National De- fense Program? 5. What more could they do? BANNERS ALOFT Most Rev. John A. Duffy, D.D. I welcome the opportunity afforded me to bring, within the radius of my voice, the youth of America. I am happy to participate in a call to youth to live the twentieth century, despite turmoil and distress, bearing aloft the standard of their country and of their Christian faith. Each year on this particular day, February 22nd, our work-a-day world pauses to celebrate the birth of a man whom we justly term the Father of our country. It is significant that we honor Washington under that title rather than as the Commander-in-Chief of the victorious armies that drove from our shores the domination of a foreign power. Why is it significant? For a moment, let us re-live, together, the days of travail in which our country was born. The thirteen Colonies were welded together, in the grim work of war, by the spirit and purpose of their immortal Declaration of Independence; they made com- mon cause against a common enemy, whose governing power curtailed the freedom and equality they claimed as their birthright. Their standard was firmly planted in the bedrock of faith in God, Creator of all men and Giver, to each and all, of an immortal soul, free to choose and constituting his equality of value before God and man. Around this standard, they had rallied as one: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Armed victory secured to the thirteen Colonies the right of self government, freedom from a foreign yoke. It left them free and independent political states, each with its own laws and its own interests, loosely knit together in a Confederation. Would this suffice to hold them together? Would their common profession of faith in every man's rights, suffice alone to prevent the disin- 28 THE CALL TO YOUTH tegrating forces of jealousy and greed from turning one state against another? In the opinion of the Command- er-in-Chief of the victorious armies, it would not. "I do not conceive," said Washington, "that we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union, in as energetic a manner as the authority of the state governments ex- tends over the several states."(1) Evidently, a greater work was still to be accomplished before a new nation could be born—the United States of America. This greater work was to provide a body and letter of law through which the principles of the Declaration of Independence might work effectively for the protec- tion of individual rights and the common good; which would bind together, voluntarily, the free peoples of the sovereign states in a perfect Union. Our body of law, the Constitution of the United States, was worked out at the cost of long, determined, painstaking labor and much mutual sacrifice, by the fifty-five delegates, whom the peoples of twelve of the states selected to act for them in this all-important work. One of the thirteen states refused to participate. This fact testifies to the prevalent dread of the sacrifices that would be required for a grant of powers, from the peoples of the states to a Federal Government, authorized "to establish justice and promote the general welfare." Experience shows that men give up their lives far more readily than they sacrifice their cherished "rights" for the common good. Washington, with sound common sense, broad vision and firm faith in God, tended and fathéred this painful birth of our nation. You, young people, as students of your country's history, may examine and verify the very human details of this period of our national life. My purpose, today, is merely to call to your attention the indisputable fact: that the country we love became a nation, one and in- divisible, as a result of mutual sacrifices—the grant of powers on the part of the peoples of the states; the accep- tance of limitations on the part of those charged with the Federal authority. I wish, further, to arouse aware- (1) The Qovernment of the United States, William Bennett Munro, Fourth Edition. Chapter III , p. 87. Macmillan, N. Y, BANNERS ALOFT 29 ness of the inexorable logic of this indisputable fact and to its logical consequences. The spirit to be incorporated in the body of the Constitutional Law of the new Republic, was the un- equivocal declaration that every man, as man, regardless of circumstances or position, had "inalienable rights," implanted in his being by the Creator, hence not within the jurisdiction of his fellow man to belittle or revoke. It recognizes that the "inalienable rights" of one man, or group, or state, are equally the "rights" of another; that the surest guarantee of one's "rights" is an equitable regard for those of another. This is essentially a religious concept, a tacit acknow- ledgment of the Divine Lawgiver and His law of justice: "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself." Such a concept, both in its foundation and its perpetuation, depends, inevitably, upon the checks and balances of mutual sacrifices, in the relations of indi- viduals, of groups, of states, because it rests essentially upon the universal dominion and Fatherhood of God. Someone, meeting Benjamin Franklin as he left the Constitutional Convention, asked him: "Well, Doctor, have you given us a Republic or a Monarchy?" "A Re- public," he replied, "if you can keep it."i2) For well Dr. Franklin knew that the stability of a Republic, more than of any other form of government, depends upon the quality and good will of its citizens. To you, the youthful citizens of our country, this trust will pass. To you, therefore, we make appeal to cultivate the courage that is ready for sacrifices: the courage to master selfishness within yourselves and to balance your rights, by your responsibilities to others. Peace belongs to men of good will. Cultivate this good will and a fine sense of justice towards all. Is this too much to ask? I grant you it will challenge all the enthus- iasm and hardihood of your youth; that, in the effort, you will often falter and fall, as others have done before you. Men, alas, are but human, after all. None the less is the effort deserving of the best you have to give. For the standard bearers of the future must be sure and (2) The Government of the United 8tates, William Bennett Munro Fourth Edition, Chapter V, p. 64. Macmillan, New York. ' * o u n a 30 THE CALL TO YOUTH strong: sure in their faith in God and in the principle of man's brotherhood under God; strong in maintaining this faith, this principle against every devastating foe. Some will tell you that individualism is the philoso- phy that has made America great. Do not believe them. Individualism takes no thought of another. Its creed is, "every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost." It is the arch-saboteur of the American spirit, the spirit of human rights and human values. Without this spirit, our country surely dies. Others will demand the subservience of human con- science and human will to a soulless Society that shall fit them to its purpose, as cogs in a vast machine, and, fin- ally, grind them to dust. This is the mortal enemy of government by the people, for the people, which calls for conscience, intelligence and purposeful action on the part of every citizen. Many will point to physical and mental inequalities among men, to scoff at man's intrinsic spiritual right to equality. They will even assail the justice of God and deny His very existence. These men strike at the Spirit by which men live and leave us senseless vagrants, on a foolish ball of earth, knowing neither whence we came, nor whither we go: puppets who flutter in every breeze of thought and dance to every tune of pleasure. These, and other subtle foes, daily lie in wait, seek- ing to bomb our intelligence and to mine our will, know- ing that, with our surrender, our standard falls. Prepare yourselves, now, to meet their challenge: to stand firm in your own faith, in your own principles, come what may. Change is inevitable. It blows away the chaff of man's making. But that remains which holds to the unchanging Good—God—and flows from His justice and love. It is the duty and the destiny of my generation and yours to "bring God back into government; back into education; back into economic life; back, indeed, into all life, private and public, individual and social. The truth of God, the law of God, the justice, mercy and charity of God must, by conscious effort and willing submission, be made to permeate all our social intercourse and all our public relations."(S) (3) The Church and Social Order, A Statement of the Archbishops and Bishops of the Administrative Board, N.C.W.O, No. 5. p. 2. BANNERS ALOFT 31 Dedicate yourselves, with all the splendid vigor of your youth, to this high purpose, that our country may renew the promise of her youth and America's standard fly high over a free and happy people—a people rich in happiness, because not purchased at the expense of others; kindly in judgment, because conscious of personal weak- ness; generous, because grateful to God, from whom they hold their gifts. If you will hold.high this standard, men will rally to it, as they have rallied before. And hope will be restored in men who place their faith in God. Sons and daughters of America, you are the children of God, our Father in heaven. Who "so loved the world as to give His Only-Begotten Son," as our Redeemer and our Leader. The standard of our Christian Faith is not a barren Cross. It bears aloft a Kingly Fig- ure, with arms outstretched in love, the Reality and the Symbol, for all time, of triumph through sacrifice. Christ, the Son of God, is our Surety that God is with us. And with God all things aie possible. Young people, you glory in your freedom. Use your freedom gloriously—to choose the right for yourselves and do what is right to other's. With all the authority and solicitude of the Catholic Church, I urge you, Catholic boys and girls, young marri- ed men and women, to carry your standards bravely. I invite you to band together, under the leadership of your bishops and your priests, to wage a holy warfare against the pagan forces of selfishness and greed; to form, again, the "little company" of Christian men and women, who labored with the Apostles and whose distinction was, that they loved one another. They brought new life, new joy, to a hardened pagan world because they dared to live, in thought, in word, in deed, Christ Crucified and Risen from the dead. 32 THE CALL TO YOUTH TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "TJse your freedom gloriously . . . carry your standards bravely." L How may sponsors aid youth to keep "Banners Aloft"? 2. Prove that the United States was built on a Chris- tian foundation. 