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SEX, 

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.(ov~ 

Sex 
and the 

Cf'een--GAgers 

By 

DANIEL A. LORD, S. J . 

• 

THE QUEEN'S WORK 

3115 South Grand Boulevard 

St. Louis 18, Missouri 



Whether your knowledge comes from a magazine that 

you read on the subject . .. from the misinformation of 

misinformed companions .. . from a priest or a reliable 

physician ... you the teen-ager demand to know about 

sex. You have a right to know the facts about sex, the 

right to know what part sex plays and is to play in your 

life, the right to be guarded against the wrong kind of 

so-called sex information, the right to purity based on 

a wholesome knowledge of sex facts. Father Lord· has 

written this pamphlet for you the teen-ager boy or girl. 

He has left unsaid nothing that should be said to you 

and for you on the subject of life and sex. 

"Printed with Ecclesiastical Approbation" 

Copyright 1947 

Oeactdlffed 
THE QUEEN'S WORK 



BY WAY OF EXPLANATION 

As the title indicates, this is a booklet to be read by teen-agers_ 

They may pick it up on their own impulse; I shall be glad 

if they do_ 

But as the older generation is much interested in teen-agers_ 

it well may be that the booklet will be read by some of the 

teachers and parents_ They in turn may then feel impelled to 

pass it along to teen-agers_ I should much prefer it if the mother 

and the father of today had the courage- and even more skill 

than I have-to say directly to their sons and daughters what I 

am writing_ The spoken word has a warmth that the written 

word can never have_ I myself should much prefer to be saying 

to my friends, the young people, what now I must write to them. 

But milny a teen-ager has told me that his (and her) parents 

do not talk to him (and her). As a result he (and she) must be 

content with misinformation from a dozen sources and half in-

formation from even more sources. Regrettably the sources 

are often poisoned with lies, muddied with fal se viewpoints, or 

polluted with vice, adult or juvenile. 

So here is a little booklet for these teen-agers. It must of 

necessity have passages that are frank. Truth remains, I be-

lieve, the best guide to virtue. 

This booklet is meant for the young people between the ages 

of thirteen and eighteen- the normal high-school age. It is not 

a guide to marriage. It is a guide to conduct during the years of 
adolescence, when the way that young people live and the char-

acters that they develop will profoundly alIect their happiness 

later in marriage- or mean its failure and collapse. 

May I pause for just a minute to tell the teen-agers that 

they have often been badly betrayed ? The smart writer in a 

dozen mediums who says flatfootedly or insinuates cleverly that 

sex experience before marriage is necessary for happiness in 

marriage is a plain liar and an elaborate traitor to young people. 

'What he says in equivalent is: The way to a virtuous marriage 

is through a youth of vice; the guarantee of joy in marriage is 

sin outside of marriage. 

3 



You don't need a lot of words spun into a logical argument 

to knock these liars flat. All you need are the headlines of the 

daily papers. Look at the statistics of modern marriage. Many 

of the men and women who indulged in sex sin and sex careless-

ness before marriage arc the very ones who bottleneck the divorce 

courts. Indeed I don't find that the smart writers who advocate 

sex laxity before marriage make notable successes of their own 

marriages. Theirs is a pretty dismal record of marriage failures 

-and I could readily name names. 

Sex sinners go into marriage with the odds .high against them. 

You can't hope to be a good parent when you have been a bad 

SOh or daughter. You are not likely to be a virtuous husband 

if you seduced your sweetheart ... or an unselfish wife if you 

were a selfish and lustful girl. Happy marriages are found be-

tween people who have a high respect for marriage, men and 

women who have developed into strong adults and have learned 

the self-control necessary to live together happily. Believe me. 

you learn none of these things by kicking the sixth and the ninth 

commandments around. 

A really pure young woman becomes a pure mother. A really 

pure woman is one who knows what purity is, why it is im-

portant-and as a consequence deliberately chooses it. 

A strong. self-controlled young man becomes a strong, con-

siderate, and trustworthy husband. 

Young men and women who were false to God's law are-

on an easy bet-going to be false to each other later on. 

Besides, God has a way of blessing with the fullness of joy 

and accomplishment those who live decently. How can young 

people expect God's blessing upon their marriage when they 

prepared for it by a selfish breaking and flouting of His law? 

The idea of writing this booklet did not originate with me. 

I wrote it only after I had received from varied people repeated 

requests to write it. I wrote it because I was told that someone 

ought to write it and because I was politely assured that my 

happy years of experience with young people- notably the teen· 

agers-seemed to mark me out as the possible writer. 

I hope that those who asked me will not be too disappointed 

in the result. At best I can prayerfully hope that the booklet 

4 



will do a little of the job that so badly needs to be done. I hope 

it will help our teen·agers. 

If anything, the title is too obvious. But 1 chose an obvious, 
almost flat title deliberately. No one who does not care to read 

on this subject will be tricked by a false title. Anyone who reads 

the title will know exactly what the booklet sets itself to discuss. 

Love can be, we know, the most powerful natural force In 

the world. 

Sex is, we glory to recall, God's magnificent creative power 

shared by Him with His sons and daughters. It is the source 

of permanent, beautiful union between man and wife, with joy 

and consolation in abundance. 

The Teen.Agers (I use capitals here for honor and emphasis) 

are the precious human material out of which we must fashion 

a stronger and better world. From them, as they reach adult 

years, must issue the children to do God's wotk for the happiness 

of the race. 

To Mary, who at the age of fourteen understood exactly the 

meaning of the Angel Gabriel's invitation to motherhood, we 

humbly dedicate this booklet. Hers is the inescapable example of 

purity. She is the parent who made maternity the noble Christian 

profession. Her face has given us the ideal of purity, as her 

hands have guided generations of saintly boys and girls toward 

splendid manhood and womanhood. By her motherly care and 

virginal example she can do for the teen·agers far, far more 

than can all the books in the world. 

May Mary mother the mothers and the fathers of the future. 

The Feast 0/ the Apparition 0/ Lourdes 
1947 

5 



L,ove, Sex 

and the 'T'een--~gers 

W
HEN you were considerably younger, you began to run 

into the "don'ts" and "mustn'ts" of your elders. 

"Don't eat that candy now; you'll spoil your lunch." . . . 

"Don't get yourself dirty; you won't be fit to go to the party." 

... "Don't stay up too late; you won't grow to your full health 

and strength." 

Older people seemed to stand before you always shaking a 

finger under your nose. Like the mother in the ancient joke, 

their attitude too often appeared to be: "Go see what the child 

is doing; and whatever it is, tell him to stop." 

Don't 

Soon however, if you were a boy, you got on a football team, 

or you became absorbingly interested in the victories of your 

school team. You found out that "don't" had considerable im· 

portance. "Don't eat sweets or smoke during the season; they'll 

knock you flat on the first play of the year." ... "Don't clip or 

trip; the referee will put you out of the game." ... "Don't miss 

practice; you won't be in the game Saturday." 

There suddenly appeared a direct relationship between "don't" 

and success. 

If you were a girl, you heard from beauty experts: "Don't 
wear shoes that are too tight; you won't be able to dance." ... 

"Don't scream too loudly at the basketball game; you'll spoil 

your singing voice." ... "Don' t eat too much pastry; you'll de· 

velop the figure of the circus fat lady." ... "Don' t whine or nag; 

the boys won't like you." 

Here again there was a direct connection between the warn· 

ings of older people and your own happy future. 

God's Intel"est 

Very emphatically this is not a booklet of "don'ts." If it 
were, I should be the last person to expect you to read it. 

6 



This booklet is concerned with your success--and more than 

that: with your lifelong happiness. 

I don't think I am being arrogant if I hope that God Himself 

is interested in the booklet. For it is concerned, you see, with one 

of God's most beautiful gifts to His sons and daughters. God is 

the designer and maker of nature, and love and sex are essential 

parts of human nature. God meant love and sex to make men 

and women happy. Love and sex were intended as part of the 

equipment by which we were to be fitted for the glorious work 

of the world. 

The Question of Life 

As Catholics~or merely as decent people-you and I are 
convinced of the importance and sacredness of life. We fought 

a terrible war because we said that we believe in human life. 

We fight brutality and any other practices that endanger human 

life. 

Life is the first gift that God gives us. 

Life is really the greatest of opportunities: the opportunity 

to enter the world, to see the glories of the visible universe, to 

laugh and play, to think and will, to create and enjoy, to grow 

and develop, to find God's love, and to attain through God's 

saving grace to the godlike life of eternity. 

Even if I didn't have faith, I imagine I should still regard 

human life as significant. 

After all it takes only a little observing to realize the total 

difference between a human being and the animals to which we 

bear some surface resemblances. 

Merely as a member of the human race I should want that 

human race to be healthy and happy. I should play my part to 

make life safe. If human beings proved trustworthy, I should 
move through life with safety. If I was trustworthy, others 
would be safe. If they were kind and generous and strong, life 
for me would be immeasurably simplified. If I was kind and 
generous, the lives of others would be happier. Just because 

this was important to all of us, I should be concerned with boys' 

and girls' developing into decent parents. For I should have to 

live with their children, you see; and it is easier to live with 

people who are healthy. happy, clean, honest. and virtuous. 

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Knowing the importance of life. I should want life to enter 

the world with dignity and honor, not in weakness, sickness, and 

contempt. 

Life Starts 

So, you see, anyone who has any interest in life itself is 

bound to be interested in the way that life is produced. The 

healthy continuance of life depends upon the normal healthy 

start of life. 

The little baby resting helplessly in its mother's womb has, 

from the very origin of its conception there, the elements with 

which it will have to work all its days to the very end of its life. 

