Sirach, Chapter 6, Verse 16-17
16 Faithful friends are life-saving medicine; those
who fear God will find them. 17 Those who fear the Lord enjoy stable
friendship, for as they are, so will their neighbors be.
It has been said a man is never
poor who has friends. If making friends has always been difficult for you try
these tips that I gleamed from an old public domain book authored by, Nella Braddy Henney, published in 1922, The Book of Business Etiquette, that
has some timeless advice.
·
People are now more dependent on one another
than they have ever been before, and the need for confidence is greater. We
cannot depend upon one another unless we can trust one another.
·
We ask you, then, to remember that our
growth—and your opportunities—depend not only upon the friends we make, but the
enemies we do not make.
·
Remember names and faces.
·
Listen to and help those around you.
·
“We are all nobly born; fortunate those who know
it; blessed those who remember.”
·
No man has a right to impose his opinions and
prejudices, his sufferings and agonies, on other people. It is the part of a
coward to whine.
·
A lack of understanding, which is a form of
ignorance, is the cause of nearly all discourtesy.
Married
love should be a union of two friends but because of human nature each friend
in order to give themselves fully to the other must practice the virtue of
chastity. To do otherwise is to invite unhappiness.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
II. THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY
2337 Chastity means the successful
integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in
his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the
bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when
it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the
complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. The virtue of chastity
therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
The
integrity of the person
2338 The chaste person maintains the
integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures
the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It
tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.
2339 Chastity includes an
apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The
alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he
lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of
conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within,
and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains
such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses
forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and
skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end."
2340 Whoever wants to remain faithful
to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means
for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations
that confront him, obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral
virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we
are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented
into multiplicity."
2341 The virtue of chastity comes under
the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and
appetites of the senses with reason.
2342 Self-mastery is a long and
exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It
presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life. The effort required can be
more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed
during childhood and adolescence.
2343 Chastity has laws of growth which
progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. "Man
day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows,
loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth."
2344 Chastity represents an eminently
personal task; it also involves a cultural effort, for there is "an
interdependence between personal betterment and the improvement of
society." Chastity presupposes respect for the rights of the person, in
particular the right to receive information and an education that respect the
moral and spiritual dimensions of human life.
2345 Chastity is a moral virtue. It is
also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort.132 The Holy Spirit
enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of
Christ.
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