3. Give an example of "balance your rights by your responsibility to others." 4. How may Catholic youth today "band together under the leadership of their bishops and priests to form again the 'little company' of Christian men and women" ? 5. If your youth officers should ask you "How may we fulfill our 'duty to bring God back . . . into all l i fe '" how would you answer them? EXPLORING Anne Sarachon Hooley These are days of quick emotions and tense feelings. We go about our routine duties with a weighted sense of things to happen, with a subconscious expectancy that at any moment these routine actions may be radically changed. Men passing on the street say to one another, "What do you make of it this morning?", and the answer often comes back, "It's hard to tell. It looks as though— but, anything can happen." There is a hesitancy at pre- diction because even in that split second in which one reaches the final conviction of opinion, the swift hum of the wires may bring news which is almost revolutionary in its significance. We in America who have not seen directly the world conflict are upset by the uncertainty, the cataclysmic changes, the tragic destruction which men and nations are experiencing. It is in this mobile and pendulous state that people are most open to the healing comfort of truth. They feel the need of that assurance and strength which only truth can bring be- cause it is something to tie to. To be sure, the period will bring its quack panaceas, its shallow reasoning, its surface judgments, and its social hysteria, but on the whole people will be the more ready to reach out for stability and lasting values. It is extremely important then that in this atmos- phere you, who are the rising generation, should be doing some solid, sane thinking. When I made this re- mark to a youth group the other day, one of them came back immediately with the question, "There hasn't been much effort to encourage this among young people the last few years, has there?" I was somewhat taken aback by the clarity of the statement, because certainly educa- tion and social attitudes seem to have combined recently in helping you to avoid issues, to find a way around mental discipline rather than through it. When in your elemen- tary grades, you were urged to make ship models during the time alloted to mathematics, because you did not find satisfaction in figures, probably no one mentioned to you 34 THE CALL TO YOUTH that if your first job should demand a knowledge of figures, which you did not possess, your employer would have practically no interest in your explanation about the ship models, and that your security would depend upon your ability to combine your aptitudes and interests with the practical assets necessary for the job of living. As has often been predicted, it is probably you, your- selves, who will discover the weakness of the present system. The popular speaker or writer who advocated com- plete freedom, who contended that restrictions or dis- cipline of any kind, mental or moral, were destructive of full living, is not there, you will find, when you come to face the results of his procedure. And the natural out- come of this discovery will be that you question his theory, that you begin to take responsibility for those things which concern your happiness and your destiny, that you will feel it necessary to know and to influence them. Nothing more fortunate could happen to you because through this you will come upon the great ad- venture of mental exploring. There is in this an exhilira- tion, a sense of power, and a feeling of belonging which nothing else can offer you. Let us think for a few moments on some of those things which provide good exploring. You are vitally interested in being an American. You boast that you are a citizen of a great Christian democracy and as such you have a freedom, a security, a rght of individual integrity which no other nation on the face of the globe offers to its youth at this particular moment. But what proof have you of this? Well, you may say you have a right to express your opinion, to walk the streets or go wher- ever you wish, you can attend college and study any subject which you select, you can hold a job and keep the earnings of that job for yourself, you can believe in your own religion and practice it without interference from anyone. You can read the newspaper which is allowed to print different views. You can, if you are of age, exercise your influence by voting to select your representative in the workings of your city, state, and federal government, You enjoy a home because your EXPLORING 35 parents are allowed to own property and no one can take that property from them unless by due process of law. All this is true, but what guarantee have you that this will not be taken from you tomorrow or the day after? You will say that it is guaranteed to you by our great charter which says, "We hold that men are endow- ed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Ah, but this endowment rests upon the supposition that there is a Creator, a bountiful God who has given you as an individual certain rights and privileges. If this supposi- tion is destroyed, then the premise upon which your rights and your privileges rest is destroyed. Has it occurred to you that all men who deny the existence of that Creator, that all those who would banish Him from your school, your home, and your national life, are strik- ing at the very well-springs of your freedom? How much do you know about the insidious influences which are working in your own country to destroy a belief in that God ? And if you do not know about them, how can you defend yourself against them? How many are there in the school which you attend, in your office where you work, at the parties which you enjoy, who because of their doctrines and their false theories are enemies of your freedom? Then too, you are vitally interested in your career. It may be a job, a profession, or the making of a home. If you are to pursue these with any degree of assurance, you will be concerned about the factors which influence them. If your job is to be in industry, you will be in- terested in the fundamental principles upon which an economic system rests. Your claim to a living wage, your opportunity to bargain for and market your services under just and free conditions, as well as your obligation to give a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, all rest upon the truth that the rights of man may not be subordinated to the rights of property which is a soulless thing. How much do you know about those great pronouncements, the encyclicals, which set out the philosophy of economic life? You may at first glance feel that they are heavy reading and too abstract for one who is only busy about practical every day affairs. But a little mental exploring will show you that they are the very groundwork on which your 36 THE CALL TO YOUTH every day affairs must rest, and that as you know them and share them, your security and that of your friends will be safeguarded. You are all interested in the building of a home at some time or another. For some of you girls, this will be preceded by a job; for others, it may be very soon after leaving school. As you prepared for college, as you prepared for your job, you will prepare for the efficient and fruitful handling of that life-long career. Mental exploring will open for you the intrinsic implications with which that sacrament is surrounded. How much do you know about the source of strength for holding that home together? How much do you know about the social and moral influences, yes, even the social laws, which threaten the security of that home? We are in the midst of a great war, one whose out- come must inevitably influence the most glorious years of your life. How much have you discussed the justifica- tion of war and the conditions of a just peace? If these things are important to you, then they right- fully belong in your leisure-time program and are neces- sary to its satisfactory development. When your group first shows an interest in these topics, someone will say, "Let's get a good speaker to talk on that," or "Let's have a worthwhile person review that book." But you will need to think whether this is what you want. The lectur- er may add to your information, but perhaps he will not stimulate you to investigate the reasons for your opin- ions and enable you to defend them in alien company. The book review is a pleasant pastime, but through it you get only the opinion of the reviewer; when you read the book yourself, it is your own. Book reviews and lectures are apt to be a form of mental thumb-sucking, but in the panel group or the discussion club where several people come together, each with his own information, and his own opinions to test views by balancing them back and forth, to consider every angle of the subject, there is bound to be the fun and the value of mental exploring. Just recently a friend told me about a girl in New York City who earns seventy-five dollars a week. She spends five dollars a week for her room, about the same for her board, a minimum amount for personal necessi- EXPLORING 37 ties and the balance she gives regularly and willingly to the Communist Party organization of which she is a member. This story brings up the much-repeated wish, "If they but had the truth, or we the zeal." Now I do not believe that this girl is any more devoted to the Communist cause than you are to your possessions of democracy and religion, but she is conscious that she must work to maintain her possessions and you, perhaps mistakenly, feel that yours are so secure that you can afford to be inert. Someone has said that civilizations do not die, they migrate. So it is with all great gifts— freedom, security, faith. They must be received with eager, welcoming arms and nurtured with devotion, with intelligence, and with courage. We have too long been indifferent and smug. If America and the Church had an army of youth eager, generous, and thinking, then your future and that of your country would be secure. All the subversive influences that might come to our shores would be beaten down and driven back. It is comparatively easy to die for God and country. It is harder, much harder to live for them. 38 THE CALL TO YOUTH TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "If they but had the truth, we the zeal." 1. Why is it important to encourage youth to "explore"? 2. What areas of living need special thinking today? 3. List social and moral influences which threaten the security of the home? 4. Why is a discussion more valuable than a lecture? 