It receives from its mother and father either a strong or a weak 
constitution. Though environment can change a good deal in the 

child, and free will and God's grace can effect profound altera· 

tions, the fundamental equipment of life is what the infant has 

already received from its parents. 

This equipment he, the future boy, or she, the future girl , 

got through the exercise of his or her parents' love and their 

use of sex. 

Let's go back a bit and trace some of your own well·remem· 

bered experiences. 

Your Own Experience 

There were as a rule happy, carefree days in your past before 

you became a teen·ager. These extended from the first dawn of 

consciousness to your consciousness of sex. Sometimes you look 

back to those days with a little amazement, some amusement, 

and much wistfulness. For they seem in retrospect very innocent 

and beautiful days; you hadn't as a matter of fact a worry or a 

trouble in the world. 

How simple confession was in those days! The worries that 

you had then probably seem very trifling to you today. When 

first you heard of the Ten Commandments, you knew that there 

were two at least that you would never have to worry about-

the sixth and the ninth. Surely no one ever broke laws that had 

no interest for you or your little friends. 

8 



Boys and Girls Not Together 

If you were a boy, you probably despised girls. 

They seemed silly and weak. They got in the way when you 

wanted to play sensible boy games. They snitched on you and 

cried easily. Indeed you sometimes wondered why parents ever 

bothered to have girl babies. 

If you were a girl, you regarded boys as noisy nuisances. 

They were crude and rough. They pulled your hair, especially 

when you had made an effort to do it beautifully. They played 

games that seemed to consist chiefly in yelling and pushing 

people around and covering the players with sweat and mud. The 

essence of a really satisfactory boy's game seemed to consist in 

the ruining of clothes. As far as you were concerned, boys were 

troublesome hoodlums. You ran the other way when they started 

coming your way. 

Simple Confession 

Boy or girl, your confessions were probably untroubled, 

simple things. You seemed hardly to have temptations worth 

the reporting. You confessed that you had been unkind to your 

little brother, or had taken your sister's things, or had not been 

obedient to your parents, or had hurried through your morning 

and evening prayers. 

At some time however a very troublesome experience may 

have come your way. If for any reason you did not talk it over in 
confession, and if in memory it still worries you, just tell your 

confessor what it was in the past that bothered you and still 

bothers you. He will be glad to help you straighten it out once 

and for all. 

Yet how long ago that peaceful time seems! .. . perhaps all of 

two or three years! 

Boys played with boys. Girls played with girls. Boys' games 

were entirely different from girls' games. If the school did not 
provide separate yards for each group, the boys took over one 

section and the girls another-and each group glared if its 

preserves were invaded. 

9 



Sudden Change 

Then almost with a start you realized that things were dif-

ferent. 

I am wntmg all this as if the normal boy or girl before 

adolescence did not know much about sex or its temptations. 

Many boys and girls of this age do know. Many have been 

wisely prepared by their parents to meet and resist temptations. 

Teachers have often told you that temptations would come and 

have told you how to fight these temptations. Often people are 

untroubled by temptations because they understood them before 

they met them. If you were wisely prepared, much that I have 

written will be unnecessary for you. If you were not wisely pre-
pared, your problems will have assumed the nature that I now 

suggest. 

Once on a time I taught catechism at our local Catholic 

boys' home. Sometimes abruptly-say between this Sunday and 

the next-a change would come over one of the boys. He sud-

denly started to polish his shoes, quite of his own accord. He 

washed behind the ears, totally new territory for the sanitary 

squad. He even put on a tie_ I was usually pretty sure that I 

knew the reason, even if as yet I had not heard her name. 

In the experience of all youngsters there suddenly dawns a 

day when boys become interesting to girls and girls become 

interesting to bon. Both find that they like to be together_ In-

stead of yelling, "Jiggers, the girls!" or "Oh those horrid boys!" 

they search or at least stand and wait. Parties are suddenly more 

fun when they are mixed groups. 

Maybe they had played "kissing games" when they were kids, 

but the games were silly things and accompanied by much gig-

gling on the part of the boys. Now when somebody suggests 

"kissing games," there is self-consciousness and a little embar-

rassment-and then a new fervor in the forfeits and less laughter 

and more reluctance ... or eagerness. 

Temptations 

The most surpnsmg and embarrassing temptations begin to 

bother both the mind and the body. Boy and girl alike experi-

ence them, though the boy usually finds them far more intense 

and insistent than does the girl. 

10 



The mind may discover itself plagued with strange, often 

disgusting, and usually disturbing pictures and thoughts. New 

and annoying physical temptations trouble and worry the body. 

The youngster who yesterday was carefree and unworried is today 

troubled and perplexed. He wonders if something is wrong with 

himself; he is afraid that mother and father will discover the 

disgusting thoughts in his mind or guess the sharp impulses that 

seem bent on throwing him. 

Both he, the boy, and she, the girl, wish that things were not 

that way. 

Boys grow enormously curious about girls-not about any 

one girl, but about all girls, girls in general. In a lesser degree 

girls grow curious about boys, and they are surprised to learn 

that the same curiosity will reach out both to very nice hoys and 

to boys who are somewhat to'ugh and-for unknown reasons-

dangerous· seeming. 

The "Wise" Kid 

Then it usually happens that some "wise" kid comes along. 

Maybe he appeared much earlier and planted ideas that keep 

popping up persistently, ideas that remain to tease and tantalize 

after pleasant thoughts and happy experiences have long been 

forgotten. 

At any rate the "wise" kid now looms much larger on one's 

consciousness. He boasts that he knows all about everything, 

and he insists on telling what he knows (or what he doesn't 

really know or knows wrongly) to anyone he can back into a 

corner. 

When you met such a kid, at first he may very probably 

have revolted and even sickened you. A boy's first impulse is to 

knock him down and call him a liar. But he is convincing. He 

keeps repeating that this is the way things are. And he probably 

makes a dirty crack about his own mother and father and maybe 

about your parents. You know that he's wrong, or you hope he is, 

but you don't know the answer. 

One of these "smart" kids very likely announces to the boys, 

"All girls are bad." He says it with such emphasis that, though 

you know from experience that he is lying, his indictment sticks 

until you start to regard with wonder and some doubt even the 

girls you know and liked best. 

11 



If the young person has been carefully prepared for ado· 

lescence by parents or physician or priest or teacher, he will 

probably regard the "smart guy," the "wise guy," as a nuisance 

peddling stale information and giving it out very incorrectly. 

The "information" he tries to impart seems pretty stupid and 

inadequate. 

The Bad Little Girl 

Or there is the bad little girl. Surprisingly enough she often 

looks very innocent, a trick she learned from pulling the wool 

over her parents' eyes. But she may have the opposite extreme 

of innocence--cultivated sophistication. She enters the girls' 

dressing room at the party and tells a dirty story, relates some 

experience that shocks the others, or retails something that she 

has seen or read or that she thinks proves her very wise and 

grown·up. 

The other girls regard her with fascinated curiosity. They 

are afraid of her, but she makes them feel bv comparison very 

young and immature. 

Adolescence 

When you went through any or all or more of this, you were 

just like all other human beings: That period is normal. Almost 

overnight the carefree youngster becomes the troubled and 

tempted adolescent. The unworried period of childhood may for 

some melt into a time when the world is blurred, virtue is 

questioned, vice seems terrifyingly common, and the whole at· 

mosphere is charged with danger. For others it continues calm 

and serene. They know that sex is God's creation. They know 

how to meet temptation. They know that God's protection is 

with them. 

Adolescence is the name that we give this period. It is the 

age of growing up. 

Nowadays that age marks the beginning of what we call the 

teen·age. 

Usually it starts while the boy and girl are finishing grammar 

school. It hit~ with a·lmost storm violence when the boy and 
girl are in high school. 

12 



It Will Disappear 

For your instant reassurance let me tell you that if you lead 

a normally decent life, taking your temptations not too grimly 

and not allowing the dangers to become other than dangers, 

your troubles and temptations grow swiftly fewer and smaller. 

Serenity may come rapidly. Life resumes its pleasantly un-

ruffled course. True you will never completely return to the calm 

of innocent childhood. But then men and women must always 

worry about a lot of things that children ignore-making money, 

finding a decent house, health, a job and how it can be best done. 

So sex is just one of these normal adult concerns. 

God is good though, and the intense temptations of adoles-

cence fade if they are not misunderstood, encouraged, or deliber-

ately yielded to. Sex comes under our control-unless of course 

it is fed and fueled through ~in. 

Let's see what happened and what is happening during this 

period of adolescence. What took place that so threatened to 

upset your life's orderly plan? 

Well with you and with all other normal human beings the 

whole thing begins in some important bodily changes. The boy 

or the girl is at first vaguely ' and then keenly aware of these 

changes. But neither the boy nor the girl is sure-unless in-

structed by wise parents-exactly what has happened. Inde.ed 

the stories that young people hear from their companions about 

the whole process of those changes are likely to be most mis-

leading, often terribly wrong. 

New Reactions 

The human being. you see, is a creature composed of body 

and soul; that knowledge is fundamental to any understanding 

of yourself. So it happens that whatever occurs to the body in 

some way affects the soul; and what happens to the soul has a 

powerful effect upon the body_ 

During this period of adolescence the body goes through the 

most significant development it will ever know. This change 

results in a sort of struggle. New thoughts enter the mind, as 

new experiences occur to the body. The growing body has its 

disturbing effect upon the mind; the troubled mind affects the 

peace and serenity of the body. 

13 



Little children playing together are usually hardly conscious 

of the sex differences between boys and girls. Older children 

are vaguely aware of differences-an awareness that becomes the 

basis of the dislike of boy for girl and girl for boy. 

