by St Alphonsus

Let us come now to the means which we have to employ in order to vanquish temptations. Spiritual masters prescribe a variety of means; but the most necessary, and the safest (of which only I will here speak), is to have immediate recourse to God with all humility and confidence, saying: Incline unto my aid, O God; O Lord, make haste to help me! This short prayer will enable us to overcome the assaults of all the devils of hell; for God is infinitely more powerful than all of them. Almighty God knows well that of ourselves we are unable to resist the temptations of the infernal powers; and on this account the most learned Cardinal Gotti remarks, “that whenever we are assailed, and in danger of being overcome, God is obliged to give us strength enough to resist as often as we call upon him for it.”

And how can we doubt of receiving help from Jesus Christ, after all the promises that he has made us in the Holy Scriptures? Come to Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you? Come to me, ye who are wearied in fighting against temptations, and I will restore your strength. Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt honor Me. When thou seest thyself troubled by thine enemies, call upon me, and I will bring thee out of the danger, and thou shalt praise me. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall hear: thou shalt cry and He shall say, Here I am. Then shalt thou call upon the Lord for help, and he will hear thee: thou shalt cry out, Quick, O Lord, help me! and he will say to thee, Behold, here I am; I am present to help thee. Who hath called upon Him, and He despised him? And who, says the prophet , has ever called upon God, and God has despised him without giving him help? David felt sure of never falling a prey to his enemies, whilst he could have recourse to prayer; he says: Praising, I will call upon the Lord: and I shall be saved from my enemies? For he well knew that God is close to all who invoke his aid: The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him? And St. Paul adds, that the Lord is by no means sparing, but lavish of graces towards all that pray to him: Rich unto all that call upon Him.

Oh, would to God that all men would have recourse to him whenever they are tempted to offend him; they would then certainly never commit sin! They unhappily fall, because, led away by the cravings of their vicious appetites, they prefer to lose God, the sovereign good, than to forego their wretched short-lived pleasures. Experience gives us manifest proofs that whoever calls on God in temptation does not fall; and whoever fails to call on him as surely falls: and this is especially true of temptations to impurity. Solomon himself said that he knew very well he could not be chaste, unless God gave him the grace to be so; and he therefore invoked him by prayer in the moment of temptation: And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it, . . . I went to the Lord and besought Him. In temptations against purity (and the same holds good with regard to those against faith) we must take it as a rule never to strive to combat the temptation hand to hand; but we must endeavour immediately to get rid of it indirectly by making a good act of the love of God or of sorrow for our sins, or else by applying ourselves to some indifferent occupation calculated to distract us. At the very instant that we discover a thought of evil tendency, we must disown it immediately, and (so speak) close the door in its face, and deny it all entrance into the mind, without tarrying in the least to examine its object or errand. We must cast away these foul suggestions as quickly as we would shake off a hot spark from the fire.

If the impure temptation has already forced its way into the mind, and plainly pictures its object to the imagination, so as to stir the passions, then, according to the advice of St. Jerome, we must burst forth into these words: “O Lord, Thou art my helper.” As soon, says the saint, as we feel the sting of concupiscence, we must have recourse to God, and say: “O Lord, do Thou assist me;” we must invoke the most holy names of Jesus and Mary, which a wonderful possess efficacy in the suppression of temptations of this nature. St. Francis de Sales says, that no sooner do children spy a wolf than they instantly seek refuge in the arms of their father and mother; and there they remain out of all danger. Our conduct must be the same: we must flee without delay for succor to Jesus and Mary, by earnestly calling upon them. I repeat that we must instantly have recourse to them, without giving a moment's audience to the temptation,or disputing with it. It is related in the fourth paragraph of the Book of Sentences of the Fathers that one day St. Pacomius heard the devil boasting that he had frequently got the better of a certain monk on account of his lending ear to him, and not instantly turning to call upon God. He heard another devil, on the contrary, utter this complaint: As for me, I can do nothing with my monk, because he never fails to have recourse to God, and always defeats me.

