I stumbled across your response to Rev. Fr. Podržaj concerning swim attire and the beach. TIA's advice regarding going to beach and swimming pools is this: Do not go.
I am sorry to report that this sort of vulgarity, which I find more than disgusting, is far and wide no longer limited to the beach. It has overtaken the world in every space and sphere. I would have to live in an entirely isolated world - or be in the Twilight Zone where I'm the only one alive in my city to avoid it as I live in a major metropolitan city that is densely populated. Even the rural areas are not exempt. I remember as a child in the 1960's riding in the car with my parents through certain sections of the city and seeing women dressed in skin-tight attire like most of the women today. It was shocking to me because I grew up in a family, albeit Protestant, where women and men dressed with modesty and true decorum. My mother did her best to explain what a whore or slut is and why they were dressed like that.
So, take it forward 60 years and 95% of the women I see nowadays, even the elderly women, are dressed like sluts or whores or lounge lizards, which is what some would call the loose women who frequented night clubs and lounges and truck stops back in the old days -- places where no Catholic would ever dare go.
Today I want to bang on the heads of those individuals who claim they go there to give "good example" to "win souls" -- they are giving bad example by going because those who go to those places are not religious and have no interest and might even be scandalized by their presence! How foolish! I learned a long time ago that dressing well and wearing a necktie has no influence on this horrid world. One can only take satisfaction in that it pleases God and keeps the old customs alive.
If how we dress is how we are, then we have an entire population of oversexed, over-sensual, spiritually bankrupt and empty people in the world today, as the men are now starting to wear leggings and skinny pants.
I apply the beach recommendation: If I should not go to the beach, then for the same reasons I can't go to the food market, go to work, walk down a busy city street, buy a car, go to classical music concert, attend a graduation, conduct any business or entertainment at all in public because, with the high volume of women in the workplace, women are usually wearing the most vulgar and indecent of attire even on the job, even in some professional positions, and it is tolerated.
I turn my head to avoid one only to inadvertently gaze on another. I try to keep my eyes low but doing so in a busy city street puts one in the same predicaments as one who texts while walking. It makes me angry and all I can do is offer my pains and anger and outrage in union with the Sacred Hearts because they see infinitely much more of this than I do and are infinitely more offended. It is horrible cross, indeed.
Speaking out on it is one thing but dealing with it on a practical level is another. The good will have much to suffer. We are at full war. I got into an awkward situation with a female physician's assistant at a major hospital who was dressed in lab coat over skin-tight black yoga pants and low cut t-shirt exposing much of her breasts. So I had to stare at the walls to avoid gazing at her, and she felt that I wasn't paying right attention and was insulted.
If you call a woman out on her vulgar attire, she will, of course, tell you that it's YOUR fault that the sight of her tempts you to sin. What does one do? Many Catholics I know are worn out from the anger and the outrage of being hit with it day and in and day out at every turn so they become desensitized and numb to it and have come to ignore it since one can't escape it. I try to retreat from it as much as I can by driving considerable miles to secluded areas where it's easy to avoid the sights and still relax and clear the mind.
C.R.
______________________
TIA responds:
C.R.,
We respect your affliction and we see that we have many points in common. But there is an emotional unbalance in your description, the fruit of an exaggeration of the reality that is leading you to depression and despair.
First, it is not accurate that people today are using the same dress in the cities that they wear on the beaches. Both are highly immoral and both represent a bold sexual aggression. But they are different. On the beaches people are tending toward outright nudism. In the cities they tend to a casual and immodest type of dress that leads to tribalism and Satanism.
Much of this clothing is very provocative without necessarily tending to nudism. The yoga or spandex pants to which you refer are meant to show the woman's body shape and trigger the man’s lust, but paradoxically they cover the body, different from the beach suits. So, the norm to not go to beaches and swimming pools is valid but should not necessarily be applied to the market and the other places to which you referred.
Second, no matter how bad the sexual aggression is in the cities, we can always find some places like churches, libraries, museums and cultural centers where we can find some escape from it. It seems to us that your statement that one has to drive miles to the wilderness to be free of it is a little dramatic.
Besides, if you have an apartment or a house, or even just a room of your own, you always can create a good ambience in it and retreat there to read, pray or rest, thus removing yourself from all the horrors of the Revolution. Further, if you have some friends who think as you do, you can meet with them and start a counter-revolutionary action.
Third, if you fight against the Revolution wearing what you should wear, you take a militant position to turn back the general tide. Instead of giving up, as you seem to have done, you should stick to the principles. To wear dignified attire – yes, suit and tie – makes a big impression on others. The members of TIA in Los Angeles do so normally and are often stopped in public places by simple people who express support and admiration for their way of dressing.
If we do not change the tide, at least we fight against it, which is the best prayer to offer to God as a demonstration for what we stand for. He is much more moved by seeing one of us doing what we should – in face of the bad customs and actions of almost everyone else – than by despairing complaints that we cannot bear the immoral dresses of our times.
Fourth, let us not forget that God never permits us to have a temptation greater than what we can support and conquer. He never denies the necessary graces for this struggle. So, if the cross seems to be too heavy, the solution is not to abandon it, but to pray more. Nothing should take away our supernatural hope in the help of Our Lord and Our Lady and make us lose our interior peace.
Here are some considerations to help you become a true Crusader in the difficult fight for Catholic good customs.
