Two years ago several young men from our Young Adults Fellowship asked to meet with me. “We want to learn how to be men,” they said. So about six of us met one night to plan the best way to do that. Most of them (all “millennials”) came from broken homes, where Dad was either long gone or otherwise not able to educate his sons to be good fathers. Most young men today also thrash about in the swamps of various compulsive addictions, most of all internet pornography. Stability is also an issue: the jobs these men have in the big tech companies downtown fly them about from Beijing to London and back every other week (presumably in the name of slowing climate change), and so they have trouble being present to any local community. The essence of fatherhood, I think, is being there. To advance in the ways of manhood and paternity, I asked our young men to do three things: serve at the altar when you attend Mass, plan an outing with your brothers every other month, and join the Knights of Columbus.
Most of them did, in fact, join the Knights of Columbus. All of them came to the monthly meetings a few times, but all of them dropped off except one. And that one young man is engaged to be married. The other young men still help with events, and do the fun stuff with their brother Knights, but they won’t come to meetings. What they cannot tolerate in these meetings is the unpleasantness of listening to another guy talking. Meetings are a necessary evil, and I’m not looking forward to our Parish Council meeting tonight, even though we all like to be together. What everyone finds difficult in meetings is listening to another person who likes the sound of his or her own voice a bit too much.
To be a man, to be a husband and a father, and to be a priest, one must learn to listen patiently. Patient listening—letting someone finish—is quite difficult for people accustomed to entertainment “on demand.” If I am used to switching a podcast on and off at my pleasure, it’s very hard for me to sit through a 90-minute meeting listening to others drone on.
Isn’t it telling, therefore, that the one young man who can sit through a Knights of Columbus meeting has committed himself to a woman for the rest of his life? I look around at the other men at the Knights of Columbus meeting … they are all married, except for two of us priests, who have also had to learn how to listen patiently.
I’m sure the wives of these men have had to learn with even greater dexterity how to listen patiently. But as for our young men, who long to be happily married, but can not seem to tolerate listening to others speak seemingly interminably: perhaps the best preparation for marriage is a Knights of Columbus meeting.
Most of them did, in fact, join the Knights of Columbus. All of them came to the monthly meetings a few times, but all of them dropped off except one. And that one young man is engaged to be married. The other young men still help with events, and do the fun stuff with their brother Knights, but they won’t come to meetings. What they cannot tolerate in these meetings is the unpleasantness of listening to another guy talking. Meetings are a necessary evil, and I’m not looking forward to our Parish Council meeting tonight, even though we all like to be together. What everyone finds difficult in meetings is listening to another person who likes the sound of his or her own voice a bit too much.
To be a man, to be a husband and a father, and to be a priest, one must learn to listen patiently. Patient listening—letting someone finish—is quite difficult for people accustomed to entertainment “on demand.” If I am used to switching a podcast on and off at my pleasure, it’s very hard for me to sit through a 90-minute meeting listening to others drone on.
Isn’t it telling, therefore, that the one young man who can sit through a Knights of Columbus meeting has committed himself to a woman for the rest of his life? I look around at the other men at the Knights of Columbus meeting … they are all married, except for two of us priests, who have also had to learn how to listen patiently.
I’m sure the wives of these men have had to learn with even greater dexterity how to listen patiently. But as for our young men, who long to be happily married, but can not seem to tolerate listening to others speak seemingly interminably: perhaps the best preparation for marriage is a Knights of Columbus meeting.
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