Should the temptation, however, obstinately persist in attacking us, let us beware of becoming troubled or angry at it; for this might put in it the power of our enemy to overcome us. We must, on such occasions, make an act of humble resignation to the will of God, who thinks fit to allow us to be tormented by these abominable temptations; and we must say: O Lord, I deserve to be molested with these filthy suggestions, in punishment of my past sins; but Thou must help to free me. And as long as the temptation lasts, let us never cease calling on Jesus and Mary. It is also very profitable, in the like importunity of temptations, to renew our firm purpose to God of suffering every torment, and a thousand deaths, rather than offend him; and at the same time we must invoke his divine assistance. And even should the temptation be of such violence as to put us in imminent risk of consenting to it, we must then redouble our prayers, hasten into the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, cast ourselves at the feet of the crucifix, or of some image of our Blessed Lady, and there pray with increased fervor and cry out for help with groans and tears. God is certainly ready to hear all who pray to him; and it is from him alone, and not from our own exertions, that we must look for strength to resist; but sometimes Almighty God wills these struggles of us, and then he makes up for our weakness, and grants us the victory. It is an excellent practice also, in the moment of temptation, to make the sign of the cross on the forehead and breast. It is also of great service to discover the temptation to our spiritual director. St. Philip Neri used to say, that a temptation disclosed is half overcome.

Here it will be well to remark, what is unanimously admitted by all theologians, even of the rigorist school, that persons who have during a considerable period of time been leading a virtuous life, and live habitually in the fear of God, whenever they are in doubt, and are not certain whether they have given consent to a grievous sin, ought to be perfectly assured that they have not lost the divine grace; for it is morally impossible that the will, confirmed in its good purposes for a considerable lapse of time, should on a sudden undergo so total a change as at once to consent to a mortal sin without clearly knowing it; the reason of it is, that mortal sin is so horrible a monster that it cannot possible enter a soul by which it has long been held in abhorrence, without her being fully aware of it. We have proved this at length in our Moral Theology. St. Teresa said: No one is lost without knowing it; and no one is deceived with out the will to be deceived.

Wherefore with regard to certain souls of delicate conscience, and solidly rooted in virtue, but at the same time timid and molested with temptations (especially if they be against faith or chastity), the director will find it sometimes expedient to forbid them to discover them or make any mention of them; because, if they have to mention them they are led to consider how such thoughts got entrance into their minds, and whether they paused to dispute with them, or took any complacency in them, or gave any consent to them; and so, by this too great reflection, those evil imaginations make a still deeper impression on their minds, and disturb them the more. Whenever the confessor is morally certain that the penitent has not consented to these suggestions, the best way is to forbid him to speak any more about them. And I find that St. Jane Frances de Chantal acted precisely in this manner. She relates of herself, that she was for several years assailed by the most violent storms of temptation, but had never spoken of them in confession, since she was not conscious of ever having yielded to them; and in this she had only followed faithfully the rule received from her director. She says, “ I never had a full conviction of having consented.” These words give us to understand that the temptations did produce in her some agitation from scruples; but in spite of these, she resumed her tranquillity on the strength of the obedience imposed by her confessor, not to confess similar doubts. With this exception, it will be generally found an admirable means of quelling the violence of temptations to lay them open to our director, as we have said above.

But I repeat, the most efficacious and the most necessary of all remedies against temptations, is that remedy of all remedies, namely, to pray to God for help, and to continue praying as long as the temptation continues. Almighty God will frequently have decreed success, not to the first prayer, but to the second, third, or fourth. In short, we must be thoroughly persuaded that all our welfare depends on prayer: our amendment of life depends on prayer: our victory over temptations depends on prayer; on prayer depends our obtaining divine love, together with perfection, perseverance, and eternal salvation.

You might also like: Why God permits temptations

  We have said that those to whom the present Notification is addressed are invited to take serious alarm at the problem in hand.  Accordingly they know what they have to say, starting with little girls on their mother's knee.

They know that without exaggerating or turning into fanatics, they will need to strictly limit how far they tolerate women dressing like men, as a general rule.

They know they must never be so weak as to let anyone believe that they turn a blind eye to a custom which is slipping downhill and undermining the moral standing of all institutions.