Now however things are quite different. The kiss they ex-

changed as children is now charged as with electricity. The girl 

realizes that the boy is curious about her in a somewhat un-

pleasant but often provocative way. The boy, perhaps to his 

possible disgust, finds in the picture of a burlesque actress a 

hypnotizing power; he looks at it with curiosity-only to realize 

that by it his mind is disturbed, his body is disturbed. 

These new physical reactions may come in response to pic-

tures, stories, suggestions, and sometimes the mere presence of 

the other sex. Both mind and body seem to react. 

They may have reactions during sleep that puzzle them. Some· 

times even when they are awake, reactions unsolicited and un-

provoked and at the time quite unaccountable trouble them. 

Why? What is it all about? 

Again we must go still further back to reach the source of 

our explanation. 

The Angel Gabriel said to Mary, "Blessed is the fruit of 

thy' womb." 

The Main Difference 

This blessed event the Church with truthful realism celebrates 

on the feast of the. Annunciation. The Word was made flesh on 

March 25. The coming Savior had taken up His place in the 

womb of Mary. Nine months later Christmas came, December 25. 

The Infant Jesus, now matured to the point at which He would 

leave Mary's womb, entered the world as a perfectly formed 

Infant. But for the nine preceding months the Infant Jesus was 

within the body of His Mother, as all babies are in the bodies 

of their mothers before they are born into the world. 

The main difference here however was that Christ had no 

earthly father. By a miracle the Holy Spirit worked upon the 

life seed in the body of Mary. God remained the only Father 

of Our Savior, though Mary was in the fullest sense His Mother. 

14 



When later on you progress in the study of biology or of 

physiology, you will find that the explanation that I am giving 

is perhaps too simple. I am giving here the barest essentials, for 

I do not want this little booklet to become a medical treatise. 

Later you can supplement this simple outline with much more 

complete and satisfactory details. 

Let's return now to consider all other babies. For the first 

months of human life, spent within the mother's womb, the infant 

is visibly neither male nor female. The life seed from the body 

of the father entered the body of the mother, to find there her 

seed. But as the new cell of complete human life swiftly de· 

veloped, there was no possible way by which to tell a future boy 

from a future girl. The organs were soon present, but they were 

all developing inside the little body called the foetus. The sex 

organs were developing too; they too rested inside the frame· 

work of the rapidly developing infant. 

N atuTe' s Decision 

Tht' first big change in human development takes place when 

nature reaches the point of decision as to whether this will be a 

baby boy or a baby girl. If the foetus is to be a boy, the 
sex organs usually come to the surface. They are, as we say, 

externalized. They remain for life on the surface of the male 

body. 

If the foetus is to be a girl, the sex organs remain inside the 
body. They remain for life inside the female body. 

So fundamentally the sex organs of a man and of a woman 

are surprisingly similar. No they are not quite the same. But 

the clear understanding of the sex organs of one makes clearer 

the understanding of the sex organs of the other. God and 

nature, when they determine whether the unborn infant is to be 

a boy or a girl, appear to settle the question of sex largely 

either by bringing the sex organs to the surface or by leaving 

them inside. The organs that are to be male are external; the 

organs that are to be female are internal. The male and the 

female sex organs are not identical, but for our purposes here 

they may be regarded as being essentially very much alike. 

15 



Second Big Change 

For the first ten to thirteen years following birth, the sex 

organs remain to a greater or less extent dormant. In many 

children the sex organs are almost entirely inactive. In others 

sex manifestations may start early, sometimes very early. 

However there is no reason or need for any activity on the 

part of children's sex organs, since there is not as yet any use 

for them. The sex organs, you see, are directed chiefly toward 

the producing of life. What you frequently hear called sex hor· 

mones may develop much earlier and determine much of physical 

growth and appearance and tend to 'guide the individual growth . 

But production of life remains the main purpose of the sex or· 

gans. And children are not ready for this. Nature and the God 

of nature would regard it as extremely unwise if little boys and 

girls six or eight years old became fathers and mothers. They 

are not yet fit to · assume such responsibilities. Remember that 

word: responsibi·lities. it is terribly !important. How could 
children care for a . baby? How could tIley possibly provide for 

the training and education of a child? 1 

So with the sex organs quiet and no possibility of parenthood, 

the child lives through that carefree period of childhood that we 

all enjoyed so much. The boy and the girl grow rapidly. Their 

minds become keener and the better prepared to handle their own 

affairs. All the while, without in many ways reaching the 

children's consciousness, their sex organs too are developing. 

Sometimes it will happen that this little boy or that small 

girl is what we call emotionally premature. That means that 

their sex organs Qeveloped more rapidly than is normal and they 

entered into adolescence very young. In the case of most normal 

children however the age of adolescence is happily delayed, and 

they know that urtroubled period of childhood peace. 

Beginning 

We think of boys and girls as children. They are children, 

though all the while they are adults in the making, human beings 

moving rapidly toward maturity. Someday, sooner than a forward 
\ ' 1' 

look at the years seems ' to promise, they will be called upon by 

God and nature to be parents. So nature has started to get them 

ready for the responsibilities of bringing new life into the world . 

16 



Somewhere around this age the second big change happens. 

The sex organs may be said to awaken. They appear almost 

to come to life. 

The boy and the girl both get warning of this in the changes 

that they notice in themselves. 

As a rule the girl develops earlier than the boy. That is why 

often enough girls are apparently smarter than boys in grammar 

school, continuing to lead in class as long as both are adoles· 

cents. That is also the reason that as a general rule wOrhen 

marry men older than themselves. The man is slower to mature. 

more leisurely in his development. 

A girl of twelve is often consequently as physically mature 

as is a boy of fourteen, and men of twenty.four are likely to 

think of marrying girls of twenty·one. 

You need not bother to be too exact about your mathematical 

calculations at this point. All I am doing is suggesting the dif· 

ference in the time of the man's and the woman's sexual maturity. 

Physical Changes 

During this period of early adolescence the boy notices that 

his sex organ has developed considerabJy. 

The girl notices the swelling and growth of her breasts. 

May we pause for a second on that last word? 

It is interesting to realize that the sex organs are all con-

cerned directly with life in its origins and developments. The 

breasts of a girl are a case in point. God gave breasts to women 

to be the foundations from which babies were to draw their first 

food after birth. A grown son can regard his mother with real 

gratitude. Not only did she give him life, carrying him for nine 

months in the safety of her womb; but when he was at length 

born, and when he cried for food, she placed him at her breasts 

and fed him with food from her own body. 

For that reason good men and women regard a woman's 

breasts with deep reverence. Women's breasts are intimately 

connected with life. They are the first, most precious, and really 

sacred ~ource of human food. 

Ii 



Beyond this the breasts of a girl are very closely connected 

with sex sensation. They are called secondary zones of sex, which 

means that the deliberate touching of them will tend to excite a 

woman sexually. Sometimes the mere sight of a woman's breasts 

will have the effect of exciting a man sexually. Hence even the 

Motion Picture Code forbids on the screen the display of a 

woman's breasts or the emphasizing of them through sweaters 

or the like. This is itself a simple recognition of the fact that 

the breasts of a girl are sexually exciting. 

Other Changes 

During this period the boy's voice changes. The church· choir 

soprano finds that his voice has dropped a full octave in pitch 

and has bumped down the stairs as it fell. It squeaks and trem· 

bles, is sometimes high and sometimes low ... until it settles 

once and for all eight full tones--the scale-below the normal 

voice of a woman. 

Yes there has been a change in his throat; but this too is 

connected with the sexual development in his body. The boy 

has become a man; even his voice proclaims his new and digni-

fied estate. 

And the Girl __ . 

The girl at about this time experiences for the first time her 

monthly flow of blood. 

This apparently mysterious operation of nature often startles 

and frightens her, and in the beginning it may often pain her. 

Much of the pain, modern medicine seems to think, te'lds to be 

psychic. That means that fear and expectation may tend to am-

plify the pain. Sometimes mothers are to blame for their daugh-

ters' pain at this time. Headachy mothers are often the cause 

of headachy daughters. If girls hear a great deal about how 
painful this monthly experience is, they affect the pain-just as 

dread and fear of a visit to the dentist makes the actual visit to 

the dentist much more painful than it really is. 

Apparently nature meant this experience of menstrual flow to 

take place once each lunar month, that is, once every twenty-

eight days. Because of a number of factors that are induced by 

modern living conditions, there may be today a wide variety in 

18 



the cycle and quite a range of difference in the recurrence of the 

experience. 

But a girl is badly cheated if she allows the crude and cynical 

comments of older girls or women to mislead her, or if she 

adopts the unpleasant and disillusioned words by which some 

girls name and characterize this monthly occurrence. The total 

experience really indicates that she is growing up. She is now 

maturing quite rapidly. She is at the point at which it will be 

physically possible fQr her to be a mother. 

At the time of the menstrual period the womb sloughs off 

the lining of the uterus or womb. In this way the womb is pre· 

pared for the coming of the next ovum or egg that will enter. 

With the flow of blood has been carried away the old ovum, since 

the girl is not as yet a wife or old enough to marry and undertake 

the heavy responsibilities of motherhood. 

The Case With the Boy 

During this same period the boy sometimes experiences what 

are called "wet dreams." Or he has what is known as an erection, 

the extension of his sexual organ. Here again is simply the indio 

cation of approaching maturity. The "wet dream" means merely 

that within his body has been developing the seed of life, which, 

since he is not married or ready to bear the responsibilities of 

parenthood, is carried off during sleep. The unwanted erection 

merely indicates that his sex organs are reaching a maturity 

when marriage may be possible-once he is old enough to bear 

the heavy responsibilities of fatherhood. 

