Perpetual Adoration » Catholic Boys

Are you a Hero or a Villain?

Harry — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 01:45:27 +0000

When I was 12 years old, I experienced two events that changed the course of my life: (1) I got my own paper route; and (2) my mom drove me to the bank and opened up a checking account in my name. The reason she opened the account was because she didn’t want the job of writing a check every week to the local newspaper (Peoria Journal Star). When we got home, she taught me [...] Read More »

Letting The Genie Out Of The Bottle

Harry — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 01:54:23 +0000

The year was 1988. Georgette and I had four children – Harry, 7; Anna, 5; Maria, 4; and Laura, 1. During the last week in May, I told my three older children that if the weather cooperated, we were going to plant a garden on Saturday. When I told them, they all got excited and started looking forward to the adventure.

Although the weather forecast was for rain, the sun was shining on Saturday morning. I [...] Read More »

A Change In Behavior To The Dark Side

Harry — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 02:36:08 +0000

I’ve only been to one high school reunion since graduating in May of 1975. I never had the desire to attend one until I received a letter in 1995 inviting me to the 20 year reunion. After I received the invitation, I tracked down my best friend from high school. He was living in Chicago at the time, was married, and had two children. Like me, he had not gone to any of the previous [...] Read More »

A Madman & A Student

Harry — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:33:09 +0000

Last week I told you I had three observations about the Arizona killings that I wanted to share with you. My first observation (“All Behavior Originates And Proceeds From Beliefs”) was covered in last week’s article. If you didn’t get a chance to read the article, you can find it here.

Here’s my second observation:

OBSERVATION #2:But For The Grace Of God Go I

Most people don’t know this, but when I was in eighth grade at St. [...] Read More »

Inside the Head of a Teenager

Harry — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 02:03:07 +0000

Last week Parade magazine had a cover story by Judith Newman about how the teenage brain works. The headline of the story was: “What’s Really Going On Inside Your Teen’s Head.” The sub headline was: “They’re moody. Secretive. Spacy. Infuriating! Now scientists are starting to figure out why.”

I didn’t pay any attention to the article until my 19 year old daughter, Mary Rose, approached me while I was sitting at the kitchen table trying to [...] Read More »

The Critic & The EXTREME Parent

Harry — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:22:45 +0000

On a Friday night about eight years ago, I got myself into an argument with one of my college age children (“the college student”). The argument centered around a certain movie that I thought was morally objectionable. At one point, the college student blurted out: “Dad, most Catholics would not agree with you about this movie. You’re too extreme when comes to things like this. I can only think of two other people who would [...] Read More »

A Revolution Against Fatherhood

Harry — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:39:48 +0000

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word revolution as “a sudden, radical, or complete change … a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something.”

There was a sudden, radical, and fundamental change that took place in the United States during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. That change involved the complete and total reversal of state laws that required a showing of good cause before a person could obtain a divorce. After the change [...] Read More »

Religion On A Sleeve

Harry — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 23:11:02 +0000

A Son and His Father

About 22 years ago, during a discussion with one of my brothers about religion, the issue of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary came up. When I tried to point out the reasons why it was important to pray a Rosary every day, my brother got irritated with me and told me he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

In a final attempt to try to convince him that he [...] Read More »

Say Hello To Your New “Friend”

Harry — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 23:30:14 +0000

In last week’s article, A Prowler In The House, I threw down the gauntlet and challenged fathers to start conducting surprise inspections of their son’s iPods, cell phones, computers, and other devices.*

After I wrote the article, I kept hearing the same imaginary questions being repeated over and over in my mind: “Yea, right Harry. How do you expect me to go up to my 16 or 17 year old son and tell him I’m going [...] Read More »

A Prowler In The House

Harry — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 23:46:13 +0000

About 10 years ago I stopped by another attorney’s office to talk to him about a case we were working on together. After we were finished discussing the case, I asked him how his two sons were doing. He responded by telling me that he had recently caught his 18 year old son viewing pornography on the internet. I asked him how he handled the situation and he said he told his son it was [...] Read More »