[Music] even father son Holy Ghost amen hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners seat of wisdom Nym father son Holy Ghost amen this conference of is on husband and father and the reason I'm doing this particular conference is because I think that the male identity in our given culture is currently in a crisis even though you particularly might not be in a crisis the male identity I think is in a crisis because most males simply do not understand what it may actually means to be a man and this is an important point because as you'll read in the paper which I gave you in my own estimation the collapse among the roles between men and women is principally the fault of men but you can look at that in there there are some neural principle there are two principal duties of the husband and father and they are two first the first one is to provide that is ESDS provide materially and spiritually which we'll see in a little bit but he's to provide physically and materially for his wife so that she can rare children without having to work in other words because of the proximity which children must have the mother while they're young and also it's necessary for the husband to work in order to so that the woman can actually take care of the children and it's also necessary so that she can fulfill her domestic duties because it's incumbent upon her at least the Pope's have always said this to provide the proper dispositions within the home and to take care of the home and so as a result he has to be able to provide for her so that she can fulfill that duty and obligation of hers I mentioned last night it's actually her right to be provided for why because I see because she has the duty and the obligation of taking care of the home he also has to provide for his children since they have no means of providing for themselves which usually is very painfully evident particularly when they start getting older and driving and what money and things like this the second principal duty of the husband and father is to protect and this is done again on a physical level and on a spiritual level obviously he has to protect his wife and children physically because by divine ordinance and as God damed to establish the fact that men would be physically stronger in general obviously there are some cases in which women are stronger but those are the exceptions actually prove the rule and so as a result God had intended from the beginning that men would physically protect his wife and for his children so you have the that's on the natural level but then of course there is on the spiritual level and on a spiritual level he also must provide and protect I mentioned in the conference which I gave to the handout that the father has a spiritual authority and a husband insofar as his obligations to the children not merely physical but also spiritual and so he also enjoys a spiritual authority insofar as it pertains to the father determine the cult of a family in other words it pertains to the father to ultimately determine which religion they're going to follow this is why front Leah for instance in the new code of canon law it states that when a wife and a woman get married unless by choice of the potato court of the husband the wife normally becomes part of the right of the husband in other words if he if she is a Byzantine right she attends the Byzantine Rite and he is Roman right as he goes to the old Mass or something like that then she is to switch rides unless by mutual agreement they both joined the Byzantine Rite or he joins the Byzantine Rite so it's up to him to determine the cult and this of courses is rooted not just in the fact that he's physically stronger but the very structure of of the male disposition and Constitution gives him an ability to carry a certain Authority with the children children always know at least when I was growing up you might mouth off a little bit to your mom but if you mouth off to your father you're going to pay a heavier price for it in fact my mom would always say we can have haddicans home you know and so as a result people knew that that's where somewhat where the bug stopped and this is a it's a natural inclination which God gave to children and to even to women incidentally which I'm going to be talking to them about but which is why if they don't follow this natural inclination they're miserable but God implanted them this natural inclination to respect the authority of the father and so as a result he enjoys a certain spiritual authority and this means that he gets to determine ultimately the cult that is the religion because the religion is two twofold one it renders due worship to God and determines proper conduct and so as a result it's up to the father to determine the cult and also to make sure that the people in his family are actually worshipping God and it do matter that doesn't mean ultimately that he gets to choose God determines it and then he makes sure that everyone follows that since the husband was providing protect for his family not just physically but spiritually those things which can be psychologically morally spiritually harmful for his family he enjoys a spiritual power in other words he has to protect his family not just physically but psychologically morally and spiritually psychologically in the sense of he has to make sure that there's going to be any type of him that's going to cause psychological harm to his family has to make sure it stays out of the home or that you know for instance if there if there's various things like for instance he notices that that his children are watching something on TV which could actually be psychologically harmful to them he has to keep them away from it and the same thing applies morally it's his responsibility ultimately to keep things like pornography and things like that out of the home and spiritually it's his responsibility ultimately to make sure that the children and the wife fulfill their obligations in justice to God that is that they go to Mass that they say their prayers and things of this sort it is for this reason that prayers sufferings and good works offered God for the spiritual protection of Providence of his family by the father are of key importance of course it pertains to the father first and foremost protect us from children spiritually since he has the authority the father more than the wife has the capacity to merit grace for his wife to lead a life of virtue it's I think it's kind of ironic that it is my own estimation that women have a more natural disposition towards the virtue of piety than men but it's more rooted in the fact that they have a more stronger tendency towards the emotional life which is a necessary thing women have to be able to empathize emotionally in order to be able to rear children that's the proper order of course they're not supposed to take it and apply to their husband they're supposed to it's there that mechanism is there principally for the sake of properly being of the children but even though women might have enact a kind of a more of emotional or a natural disposition towards piety it is a fact