All that is happening in the body both of the boy and of the 

girl during this adolescence is so tremendously vital to the human 

race, so tremendously significant in its relationship to life that 

it is impossible to overemphasize it. The small
1 

comparatively 

untroubled, frequently quite carefree and singularly irresponsible 

children are now growing up. They are reaching out toward 

maturity. They are developing in their young bodies the possi. 

bility of becoming parents and giving new life to the world. 

That is precisely it: They are becoming capable of producing 

new life. 

Within their changing and developing bodies have formed 

the seeds of life-the human seed, we often call it; Without this 

seed there can be no children and hence no future race. 

19 



All life comes from some sort of seed. We are familiar with 

the seed that grows into flowers and grains and trees and shrubs. 

Within the egg of the chicken is a seed which, when it is ferti· 

lized, is capable of developing into the little chick. (Just to ease 

your mind, you are not served fertilized eggs for your food.) 

The sturgeon roe, which we call caviar, is made up of thousands 

of little eggs each of which has a seed of life that could have 

developed into another sturgeon. The bodies of all animals carry 

this same sort of seed which can through the operation of nature 

grow into the tiny animals we know as puppies, kittens, calves, 

colts, cubs. 

Human Seed 

The essential difference between these other seeds in nature 

and the seed in the human body is of course the fact that the 

human seed through the direct creation of the soul by God 

becomes a human being, a rational creature, a child of God. For 

this transformation of the seed not only are the father and the 

mother needed. God- Himself cooperates with the father and the 

mother: He produces the human sou!. When the male and the 

female seed unite in the body of a woman, God is immediately 

present to create within the union the soul of one of His own 

heloved children. 

So adolescence is the time when there are developed within 

the boy's and the girl's sex organs the seeds that could become 

another human life. 

Differences 

In the case of the boy these seeds of life develop in tremen-

dous quantities and with almost miraculous speed. They are 

plentiful and prolific. They originate of course in the male 

organs, on the surface of the boy's body. They must be numerous 

in order that when the man is married they will be able to meet 

and give fertility to the woman's seed. But the multiplicity of 

the boy's seed is in part an explanation of the fact that boys are 

more inclined than girls to be what we call passionate and are 

much more easily tempted. 

Within the body of the adolescent girl normally just one life 

~eed develops-in the course of each month. Since she is not yet 
in a situation where motherhood would be wise for her, the ovum, 

20 



or egg, is carried off with the monthly flow of blood. If and 
when she marries, one of these seeds will in the course of time 

unite under normal circumstances with the male seed of her 

husband. When this happens, the monthly flow of blood will cease 

until her child has been born, nine months from the time of 

conception. 

Because of this single seed the girl may be slower to tempta· 

tion and more inclined to seek affection. Yet the presence of this 

seed within the unmarried girl may be a real peril. Nature is 

ready to receive the male seed. The nature of the boy and the 

nature of the girl may have something like an unrecognized 

hankering for love, and they are sometimes carried away by 

affection into what is a peril to their purity and to their future. 

The Girl Protects 

It is important to note this difference between boys and girls: 

The male seeds in the boy are developed in generous and insis· 

tent quantities; within the girl one seed is developed only once 

a month. As a consequence of this, boys are more tempted and 

girls are normally more calm and untroubled. 

In addition the boy's impulse toward sexual expression tends 

to be concentrated in his sex organs. The girl does not have 

this experience, for she is more interested in general manifesta· 

tions of affection; in her the sensations are scattered, and perhaps 

none of them is violent and strong. 

Hence boys who are invited by girls through word or manner 

to express affection find that they are instead violently aroused 

and sexually excited. They may be furiously tempted, while the 

girl remains relatively calm. 

In most normal cases the boy is much more fiercely tempted 

than is the girl. He finds goodness and self-control much more 

difficult than she does. The seeds within his organs are constant 

and often insistent. 

Good? 

Then along comes a girl who regards herself as good. But 

she likes to feel that she is loved. She wants to know affection. 

Perhaps she is concerned only with her popularity. So by her 

way of dressing, by her way of acting, by an indication that she 

21 



expects to be treated affectionately, she throws temptation in the 

boy's way. Often she grows indignant when the very things that 

she has excited in the boy now cause her annoyance. She blames 

the boy for a manifestation of passion, which she had carelessly 

or callously or selfishly brought about. 

Girls of this sort are simply making life difficult for boys. 

In a conscienceless sort of fashion they excite the sexual reactions 

of boys merely to experience some fluttering emotion of their 

own or to display their popularity and power over a boy--or 

boys. Such girls are going to find it very hard to shake off the 

sins they may cause, the temptations they may arouse, the dangers 

that they throw in the path of boys. 

The bad girl deliberately tempts a boy with immodesty and 

with a frank manifestation of passion. She is a temptress, an 

enemy of society and of human life, and the devil's most suc-

cessful partner. She brings-as her kind has brought-ruin and 

unhappiness into the world. Because of her life is set back, and 

human passion becomes a beastly and a terrifying thing. 

What Is Immodesty? 

A good girl on the other hand knows her own limitations 

and dangers and watches her own conduct. Then from her 

relatively safe position she tries to be for the boyan occasion for 

goodness, never an opportunity for evil. She will not tempt a boy 

with her immodesty. She will not excite him to sin in · order 

that her vanity may be gratified. 

The plain truth is that nothing else more readily excites a 

boy or leads him to the loss of self-control than does the 

immodesty of a girl or the temptations that she places in his way. 

Already besieged by passion from within, he finds this ago 

gression from without new reason for his own defeat, new cause 

for his surrender to sin. 

What is immodesty? 

Let's explain it here rather than define it. It is any conduct, 

costume--or lack of costume-or speech that is apt to arouse the 

desire for sexual pleasure. In the concrete immodesty is all too 

easy to recognize and understand. 

22 



On the other hand no boy has any business to rush into 

situations that are going to be temptations for him. He cannot 

shift the blame onto the immodesty of the girl. He cannot wash 

his hands ·of responsibility by telling himself that the girl should 

be the one to exercise self·control and practice virtue. 

I used above with regard to the girl the phrase "her relatively 

safe position." Don't let that mislead you. The girl cannot de· 

liberately do anything that will arouse the sexual instincts of a 

man. She cannot, merely because she is somewhat unresponsive, 

awaken responses in the boy. 

All this is' a two·sided business, the boy and the girl sharing 

responsibilities. If both accept these responsibilities and live as 

they know they should, their future is pretty safe. If they do not, 
either or both is responsible in God's eyes and in the judgment 

of the future. 

How Young? 

The presence of the seeds in the body of the boy and of the 

girl makes possible their becoming in the course of time a 

father and a mother. 

For how young a person is parenthood possible? 

A great many factors come into consideration here. The 

climate of the country has a powerful effect on the maturity of 

boys and girls. As a general rule people in hot climates mature 

early; in cold climates their maturity is delayed. 

Our Blessed Lady was a mother when she was fourteen years 

old. Recently I met the daughter of a lovely mother from our 

Lady's own land who, like Mary, had married at fourteen. Juliet, 

in warm Italy, was fifteen when she fell in love with and married 

the very young Romeo. 

Custom too will have maturing effects. For centuries school· 

ing was over at twelve; whereupon a boy was supposed to put 

on the garments and undertake the responsibilities of an adult. 

You read of kings who led armies when they were thirteen years 

old and who were crowned with the full powers of the sovereign 

at the same age. 

Today in hot India and in the South Pacific marriages of 

boys and girls in their early teens are common. 

23 



tt is interesting however to note that for those who mature 
earlier old age comes much earlier. 

The kings who undertook the responsibilities of kingdoms 

and of marriage at fourteen were old men at forty. The child 

husbaJlds and wives of India are in many cases withered and aged 

ill their late thirties. Swift maturity and the early assumption 

of the responsibilities of parenthood frequently tend to make 

people grow old much before what we would regard as their 

time. A miracle kept our Blessed Lady perpetually at the peak 

of her maturity. 

Late Maturity 

In our country and in our age the maturity proper for mar-

riage comes as a rule considerably later. 

We do not regard the presence of the seed of life in the 

human body as sufficient reason for immediate marriage. On 

the contrary we tend to prolong the happy time of youth. We 

delay the responsibilities and burdens of married life and parent-

hood. 

I leave it to you to tell me whether you think we do right 

or wrong by you in this regard . 

At least give us credit for good intentions. 

We think that the springtime of life is the happiest period 

of life and thaf young people are lucky and blessed. As Shaw 

said in effect in one of his most quoted remarks: Youth is such 

a beautiful time that it is a shame to waste it on young people. 

We not only "waste" it; we try to prolong it. We want you to 

stay young. We are reluctant to see you assume the heavy reo 

sponsibilities of maturity. 

Marriage, you see, is usually the sign of a willingness to 

accept burdens and responsibilities. Do you want them? Mar· 

riage means the obligation of serious work, the acceptance of the 

worries of parenthood. We prefer you to laugh and play,. to have 

innocent fun together, to stay out of the hard conflicts of life 

and the ruthless competition of the market and the shop, the 

pf(~s~ing problems of money and jobs. 

24 



Other Reasons 

But there are other than sentimental reasons hack of this 

delayed maturity. 

Today young people need more education to fit them for the 

intricate pattern of modern living. 

A young man needs to be carefully trained even to earn a 

moderate salary. 

The young wife of even the simplest tastes has to live in a 

complicated so'ciety that constantly demands training and pre-

pared mind and hands. 