They, the priests, know that the line they have to take in the confessional, while not holding women dressing like men to be automatically a grave fault, must be sharp and decisive.13

Everybody will kindly give thought to the need for a united line of action, reinforced on every side by the cooperation of all men of good will and all enlightened minds, so as to create a true dam to hold back the flood.

Those of you responsible for souls in whatever capacity understand how useful it is to have for allies in this defensive campaign men of the arts, the media and the crafts.  The position taken by fashion design houses, their brilliant designers and the clothing industry, is of crucial importance in this whole question.  Artistic sense, refinement and good taste meeting together can find suitable but dignified solution as to the dress for women to wear when they must use a motorcycle or engage in this or that exercise or work.  What matters is to preserve modesty together with the eternal sense of femininity, that femininity which more than anything else all children will continue to associate with the face of their mother.14

We do not deny that modern life sets problems and makes requirements unknown to our grandparents.  But we state that there are values more needing to be protected than fleeting experiences, and that for anybody of intelligence there are always good sense and good taste enough to find acceptable and dignified solutions to problems as they come up.

Out of charity we are fighting against the flattening out of mankind, against the attack upon those differences on which rests the complementarity of man and woman.

When we see a woman in trousers, we should think not so much of her as of all mankind, of what it will be when women will have masculinized themselves for good.  Nobody stands to gain by helping to bring about a future age of vagueness, ambiguity, imperfection and, in a word, monstrosities.15

This letter of Ours is not addressed to the public, but to those responsible for souls, for education, for Catholic associations.  Let them do their duty, & let them not be sentries caught asleep at their post while evil crept in.

Giuseppe Cardinal Siri

Archbishop of Genoa

13.    How much wisdom and balance in all these apparently severe conclusions of the Cardinal!
14.    In other words, the femininity of the mother, not of Eve.
15.    In 1997 (how much more 2013) we see all around us the age of monstrosities which in 1960 Cardinal Siri was doing his best to prevent.  In the Cardinal's own country, Italy, the birth-rate has been pushed lowest in all of Europe!  Italian youth is devastated.  The Cardinal was not listened to then.  Will he be listened to now?

The logical consequence of everything presented so far is that anyone in a position of responsibility should be possessed by a SENSE of ALARM in the true and proper meaning of the word, a severe and decisive ALARM.9

We address a grave warning to parish priests, to all priests in general and to confessors in particular, to members of every kind of association, to all religious, to all nuns, especially to teaching Sisters.

We invite them to become clearly conscious of the problem so that action will follow.  This consciousness is what matters.  It will suggest the appropriate action in due time.  But let it not counsel us to give way in the face of inevitable change, as though we are confronted by a natural evolution of mankind, and so on!

Men may come and men may go, because God has left plenty of room for the to and fro of their free-will; but the substantial lines of nature and the not less substantial lines of Eternal Law have never changed, are not changing and never will change.  There are bounds beyond which one may stray as far as one sees fit, but to do so ends in death10; there are limits which empty philosophical fantasizing may have one mock or not take seriously, but they put together an alliance of hard facts and nature to chastise anybody who steps over them.  And history has sufficiently taught, with frightening proof from the life and death of nations, that the reply to all violators of the outline of "humanity" is always, sooner or later, catastrophe.

From the dialectic of Hegel onwards, we have had dinned in our ears what are nothing but fables, and by dint of hearing them so often, many people end up by getting used to them, if only passively.  But the truth of the matter is that Nature and Truth, and the Law bound up in both, go their imperturbable way, and they cut to pieces the simpletons who upon no grounds whatsoever believe in radical and far-reaching changes in the very structure of man.11

The consequences of such violations are not a new outline of man, but disorders, hurtful instability of all kinds, the frightening dryness of human souls, the shattering increase in the number of human castaways, driven long since out of people's sight and mind to live out their decline in boredom, sadness and rejection.  Aligned on the wrecking of the eternal norms are to be found the broken families, lives cut short before their time, hearths and homes gone cold, old people cast to one side, youngsters willfully degenerate and -- at the end of the line -- souls in despair and taking their own lives.  All of which human wreckage gives witness to the fact that the "line of God" does not give way, nor does it admit of any adaption to the delirious dreams of the so-called philosophers! 12

9.     In 1997, can we say the Cardinal was exaggerating
10.     All great art and literature testifies to this moral structure of the universe which one violates at one's peril and which is as much part of the natural order as its physical structure.  The plays of Shakespeare are a famous example.  The Cardinal is here at the heart of the question.
11.     It has been said, God is ready to forgive always, man sometimes, nature never.
12.    The Cardinal is not just indulging in rhetoric.  Pink Floyd's misery is an example of this "human wreckage".