5. Your youth group has the "truth." How may the "zeal" be inspired? HOW ABOUT YOUR WORK? Catherine Schaefer "What About Your Work?" The question is asked with special reference to the general title of this series, "Today's Apostolate, Youth Lives the Twentieth Century." For work is a central problem in this chaotic twentieth century and it calls for a twentieth century apostolate. We need work to sustain and develop our bodies; our minds need it; we need it to be saved; and in work as in everything else we need the help of others. Though each of us is of infinite worth, we are social beings and we cannot live and work alone. We need families. We need to be together in cities and towns, and to have government that will let all of us get the full benefits of living together without encroaching on the rights of anyone. We need to be together in the nation; in the world. A means of doing this, and a special need in its own right is to get together in our work and to govern it for everybody's good. You may exclaim: Work seems to be the one thing the world does get together on! True, daily we drink tea gathered from the fields of China, we eat bread made from the wheat of Kansas, beef from cattle raised in Wyoming, slaughtered and dressed in Illinois; we wear wool shorn from the sheep of Britain and cotton from the looms of our own South, fiinshed perhaps in our home town. We live in houses that are products of many skills and many materials. And our own work, though it be pressing levers, pounding a typewriter, or ploughing a field, may with the help of others, serve the needs of our next door neighbor or of our neighbors, say, in China. It is truly wonderful how we may earn our own liv- ing and at the same time perform such service. Why then is work a problem today? Why does it need an aposto- late? Ask further questions. Why are so many people not working at all? Why do so many people lack a decent living while others are smothered with useless lux- uries? Why do so many regard work only as a drudgery? Why strikes and social unrest? Why wars? 40 THE CALL TO YOUTH Every day the presses of the world print millions of words on these questions. And every day the sum of human misery mounts while the world toys with the wrong answers. Is it too much to ask youth to seek out the right answers and try to do something about them? Can youth's courage and works wipe out the sins of the past? The word "sin" sounds strange in the company of "work." The association does not figure much in our examination of conscience. And there is a reason. At the beginning of so-called modern times many people broke away from true religion and substituted an auth- ority of their own. They put religion in a small enclosure, which they completely opened only on Sunday, the day of rest. Work was a wide, free field outside, from which the notion of sin was abolished. The necessary thing was to work hard and get a lot of money. If it could be made by cheating, by underpaying employees, by working them long hard hours in bad conditions, why, "Business was business." This materialistic philosophy attacked and affected to some degree even the most faithful. Thus, the most unscrupulous men, in bitter competition with each other, gained wealth and power over the work of those whose consciences were more delicate. A kind of economic slavery was instituted. A great, majority of people had nothing to say about their work. They could not freely serve the needs of each other. They could not live decently and fully themselves. This system was supposed to ensure progress and make everybody happy. Today all but the strongest competitors have gone under and are themselves dominated by a few or by gov- ernment. Many of the victims have lost their faith in God and in the brotherhood of man; religion to them is a dead letter in all phases of life. They have turned to atheistic Communism or pagan Naziism as a solution of their troubles; and the slavery, the wars, the misery that have resulted have brought us up against the gravest crisis. "Crisis" in Chinese characters is denoted by symbols meaning "danger plus opportunity." Our coun- try because it is new and big and wealthy has not suffer- ed as much as the older countries from the effects of this system, but it is suffering and it is in danger. Only HOW ABOUT YOUR WORK? 41 if we seize the opportunities offered can the danger be overcome. Fifty years ago, a great Pope, Leo XIII, wrote a letter to all the people of the world begging them to substitute cooperation for competition, asking them to stop their downward course to ruin, showing them the way to put justice and charity and religion back into work and thus into life. Some heeded his words and strove valiantly to follow his directions. But not enough. Meanwhile, inventions, not properly used, complicated the evils, bringing unemployment instead of good leisure, and bringing men closer together only to intensify the struggle for living and for power, till now whole nations are at war and the essence of Christianity itself is in- volved. Ten years ago, another great Pope, Pius XI, in his immortal letter on "Reconstructing the Social Order"/2 ' repeated what Pope Leo said, enlarged upon it, and ap- plied it to the new conditions of the world. Under the guidance of this letter public and private persons have been working hard to re-Christianize the area of labor, which has such effect on all the rest of life. In some countries of Europe, because they came too few and too late, they have been rewarded by exile and imprisonment. Here, no martyr's crown is offered—only the normal dis- couragements of a difficult work in a difficult time. But the energies and ideals of youth are needed if they, too, are not to fail. As Pope Pius XI put it, "No stone must be left unturned to avert these grave misfortunes from human society. Toward this one aim must tend all our effort and endeavor . . . For, with the assistance of Divine Grace, the destiny of the human family lies in our hands."«2) But youth cries: "What can we do? What stones can we turn?" This is no special problem for a select few. Work is an important part of all our lives and all of us have res- ponsibilities towards it. Youth, like the rest of man- kind must be active where it finds itself, using the tools of knowledge and will. It must have the will to work well (1) Encyclical "On the Condition of Labor" May IB, 1891. (N.O.W.C., lOo) (2) N.C.W.O., 10c. 42 THE CALL TO YOUTH and to work together; the will to see that work serves not only self but others for the purpose it was intended— the good of bodies and minds and the salvation of souls. Knowledge is necessary too. Many of you radio listen- ers have not finished your studies. Some of you are work- ing, but have the time for individual or group study in the evenings. What will you choose to learn ? Start with the rights every man has because of his dignity as a human person: the right to work and to earn a living that will take care of himself and his family and pro- vide for illness and old age and the education of his children; the right and duty of all to unite to protect these rights and to work for the common good; the right to share in the increasing richness of the world. What do you know about the facts of work outside of your own earnings, your own purchases, and the pov- erty you see in the street? How many people are unem- ployed and how do they live? What wages do the great majority of the people get, and what profits do the in- dustries which employ them make? Do you know? Do you know how and why unions work? What effect wages and hours, prices and unions have on employment? How unemployment in one industry affects another? What measures government has taken and should take to stop unemployment or to get the workers and employers to cooperate in solving their own problems? How much wealth is there in the country and how is it distributed? How can labor and employers and gov- ernment work together so that each one and all together will benefit most, so that we shall have an economic democracy as well as a political democracy in this mar- velous country where people may still strive freely for their own and everybody else's good? These are questions which challenge' the exploring mind of youth! These are problems for practical Chris- tians to solve. Let us learn about them, and let us not be selfish with our knowledge. Then let us act, when and where we can. If you work, join a union—automobile worker, office worker, store clerk, teacher, lawyer, doctor. Only by united action with others who are doing the same thing can we help ourselves, help them and help everybody. For the union should work not only to pro- HOW ABOUT YOUR WORK? 43 tect our own rights but help us as well to do better work and lead to cooperation with employers in making the whole occupation a better thing. Some of you will one day, either by training or inheritance, step into positions of economic power. You will employ other people. Learn now their needs and your duties toward them: prepare to deal cooperatively with their unions, to get them to help you in the problems of your business so that it will be strong and serve you all, and the community. Prepare to work together with other employers for^the same purpose. Some of you will help directly in determining governmental policies. All are, or will be, voters. Learn what government can and should do and use the ballot to that end. Most of you young women will marry, though few of you before you have served a term at the business of earning a living. But because it may be only a term, don't be uninterested in cooperating with your fellow- workers and in making them aware of the real purpose of work and their rights and duties regarding it. After you are married, you can do much through your husbands and through your civic activities. Some of you will de- vote your lives completely to the service of others. Let the service be a comprehensive one by educating those you serve in the necessity and the means of bringing Christ back to the workshop where He spent the major part of His earthly life. There is a place and a need for everyone. Youth, being youth, may minimize the danger which it faces itself. But youth, being youth, will not refuse the chal- lenge to join the heroic army which must defend "the destiny of the human family." 44 THE CALL TO YOUTH TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "The restoration of the kingdom of Christ." 1. Why is the philosophy of the "brotherhood of man" without the "fatherhood of God" false? 2. Name 3 "sins" committed in the work world today? 3. What are the two great Labor Encyclicals? Have you studied them? 4. Why should everyone join a Union? 