Today a young doctor can hard~y hope to enter independent 
practice before he is well past voting age. An engineer needs 

years of specialized training for his precision work. The whole 

school system, geared to the elaborate structure of modern living_ 

means protracted years of preparation. 

Life was so much simpler in other days that a boy could 

learn enough by the time he was fourteen years old to be the 

general of an army ... and a six-months course in medicine 

taught a college graduate all he could then learn about being a 

doctor. Today you do not with hope of success step unprepared 

and untrained into the intricate pattern of modern living. 

When Are You Grown-up? 

Men and women should not of course marry until they are 

grown-up. 

If we know anything clearly, it is that a person's physical 
stature has nothing to do with his being truly grown up. Now 

and then you read of a child who grows to be a circus giant in 

size. Often the chi ld's mentality is distinctly limited. There are 

tremendous hulks of men, wrestlers for instance, whose mental age 

is aboll.t eleven. And the ancient phrase "beautiful but dumb" 

was coined to fit the woman whose beauty is physically mature 

while her mind is like that of a canary or a field mouse. 

So it cal1 easily be that a boy and a girl have the life seeds 

within their bodies, are physically quite capable of bringing a 

child into the world, and yet are totally unready to make a suc-

cessful marriage, to live in peace with another person, to estab-

25 



lish a home, to found a family, to train children In the ways 

of graceful living. 

The biggest reason for failures in marriage today, the psy· 

chiatris[s repeat, is the fact that the husband or the wife or both 

have never really grown up. They have the bodies of adults and 

the minds and emotions and self·control of children. Whatever 

their years, emotionally they are still little ones. 

What is meant by maturity? Roughly it is that time in life 

when a person has learned to think, to dominate his conduct by 

his free will; when he has a sense of responsibility and a respect 

for rational authority; when he can make wise choices and decide 

things in the light of God's law. 

For the founding of a family and the successful rearing of 

sons and daughters we need mental and emotional adults. Chilo 

dren, whatever their age, cannot properly train other children, 

however much younger these other children in point of time. 

So people should not marry until they are grown·up. 

But when are they grown· up ? 

You Are Youn~ 

For a thousand different reasons you of these days tend to 

stay young. You do not mature early mentally and emotionally. 

Families see to it that the children who are physically quite 

developed remain dependent upon the families. Father and 

mother are allowed to make the important decisions. I find the 

teen·agers surprisingly young in their interests and their reac· 

tions. If you mention business or politics or the more serious 

books, if you talk of the editorial page of the newspaper or the 

periodical reviews of comment, they shrug you off. 

Their biggest interests are play and pretense. 

They enjoy and are thrilled by sports-the simulations of 

conflict and the substitutes for war. They do not want to read 

history; but they love fiction, which is pretended life. They sit 

limply through the newsreels and come to life when the feature 

picture is produced, a story of unreal characters doing things 

that never happened and that probably never could happen. The 

annual message from the President bores them to tears; but they 

26 



can sit for hours while a crooner sings a fake emotion that he 

doesn't feel into ears that shouldn't as a matter of reality care 

a whoop about the lyrical blighted love. 

All this may be fun. But it seems to leave the important 

things of the world to the more serious-minded youth. Young 

people are not going to be ready for life's vital business until 

they have developed considerably beyond this "fun." 

But I do ask that you stop telling me how grown-up you are 

when we discuss love, sex, and marriage. 

You seem to believe the infantile stuff that is handed you 

through the movies or over the radio. You stick with a small 

crowd or clique or club, diffident about going out to meet 

strangers. And when we ask you if, since you carry arms at 

eighteen, you shouldn't also have a say in the affairs of the 

nation by the vote, almost to a last young man and woman you 

shout an emphatic No! 

Stay young. Enjoy the spring of your years. Do the happy 

and carefree things that make you the charming, carefree people 

we want you to be .... 

But you can't be young and also grown-up. You can't hold 

on to the things of youth and at the same time proclaim your-

selves ready for the responsibilities of marriage. You cannot 

keep the gaiety and irresponsibility of childhood and also give 

the world well-bred and well-trained children. 

You Want to Stay Young 

Indeed I find that young people are the very ones who insist 

on staying young. 

Again and again I've heard them cry, "But I don't want to 

grow up." 

They have even banded themselves together with a special 

language, with special costumes, interests, heroes and heroines. 

They . vehemently demand to be treated as grown-ups-with 

all the privileges of not growing up. One of the most charac-

teristic marks of our young people is their determination-deep-

rooted, and vehemently expressed-not to accept the serious 

things of life until they can no longer escape them. 

27 



The cartoonist of the teen·agers put it in the words of the 

young girl who in a crowd comments 011 a companion: "That's 

the trouble with her; she's always dragging in some perfectly 

sensible subject." 

Postponed Marriages 

This deliberate effort on our part to spare you a quick rush 

into maturity, an effort with which you have most heartily co· 

operated, has meant that your full maturity has been, is being 

delayed. Even your bodies continu.e to shoot up after your 

sexual powers have developed. People tend to stay young· 

looking, their features maturing slowly. Certainly the period 

of adolescence is continuously marked with much physical 

growth and much more, we hope, mental development and emo· 

tional maturity. 

So it is that in our modern world, and especially in America, 

we have tended to postpone marriage. Much of this delay is due 

to the matter of money. These days people begin to earn their 

way in life later than their parents and their grandparents did. 

They remain in school longer, and they take on jobs later. 

Young people today have a real obligation to get ready as 

quickly as they possibly can to lead adult lives and to earn the 

money needed for marriage. 

Whatever the reasons, marriage these days tends to be delayed. 

Yet despite the postponement of marriage, the sexual powers 

are there. The seeds continue to develop in the bodies of the 

boy and of the girl. The organs reach full maturity. There grows 

within the young people a distinct urge toward love and the 

exercise of sex. Physically they are not unready for marriage. 

In marriage the urge would be legitimate and blessed. The urge 

remains. though marriage is long delayed. 

Boys and girls find one another absorbingly interesting. 

Boys are surprised to find that, not one girl for any long 

period nor even one girl at a time, but girls in general prove 

seductive to them. They learn that the chemistry of their bodies 

responds to the stimulation of the chemistry of the girls' bodies 

-even over a distance. To their embarrassment and sometimes 

to their shame they find that they can be attracted to women 

whom they actually despise and be drawn powerfully to women 

in whose company they would be bitterly ashamed. 

28 



Quite good girls are surprised to discover that they find 

boys' interest in them flattering. A natural or developed modesty 

may make them at first rebel against what they regard as a 

dubious admiration of their figures. Yet should modern pagan 

customs seem to encourage immodesty, they find themselves con· 

forming. They can sense the male reaction to their scanty clothes. 

They first determine to pretend that that reaction does not 

exist, then to harden themselves against it, then to court it, . and 

finally to strive to win it. Then there is the gang spirit. Young 

people feel that they must do what they think others do-or 

they'll be out of the gang. 

Tug of War 

Though for a thousand adequate reasons young people today 

do not marry, the urge of young men and women toward one 

another remains. They find love springing up and the thought 

and possibility of sex expression becoming tempting . Their 

minds are more and more invaded by thoughts of love and mar-

riage. They want to love and be loved, and they are torn be-

tween the obligation to live unmarried and the desire to he 

married or to act as if they were married. 

The temptations and mistiness, the worries and bad tempers, 

the fumblings and uncertainties, the disturbed minds and upset 

emotions that characterize adolescence all come out of this situa-

tion: The germ of life is within them, yet they do not marry . 

Substitutes 

It is easy and pleasant to find the substitutes for love and 
sex that can fill the adolescent years happily and safely. 

We have long sponsored sports for both our boys and our 

girls. Sports can absorb much physical energy and be a great 

distraction . They take up emotional vigor and give the body 

a physical exhaustion that is extremely good for it. 

Boys and girls are given a healthy and innocent social life 

in wholesome surroundings where they can find pleasant com-

panionship, where they can talk together. eat and drink together. 

dance together, and learn the social arts from one another. 

School brings them a variety of interests and duties, in class 

and outside of class. Studies are difficult and absorbing. The 

29 



recreational and athletic life is satisfying. Boys and girls asso-

ciate as friends and companions, happily busy and innocently 

engaged in joint enterprises as they move along in their educa-

tion and their development to the time when they will be mar-

riageable men and women. 

Temptation Is Natural 

Yet all the wpile there is bound to be some sort of temptation. 

If we recognize its natural character and its positive value 
in the training of character, it can be regarded"not as a worry, 

a curse, or a peril, but as an opportunity and a blessing. 

Let's see how that works. 

The boy and the girl have reached a point where the life 

seed is constantly being created within them. They have phy· 

sically developed sexual organs. 

Yet they do .not marry. 

They themselves may see financial or educational benefits in 

not marrying too soon. 

Nonetheless they are troubled. 

Their minds are disturbed by thoughts and imaginings-

some neutral, some evil in possibilities- by curiosities and desires 

that point toward marriage and the expression of love and the 

fulfillment of the sexual urge. 

Marriage Is Right 

Please understand first of all that the desire to marry is a 

very good thing. 

It is really a noble inclination to enter the first ()f all human 

societies, the family, and with another Catholic to receive a 

great sacrament. The thought of a peaceful home and the joy of 

finding a career in family and parenthood are inspirations to fit 

oneself for this career. Planning ahead to be a good husband 

or a good wife and an excellent parent is distinctly praiseworthy. 

Anyone can realize at once that this is quite different 

from deliberate thoughts and desires for the sex relationship. 

30 



You see, the thought is the springboard to the action. 