PART 5

 
Let us think seriously on the import of everything said so far, even if woman's appearing in man's dress does not immediately give rise to all the upset caused by grave immodesty.

The changing of feminine psychology does fundamental and, in the long run, irreparable damage to the family, to conjugal fidelity, to human affections and to human society.8  True, the effects of wearing unsuitable dress are not all to be seen within a short time.  But one must think of what is being slowly and insidiously worn down, torn apart, perverted.

Is any satisfying reciprocity between husband and wife imaginable, if feminine psychology be changed?  Or is any true education of children imaginable, which is so delicate in its procedure, so woven of imponderable factors in which the mother's intuition and instinct play the decisive part in those tender years?  What will these women be able to give their children when they will so long have worn trousers that their self-esteem goes more by their competing with the men than by their functioning as women?

Why, we ask, ever since men have been men, or rather since they became civilized -- why have men in all times and places been irresistibly borne to make a differentiated division between the functions of the two sexes?  Do we not have here strict testimony to the recognition by all mankind of a truth and a law above man?

To sum up, wherever women wear men's dress, it is to be considered a factor in the long run tearing apart human order.

8. For an example of this damage, see the relationship between the sexes as portrayed in Rock music.
PART 4

    The wearing of men's dress by women affects firstly the woman herself, by changing the feminine psychology proper to women; secondly it affects the woman as wife of her husband, by tending to vitiate relationships between the sexes; thirdly it affects the woman as mother of her children by harming her dignity in her children's eyes.  Each of these points is to be carefully considered in turn:--

A.  MALE DRESS CHANGES THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMAN.

In truth, the motive impelling women to wear men's dress is always that of imitating, nay, of competing with, the man who is considered stronger, less tied down, more independent.  This motivation shows clearly that male dress is the visible aid to bringing about a mental attitude of being "like a man."5  Secondly, ever since men have been men, the clothing a person wears, demands, imposes and modifies that person's gestures, attitudes and behavior, such that from merely being worn outside, clothing comes to impose a particular frame of mind inside.

Then let us add that woman wearing man's dress always more or less indicates her reacting to her femininity as though it is inferiority when in fact it is only diversity. The perversion of her psychology is clear to be seen.6

These reasons, summing up many more, are enough to warn us how wrongly women are made to think by the wearing of men's dress.


B.  MALE DRESS TENDS TO VITIATE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN.

In truth when relationships between the two sexes unfold with the coming of age, an instinct of mutual attraction is predominant.  The essential basis of this attraction is a diversity between the two sexes which is made possible only by their complementing or completing one another.  If then this "diversity" becomes less obvious because one of its major external signs is eliminated and because the normal psychological structure is weakened, what results is the alteration of a fundamental factor in the relationship.

The problem goes further still.  Mutual attraction between the sexes is preceded both naturally, and in order of time, by that sense of shame which holds the rising instincts in check, imposes respect upon them, and tends to lift to a higher level of mutual esteem and healthy fear everything that those instincts would push onwards to uncontrolled acts.  To change that clothing which by its diversity reveals and upholds nature's limits and defense-works, is to flatten out the distinctions and to help pull down the vital defense-works of the sense of shame.

It is at least to hinder that sense.  And when the sense of shame is hindered from putting on the brakes, then relationships between man and women sink degradingly down to pure sensuality, devoid of all mutual respect or esteem.

Experience is there to tell us that when woman is de-feminised, then defenses are undermined and weakness increases.7

C. MALE DRESS HARMS THE DIGNITY OF THE MOTHER IN HER CHILDREN'S EYES.

All children have an instinct for the sense of dignity and decorum of their mother.  Analysis of the first inner crisis of children when they awaken to life around them even before they enter upon adolescence, shows how much the sense of their mother counts.  Children are as sensitive as can be on this point.  Adults have usually left all that behind them and think no more on it.  But we would do well to recall to mind the severe demands that children instinctively make of their own mother, and the deep and even terrible reactions roused in them by observation of their mother's misbehavior.  Many lines of later life are here traced out -- and not for good -- in these early inner dramas of infancy and childhood.