5. How can you guide youth into the real work of an apostolate—the "reconstruction of the social order"? LET YOUTH HAVE FUN Most Rev. Emmet M. Walsh, D.D. Let youth have fun. How can you stop them if you would? An adult re-action. But I like dear old St. Philip Neri's attitude better. One day as he labored at his desk, a ball came crashing through the window, up- setting the inkwell and spilling the ink all over his papers. One of his brethren, indignant, started for the courtyard to send the boys away. "No," St. Philip said. "Let them chop wood on my back if they wish, provided only they do not offend God."«1) In these simple and homely words the saintly friend of youth laid down the one important principle govern- ing the choice of leisure time activities. And this prin- ciple becomes more and more important as leisure time becomes more plentiful in American life. The shorten- ing of the working week in recent years has increased the leisure time of adults. The lengthening of the period of compulsory schooling, and the longer time between gradu- ation and gainful employment for many have increased the leisure time of youth. And unemployment has given leisure time in distressing abundance to old and young. The use of all this leisure time has become an important subject for thought and planning. As we approach the subject, our first principle is that we must never use leisure time to offend God. Now leisure time is not time to idle. For "idleness is the devil's workshop." The idle mind wanders off into dangerous fields of thought and eventually loses its power to think clearly. The unused will loses its power to decide and make the choices so important to sound and happy living. Inactive muscles grow weak and flabby. In continued idleness one deteriorates spiritually and morally, mentally and physically. It is only by use that the mind grows keen and the will strong. Only by vigorous exercise does the body grow in muscular strength, endurance and nerve-force. And it is with a soul fully developed in its natural fac- (1) "Joy in Religion," John B. Delaney, C.S.O. N.C.O.M. Catholic Hour, p. 26. 46 THE CALL TO YOUTH ulties of intellect and will and with a body strong and healthy we respond best to the grace of God, and to the call to give Him joyous and abounding service in the Christian life. Christian life to which we are all called is simply the following of Christ, who revealed Himself to us as "the Way, the Truth, and the Life."'2» All we know of His youth may be summed up in these words of St. Luke: "And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them,"(3)—His foster-father Joseph, and Mary, His mother. And those other words of St. Luke's: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and grace with God and men."(4) Following Christ in youth must mean profound re- spect for one's parents, surely. And it must mean the occupation of one's days with those interests and in those activities which will make one "advance in wisdom and age and grace with God and men." The National Council of Catholic Women, in sponsoring Youth Coun- cils of Catholic girls, has proposed a program designed to supplement the work of the school and home, and to utilize leisure time to the end that our girls "advance in wisdom and age and grace with God and men." One part of the program concerns itself with recre- ation and social activities. And again for standards one examines the record of the life of Jesus Christ, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." It is worthy of note that much of His public life was spent In the open, walking in the fields, the woods, the mountains, and by the sea and beside the river. He began His public life fasting in the wilderness, He was baptized in the river Jordan. His first great sermon was on a mountain. It was on a moun- tain "He called whom He would"(B) to be His Apostles. It was in a field He taught that the "Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."'6 ' Often Jesus re- tired with His disciples to the sea. It was there near the sea of Galilee He received Peter's confession of faith in His Divinity: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the (2) John XIV, 6. (3) Luke II . 51. (4) Luke II, 52. (5) Mark II, 27. (6) Mark III, 13. LET YOUTH HAVE FUN 47 living God,"(7) and solemnly approved it. It was there beside the sea that He promised the Bread of Life, His flesh for the life of the world.«8) One imagines that He would have remained in the cities, where He could more effectively reach greater crowds of people with His divine teachings. But His sojourns in Capharnaum were brief. His journey through the cities of Decapolis was quickly done. His trips to Jerusalem were few and He often retired to the countryside for the night at Bethany. It is a legitimate conclusion to draw that Our Divine Model lived outdoor life, and found outdoor life for His disciples a valuable preparation for Christian living. It is with reverence that we note the remarkable health and great endurance of our Blessed Lord that enabled Him to make the long and arduous journeys afoot in the service of His heavenly Father. And so, my dear young people, if you would walk with the Lord, and give Him enduring service, now while you are young, seek health outdoors and develop the bodies He gave you with whole- some and joyous exercise. The National Council of Catholic Women proposes for girls and young women a well-rounded program of games and sports adapted to their physical and psycholo- gical needs. In planning the program they have been conscious of the fact that the bodies of girls, like all human bodies, are temples of the Holy Spirit, and are therefore sacred. These are also the tabernacles of the human race, and are therefore to be reverenced, their purity safeguarded, and their costumes modest at all times. Scantiness of clothing and the prevalent semi- nudity are abhorrent to the truly Christian" woman whether on the sports' field or floor or at the beach. Here is a genuine opportunity for much needed Catholic Action by our young girls—an opportunity pointed out several times by the Holy Father. The National Council's program insists upon games and sports which admit participation of large numbers of girls rather than those that make heroines of the few and spectators of the many. They suggest a list of those (7) Matthew XVI, 16. (8) John VI, 25. 48 THE CALL TO YOUTH that have a carry-over social value and develop character and personality, team-work and a happy sense of com- radeship. They have eliminated from the suggested pro- gram athletics that are too strenuous in view of the physical needs of girls. They are definite in their dis- couragement of emphasis on tournaments and public exhibitions and certain contests, which do violence to the psychology of Christian girls. They are sane Christian women and they realize the power of well-planned physical play to give the young the wholesome joy and natural satisfaction of being alive. But no director or sponsor or leader of youth may ever forget, nor may they ever let the young forget, that these natural satisfactions and natural perfections, phy- sical and mental, are but the foundation on which they build their supernatural life with its supreme joys and satisfactions as they walk with Jesus Christ, "the Wav the Truth, and the Life." I am sure the thoughtful have noticed the emphasis we place upon the social value of companionship in play. Man is a social being and even in one's spiritual life, he forgets this fact to his great peril. Even when men or women withdraw from the world and consecrate them- selves to God by the vows of religion, by the ordinary law of the Church they are required to live in communi- ties. When Our Lord made His missionary journeys, He was accompanied by His faithful twelve. Even when He withdrew to commune with His heavenly Father in prayer, His companions were not far away. When He sorrowfully entered upon His agony in the Garden of Gethsemani, He took Peter, James, and John with Him He exemplified what He taught—that we must love one another. There is no soundness in a love that holds aloof from one's fellows. There is no better means of cul- tivating the virtue of charity so essential to Christian living than happy companionship in all the activities of life. And if Catholic Action requires that we spread Christian principles - among our fellows, we can make a good beginning in the hours when understanding friend- ship grows apace as we play together. The National Council of Catholic Women has been LET YOUTH HAVE FUN 49 conscious of these facts in laying down its standards and policies of girls' athletics and social activities. It has realized that leisure time activities can exert a powerful influence on character building. It knows that social affairs can be utilized to bring all the young people in a parish to a fine Christian understanding and a realiza- tion of the bond of Christian charity by which they walk together along the way of life with Jesus Christ. It recommends such social affairs as will develop an appre- ciation of the simple values of life and the real joys of human companionship in wholesome play. Thus it would prepare our youth to be independent of the artificial and commercial forms of recreation so subtly dangerous in our day. What a wonderful apostolate—to teach our youth how to play, how to be genuine Catholics in the living room and in the parlor, in the recreation hall, on the dance floor and on the field of sport! It is an apostolate to prepare them for genuine Catholic Action. 50 THE CALL TO YOUTH TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "It is an apostolate to prepare youth for genuine Catholic Action." 1. What is the first principle governing the choice of leisure time activity? 2. Why is outdoor life a valuable preparation for Chris- tian living? 3. List 5 important values on the "participation of the many rather than of the few." 4. What activities have "carry-over" value? Why? 5. Why should we discourage emphasis on tournaments, public games, public marching and too strenuous activities for girls and young women? "PROFITING FROM LEISURE" Most Rev. R. 0. Gerow, D.D. Once while Benjamin Franklin was busily engaged in the press room of his printing establishment, a cus- tomer who had sauntered into the adjoining sales room and had spent; a long time dwadling amongst the books there asked a clerk the price of a certain book and was told that it was one dollar. Vainly attempting to get a reduction in the price, the customer called for Mr. Frank- lin, who left his work in the press room, in answer to the call. "Mr. Franklin," said the customer, "what is the lowest price at which you would sell me this book?" "One dollar and a quarter," replied Mr. Franklin.