The desire, when it is complete and deliberately entertained, 

needs only opportunity for it to become a reality. 

If a person long desires and dreams about something, you 

may be sure that, given the opportunity, he will want to experi· 

ence it. 

So if a young person thinks about the sex relationship and 

imagines himself or herself in its enjoyments, there is every 

reason to fear that desire may grow too strong to be controlled. 

Since marriage is still long out of the question, he may well 

attempt the thing about which he dreams. For that matter he 

may go out to make the opportunity if an opportunity does not 

offer itself. 

Good or Bad 

It is important to realize that in themselves thoughts about 

sex are neither good nor bad. 

Our Blessed Lady in her conversation with the Angel Gabriel 

indicated that she understood the significance of sex. Our Blessed 

Lord had to move among sinners, had to see the sinful as well 

as know the good and the virtuous. Doctors must fully under· 

stand all that is connected with sex and its varied consequences. 

The priest goes into the confessional only after he has been 

trained to instruct and guide and forgive and cure all types of 

sin, even the worst. 

So too a married man may think of his wife in the most 

intimate way and, when he is absent from her, dream of life 

together with her. There is no sin in this. 

A young person may find that thoughts concerning sex have 

a way of coming unbidden to his mind. In themselves these are, 

as I have said, neither good nor bad. For growing people they 

are however dangerous. The boy and the girl are young; their 

experience with self·control is limited; the urge toward love and 

passion is a new thing with them. To allow the thought to reo 

main, to dwell upon it, much more to nurture it, to turn it into 

an active desire is to court real danger. 

However the young person may wisely regard the presence 

of such thoughts as a sign of growing maturity. Children are 

31 



110t so disturbed. The arrival of such thoughts means: You are 

approaching the adult state; the life seed is in your body; 

someday, and not too remotely, you will be ready for marriage 

and the responsibilitie" and rewards of parenthood. 

Why Wrong? 

But why is a deliberate thought about or desire for the exer· 

cise of sex wrong? 

,rhy, for that matter, is it evil to experience passion and 

sex outside of marriage? 

Once more W\! come to the fundamental reason: because sex, 

love, and passion are concerned with the production of human 

life. Human life is infinitely precious, created by God, redeemed 

by Christ, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Anything that imperils 

its safe entry into the world couldn't possibly be right. Deliber· 

ately harbored impure thoughts and the desire for sex actions 

lead to actions that imperil life. Impure actions, the exercise of 

the sexual fun ction outside of marriage, violently imperil the 

origins of life. 

Hence they are wrong. 

God's Reward 

Let's go back over this a little more fully . 

Ire can ask why it is that love and sex are pleasurable ex· 

periences. 

God is very generous with us, His children. He never asks 

us to do anything for Him without giving us the certainty of 

reward . That reward comes often enough right here in this life. 

Here is a simple case that illustrates what I mean. 

You need to exercise in order to care for your body properly 

and to develop it and bring it to full and useful maturity. 

God doesn't prescribe a series of health exercises. He does 

not hand out a "Decalogue" of setting-up stunts. Not at all. He 

gives you the pleasurable instinct for games and sports. You 

love to toss a ball around. You enjoy walking in the sun. You 

throw yourselves vigorously into the exercise of dancing. You 

32 



SWIm In the surf, go mountain climbing, ski, skate, play tennis 

or golf. If you ,asked yourselves what you are doing, you would 
reply, quite rightly, "We are having fun." If God were asked 
what you are doing, He could with equal right answer, " My son 

and my daughter are building up their bodies for fine uses." 

God makes exercise full of enjoyment as a reward to you for 

your taking exercise and thus safeguarding your health for His 

work. 

Pleasure in Food 

Food is necessary for the health of our systems. Without 

food we should soon shrivel and die . But God does not hand 

us our food in tasteless capsules, nor does He order us to report 

to the doctor once a week for a shot of food in the arm. Instead 

He gives us all the delights of food and drink. 

We eat our food and in the process build up our strength . 

The more we enjoy our food, the more likely we are to have full , 

rich health. 

I am safe in betting that when you sat down to your Thanks-

giving dinner last year you did not deliberately say, "Now I 

shall build up my health as God commanded." What you prob· 

ably said was, " Oh what a wonderful dinner!" You ate. The 

food you ate went to restore lost tissues and }- ilild new ones. 

You rose from the table, abounding in food and health. For 

the care you took of your health, God had actually repaid yon 

with all the joys of good eating. 

If people did not have the God·given joy in games. they 
would take little of the exercise necessary for health. If they 

did not find food delicious, they would soon let their bodies 

starve and would find themselves unable to do God's work. 

The Parallel 

The parallel is easy to draw. 

God wants children. The task of bearing children, of edu· 

eating and training them are heavy burdens. God says : "If you 
will give me children, I will repay you with the joys ai1d pleasures 

of love and sex." 

So God has placed in love deep peace and affection, joy in 

the company of another, stimulation and inspiration. 

33 



God has attached to sex the satisfaction and ecstasy of passion. 

The whole process is a close connection between work done 

for God and the reward that God gives for that work. 

Thus: 

The life germ develops in the body of the man and the 

woman. 

Each finds in himself (herself) an urge toward the other. 

Beyond that physical urge they recognize that they have 

tastes in common and mental and spiritual compatability that 

will last after passion dies down. 

They know they are in love. 

As always happens with love, there follows the desire for 

union. 

They realize that the highest physical expression of their 

love will be the communication to each other of the rights to 

their bodies, the exercise of those rights perhaps resulting In 

the joining of the seeds of life. 

They marry, unite, and accept the possibilities, responsibili· 

ties, and burdens---together with the joys and the privileges-of 

parenthood. 

And as they exercise their love and express their passion, 

God pays them back with the joy and happiness, physical satis-

faction and mental peace that now are theirs. 

They give God sons and daughters. God gives them their 

reward in the joys of marriage, the delights and satisfactions 

of love. 

What of the Teen-Agers? 

What has this to do with the teen-ager? 

A great deal. Love and passion in their varied expressions 

are intended by God to be His reward to the husband and the 

wife who agree to undertake the burdens of parenthood. 

It can happen -that boys and girls discover the possibility of 

experiencing these joys and pleasures outside of marriage. _ To 

34 



a greater or less degree the sexual organs respond to impulses 

once the seed has begun to develop. 

So the evil boy or girl · says: "Good! I will accept this 

pleasure, even deliberately excite it in myself or in someone 

else or in both of us. In our case it will have nothing to do with 

the origin of life. We'll see to that. It will be purely a selfish 
thing. I will accept these rewards of parenthood, though I am 

in no position even to think of doing the work of a parent." 

I feel sure that any honest young person would say, quite 

candidly, "That looks to me like a form of theft." 

Theft 

And so it is. 

The precious seed of life is sometimes wasted. 

Passion is excited without any intention to help God create 

life. 

Young unmarried people act as if they were married and 

were beginning the preliminaries of the creation of a child. 

So while love and passion inside of marriage are beautiful, 

outside of marriage they become theft and a kind of perversion. 

Love and passion bind a husband and his wife close in the 

unity of the family. Love and passion give them a united career 

as possible parents, serve as the basis on which to build the 

home securely for both-with peace for the man, affection for 

the woman. 

Outside of marriage love and passion can be totally selfish 

gestures. The man and the woman cannot be united and should 

not be united. The thought that children might result from the 

union probably appalls them. 

No family is started, no home begun, no career initiated. 

There is, not peace, but disturbed minds; not security, but in· 

security; not affection, but selfish lust. 

All this is what makes sex outside of marriage a dangerous 

and an evil thing. 

All this is the reason that sins against marriage are sins 

against life, and these sins are sins against the whole human race. 

35 



Preparation 

An adult is, as we suggested before, a fully developed person. 

He has trained his hands so that he can command their 

services. He is not constantly stumbling over his feet. He has 

prepared his mind to handle problems and to solve them. His 

voice is firm and steadily pitched; it does I)ot go skyrocketing 

up or diving down or scattering in a shower of squeaks. 

He has a mastery of his emotions. He does not shake in 

uncontrolled fears or explode in wild rages. Unlike the baby 

he does not grab for food or the diamond pin. He can see food 

without becoming a jaguar; he can drink without gulping. 

He is in other words a person in command of himself. 

He is mentally, physically, emotionally mature. 

The period of adolescence is the period of general prepara· 

tion for life. 

The physical developments of adolescence are in the case 

of a man or a woman destined for successful maturity accom· 

panied by mental, emotional, and spiritual developments. During 

that period of adolescence the small boy grows to be a fine priest 

or an honest businessman; the little girl develops into a pure 

sister or a noble nurse. Both follow the line that leads to con· 

secration to God or to success in marriage and success in parent· 

hood . 

How they develop at this time of adolescence is the guarantee 

of their future. Happiness follows their ripening to strong, full 

characters. 

Here Is Sell-Control 

A young person does not learn to use love and sex by using 

them. He learns to use love and sex by deserving to use them. 

Only that man becomes a reverent, strong, affectionate, and 

satisfactory husband who has been a reverent, strong, respect· 

fully affectionate and trustworthy young man. It is the pure, 
sweet, strong young woman who develops into the virtuous, lov· 

ing, and peace·giving wife and noble mother. 

The one real way to wreck adolescence is to give way to 

passion and give free rein to sex. This is the road to the destruc· 

36 



tion of will power. This is the way to make of the emotions 

wild horses and untrained jungle animals. This is the method 

by which young people lose the possibility of being trustworthy 

or of deserving trust from or in others. 