The child may not know the definition of exposure, frivolity or infidelity, but he possesses an instinctive sixth sense to recognize them when they occur, to suffer from them, and be bitterly wounded by them in his soul.

5.  When the women wish to be like men (somebody said, the feminists are more scornful of womanhood than anybody), it is up to the men to make women proud of being women.
6. The enormous increase since 1960 in the practice and public flaunting of the vice against nature is surely to be attributed in part to this perversion of psychology.
7. When woman is feminine, she has the strength God gives to her.  When she is de-feminised, she has only the strength she gives herself.

PART 3

Concerning
Men's Dress Worn By Women
By Giuseppe Cardinal Siri

Genoa,
June 12, 1960

To the Reverend Clergy,
To all Teaching sisters,
To the beloved sons of Catholic Action,
To Educators intending truly to follow Christian Doctrine.1

The first signs of our late arriving spring indicate that there is this year a certain increase in the use of men's dress by girls and women, even family mothers.  Up until 1959, in Genoa, such dress usually meant the person was a tourist, but now it seems to be a significant number of girls and women from Genoa itself who are choosing at least on pleasure trips to wear men's dress (men's trousers).

The extension of this behavior obliges us to take serious thought, and we ask those to whom this Notification is addressed to kindly lend to the problem all the attention it deserves from anyone aware of being in any way responsible before God.

We seek above all to give a balanced moral judgment upon the wearing of men's dress by women. In fact Our thoughts can only bear upon the moral question.2

Firstly, when it comes to covering of the female body, the wearing of men's trousers by women cannot be said to constitute AS SUCH A GRAVE OFFENSE AGAINST MODESTY, because trousers certainly cover more of woman's body than do modern women's skirts.

Secondly, however, clothes to be modest need not only to cover the body but also not to cling too closely to the body.3  Now it is true that much feminine clothing today clings closer than do some trousers, but trousers can be made to cling closer, in fact generally they do, so the tight fit of such clothing gives us not less grounds for concern than does exposure of the body.  So the immodesty of men's trousers on women is an aspect of the problem which is not to be left out of an over-all judgment upon them, even if it is not to be artificially exaggerated either.

However, it is a different aspect of women's wearing of men's trousers which seems to us the gravest.4


To be continued..................

Translators notes

1. At the end of the Cardinal's Notification, he explains that it is not addressed by him directly to the public at large, but only indirectly, through the Catholic leaders here listed.  However, that was in 1960, when the Church still had a framework of leaders.  In 1997, those capable by their Faith of responding to the Cardinal's instruction are scattered amongst the public at large, to whom therefore his instruction is fittingly diffused.
   
2. The Cardinal heads off many objections at the outset when he reminds us by what right he tackles such a subject at all:  as a teacher of Faith and morals.  Who can reasonably deny that clothing (especially, but not only, women's) involves morals and so the salvation of souls?
   
3. Jeans are now virtually universal.  How many women's jeans are not tight-fitting? 
4. Trousers on women are worse than mini-skirts, said Bishop de Castro Mayer, because while mini-skirts attack the senses, women's trousers attack man's highest spiritual faculty, the mind. Cardinal Siri explains why, in depth. 

PART 2

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR MODESTY IN DRESS

LOOK TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY AS A PERFECT EXAMPLE

• In order to benefit from reading this article it is highly recommended that you say the following prayer from Sacred Scripture:  "Speak Lord, your servant listens." (Kings 3:9)  It is also necessary to reflect on the virtue of humility which is the indispensable foundation of all Christian life.  This truth God wished especially to impress upon us by His Incarnation, when "He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to death on a cross." (Phil. 2:8)  We are also taught in the Holy Bible that:  "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble." (James 4:6)  It is realized that this appeal will only affect a few because Our Lord tells us by another passage that the road to hell is broad and many are those who go in thereat.  How narrow is the gate and straight is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are who find it! (Matt. 7:13-14)  But if this article eliminates only one mortal sin, it will be worth the effort.