—"But your clerk just told me its price was one dollar; now tell me what is the lowest price you would accept for it." "One dollar and a half," replied Mr. Franklin. "But," argued the abashed inquirer, "you yourself just said that you would sell it for a dollar and a quarter."—"Yes," said Mr. Franklin, "I could have better accepted one dollar a few moments ago than a dollar and a half now."(1) Mr. Franklin knew the value of time. He put to good use the time given him by His Creator, and he hated to see it wasted uselessly. Great men usually realize its value. Lincoln, it is said, received his education by devoting his spare moments to study; and he acquired a knowledge of law while engaged in surveying. Thomas Edison utilized in the interest .of his work every moment of his time that he could spare from sleeping and eating. My friends, did you ever ask yourselves: What is time? Time is a mysterious thing—you cannot see it, nor hear it, nor feel it; but it is none the less real. It is not something that exists only in the far-oif reaches of astronomical space, but we ourselves are immersed in it. It seems to form an essential part of our being. It is the fabric of which our lives are made. "Dost thou love life?" said Franklin. "Then do not squander time, for that is the (1) Pushing to the Front or Success Under Difficulties, Or ison S w e t t M a r d e n ; The Success Company, Petersburg, N. Y. p. 73. 52 THE CALL TO YOUTH stuff life is made of."<2> It is a commodity which, how- ever, we cannot store like gold or grain, but which must be disposed of as it passes on in its steady unrelenting pace. Our Creator has given to each of us an allotment of this commodity. A certain amount of it must be used in sleeping, eating, and in work; but in the normal life there is a certain amount of time left over out of the twenty- four hours of the day which one is free to dispose of as he may choose. This time we call leisure. The hours of leisure are precious hours. We may, if we wish, fri t ter them away in useless idleness, or we may turn them to good use, or to harm, according as they bring us closer to our purpose in life or put us farther from it. For we have a definite purpose in life. We were not born into this world as waifs to wander aimlessly through life and finally to disappear into the abyss of nothingness; but we are children of God endowed by our Eternal Father with an immortal soul destined to enjoy an eternal home with Him in Heaven. Our primary purpose in life, then is to respect and honor our Heavenly Father, that we may not lose that precious heritage with which He has en- dowed us. And our secondary purpose is to enjoy in this life those gifts of mind and body that He has seen fit to bestow upon us. The manner in which we spend our leisure time plays an important part in the molding of our lives. Some adopt the attitude that leisure hours are to be wholly consumed in having a good time—in enjoying oneself. It is true that each one of us needs relaxation and enjoy- ment. It is true that, since God in His love has surround- ed us with means of enjoyment in this world, we should show our appreciation of His goodness by the proper enjoyment of the gifts that He has bestowed on us The very act of enjoyment of God's gifts in a spirit of thank- fulness is an act of homage to Almighty God. The story is told of one of the saints of the Church, who on an occas- ion when he was enjoying his play with his companions was asked the question, "What would you do if you knew that you were going to die within the next few minutes and must appear before the face of your Eternal (2) ibid. Chapt. VI, p. 73. "PROFITING FROM LEISURE" 53 Judge?" He replied that he would continue his play be- cause, this being the time for play, he had begun his recreation for the honor and glory of God and he felt that by spending his time in recreation he was doing an act pleasing to Almighty God. This story illustrates the philosophy that even in our recreation and enjoyment we can do homage to God. However, it seems a shame that all one's leisure hours should be spent in mere enjoyment when so many things of additional value might be done for the benefit of one-, self and others without detracting from the enjoyment of that leisure. By healthful outdoor sports one can combine the enjoyment of the sport itself with the build- ing up of physical health and strength. Through reading, discussions, and other intellectual activities, one can again combine enjoyment with the development of the mind. That portion of one's leisure which is devoted to the helping of others—whether in a temporal or in a spiritual way—brings a joy, a happiness that is not understood by the selfish who think only of themselves. "All who joy would win must share it—happiness was born a twin."111 Through our Catholic Youth Councils, our youth, together with their interested sponsors, have developed a program of leisure time activities admirably adapted to their demands and needs. This program, while it recog- nizes the demand for recreational and entertainment features, at the same time endeavors to incorporate into its framework elements that would tend to the develop- ment of our youth along sound lines physically, mentally, culturally, and spiritually; and at the same time would develop the philosophy that not in thinking of oneself alone does one attain to his highest happiness and develop- ment but that in the unselfish doing for others there is a joy not experienced by the selfish. Upon the shoulders of youth today rests a great responsibility. Before them lies a task perhaps greater than has been faced by any generation of modern times. That which we call civilization lies sick, yea in the throes of a convulsion that threatens its very life; and, even after it shall have passed through its present crisis, it T l j "Don Juan"—Byron. Canto I Stanza 172.—Little, Brown and Company. 54 THE CALL TO YOUTH shall be in for a long period of convalescence. It is the youth of today who shall face the task of guiding it through that period back to normal health, for in the hands of those who are the youth today lies the destiny of the world tomorrow. Theirs, then, is not the part of roaming aimlessly through life; but theirs is a task that requires real men and women strong in body and in mind, and, above all, "men and women of sound principles and strong Christian character—men and women who can stand against the poisonous germs of opportunist, materialistic philosophy and whb by their example and their labor can do their part in guiding and strengthening a bewildered and struggling generation. Youth of today has an apostolate, a work of gigantic proportions; hence our call to youth to surround them- selves with a wholesome atmosphere—to have a good time, yes—to enjoy the blessings that a kind and father- ly Providence has placed in their path, yes—but, at the same time, to realize the seriousness of their task, and to fit themselves in body and in mind and Christian char- acter for the task of saving themselves and a tottering world. SUNLIGHT OF BEAUTY 55 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "Youth of today has an apostolate, a work of gigantic proportions" 1. What is leisure? Why important? 2. Why do we need a balanced program of leisure time activities?—spiritual, cultural, vocational, recrea- tional and service. 3. What is the purpose of youth's apostolate? 4. How may the work of the apostolate be carried on through leisure time activities ? 5. What are the qualifications of a leader or sponsor in the apostolate? SUNLIGHT OF BEAUTY Angela McCaffrey Lucas When today's talk on this program was announced to you as "Sunlight of Beauty" perhaps it seemed rather vague and you will be wondering just what phase of a youth program we will discuss. Give it just a little thought and you will realize that in any program of life the "Sunlight of Beauty" that comes to us must spring from the lasting joy of a love and knowledge of God, and the rich, colorful, vigorous beauty found in the culture of art, music, poetry, drama and the other fine arts. You may ask, "What is the place of cultural activities in a leisure time program for youth?" According to the philosophy of St. Thomas, "Recreation is not all sports, it is not the indulgence of the senses; it is the re-creation in the human heart of the spirit of joy and of beauty and of service." Another guest speaker on this program asked, as a test, the question, "Does it re-create in the participant anything of lasting joy or beauty or strength?" Will our activities stand the test of this pertinent question? The end of man is God, and each individual should be taught to develop himself, with the help of God, so as to fit himself for Heaven. In the parable of the talents, Christ taught us to develop all the powers God has given us; the intellect to find the truth and know justice, so that we may make these our own and produce creatively the noble emotions to love the beautiful and good, the will to execute the right, and the body to enable us to work and do all things for God. The hearts of our young people are desperately hungry for a more intimate knowledge and love of God and the beauty and culture of the finer things of life. Within the mind of every youth lies a rich imagination, a vital force of creative power, which, when nurtured by vital thinking and an understanding and appreciation of the environment and world around them, will give to youth the opportunity and ability to re-create their SUNLIGHT OF BEAUTY 57 castles of idealistic and lasting beauty. How vital or real this beauty will be depends largely on the depth of feel- ing of the doer. Today, youth is living in a world that is attempting to take from it the feeling of joy and happiness of Chris- tian living, to blot out from its vision the towering spires of beauty, and, by its standards of pagan phil- osophy and principles, give in their place the sordid pleasure of shallow living, crime and immorality. Dic- tators, movie stars, educators, novelists, and even the editors of picture magazines are making their bid for the hearts of our youth, and a mightly attractive and effective bid it has been, too. Let us, as youth leaders, match them, meet the com- petition, and with genuine confidence, give to youth the opportunity to discriminate, to apply Christian principles of theology and philosophy to present-day situations. Recognizing that through cultural activities we can give to our youth a deep understanding of the age-old heri- tage of the Church, and an appreciation of lasting beauty through the development of the Arts, the Youth Com- mittee of the National Council of Catholic Women has set standards for cultural activities that deserve our attention. First of all, what activities may be listed as cul- tural, activities