that the father a spiritual head of the family can actually merit more for his wife than she does and so it's not his place to coast on her efforts in fact in a certain sense it's the other way around she's supposed to be able to rely on the work of her husband to merit the graces necessary for her and for the rest of the family whenever a husband fails to pray or to offer up his sufferings or to do good works to merit Grace's for his wife and family he fails in the most important task husband and father say general impression is that the most important task with a husband and father is to provide materially or financially that's not the case that is important and it's essential to his identity as husband and father but it's not the most important thing the most important thing is that he provides for them spiritually this also means that he has to merit the graces for his wife that she is capable of leading a life of virtue according to her state and this also applies to the children so if your if your life is becoming difficult or if your children are becoming difficult you have it's your responsibility to do something about it to merit the praises and they this starts when the kids are young of course most of you here old enough your poverty of children are much older but the fact of the matter is is that this is something which the minute a man becomes a husband and father you should be praying to merit the graces for his wife and for any children he might have from that point on he should be doing those things necessary for them when the father sees a more spiritual Fault in his wife or child he fails to provide for them if he merely template admonishes in France if he tells him look we shouldn't be doing that I don't want you watching these things on TV or whatever the case may be or I don't want you looking at them you know / ography on the internet or whatever the fact of the matter is is that he just tells them that but doesn't do anything to provide the grace so that it strengthens them so that they don't do it he fails in the most important function as a man rather once he sees the defect he must do spiritually he can to merited grace as well as to direct his children and wife through his commands to leave him to virtue he must protect his family spiritual not only by not allowing you know these things into the family or into the home but to it that he must not but by his prayer suffering if it works he has to do whatever he can to pray to keep the demons from affecting the family but this comes in two ways first the demonic will attack the younger children and that life in order to try and subvert the proper authority of the husband and that is he seeks that because if he can subvert the authority of the husband then he undermines the principle determine a determiner or the person who establishes her or solidifies what is to be the conduct that is to be carried on in the family and so as a result it's easier to support the children in their behavior the second thing is is that he has to recognize the male does within a family that the first person the demons are going to go after is him but the wife they're going to go after him now this is post fall before the fall he went after he went after Eve and that has to do with specific functions which women have he knew that he could it was more easy to get into to dissolve the unity or to get them to to fall by get by entering into this particular mechanism within the life which is within the woman which is to see a material thing is pleasing that's more uncommon on a woman that it is on a man at least if he's a true man and so as a result he did it that way but after the fall the for the person he really wants to bring down as the husband so that's the first person he's going to attack now if he can't get to him then he'll go after his wife to try and subvert his husband and if that doesn't work he goes after the children to try and do it so it's his obligation principally to make sure that the demons stay at bay and this comes through again praying suffering and doing good works it also means for instance that it's his responsibility to make sure that the house is blessed preferably on a yearly basis for instance they usually do it at the Epiphany but also if he sees that there are particular difficulties within the home he should ask the priest to come and bless the home and to do what's necessary this isn't too common but it's becoming more and more common and that is with the whys of with the rise of witchcraft you're starting to see strange things happens there was a case of a priest who had to exorcise a home three times because of the fact that there was a warlock in the neighborhood and so it retains to the husband that if he sees these types of things obviously you have to have a certain balance here d-done satan's not under every rock he's under most rocks but not over every rock and so as a result you have to have a certain balance and a certain clarity of judgment which is incidentally again why it's going comment upon a male to make judgments in these matters than a female saying Thomas makes an interesting observation he says the reason a woman cannot be a priest he says this in his commentary on is on Corinthians is because he exercises reason in a different manner than a woman now that doesn't mean that the way a woman exercises a reason is necessarily bad provided it's in accordance with virtue but what it means is is that men think more rationally or think more according to reason rather than more according to emotion because again women are designed to think more put into motion for the sake of the children whereas men are designed to think more rationally because they have to take into consideration the good of the whole family now obviously that means if women are contend to think more emotionally it means that they tend to think more in terms of themselves whereas men if they think if they're truly men they'll think more rationally and therefore think in terms of the whole family this is why from for a male it's unmanly to be concerned about himself or to be to be self-absorbed he has to be concerned about his family first and foremost because that's the function of a male but that means therefore that it's more incumbent upon him to make judgements about spiritual matters and things like that within the home it's also it is also because God endowed men with a greater capacity to think more rationally it's that which is the foundation for his authority in the natural law order and that's why a man man has to strive to get his own appetites and emotions under control and to gain virtue so that he can direct his family more it also means that because he has the spiritual authority in the spiritual power he has a greater capacity to to ward off the demonic than his wife he has a greater strength on a spiritual level it's analogous to a priest obviously if a layman prays to try and get rid of of a demon it's not as efficacious that if a priest comes in and says the prayers of the church and that type of thing and saying this in like manner the same thing