In regard to modesty in dress and deportment, let us first consider what the Holy Bible has to say on this subject:  "In like manner I wish women to be decently dressed, adorning themselves with modesty and dignity, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but with good works, such as become women professing Godliness." (1 Tim. 2:9-10)

Modesty should be promoted by mothers in their children from early infancy.  Many foolish mothers train their little daughters to consider scanty attire as the normal thing.  Let such mothers take to heart the serious admonition of Pope Pius XII:  "O Christian mothers, if you knew what a future of anxieties and perils, of ill-guarded shame you prepare for your sons and daughters, imprudently getting them accustomed to live scantily dressed and making them lose the sense of modesty, you would be ashamed of yourselves and you would dread the harm you are making for yourselves, the harm which you are causing these children, whom Heaven has entrusted to you to be brought up as Christians."

Purity is like a precious pearl; it is purchased at a great price, retained only with great care and watchfulness and easily lost or destroyed.  Beware of pride and flattery, as arch-enemies of your purity.  You may not be finely dressed or pretty and graceful; you may not have those attractions which are most admired by the world; but if you have the virtues of modesty and purity you have something which money cannot buy and an ornament which will outlast all the fading treasures of earth.  "How beautiful then is modesty and what a gem among virtues it is." (St. Bernard, Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Let us listen to the Holy Ghost speaking to us again in the Holy Bible:  "Do not love the world, or the things that are in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; because all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; which is not from the Father, but from the world.  And the world with its lust is passing away but he who does the will of God abides forever." (1 St. John 2:15, 17)

Our Sorrowful and Immaculate Mother, who in all her apparitions is fully covered, is presented by her divine Son to us as the perfect model of modesty and purity.  She is terribly saddened by the immodest and impure conduct so prevalent in our society.  Our Lord speaks to us through His Blessed Mother in condemning the modern trends of uncovering the body.  In fact, Our Lady came down from heaven to warn against this disrobing trend.  Listen to what she revealed to little ten-year-old Jacinta of Fatima while she was dying in a hospital in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1920:  "Certain fashions will be introduced which will offend Our Divine Lord very much.  Those who serve God ought not to follow these fashions.  Our Lord is always the same."  And she also revealed to Jacinta that "the sins that lead most souls to hell are the sins of the flesh."

Now let us look at pictures of Our Lady in three of her most famous apparitions.

In her appearance to Blessed Juan Diego in Mexico, she left a self portrait which has been miraculously preserved for over four centuries.  It is on display in the Basilica in Mexico City.  The pictures of Our Blessed Mother as she appeared at Lourdes to St. Bernadette and to the three children at Fatima are from descriptions provided by the seers.  These appearances occurred over a period of more than four centuries, but see how her dress is always the same.

Ladies, men, girls and boys should always wear clothing that they would not be ashamed of in the sight of God. Christ's words are very clear:  "A woman shall not be clothed with man's apparel, neither shall a man use woman's apparel; for he that doeth these things is abominable before God." (Deut.22:5)  If Christ said that the sexes should not wear each other's clothes, it stands to reason there is a distinct difference in men and women's clothes.  Now let us reflect again on how the Mother of our Savior has been adorned in her various appearances.  Can you imagine her wearing slacks?  How can we say that we have a true devotion to Our Blessed Mother and continue to follow worldly fashions and trends?  Should we not follow her perfect example?

Now if you are inclined to think that what this paper suggests is not really necessary or that it is too demanding, reflect again on how few take that narrow path to heaven and how many lose their souls.  It seems that very few people really think of hell and think that not too many go there.  Yet Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, warned that "few find the narrow way to life, but many find the broad way to hell." (Mt. 7:13-14)  So we cannot dispute this argument for we know His words are infallibly true.  But how many are saved?  St. Bonaventure, once speaking in Constantinople, asked this question and, giving his own answer, said:  "Of all the thousands in this city, how many will be saved?  How ought I to answer this question, or ought I answer it at all?  Perhaps hardly a hundred.  Would to God I could be certain of so many.  " When St. Bernard died, a holy anchorite who had also died at the same time appeared to the bishop of Langres and told him that 30,000 had died at the same time.  He and St. Bernard went straight to heaven, 3 others went to purgatory and all the rest were damned.