that will bring the "Sunlight of Beauty" into our drab lives? We might list panel clubs, book clubs, music, dramatics, crafts, hobbies, concert trips, tours to museums and places of historical or cultural in- terest, and many others. Certainly the best in dramatics, crafts, music and literature should be used to give to youth the •perfect pattern, so that they may be able to judge the false from the true. Youth is such a transient period of life that in our youth clubs we can ill afford to waste the precious years with less than the best. In our church dramatics, our music and our art, youth should come into an appre- ciation of the finest culture. We have so little time, why should we give so much of this precious element to the cheap. Why are so many of our plays merely entertain- 58 THE CALL TO YOUTH ing, and of such a nature that within a month no one can remember what it was all about? I recently read of a symposium on the "Human Per- sonality of Christ" that had been presented by a youth group, and the .re-actions of the various members who attended were most amazing and rather shocking. One young boy was heard to say, "To think that Christ is a real person; it takes your breath away. And gosh, Dad, He's a lot more attractive than Clark Gable, William Powell or any of the other movie stars. You know, Dad, it's the first time I realized that Christ can play with us, ride with us, attend our parties and banquets and even work at the next desk in our classroom." Rather shock- ing statement, isn't it? Yet this boy's attitude is char- acteristic of many of our young people of today and we must realize that we are contending with the glamour, the appeal and the artistic genius of the cinema, radio, modern fiction and art in the bid for the culture and affections of our youth. With so many lovely plays at our easy disposal isn't it a shame to use those of ques- tionable character? Why have we been content with the blasting sounds of jazz or the tawdry swing music when we could have the inspiration and soothing relaxation of the many fine lasting songs and the beautiful notes of the world's greatest composers? Through our cultural activities new avenues of thought and expression that will have a last- ing value in later life should be opened to our youth. Through their youth clubs, our young people may be in- troduced to the many different fields, some of which they will adopt as their own. Career conferences will familiarize many with the aspects of their anticipated vocational ambitions. Special interest groups should give the whole youth council the benefit of their activities by means of special presenta- tion of their work, through exhibits, demonstrations, en- tertainments, and such like. In the beginning only a few may be interested in crafts, later, if the crafts groups will have an artistic exhibit of their work, many will be interested and de- velop talent of their own, Some few may not care for SUNLIGHT OF BEAUTY 59 music. After a musical evening during which the choral club has presented its best numbers and a leader has led group singing, or the group has attended a concert or symphony, a new appreciation will come to all. Cultural activities should be planned by the youth officers, with their sponsors, for all youth, not merely for the develop- ment of the few with special talents and abilities. A master dramatic corps can be as dangerous as a master athletic team. All too often a good actress or actor is given the lead in every club play. This not only gives the "aces" a chance for further development, while denying the development of other members of the dramatic group, but it also may build unfortunate characteristics. A girl who is always the lead may find it very difficult, if not im- possible, to work with the team in a second or fifth position later. She will probably want the lead in all she does, and grow very arrogant and dictatorial about it. The timid girl needs the development and the "draw- ing out." The lead needs to learn cooperation and help- fulness to others. To include all youth roles should be varied and each member of the group should have an opportunity to appear on the stage during the year. Certainly all may not wish to act, or will not have the talent to do so, but many may still be affiliated with the dramatic group as members of the business management, scenery, costuming, lighting or other committees, for all these fields of dramatics can also be made important and helpful to character development. ' Besides these things in which youth takes an active part itself, youth groups should take advantage of com- munity resources. Every community has something of cultural value—an art gallery, beautiful statues, con- certs, crafts exhibits, plays and such like, and youth should take full advantage of all these so that, through the enjoyment of the arts and the achievements of civilization they may learn to live and enjoy life in a clean, honest way, to make Christ a participant in their recreation and to fashion into being the seeing, thinking and feeling of their inner selves, creating a real and lasting beauty. 60 THE CALL TO YOUTH Sometime ago I attended the solemn ceremony of the dedication of a new church. Though it was a dark, gloomy day, the elegant simplicity of the interior of the church, with its marble, bronze, tile and wood mingled with the gold of the vestments, and the purple of the Hierarchy and clergy, created a beauty and joy that filled one's heart. Suddenly the sun appeared through the beautiful stained glass windows near the Sanctuary. Its ray spread a bright light over the Sanctuary, reflecting the color and brilliance there, and carrying one's gaze with it to the bronze Tabernacle of the high altar, as if to remind us that it was there we could find the real "Sunlight of Beauty," a beauty unsurpassed and ever- lasting. ^ SUNLIGHT OF BEAUTY 61 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "We have so little time, why should we give so much of this precious element to the cheap?" 1. What is the ultimate purpose of cultural activities? 2. Why is it essential that Catholic youth come into an appreciation of their age-old heritage? 3. List 5 desirable characteristics that may be de- veloped through a well-planned program of cultural activities. 4. Why should all youth have an opportunity to take part in any cultural program planned? 5. If you found your youth group interested only in the cheap and tawdry what would you do to lead them to higher standards in dramatics, music and art? LIFE'S EXCHANGES Reverend, Paul Tanner I am very grateful to the Youth Committee of the National Council of Catholic Women for the invitation to speak to you who serve as sponsors of the girls' pro- gram in numerous dioceses in the United States. You are to be envied for your good fortune in being per- mitted to share in the guidance and training of these young women. Bishop Spalding once said: "Train a boy and you train a man: train a girl and you train a family."(1) Your influence in the lives of these young people is great, and accordingly great is your responsi- bility to make that influence the best you possibly can. If Our Divine Master assures us that the charity of a cup of cold water given in His name will be remembered in eternity, what shall we say of the reward to be given to the much nobler spiritual works of mercy practiced by you sponsors? Life's exchanges are many and various; some good, some bad. Christ Himself warns us of one fatal ex- change that spells final disaster. "For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8, 36-37). Short of this irrevocable bad exchange, though, there are countless others which no less certainly can lead to unhappiness and spiritual failure. You who know and love youth are conscious of the veritable conspiracy operating in modern society against youth's ideals. Father Raphael McCarthy, S.J. puts it this way: "Adolescent impulses are exploited in a manner that is a blot on our civilization. Youth's desire for thrills is appealed to in countless vicious ways. A host of subtle influences play on his awakening sex im- pulses; catchy songs and music stimulate him to an un- healthy excitement; literature that goes as far in sug- gestiveness as the law permits, modern dances that are (1) "Thoughts and Theories of Tvife and TSducation" by J. C. Spalding. Bishop of Peoria, pages 155 and 156. Quoted with the permission of A. C. McClurg and Company. LIFE'S EXCHANGES 63 devised to promote other things besides graceful move- ments, sensational bill boards that feature sex titles and sex situations as a bait to adolescent patronage; all these traps are set with a good knowledge of the psychology of youth. Surely sinning youth is greatly sinned against today." w | . But against these external evils we see a great and powerful internal force for good—youth's natural in- clination toward idealism. Youth's rare sensitiveness to altruism and noble ambitions, its native inclination to grand ideals, is its most saving and lovable characteristic. So nigh is grandeur to our dust So near is God to man When Duty whispers low, Thou must! The Youth replies, I can.(3> What precisely do we mean when we speak of youth's idealism? What is an ideal? An ideal is a mental con- cept of what is regarded as acceptable or perfect. An ideal is unreal in the sense that by definition it exists only in the mind; but it i3 real in the sense that it is a deter- minant of action, not merely one isolated action but a whole series of actions, not merely the action of one individual but the actions of whole groups and nations. While the child is guided by commands and even occas- ionally by punishment to enforce the command, a youth is guided by ideals. Youth's ideals are created subject to the influence of its immediate surroundings. It is in life's springtime that these ideals are consciously formulated and deliber- ately adopted. This is the age of saints as well as, according to the notorious crime statistics, the age of sinners. Youth's ideals ought to be specific, concrete, and immediate, rather than general, abstract, and remote. They must not be narrow and shallow but broad and deep enough to be applicable to the profound changes concomitant with adolescence. Youth is impatient for perfection. It would become a saint in a day—you must teach them that Patience is the great builder. 72) "Training the Adolescent," page 1B4. Quoted with the permission of the Bruce Publishing Company. (3) "Voluntaries" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Quoted with the permission of the Houghton, Mifflin Company. 