The premature use of sex, the wasting of the seed, may of 

course have bad physical and mental effects. They may weaken 

and debilitate the body. They disturb the mind and fill it full 

of unhealthy images and a residue of worry and confusion that 

may later result in disorders of emotion and mind. 

Here Is Strength 

On the other hand the young people who keep themselves 

pure steadily grow strong. Emotions are servants when we have 

mastered them; we are slaves under the lash of emotions when 

they have mastered us. No other discipline is more likely to 

produce a self-controlled, secure, well-developed person than 

the schooling to that calmness that masters the impure thoughts 

that enter the mind and puts down with certainty the inclinations 

that rise in the flesh. 

That essential quality of trustworthiness shines forth in the 

whole character of a young person who can be trusted to resist 

opportunities to sin .and certainly trusted never to be the incite-

ment of sin in another. 

Youngsters who are constantly releasing their emotions, dis· 

playing love and affection in careless fashion, actually arousing 

their passions again and again may find that they can no longer 

control their passions. Their passions become, as the ancient poets 

often expressed it, like wild beasts that have trapped instead of 

having been trapped, that control instead of being controlled. 

Such young people can say no to temptation only with fright. 

ful tearing and agony. 

The slightest thought or desire seems likely to trip them up. 

A suggestive picture in a magazine sends their imaginations 

racing wildly after sin. 

The evil story told by a chance companion sets their emotions 

in a whirlwind that blows them about for perhaps days. 

Any opportunity for sin pulls them irresistibly toward sin. 

37 



They live between temptation and remorse, between the desire 

to sin and the fear of sin's consequences, between self-excited 

urges and self-accusing recriminations_ 

Not much of a preparation for strong manhood or strong 

womanhood, is it? 

What of Emotions? 

Yet it is important to remember that the most violent sinner 

can reform. With the grace of God people have turned from evil 

practices to repentance and the virtuous life. But how stupid to 

build up passions that must with terrific effort be reconquered, to 

slip into vice that is so hard to get rid of, to adopt practices of 

which one must later be totally ashamed. 

Emotion is one of the most beautiful gifts of God. Emotion 

makes possible high poetry and good music and patriotism and 

mother love and affection and the creative arts and the apprecia-

tion of beauty. 

· . . But net emotions that run riot, whip the possessor into 

states of confusion and wild desire, and tear peace to shreds. 

· .. Not emotions that become hunters of innocence and be-

trayers of the future . 

· .. Not emotions that make of the person's life a series of 

shipwrecks. 

A love of good food may be the sign of high civilization; 

the inability to control the food and drink appetite creates the 

drunkard and the glutton. 

A cultivated man experiences cultured thrill as he looks at 

a great picture or a piece of beautiful jewelry ; the same picture 

or piece of jewelry will create in the kleptomaniac or the thief 

an emotional excitement that will cause his fingers to twitch 

and his lips to slaver. 

The LiaT and the BoasteT 

A man who has a strong natural temper may become a 

powerful leader of men when he has made that temper serve him 

and his high purposes; each time his temper slips control and 

causes him to curse, strike, rail , do cruel and ugly things, he is 

weakened, and he becomes less the master of his passion. He no 

IDnger controls his temper ; his temper controls him. 

38 



When evil boys brag about how many sins they have com· 

mitted and how many girls they have tricked or persuaded into 

the loss of innocence, only the very immature and stupid ado· 

lescent thinks them mature or strong or developed. Their care· 

less boasting about passion and conquests merely proves thaI 

they are in the cruel grip of their own emotions. Sin drives 

them to things that they know are wrong. Their selfish greed 

for sexual pleasure makes them abuse their creative powers, 

waste the precious seed of life, and harm their own bodies and 

souls and the bodies and the souls of the girls who were intended 

to be the pure mothers of the race. 

Controlled Emotions 

The whole of a satisfactory and happy life depends in a kind 

of way upon the control of emotions. Emotions make wonderful 

auxiliaries of the will; they can beat the weak will to a brutal 

death. 

You are desperately afraid of a man who cannot resist the 

urge to drink .. . who is cruel and brutal ... who flies into what 

we call an ungovernable rage . .. who strikes first and thinks 

afterward. 

You are even more afraid of the woman whose desire for 

drink makes her neglect her family and stumble into the gutter 

... whose tongue is nagging and scandalous ... who has given 

such rein to her greed that she is a confirmed shoplifter ... who 

like the incredible women guards of nazi concentration camps 

delights to beat and torture and make others suffer. 

Closely Tied In 

Yet history and experience show that all emotional control 

can be tied in closely with the control of the sexual urge. Be· 

cause this urge is so strong, strength is developed in our conquest 

of it. A man who has tamed a lion is not afraid to try to train 

a cat or a puppy. A man or a woman who has brought the sex 

urge under reasonable control finds the other passions almost 

easy to handle. 

But men who are passionately sexual and who indulge that 

passion recklessly are often men whose other emotions are wild 

39 



too. Frequently they are cruel, brutal to women, contemptuous 

of children. They drink much. Their tongues are ugly and dirty. 

Oil the other hand the man who has learned to control his 

sex instincts is a man you can trust. He has mastered his emo· 

tions rather well. He will not abuse your trust or make life too 

difficult for you. 

A pure woman is a gentle, sweet, gracious lady or a strong 

heroine whose very presence makes life happy and pleasan t for 

those around her. 

Let's Grow Up 

So the young person who begins to feel the sexual instincts 

can realize too that now as never before- and never again--is 

the chance to grow up . 

Self· control is almost a sIgn of growing up. Disciplined 

minds, trained hands, graceful feet, a cultivated voice, emotions 

under control-these mark and distinguish the real adult. 

There are millions of men and women ,who never come to 

maturity. They are, whatever their -rears 'or their stature, emo-

tional children. An impure thought , throws them into a clither. 

An impure story gets them all excited. Any improper suggestion 

causes their emotions to race toward compliance. No wonder 

they cannot make a success of their marriage. They are simply 

emotional childrel1t 

Sometimes I am convinced that impure temptations of the 

mind are allowed by God in order to give us a chance to train 

ourselves in self-control and self-mastery. It was for this purpose, 
one of my friends assures me, that St. Augustine was allowed 

impure temptations of the mind. It is the strong person who can 
promp,tly put aside an evil mental image and start his mind 

thinking about something fine. Only the well-developed person 

can smile at a temptation in pity or disdain and walk steadily 

down the path of manly or womanly virtue. 

Such Nonsense 

You can see how tragic and absurd is the widespread attitude 

that passionate and uncontrolled men are manly and that impure 

women are brave and daring. 

40 



There is nothing easier than to yield to a temptation. There 

is nothing very brave about taking the leash off one's sexual 

urge, regardless of consequences. 

If this were brave, then it would be bravery on the part of 

the soldier who "had the courage" to leave the battle front be· 

cause he had a date with a girl, or on the part of the cashier 

who "had the nerve" to rob the till in order to buy his sweet· 

heart a fur coat. 

This kind of courage is the courage of criminals; this kind 

of manliness is the manliness of thieves. 

Lucky the woman who marries a man who has learned self· 

c(mtrol. He will be considerate in his love and gentle and affec· 

tionate in his passion. He will give her happiness without fears 

and emotion that is noble, strong, and inspiring. 

Lucky the man who marries a girl who when she comes to 

him is pure, virtuous, strong, trustworthy, who has been true to 

God before marriage, as she will be true to her husband during 

their life together. 

Natural Stimulants 

There are certain things that the youngest adolescent recog· 

nizes as designed by God and nature to stimulate the sexual 

emotions: Inside marriage these are all blessed by God. Indeed 

it is important for Catholics always to remember that between 

a man and his wife there can be no sin except the deliberate 

prevention of life. 

These things, which we instantly recognize, were designed 

to excite the passions and arouse the sexual emotions. Though 

they are not the sexual act itself, they tend to prepare the way 

f or the sexual act. 

The kiss may be one of these preliminaries to passion. 

In itself the kiss is no more necessarily sexual or passionate 

than is a handshake. We Americans are a little amused when 

we see bearded French generals kissing the soldiers on whom 

they pin medals. Mothers kiss their children. A father may even 

welcome with a kiss a returning son. The kiss of peace is all 

ancient sign of friendship and unity of souls. 

41 



Usually the attitude of a girl toward a kiss is somewhat 

different from the attitude of a boy. A girl loves affection and 

is a little afraid of passion. She enjoys being admired. So to 

her the kiss seems to indicate that she is attractive to some boy, 

and she finds in a kiss the manifestation of his affection for her. 

Nature's Intent 

With a boy the attitude is different. He may first kiss a girl 

calmly and peacefully when he says good night, and the whole 

experience may seem quite harmless. But if he continues to kiss 

her, the warmth and intensity grow. In no time at all he is 

likely to find himself hot and excited, the sexual urge rising 

within him, and strange but unmistakable yearnings manifesting 

themselves in his body and his soul. 

Under the influence of his emotions the girl is aware of the 

same emotions rising in herself. 

Nature, you see, designed the kiss to do exactly this. 

Many of the warm·blooded peoples are very realistic about 

the whole matter. The Latins do not permit a young man and a 

young woman to kiss until they are married. The kiss, if it is 

permitted at all, is given on the girl's finger tips or on her cheek. 

The Latins seem to work on the assumption that the kiss can 

easily stir a man to passion, arouse his sexual instincts, and 

make for fierce temptation. They know that the kiss is the natural 

way by which a man and a woman indicate their great desire 

for the union of their love. 

The Embrace 

The embrace may be somewhat the same as the kiss. 