applies to men this also is because of the fact that even though the demons trying to subvert God's order in the end they ultimately have to submit to it so even though they might try and repel against and fight against it eventually if the father does his job of praying and suffering and doing those things necessary for the sake of his family eventually the demons have to bow to that because ultimately his authority the authority of the father is derived from God that's why it says in the Old Testament it also says and it says ultimately all authority is derived from God and so the authority that the father has he has to he comes from God and so as a result it's more efficacious that doesn't mean of course the wife can just sit back and do nothing it means though that the principle obligations are on the side of the husband I think that is one of the reasons why I become most alarmed in certain cultures where the men will sit outside smoking during Mass and the women are in praying the culture would be better off if it was the other way around the women were outside smoking the men were inside praying because it's more efficacious for them and I think that it's it's a great feat on the side of Satan to be able to convince people that religion and piety are more of a female thing than a male thing in the sense that you know you know that's okay for women but for men you know we don't do that type of thing that's nonsense it should be it should be in fact the other way around one other aspect I'd like to talk about with respect to the husband and the father is in the context of what st. Paul says in Ephesians first let me set the ground of the context for this a little bit when Adam and Eve fell the punishment after the fall fit the crime that they committed so what does this mean in the context of the woman when she ate the apple outside the proper dominion of her husband it meant therefore that the punished fit the crime that meant that she will that women after that and Eve and all women after that will strive to try and dominate their husband and this is this is something that they have to work on this in other words they supported the right order and so as a result there's an inclination towards that disorder on the side of the male and of course she gives it to her husband and says hearing this you know what Adam should have done is say sorry Eve you're on your own but he didn't so what did he do he took the lead of his wife so as a result men will have a hard time doing that the fact that their women would that their wives will try and try and subordinate them if you can it creates a lot of tension it also means that with respect to Adam the punishment fits the crime you listen to Eve now you're going to listen to her she's going to nag you and drive you bananas and that is one of the things that we have to keep in the context that we have to keep in mind that the disorder the perfections of a man and of a woman are there from the natural law and also God helps with grace in order to follow them but the punishments from original sin were directly that were fit the crime because the crime is directly contrary to the natural inclinations that God placed us so as a result now there's this tendency to actually subvert that order which of course today is making great strides with the feminist movement okay so you have that but what happens is is as as the woman tries to dominate her husband he tries to distance himself from her psychologically it says in the Old Testament it says parents do not nag your children least they lose heart and if what this means is that if you keep nagging somebody eventually they just want to get away from it because you know the harping drives me nuts well it's the same thing in the context of the husband and the wife in the sense that if she nags him constantly she he becomes distanced on the other hand if he becomes distanced in relationship to her then there will be a temptation on her side to try and because she wants the husband's attention to try and control and dominate him so what is st. Paul saying st. Paul says women be submissive your husband's okay there's that part but then he says to men men you must love your wives and why is that because the proper effect of love again is Union and so as a result if you love your wife you won't want to distance yourself from her you're gonna go cold with her you'll extend the proper affections as a result provided your wife is trying to be virtuous that activity on your side will dispose her because again there's a natural mechanism in women that when they're treated properly by men they want to subordinate themselves to the man so if they if the man does that if he loves his wife and extends to her the proper affections then she will be more disposed to actually being submissive to the husband incidentally this is a command from God because st. Paul is saying was under divine inspiration and why did God command it precisely because he knew how men and women weren't and so men have to do this in order to make their wives become more submissive if you know you're doing everything spiritually but you're not extending the proper affections or if you're not loving your wife and then you wonder why she's so insubordinate you only have yourself to blame so you can't ignore your wife I have a friend of mine who actually has a he's the envy of the neighborhood at least of the men in the neighborhood the lives look on it of course with suspicion because he has this wonderful house and then on this property about 30 feet from the house he has this barn which he's kind of set up shop in so he's able to go and escape there so he becomes the envy of all the men in the neighborhood and of course he does ironically though he does actually spend the proper affections to his wife but you have to be very careful about doing things which actually distance you from from your wife the other thing is to his children recognize this and as soon as they see this split within the family they will use it to their advantage and you have to be very disadvantaged actually in one sense you have to be very careful it also means that when he loves his wife sequence good for her and so as a result he'll consider his welfare and the welfare the children over his own welfare the proper you know they always used to say that the proper virtue of a man is fortitude and fortitude is the virtue by which we engage in things that are difficult now we see this physically because men can deal with things that are more physically difficult than women as a rule but it principally has to be something more internal the most perfect man in the sense is the man who has perfect self-discipline he has perfect self-control which means even when it comes to arduous things outside of himself he will do what's necessary but he has to have perfect self-discipline because he has to have why does he have to have self-discipline so he still has clarity of mind if he doesn't have self-discipline he can to easily be carried off in his judgment and other things so he has to you know he can be carried off his emotions or