 FROM THE EDITOR
It’s a good feeling to see the winter issue finally ready to go.
This should actually have been the Christmas issue, but our publisher
has been obliged to cut down to tri-annual publication. We’re fatter --
there are four more pages this time -- but less frequent.
As I sit in my upstairs workroom, the north wind is howling and
actually rattling the window. It is an archaic sound, something
this house has heard for over one hundred years. That’s a long
time.
My cold hands are typing away on a computer keyboard, words appearing
on my new monitor while the old house still stands. One hundred
years ago, I would have been lucky to own a typewriter.
Publishing would have been much harder than it is now.
But what about the words on the paper? Would they have been so
very different from those you see here? Well, yes and no. Our magazine
is for thoughtful Catholics of all ages, though our readers are mostly
high school students and their families. Certainly the world of
the computer is not the world of the occasional typewriter and lead
typesetting. But I hope we would have printed true things then as
we try to do now.
Our readers face more pressures than thier ancestors did, but human
nature has not changed. Where are those students now -- the youngsters
who studied Latin and Geometry in the year our house was built?
We hope they are with God. What more can we hope for anyone?
The friendship of God -- it is everything. Was salvation easier
for those who have gone before us? I wonder. They had
choices -- and we have choices. They could say, with the fallen
angel, “I will not serve” -- and God would respect their decision.
The difference is that today the cry of the fallen angel rings
everywhere -- on television, in movies, in books and magazines.
But for all that are we any weaker than people of the past? If
they had been exposed to the same filth that clouds our lives, what
would they have done? We cannot know the answer.
What we do know is that they studied hard subjects in school, read and
enjoyed books we find challenging now, learned the Catechism and
discussed serious subjects with one another.
The youth of today are no less intelligent than those of the early
1900’s -- or of any other century. It is adults who often fail to
see this. Education does not need to be “dumbed” down.
Teenagers don’t need to be “jollied” into learning. And religion
does not need to be reinterpreted to make it more “relevant” to flabby
minds. It is time to stop insulting our youth.
Educators, priests, parents -- you must answer to God for what you
teach the young. Will you give them sweetened pablum when they
crave solid food? Will you educate them for moral and
intellectual mediocrity? Truth has not changed. A good education
is an education that challenges the mind, that promotes growth
and self respect. It’s in your hands -- don’t fumble it. Colleen Drippe’
Updated 7-05-2007, Feast of Anthony Mary Zacharias
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