“What is your main topic of conversation: at home? at work? socially? to young people? to people of a different age group than yourself?
Is your conversation consistent and in keeping with the events of the day, or do you concentrate on other people’s faults, other people’s habits, other people’s mistakes?
Do you monopolize the conversation with your own opinions, your own theories, your own misgivings?
Have you ever checked on your own vocabulary?
Do you use words that are foul to express what you want spoken or understood, because you lack the ability to speak intelligently or refined?
Do you use words that are bitter because of your mood?
Do you use other people as sounding boards with constant nagging or harassing, using words of complaint about everything?
Do you use words to show off what you feel will impress others with your background, or what lineage ‘you were told’ you were from?
Do you brag, putting ‘I’ in all your conversation?
What is your salute to other people: ‘Hello,’ ‘Hi,’ ‘How’re you,’ ‘How’s things,’ and then end it with the common phrase so loosely used, ‘Have a nice day’? When you say this, do you mean it, or is it merely said in a manner of habit?
Do you criticize others’ backgrounds such as nationality, or the type of work you feel they are not qualified for?
Do you constantly insinuate that certain heritage traits are ugly?
Do you joke about nationality?
Are you crude in your body language?
Do you allow your face to constantly show your unhappiness or your disgust?
Do you speak with indifference rather than with logic, charity and respect?
Do you attract people who are weak in their ability to converse intelligently? Is this attraction to you because of your own inability to converse properly?
How would you judge yourself on a scale designed by God regarding your personal habits, your speech habits, plus your habits in association with other people?
Do you consider yourself clever and an authority when you make it a habit to allude your digs at the nationality of another human being, feeling superior in heritage yourself?
If you were in a foreign country and became violently ill, your life depending upon a blood transfusion, and the only one available was a person of a different race, a different color, would you refuse the blood?
If you survived this crucial time, would you feel less a human being because you had the blood of another race within you, or would you be thankful to God for another chance to live?
Sometimes ignorance plays a very important part in some men’s lives. Rather than be constructive in their thinking, their association with other people, rather than directing their speech in a helpful, intelligent, genteel manner, what comes out of their mouth is in the modern term ‘gross’, bears little humor, and only calls for a lack of respect toward them for their inability to be charitable.
The world God created, every human being that God created, all have Purpose and all have Reason. Ask yourself: have you limited your association with other people in such a way that your conversation is never motivated to a higher degree of intention, but is based on common words that express only disrespect, a lack of charity, is never amusing, and bears no justice in its meaning?
As members of The Society Of Saint John Vianney, each man must understand that God created men of all races and all colors, and God has allowed each culture a place in His World, thus God respects each culture for how He created it. As members of The Society Of Saint John Vianney, it is your responsibility and your privilege to not just talk, but to be example of what this Society truly stands for, each man to stand in dignity, respect, and have for his Goal, Sainthood, no matter what heritage God chose for each of you.
Example from the men of The Society Of Saint John Vianney is of the utmost importance, and you must always remember your example is in your approach to everything, your action in everything, your appearance in everything, your charity in everything, the respect you show in everything, and the justice you reflect in everything and in every place you are.
It is said that Christ came to the world through Hebrew heritage. It is also said that He spoke to all people when He walked upon the earth. Logic says that all were not Jews, that His Words fell upon the ears of other races of people. He did not say to certain individuals, ‘I have come just for the Hebrew race, I have come just to save certain people, I have come favoring certain ones, I have come because I love and The Father loves only a particular color of mankind.’ No, He brought Christianity to the whole world. He emphasized charity amongst all men, and in His very existence showed much charity to the Romans who crucified Him.
In our time today, we have developed mass confusion on morality. In so many ways we have forgotten the meaning of True Christianity. Immorality in many ways is the opposite of Christianity because it defies all that is good, and it usurps the dignity of what God meant Christianity to be. Needless to say, in two thousand years all races and colors of men, women and children have invoked through prayer, their needs, hopes, ambitions, desires, dreams and goals, to God and to His Son Who came to the world as a Hebrew.
Some of our Great Saints were from lineage other than Hebrew. Knowing this, common sense and logic tells us that God, in His Charity and His Love for man, respects, loves, and has the Goal of Sainthood for all of mankind.
When sick jokes refer to a particular race of men they are just that, sick. Never allow yourself to become a victim of name-calling, belittling, acting or speaking in a demeaning lack of charity toward a nationality that you feel tags this person in an underling way in the eyes of other people. Such jesting does not really impress the onlookers or the listeners. In many cases it leaves a bad feeling and many times what could have been a good relationship, bears a bit of caution.
P.S. This Lesson is not meant for everybody, somebody, anybody, or nobody. This Lesson is meant for you.”