64 THE CALL TO YOUTH You sponsors cannot but realize the importance of the role you ought to play in forestalling youth from selling its birthright of high and noble ideals for the mess of pottage of drab, sordid expediency. Ideals alone may be not more useful than idle day dreams; to influence character and life they must be energized by a determin- ed, vigorous will. Ideals should be high and noble. Nevertheless, they must be reasonable and within the possibility of attainment at the risk of inviting discour- agement and despair. Fickle, changeable youth must be taught that persistence in the pursuit of the ideal is the only sure way of reaching it: that the yoke of daily dis- cipline becomes sweet and enjoyable and makes life well worth the living when it is borne in pursuit of a worthy goal. Common sense indicates that ideals are subject to modifications by numerous influences, such as the age, sex, social status, companionships, academic training, home conditions, and native endowments of youth. Ideals must be durable and practical if they are to influence later life. Castles in Spain have a way of crumbling before the onslaught of real temptation. By nature most young people long for and admire whatever is good and great and holy, but in the back of their heads lurks a conviction that in some way or other growing up involves certain compromises in these spiritual ideals. In Longfellow's "Michael Angelo"(1) Valdesso gives vivid expression to this perverse belief in his description of Julia's mental attitude in these words: You would be free From the vexatious thoughts that come and go Through your imagination, and would have me Point out some royal road and lady-like Which you would walk in, and not wound your feet. You would attain to the divine perfection, And yet not turn your back upon the world: You would possess humility within, But not reveal it in your outward actions: You would have patience, but without the rude Occasions that require its exercise; You would despise the world, but in such fashion (X) "Michael Angelo by Longfellow." From Cambridge Edition of Poets, page 550. Quoted with the permission of Houghton, Mifflin Company. LIFE'S EXCHANGES 65 The world should not despise you in return; You would clothe the soul with all the Christian graces, Yet not despoil the body of its gauds; Would feed the soul with spiritual food, Yet not deprive the body of its feasts; Would seem angelic in the sight of God; Yet not too saint-like in the eyes of men; In short, would lead a holy Christian life In such a way that even your nearest friend Would not detect therein one circumstance To show a change from what it was before. Have I divined your secret? Julia replies: You have drawn The portrait of my inner self as truly As the most skillful painter ever painted A human face. Valdesso continues: This warrants me in saying You think you can win Heaven by compromise, And not by verdict. Julia retorts: You have often told me That a bad compromise was better even Than a good verdict. Valdesso concludes: Yes, in suits at law; Not in religion. With the human soul There is no compromise. "With the human soul there is no compromise." Happy the youth who has been encouraged to for- mulate as the basis for all his ideals the preservation and development of the highest powers of his highest facul- ties. There is no conceivable good that can be exchanged for that soul—with it, and all that it represents in human ideals, there can be no compromise. 66 THE CALL TO YOUTH The religious ideal is the surest foundation on which to build youth's idealism. For it is specific, not too dis- tant, broad enough to function in all possible circum- stances, and eminently worthy of a long life's best efforts. May you sponsors then help protect youth of today from forming its ideals on the unworthy social, educa- tional, and moral standards of modern life. When we tell youth, for instance, to go to school because "educa- tion will bring them riches and honors, our words differ little from those of Satan, offering the Savior cities and kingdoms if he would adore him. Much indeed of what is spoken and written to stimulate the ambitions and in- dustry of our youth is false and hurtful. The burden of it all is that by labor, thrift, and honesty they may get to be presidents, senators, millionaires, widely known lawyers, physicians and merchants. Their attention is directed to what is external, to what the unworthy may attain as well as the worthy, or to what a very few can hope to reach, while the infinite wealth and blessedness of the inner world of thought and love is ignored or con- sidered as a means, not an end. Thus, the tendency of the young to take delight in noise and display, the ten- dency of our national life to lay stress chiefly upon ma- terial progress and vulgar success, is fostered and intensi- fied ; and the superstition that what a man possesses con- stitutes his worth and happiness is encouraged and sunk more deeply in the soul."(1) (Spalding) "For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in ex- change for the soul?" (1) "Thoughts and Theories of Life and Education" by J. C. Spalding, pages 155-156. Quoted with the permission of A. C. McClurg and Company. LIFE'S EXCHANGES 67 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "The religious ideal is the surest foundation on which to build youth's idealism." 1. What is an ideal? What standards should sponsors hold in guiding the ideals of youth? 2. Discuss "traps that are set" in your community to exploit youth. List 5. 3. How may you through the youth council offset these external evils? 4. List three crusades which may train youth accord- ing to Catholic ideals. 5. Name five saints within the age level of our youth councils (16-25) who became saints through the following of specific ideals. YOUTH TODAY Mary Synon Today is Holy Saturday, the day on which the whole Christian world commemorates the hours when, after the Sacrifice of Golgotha, Christ, the Saviour of the world, lay in the tomb. No one of us ever comes into this day without deep- ened realization of the eternal meaning and magnitude of that greatest of all sacrifices. Yesterday we grieved at the foot of the Cross. Today we still feel the sorrows of the mortal death of Him we love; but we feel, too, the rising tide pf the Resurrection. For Holy Saturday is Easter Eve; and on Easter Morn Christ rose from the dead to prove His godliness, to hearten His followers, to show to all mankind that there is beyond this life another higher, better, more glorious life. Through the long history of Christianity there have been many Easter Eves when suffering humanity has sorrowed for its own woes as well as in remembrance of the sorrows of those who first followed Christ. Inevit- ably, these times of suffering and of sorrow have brought men and women nearer to Christ; but it was never the wish of the Saviour of the world that mankind should have to suffer in order to find Him. He came to the world to redeem humanity; and if humanity has some- times failed to live according to His creed of justice and charity it is because all of us, in one way or another, have failed Him. Christ bade men love each other, not hurt and maim and kill each other, Christ died not only to make men free but to make them at peace with each other. And what are we, the Christian nations of the West, doing on this Holy Saturday? We are either waging war or striving to fend off war by the use of warlike means. In the midst of all this war, all this preparation for war, all this preparation of defense against war the great problem is the problem of youth. That is true in those countries of Europe—yes, and of Asia and Africa —already engaged in war. It is equally true of our own United States. For, whether we stay out of war or go YOUTH TODAY 69 into war, it is youth who must, inevitably, pay the high- est price for our preparedness. You young men go to the camps. You young women, equally with your brothers, find your own lives swung off your planned way of life. Even if we succeed in warding off participation in actual conflict it is you, the youth of the United States —you boys and girls and you, young men and women, in your teens and in your twenties—who are going to bear the real brunt of our national defense. It is, you say, in no way your fault that we are in this place of danger. You have had no hand in creating the situations which make necessary this colossal pro- gram of national armament. Your elders, you may be thinking, have had the dance. Now you are the ones who'll pay the piper. "Is that right?" you are asking. "Is that fair? Is that just?" No, it is not right. It is not fair. It is not just. The cruelest element in all wars is the sacrifice of those innocent of their causes. But you must remember this: your elders are just as much victims of the wrongs of the world as are you. We have failed in keeping the possibility of war away from you. We have failed in so much else beside that—but that is our greatest failure and, whether you believe it or not, we suffer more in our realization of that failure than you can ever suffer in trying to better the way of life we are passing on to you. You have today, it is true, a great and grave respon- sibility. You have also a great opportunity, an opportun- ity such as youth has seldom been given. Already you know that there is no achievement without difficulties, no crown without a cross, no Easter without a Golgotha. The history of our nation has been a history of constant struggle. You are as proud of our country as we have ever been, as proud as were the men and women who fought for its freedom, who pushed on its frontiers, who fought for its integrity. You know, in your deepest hearts, that you must pay for that pride, that you must continue that tradition of American freedom, by your own deeds. You know, though, as all generations of American youths have not known, that you have a deeper obligation than merely the obligation of defense against physical invasion. Your big job, your biggest job is the 70 THE CALL TO YOUTH defense of our essential American democracy, our Ameri- can way of life. But how are you going to be able to do that? Let us see, first of all, what you have to defend. You have to defend the American ideal of freedom: and that is the Catholic ideal of freedom. Some one has said that St. Thomas Aquinas discovered America politically three hundred years before Columbus discovered it geographi- cally. The political philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the political philosophy of the Declaration of Inde- pendence are one and the same: that all men are equal and should therefore be free. That fredom—expressed in religious and civil liberty—is what you have to defend. It was for that freedom that men came to this western world. It was for that freedom