Father Eusebius Nieremburg, who resided at the College of Madrid, where he died in the odor of sanctity in 1658, relates the story of a noble and exceedingly pious lady, who asked God to make known to her what displeased His Divine Majesty most in persons of her sex.  The Lord vouchsafed in a miraculous manner to hear her.  He opened under her eyes the eternal abyss. There she saw a woman a prey to cruel torments and in her recognized one of her friends, a short time before deceased.  This sight caused her as much astonishment as grief:  the person whom she saw damned did not seem to her to have lived badly.  Then that unhappy soul said to her:  "It is true that I practiced religion, but I was a slave of vanity.  Ruled by the passion to please, I was not afraid to adopt indecent fashions to attract attention, and I enkindled the fire of impurity in more than one heart.  Ah!  If Christian women knew how much immodesty in dress displeases God!"  At the same moment, this unhappy soul was pierced by two fiery lances and plunged into a caldron of liquid lead.

St. John Chrysostom (347-407), the illustrious Bishop of Constantinople and one of the 32 doctors of the Church, had this to say about women who dress immodestly:  "You carry your snare everywhere and spread your net in all places.  You allege that you never invited others to sin.  You did not indeed by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment.  And much more effectively than you could by your voice.  When you have made another sin in his heart, how can you be innocent?  Tell me whom does this world condemn?  Whom do the judges in court punish?  Those who drink poison or those who prepare it and administer the fatal potion?  You are more criminal than those who poison the body.  You have given the death-dealing drink.  You murder not the body but the soul, and it is not to enemies do you do this nor are you urged on by any imaginary necessity nor provoked by injury.  But you do it out of foolish vanity and pride."

Woe to women who dress immodestly!  Woe to fathers and husbands who do not correct their wives and daughters!  Woe to pastors of souls if they remain silent!  Woe to us, for this is one of the sins which causes most souls to go to hell, sins of the flesh.  "O that they would be wise and would understand and would provide for their latter end." (Deut.32:29)  "There is a way that seemeth just to a man; but the ends thereof leadeth to death." (Prov.14:12)  "Few find the narrow way to life."

The problem of salvation is a very difficult thing; for according to the maxims of the theologians, when an end demands great efforts, only a few attain it; but not to make every effort to avoid eternal damnation and to make sure of one's salvation is something inconceivable.  God wants all men to be saved.  He tells us so in the Holy Bible; that He enlightens every man that cometh into this world.  In a hundred places in Holy Scripture, God tells us that it is truly His desire to save all men.  "I live, saith the Lord God.  I desire not the death of the sinner.  Be converted and live." (Ex.18-32)  He provides us with all the means most proper for us to be saved.

Now let us listen to St. Anselm, Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church, on this matter of salvation:  "If you want to be certain of being in the number of the Elect, strive to be one of the few, not one of the many.  And if you would be quite sure of your salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few; that is to say:  do not follow the great majority of mankind, but follow those who enter upon the narrow way, who renounce the world, who give themselves to prayer, and who never relax their efforts by day or night, so that they may attain everlasting blessedness."

Let this paper be ended on a positive note.  The eminent way to protect and nourish an unsullied and perfect chastity, as proven by experience time and again throughout the course of centuries, is solid and fervent devotion to the Virgin Mother of God.  St. Gregory of Nicomedia encourages sinners by assurance if they have recourse to Our Blessed Mother, with a determination to amend their lives, she will save them by her intercession.  To obtain favors from Our Lady, we must perform certain devotions practiced by her servants:  First, to recite at least five decades of her Rosary every day.  Second, to wear the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.  Third, to have a picture or a statue of Our Lady in our home and recite her litany every day.  There are other devotions by the servants of Mary, but most of all we should recommend ourselves frequently to her in prayer.  "If you persevere until death in true devotion to Mary, your salvation is certain."  St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.

You are urged to adopt a true devotion to Mary by beginning to practice the exercises listed above.  This is a small price to pay to be assured of our eternal salvation.