I stumbled across your response to Rev. Fr. Podržaj concerning swim attire and the beach. TIA's advice regarding going to beach and swimming pools is this: Do not go.
I am sorry to report that this sort of vulgarity, which I find more than disgusting, is far and wide no longer limited to the beach. It has overtaken the world in every space and sphere. I would have to live in an entirely isolated world - or be in the Twilight Zone where I'm the only one alive in my city to avoid it as I live in a major metropolitan city that is densely populated. Even the rural areas are not exempt.
I remember as a child in the 1960's riding in the car with my parents through certain sections of the city and seeing women dressed in skin-tight attire like most of the women today. It was shocking to me because I grew up in a family, albeit Protestant, where women and men dressed with modesty and true decorum. My mother did her best to explain what a whore or slut is and why they were dressed like that.
So, take it forward 60 years and 95% of the women I see nowadays, even the elderly women, are dressed like sluts or whores or lounge lizards, which is what some would call the loose women who frequented night clubs and lounges and truck stops back in the old days -- places where no Catholic would ever dare go.
Today I want to bang on the heads of those individuals who claim they go there to give "good example" to "win souls" -- they are giving bad example by going because those who go to those places are not religious and have no interest and might even be scandalized by their presence! How foolish! I learned a long time ago that dressing well and wearing a necktie has no influence on this horrid world. One can only take satisfaction in that it pleases God and keeps the old customs alive.
If how we dress is how we are, then we have an entire population of oversexed, over-sensual, spiritually bankrupt and empty people in the world today, as the men are now starting to wear leggings and skinny pants.
I apply the beach recommendation: If I should not go to the beach, then for the same reasons I can't go to the food market, go to work, walk down a busy city street, buy a car, go to classical music concert, attend a graduation, conduct any business or entertainment at all in public because, with the high volume of women in the workplace, women are usually wearing the most vulgar and indecent of attire even on the job, even in some professional positions, and it is tolerated.
I turn my head to avoid one only to inadvertently gaze on another. I try to keep my eyes low but doing so in a busy city street puts one in the same predicaments as one who texts while walking. It makes me angry and all I can do is offer my pains and anger and outrage in union with the Sacred Hearts because they see infinitely much more of this than I do and are infinitely more offended. It is horrible cross, indeed.
Speaking out on it is one thing but dealing with it on a practical level is another. The good will have much to suffer. We are at full war. I got into an awkward situation with a female physician's assistant at a major hospital who was dressed in lab coat over skin-tight black yoga pants and low cut t-shirt exposing much of her breasts. So I had to stare at the walls to avoid gazing at her, and she felt that I wasn't paying right attention and was insulted.
If you call a woman out on her vulgar attire, she will, of course, tell you that it's YOUR fault that the sight of her tempts you to sin. What does one do? Many Catholics I know are worn out from the anger and the outrage of being hit with it day and in and day out at every turn so they become desensitized and numb to it and have come to ignore it since one can't escape it. I try to retreat from it as much as I can by driving considerable miles to secluded areas where it's easy to avoid the sights and still relax and clear the mind.
C.R.
TIA responds:
C.R.,
We respect your affliction and we see that we have many points in common. But there is an emotional unbalance in your description, the fruit of an exaggeration of the reality that is leading you to depression and despair.
First, it is not accurate that people today are using the same dress in the cities that they wear on the beaches. Both are highly immoral and both represent a bold sexual aggression. But they are different. On the beaches people are tending toward outright nudism. In the cities they tend to a casual and immodest type of dress that leads to tribalism and Satanism.
Much of this clothing is very provocative without necessarily tending to nudism. The yoga or spandex pants to which you refer are meant to show the woman's body shape and trigger the man’s lust, but paradoxically they cover the body, different from the beach suits. So, the norm to not go to beaches and swimming pools is valid but should not necessarily be applied to the market and the other places to which you referred.
Second, no matter how bad the sexual aggression is in the cities, we can always find some places like churches, libraries, museums and cultural centers where we can find some escape from it. It seems to us that your statement that one has to drive miles to the wilderness to be free of it is a little dramatic.
Besides, if you have an apartment or a house, or even just a room of your own, you always can create a good ambience in it and retreat there to read, pray or rest, thus removing yourself from all the horrors of the Revolution. Further, if you have some friends who think as you do, you can meet with them and start a counter-revolutionary action.
Third, if you fight against the Revolution wearing what you should wear, you take a militant position to turn back the general tide. Instead of giving up, as you seem to have done, you should stick to the principles. To wear dignified attire – yes, suit and tie – makes a big impression on others. The members of TIA in Los Angeles do so normally and are often stopped in public places by simple people who express support and admiration for their way of dressing.
If we do not change the tide, at least we fight against it, which is the best prayer to offer to God as a demonstration for what we stand for. He is much more moved by seeing one of us doing what we should – in face of the bad customs and actions of almost everyone else – than by despairing complaints that we cannot bear the immoral dresses of our times.
Fourth, let us not forget that God never permits us to have a temptation greater than what we can support and conquer. He never denies the necessary graces for this struggle. So, if the cross seems to be too heavy, the solution is not to abandon it, but to pray more. Nothing should take away our supernatural hope in the help of Our Lord and Our Lady and make us lose our interior peace.
Here are some considerations to help you become a true Crusader in the difficult fight for Catholic good customs.
Cordially,
TIA correspondence desk