Again in itself the embrace is natural. Thus a mother hugs 

her baby. The father of the prodigal embraced his son and held 

him close in his arms. Mothers and daughters sometimes em· 

brace in the intensity of joy. Soldiers after victory or athletes 

after the winning score will hug one another fiercely-and quite 

harmlessly. 

The embrace is in itself a symbol of emotion, as the kiss is 

an external sign of inward feeling. 

42 



But the embrace can definitely be something worse. 

It can be the sign and opportunity for union, the closest 
possible union, between a man and a woman. Nature so designed 

it. It brings the man and the woman so close that the passing 

of the seed of life is easy and natural. 

As a consequence and as a part of the general flowing plan 

nature designed the embrace of affection and love to excite both 

the man and the woman. It was meant to be stimulating. The 

sexual urge responds to it with vigor and promptness. 

Let's be realistic. Here are two young people moving toward 

the time of marriage. Within them the seed of life has fully 

matured. Out of deep affection they allow themselves long and 

fervent embraces ... and they sin. 

For what happens? 

If there does not result a strong reaction and an emotional 

excitement with possibly the desire to go further than the em· 

brace, I think that you and I would agree that their emotions 

are more than a little below normal. Wouldn't you doubt whether 

they were made to the pattern of young people likely to be deeply 

affectionate husband and wife? 

It Goes Like This 

Young people are supp~sed to be hot-blooded. 

Their emotions were designed by God and nature to rise 

swiftly. 

They are moving rapidly toward marriage, upon which will 

rest God's blessing for their exercise of close sexual unity. 

When they give themselves the privileges of close embraces, 

they are asking their natures not to respond. They are trying 

to hold their natural emotions strongly in check. They are doing 

the things that nature meant to be exciting, and they are hoping 

and trusting that in some mysterious way their instincts will not 

follow nature's destined course. Though they are outside of 

marriage, they are acting like married people .... And this is 

serious sin. 

For nature is strong, and the sex urge is powerful, and pas· 

sion at their age is a young and vigorous and insistent thing, 

43 



and their control is weak and undeveloped, and they may not 

excite themselves sexually if they do not want to fall into 

serious sin . 

Tantalus 

For them to indulge in the close embrace and to hope that 

nothing further will happen is foolish-and a little cruel. 

It is somewhat like leading a hungry man to a table covered 
with food and then telling him that he might look but not eat. 

It is much like Tantalus within constant sight of drink with 
which he cannot slake his thirst. 

It is asking a man who knows that he has a strong urge to 
steal constantly to handle unwatched money and yet to be strictly 

honest. 

Yes it can be done .. . it has been done . .. but seldom by 

young people, in whom passions are strong and vigorous. Their 

sexual urge is too vivid and compelling. The consequences are 

often sheer torture to the boy and worry to the girl. 

If such embraces are continued, they are likely to spell 

trouble-and a possible or probable fall. 

Nature can be pushed only so far. 

Is It LO'Ye? 

Young people are smart indeed if they learn earty to dis-

tinguish between affection and love. Affection between young 

people can be sweet and dear. They can know real love only 

when they are fully adult and completely grown-up. 

The sexual urge is not love. It is only a sign that one may 
soon be capable of love. 

Excitement and physical reaction are not love. The animals 

feel this to some extent. 

Love is not a transient and selfish thing. Love is a strong, 

lasting thing. Love is, not the basis for a "crush," but the 

foundation for a family; not a spice of life, but a start for a 

new life; not something greedy, but something generous and 

self-sacrificing. 

44 



Decent and wholesome love moves toward marriage and 

responsibilities. 

Casual and dangerous " love" has no thought of marriage 

and is quite irresponsible. 

Decent and wholesome love wants most of all the hlippiness 

of the other person. 

Lust has a way of wanting only self-gratification, at whatever 

cost to the other person. 

Easy Habit 

Kissing and embracing-or, to use your words, necking an!! 

petting (the terms change with every generation)-easily grow 

to be habits. 

Indeed they have a way of spoiling one's enjoyment of more 

normal and wholesome things. 

They are a little like heavily spiced foods, which kill the 

appetite for the good, substantial things that are necessary for 

health. 

You have known boys and girls who, no matter how much 

the fun, regard the evening as a failure if it did not include 

passionate kissing and embracing. 

The boy wants it from every girl he goes out with. 

The girl comes to expect it. She may school herself to dodge 

it. She may for a long time try the tactic of distracting the 

boy. Then she begins to wonder whether she is attractive to 

him. So she endures the necking and petting patiently. And 

finally she too looks for it eagerly-to the exclusion of much 

else that is good and wholesome. 

It's a bad way for young people to get into. 

My personal feeling is that all this necking and petting kill 

untold opportunity for good times and make these premature 

manifestations of love the sole form of fun and enjoyment. 

Original Sin 

It is impossible for a Catholic to discuss this important sub-

ject without at least a reference to original sin. One of the 

consequences of original sin is the thing called concupiscence. 

That is a word frequently heard; its meaning is not too difficult. 

45 



Man's nature and woman's nature were meant to be in l1lCC 

balance. Their senses were under the control of their wills; they 

always willed the things they knew to be right and just. 

By original sin that balance was destroyed. The senses reo 

belled against the will, as we have often and sometimes disas-

trously experienced. We have a strong inclination to do the very 

things that our conscience tells us we must not do. We choose 

the things that are bad for us and do the things that we know 

will harm us and others. 

Often the conduct of young people is one of the strong proofs 

of the yielding to this concupiscence. They give their senses 

full play against the decisions of their wIll. They know what is 

good for themselves and for others and what makes for the hap-

piness of a full life; they do just the opposite. 

Such conduct :s simply disastrous to mankind, throwing an 

age, a whole race out of proper balance and line. 

MotiYes 

Why be pure? 

In my whole discussion here, since I did not wish it to be 
too long, I have almost omitted the matter of motives. 

But we can resume them briefly here. 

God gave us the wonderful creative power of sex, the power 

to call into the world His sons and daughters. The exercise of 

this power in parenthood is an action so splendid that Christ 

gave it the consecration of a great sacrament. St. Paul could find 

no finer comparison for the love of Christ for His Church than 

the consecrated love of husband and wife. 

God rewards the correct exercise of this creative faculty-

blessed through the sacrament of matrimony-with the joys of 

married life, the pleasures of sex. 

On the other hand nothing else brings the world more misery 

and pain, more sickness of body and peril to the future, more 

sadness of women and brutality among men, more tears and 

disease for little children than does the misuse of this great 

creative power. Its very greatness makes the abuses of it terri-

46 



fying things, almost sacrileges. Its importance to the human race 

makes any betrayal of it a betrayal of humanity itself .. 

Because it is so important, God honors and loves fine fathers 

and devoted mothers. He asks priests and brothers and nuns to 

give up the exercise of this power so that they can prove to the 

world the possibility of purity and so that with no other love 

than the love of Himself and of souls they can serve His children. 

The Church honors virgins, the pure in body and in soul, by 

elevating them to the altar as saints. The Church is proud of 

Catholic parents. The Church is happy in its unmarried. virginal 

priests, in its men and women religious. 

All this I have dealt with at length elsewhere. All this I 

recall to your minds now. We ask you to be pure, not because 

we want to take anything away from you. We ask it so that-God 

will bless your married life with real happiness and great 

achievement. We ask you to be pure now so that you may be 

strong hereafter. We ask you to be good in your youth so that 

you may be noble and fine and generous and brave in your 

adult years. 

Love purity. 

Purity is the great virtue on which depends the future of the 

race. A virtuous nation is a strong nation; a vicious, lustful 

nation is already doomed. 

And a nation is no stronger than the young men and women 

who are to be the future fathers and mothers of that nation. 

Don't Bottle Up 

Many a young man and a young woman suffer unnecessarily 

because they bottle up deep inside themselves their problems and 

temptations, sometimes even their lapses and their sins. Don't 

give yourself this unnecessary suffering. Such bottling up gen-

erates, creates a sort of autointoxication, a self-poisoning. The 

smart young person has a regular confessor, someone to whom 

he or she goes for advice and direction. The mere telling of your 

problems is a relief. The reassurance that you receive is a source 

of new courage. Often things that looked desperate turn out to 

be unimportant ... and obstacles melt in the mere telling of them. 

47 



Always there is mature and reasoned counsel. Always there 

are the simple remedies that make the difference between steady 

feet and stumbling feet, between security and hesitation, between 

a clear vision of right and a clouded, troubled mind. 

By Way of Conclusion 

This then is the story, and these are the simple facts. 

God needs fine men and women who will unite in blessed, 

wholesome love and give Him strong, pure children. 

The world needs men and women who are fully grown·up, 

who are in control of their passions, who are obeyed by their 

emotrons. 

You can make of yourselves sound adults worthy to work with 

God in the creation of the human race. 

You can be for your future partner in marriage a strong 

character; you can bring him fresh, unspoiled love and sexual 

powers that. are ready to express deep love and create fine, 

healthy life. 

Or ... 

What need is there for an " or"? 

God's ways are happy ways. The rules of nature are the 

rules ot wholesome and successful living. 

God blesses with rich endowment of character pure young 

men and women. 

If they marry, God looks upon their marriage with approval 

and the certainty that here are His worthy partners. 

From among His pure men and women He selects His .future 

priests and His consecrated men and women religious. 

With these pure men and women He makes the world a hap· 

pier place. And through those of His sons and daughters who 

marry He fills heaven with the fruits of their love, the stalwart 

men and virtuous women who are trained by well·controlled, 

trustworthy fathers and mothers. 

48 





11360 

THE QUEEN'S WORK 

3115 South Grand Blvd. 

St. Louis 18, Missouri 

16th Printing ... 1962 


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