appetites wherever the case may be and so he has to have perfect self-discipline and this desire for self-discipline and striving for self-discipline on the side of the male should be motivated by his love for his wife why because if he has a perfect self-discipline then he can serve his wife more perfectly in the old right in fact there is a renewal of vows there's different ones if I'm not mistaken but in one of them it makes the observation that the principal thing that a husband does is to give his life for his wife and children st. Thomas says that the principal end of the virtue of fortitude is to be able to sustain death that is a person can validly enter into death for the sake of the good and this is why in the context of the family he has to be willing to give his life for his children this comes in two ways one officer can come then and for his wife it can come in the content it can come in the way of if he if he's willing to protect his physically his wife and children and to the point of willing to die for them for their well-being that is in fact his obligation before God it also means that he has to be willing to die to self in order to protect them spear actually this is why for instance when a husband beats is why for a few you know he says harsh words to her here we're not talking about a legitimate admonition done in charity but we're just talking you know bad-mouthing or things like this he fails in the most essential function as a father they know a nawat and a husband in the sense that he's supposed to be protecting his wife not only physically but spiritually and psychologically and so as a result when a husband causes psychological damage to his wife he's failing as a man he should also consult her from time to time now this is not a requirement in one sense in the sense of he doesn't have to listen to her counsel as he's ultimately they had but one of the integral parts of prudence is to take counsel if people don't take counsel they just act stupidly this is why children are always or you know particularly teenagers they think because once they go through puberty they get a kind of a certain certain view or perspective and so as a resurgent deepening and self-consciousness so as a result they think they're capable of making all these judgements for themself and so they do these stupid things why because even though they might have the ability to make judgments they don't have the experience necessary to be able to take proper counsel and figure out what to do this is why they need to rely on the experience of their parents so that the parents would say no don't do that why because the parents know that if you do this you're going to get burned so they have to rely on the counsel parents in like manner a husband at times must take counsel with his wife out of the dictates of prudence now that means of course that he still has to make a judgment on what he says but to not take counsel through with his wife can at time be imprudent particularly when it comes to you know how the children are doing or things like that he must also recognize in that - in consulting her sometimes but also in Prudential judgments to understand the limits he needs to know you know what her spiritual and physical limits are so that when he you know commands her to do certain things when he when he tries to admonish her or things like that he knows the degree that he can do this so that she that she'll be able to be led along so you have to take people where they're out of course to leave them where they need to be if she is like his body as Saint Paul makes its analogous at this analogy that a woman is like a body and relationship to the husband like to tree like the church is a relationship to Christ he will bring her under submission just as perfect self-discipline and a man means to have a you know I have our you know the bodily things under control like emotions and things like that but he won't do it for his benefit he brings his wife in her submission for her benefits because why because of the natural inclination she'll be happier I've said this before and I'll say it again probably until I'm dead but I had this friend of mine he bought a house so he was looking for a house both he and his wife wanted a house out in the country well his wife saw I his wife saw a house at home she just had to have it so he said ok so he bought it for as soon as I heard that I said you're an idiot and I said because what's going to happen is in two weeks who both going to be miserable well of course in two weeks they were miserable she wanted to move and go out to the well at that stage was too late to couldn't afford to move to another house and so I told me you haven't learned the golden principle the golden principle is you never give your wife what she wants you give her what your wife what you know will make her happy and that's an important thing that not it that only that applies to men it applies to women too you don't always have to give men what makes them happy everybody makes a or make what they want they have to given what they know it's going to make them happy and that means you have to know what is in the courts with the natural law that is what's according to virtue how do we know it's the courts than Allah by knowing what is virtuous therefore we see in all of this that the principal duty of the the principal duty and obligation of the husband is self-discipline of course but that can only come through self-denial which I've talked about already in the context of marriage the husband has to really set the example of self-denial you can't expect your wife to engage in self-denial for instance when she spends money and things like that if you're not so you have to you have to be willing to do that okay also and as the last comment most of you go to the traditional mass upper zone now what this means is of course is that you know it might be considered passe but the roles of men and women were established and designed for established by God based upon the design of human nature design which comes in two forms of course it comes in feminine nature and masculine nature so as a result we have to be willing to as traditionalist riku the traditional understanding of these things because it's only in that context that the moral stability of society will main intact it's because men have capitulated their duty to spiritually and morally protect not only themselves but society and not and they're one of their families but they've capitulated that on the side of the society because it just let women do whatever they want and so as a result once that happens once the male's capitulate their authority then as a result the rack since men report designed to act more rationally as a result the society ceases being more rational it becomes more emotional and so as a result of traditions if we don't like the current state of society then the way we do that is by raising our family properly that's how we do it as males if you'll kneel I'll give you a bless em in addiction a omnipotentis Patri civilians fitted to sanction superval such money at semper you