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Dear Father Angelo,

I am writing to you for help because I have really come to despair.

Until now I have never been able to get to know a truly Catholic girl who desires a true Catholic family, a good husband, numerous children to raise and educate in a holy way.

I have gotten tired, at this point I am angry, nervous;, I have stopped going to Mass daily and performing my many devotions.

Yet what is more beautiful than children? Or prayer together in the family? Or Catholic education? Or charity, that is, of sacrificing oneself daily and building each other up spiritually for the purpose of eternal salvation? More than just sentimentality, falling in love, being attracted and coupling. Because logically, woe to one speaking of modesty, modesty and chastity, these old-fashioned things!

And what’s worst of all? That many priests, instead of guiding rightly to the rational choice of a companion and a saintly life partner, push them to follow sentimentality, the flesh, mere attractions, irrationality, to keep company with people of the world! And then we wonder about divorces, feminicides, the atheism of children, etc. But what is taught in seminaries today? Are they reading romance novels?

Excuse my venting, but really, I’m exhausted, resigned and desperate.

Thanks

Dear friend, 

1. You wrote me this e-mail after hearing  last Sunday in the second reading (XX Sunday in ordinary time Year C):

“So we too, surrounded by such a multitude of witnesses, having laid down all that is burdensome and the sin that besets us, run with perseverance in the race that lies ahead, keeping our gaze fixed on Jesus, the one who gives rise to faith and brings it to completion.

He, faced with the joy that was placed before him, submitted to the cross, despising the dishonor, and sits at the right hand of the throne of God.

Think carefully about the one who has endured such great hostility from sinners against him, so that you will not tire and lose heart.

You have not yet resisted to the point of blood in the fight against sin “(Heb 12,1-4)

The Lord has spoken to you, he has asked you to run, not to walk, or worse, to stay still.

He asked you to feel like an athlete surrounded by a multitude of witnesses, spectators, who are cheering for you and tell you: “If we did it, why can’t you too? Come on, get back on track, we assure you of our support ”.

2. You stopped going to Mass every day.

With this you have not made any gains, nor have you made the whole world gain.

You might object: the fight is getting harder, there are no results, it is useless.

In the Gospel, however, we read that Jesus in the garden of olives “entered into the struggle, prayed more intensely, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Lk 22:44).

If you want to follow Jesus Christ and do something to make the world better, do not desert, but commit yourself and pray even more intensely.

3. The situation you described  quite corresponds to reality, apart from what you said about Seminaries, because if a priest comes up with strange statements it cannot be said that it is the Seminary’s fault.

Well what can you do to make the world better? Evidently quite the opposite of being one who gives up.

4. By going to Mass every day you draw a sea of ​​graces to the world.

And you learn not so much to ask the Lord to make you die soon in God’s grace to escape this world, but to sacrifice yourself for today’s humanity, so that it can change and improve.

You too at Mass, day after day learn to do what Jesus Christ did, who voluntarily offered himself to enter into his passion, handed-over  his life, gave thanks to the Father for the gift he had given Him, broke it by giving it to everyone, and  said: take and eat it all because you will receive life and strength from this gift of mine. 

5.Resume, then going back to Mass, but with a new spirit, with the desire to sacrifice yourself with Christ, regardless of your personal reaction.

Go “pro mundi vita” (for the life of the world) as the Lord said: “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51).

5. After Mass, live your day as a continuous act of love offered to the Lord so that the world may change and be saved.

Take every opportunity to offer something to the Lord not only so that he enables you to meet a girl after His heart, in order to form an authentic Christian family, but also for the young ladies of today, that they  find someone who makes them grow according to the heart of Christ.

6. Resume also your devotions, in particular that of the daily Holy Rosary.

St. Vincent de Paul said that “after Mass, devotion to the Rosary has brought down more graces in souls than all other devotions, and with its Hail Marys it performs more miracles than any other prayer”.

I trust that this prayer can also perform them for your life.

I accompany you with my prayer and I bless you.

Father Angelo