that they flung tea into Boston Harbor and burned the Peggy Stewart off Ann- apolis. It was for that freedom that a crowd of young Virginians and Kentuckians went into the wilderness with George Rogers Clark and began the winning of the West. It was for that freedom that men and women, boys and girls, have struggled and sacrificed—and some- times died." Against odds far worse than those against our nation now, Americans—most of them young Ameri- cans—have held the fort of liberty. What menaces it now? Enemies from without and from within. The war that we call the Second World War is only part of a war that has been going on for long, long years. Perhaps the periods of peace that Christendom has known have been only armistice. For the war is really the war of the Christian ideal of power. Christianity says that there shall be social justice, that men shall be free, socially and politically and economically. Sometimes, when the world gave heed to its doctrine, the Church worked out that doctrine of justice so well that the world had peace. Then, through centuries the Church, opposed by another social doctrine which won over large parts of Europe and America, could do little. In that time arose conditions which still, to a great ex- tent, exist, conditions of poverty, of want, of injustices done to men by their fellows. Out of these conditions arose the theory and prac- tice of great social revolutions. One of these theories, YOUTH TODAY 71 the one which has lasted more than a hundred years, is the theory of Communism. Communism is not Democ- racy. It is an attack on the fundamental creed of true democracy, the creed that man has worth because he is the creature of God. Communism sets the state above everything. Today it is Communism and the offshoots of Communism which are fighting democracy. The fight is not all on battlefields or in bombed cities. It is in that fight where all of you, the youth of the nation, can find to- day your opportunity to prove your patriotism, your faith. You who are Catholics can find in the same conflict the added opportunity to prove your faith. Perhaps you are saying that you would not fail to take up this challenge to your generation but that you dc not know what you can do in any crusade as great as this. What, you ask, could any little group of young men and women do to stem the tide of a vast philosophy which is being promulgated by old, able men, that is being taken, like the Trojan horse, into our fortresses of thought? The best answer to that question is the memory of what other young men and women have sometimes done. Let's look back on one of these instances. A little more than a hundred years ago this same conflict between the Communist and the Christian idea raged in the Old World. It came to a head in Paris There conditions of poverty and of labor were worse thai bad. Paris was a fertile field for those political thinkers, who preached revolution, who said that this was the only way in which social and economic evils could be cured. In Paris arose several schools of political thought. There were the Socialists who said that society could be reform- ed by the rejection of religion, by denial of all obligations of duty, of individual and collective responsibility. There were the anarchists. They rejected all forms of govern- ment All men, they said, were equal in rights and should be equal in their positions in life. There were the Communists. They asked for equal distribution of all property. The State, they said, should seize all in- dividual revenues, and divide the accumulated spoils among the people in equal shares. Property is theft, they all three said. They said it on street corners, at meetings, in newspapers, in books. 72 THE CALL TO YOUTH There was in that Paris a young man, a very young man, just beginning his college course. He heard these arguments. He tried to answer them. He had a brilliant mind—the Sorbonne made him a Doctor of Laws when he was only twenty-five—and he was on the right track in his answers; but invariably he ran up against this attitude in his fellow-students who had accepted the new philosophy. "Yes," they would tell him, "you have a right to speak of the past. In bygone days Christianity did, indeed, work wonders, but today Christianity is dead. For you, who boast of being Catholics, what do you do? What works can you show which prove your faith, and can claim to make us respect and acknowledge it?" This boy at the Paris school pondered over the ques- tion. What work was he doing to prove his faith? Noth- ing, he told himself. What could he do? For four days he asked himself that question. The poverty he passed every day on the streets of Paris gave him his answer. He could do something to alleviate that poverty. He could do something, a very little, alone. He could do far more if other people worked with him. He brought to- gether seven other young men. He told them his plan. They stood up in a little student room in the old Latin Quarter of Paris and cheered him. They went out in the streets with him. They cared for the poor. They nursed the sick. They found homes for the homeless. They solicited alms and distributed them regardless of race or creed. They gave, too, far more than alms. They gave themselves, their zeal, their ardor, their youth, to this cause of charity? What good did it do? ' Perhaps you will realize the extent of its good when you know that the young man was Frederic Ozanam and that the little band of eight young men whom he led was the beginning of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the greatest charitable organization the world has ever known, the nucleus of our own great Catholic Charities of today. For the men of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, like Ozanam, not only gave help to the poor. They gave sympathetic understanding to the problems of poverty. Through a century their members fought against a bad economic system not only by ameliorating its worst con- YOUTH TODAY 73 ditions but by trying to erase those conditions. Of course they were not entirely successful. No one will be entire- ly successful until every one in the world seeks not to hurt but to help his neighbor, until every one in the world knows that his neighbor is his brother in Christ; but in the century since they started their movement the Christian world has moved a long way forward in its acceptance of its social responsibility. The young men of that little band of eight made sacrifices, countless sacrifices, day after day. Some of them went without food in order to give what they had to needier people. All of them gave up time, effort, pleasure. But their sacrifices had in themselves the quality of reward. They brought to them such happi- ness as they had never known in other ways of life. For that is the ultimate reward, always, of all genuine sacri- fice. To the man or woman, the boy or girl who gives of himself for the sake of Christ there comes, after the sorrows of Good Friday, the joy of Easter morning. 74 THE CALL TO YOUTH TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION "After the sorrows of Good, Friday, the joy of Easter morning." H Why is national defense a problem of youth? 2. What are the grave responsibilities of youth today? 3. How can you help youth to meet these responsibilities ? 4. List five topics for a youth discussion club on the general theme of peace. 5. After reading the pamphlet "Youth and the National Catholic Community Service," suggest one other activity for a youth group. KEEPING TO THE HIGHWAY Most Rev. Edwin V. O'Hara, D.D. In this day of speed there would seem to be a special appropriateness in urging youth to keep to the highway by safe driving. There are, however, important high- ways in the social world and unfortunately the traffic officers themselves, in many cases self-appointed, are only too often confused in regard to the code to be observed. Consequently, it is not surprising that inexperienced youth may often be misguided and stray from the right Rudyard Kipling has signalized the great numbered highways radiating out from Paris to the boundaries of France over which the soldiers in the World War No. 1 traveled on leave or on duty. But much more important, of course, are the great historic highways numbered from one to ten built to last longer than the Roman roads and governed by the code engraved on tablets of stone by the finger of God Himself; a code published by the great lawgiver Moses. Of these celebrated highways number four ran through the happy land of childhood. "Honor thy father and mother" was the traffic regulation written on the sign posts and enforced by parental auth- ority. This same road broadens out in youth but the sign now reads: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." Obedi- ence to the precept of the Church and to the just laws of the state leads on this road to the realm of ordered peace which is the heart's desire of mankind. There are many tempting by-paths but those who follow them are described by Chesterton when he tells how Cervantes "Sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, upon which a lean and foolish knight for- ever rides in vain." It is a well instructed youth who has learned that there are no possible roads paralleling this safe highway. There is many a lean and foolish knight errant who rides these straggling roads in vain and leads multitudes to their own ruin and to the destruction of all the orderly tradition of civilization. 76 THE CALL TO YOUTH "Strong and content I travel the open road," said Walt Whitman.'1 ' In a democratic society the wise guides of youth will emphasize that strength and content he in ordered liberty under the reign of law. Highway number four is the super highway of Christian civiliza- tion and of enlightened youth. All of these historic highways numbered from one to ten run through a terrain too diffiicult to allow any safe departure from them, though many alluring and cunningly marked side roads lead to the marshes of weakness and misery. We have not time to explore any other of these roads this morning, but I feel that the at- tention of youth should be directed to Highway No. 8 on which the sign post reads "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." The by-roads are marked calumny and detraction. They are traveled by reckless drivers who think to make time by smashing the fenders of their neighbors. But to damage a good name is a deeper injury than merely to scratch the polish from the fender. It was a much traveled guide who wrote • "Take care of a good name for this shall continue with thee more than a thousand treasures, precious and great A good life has its number of days but a good name shall continue forever."