Quote from: TheKnightVigilant

Quote from: ggreg

You will find there are LOTS of old people, handicapped people, ugly people who will be more than happy to keep you company.  Join an athletics club, ramblers association, learn a few jokes before each outing and memorise them.  You will have no shortage of dinner invitations.

Are you for real? You're saying a young man in the prime of his life should be contented spending his time in the company of old, retarded, disabled, and ugly people?

If he had a spiritual vocation for the works of charity, sure, but for the average young man, this idea is laughable.

I think that you may have unintentionally proven the point.   :geezer:  You whippersnappers think enjoying the company of "inferior" people lessens your chances of developing social skills, learning how to be a friend.

I was always convinced that the reason they played music so ridiculously loud in night spots is because if the young people there were forced to converse with each other, they would realise how shallow and stupid and empty headed they were.

Why else would you need music at such ear-splitting volumes?

.

A word of caution:  it's not just a young person's problem.  

And by thinking this way, we would choose to undertake a problem much worse than the problem that a deformed person has, or that a retarded person has, or that a terminally ill person has.

People who think this way when they're young develop habits that will last a lifetime.  They will still think like that when they're 65.  In fact, it's quite natural to keep thinking like a child until you're old and feeble, having never put away the things of a child (as St. Paul says).  

What's really pathetic is to see someone approaching 70 and in poor health and never married, but still thinking like he's a teenager or in his 20's, still hoping to 'hook up' with a young, good-looking girl, like he was just released from active duty in the military.  The only problem is, he's already had many fornicating flings and even has lost track of his illegitimate son.

At some point, real maturity entails your recognition that not everything is run on a time clock, and you don't have to be racking up "credit" for every action you do.  At some point, you would grow up to realize that when you give of yourself, your efforts are received by those in need for the Glory of God, and God, who sees your good intentions, shall reward you.  

You're saying a young man in the prime of his life should be contented spending his time in the company of old, retarded, disabled, and ugly people?

If he had a spiritual vocation for the works of charity, sure, but for the average young man, this idea is laughable.

This is a tragic outlook, but nonetheless true.  This is actually quite NATURAL, since we suffer from our fallen nature.  However, this is an outlook that is deplorable in the eyes of God, and that's the viewpoint we need to recognize and to which we must conform our lives.

We must conform our lives to God's viewpoint, and we must recognize reality in the eyes of God, how God sees these things.  

God created the old, the retarded, the disabled, and ugly people.  Their crosses they must bear last a lifetime.  They cannot be free of them by an act of will.  

But those of us who would stand back and scoff at the idea of "spending his time in their company" are practicing a judgment, a choice in their free will, a decision to abhor people so affected -- and that is a deliberate act that puts us into a way of thinking that is of our own CHOICE, our own DECISION, and as such it is a thing we can choose to get free of.  

You are able to free yourself from this depraved way of thinking.  And it is truly a depravity because it is nothing Christian.  

All the saints of history have been caring and charitable toward those who suffer.  Their day would be incomplete without at least a few minutes directed toward the relief of someone else's suffering.  Perhaps the greatest modern exponent of this principle was Padre Pio, who established the Hospital called, "Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza," "House for the Relief of Suffering" in Pietrelcina, Italy, which still thrives today.  


There are many kinds of suffering, however, and curiously, one of them is the suffering that some of us deliberately choose to undertake as a CONSEQUENCE of our refusal to be involved with the suffering of others.  This is a willful suffering that we undertake because we are deceiving ourselves;  and perhaps much of the suffering that we would thereby bring onto ourselves we will be experiencing in Purgatory, that is, if we are fortunate enough to even make it there in the first place.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

But the point is, for a young man, hanging out with "old people, handicapped people, ugly people" is no substitute for the companionship and approval of those of his own age, his social equals. Most would be driven to despair if they could find no companionship other than among the old, the handicapped, and the exceptionally ugly. That's liable to make a man with confidence issues feel even worse about himself.

It would be impossible for anyone who has actually taken the time to get involved with charity work to make such a statement.  There is nothing whatsoever "depressing" about helping those of lesser fortune.  All I can say is you really ought to give it a try and reserve judgment until you have some real experience in this topic.

There are liberals who have found out how rewarding it is to share one's love with the handicapped.  They might be liberals and have little faith as many "trads" see them, but by their works you would have to wonder what their faith is really made of.  By their fruits you shall know them.  And faith without works is dead.

.