I am not certain what you mean – I do not hear much about self control going on at modern sporting events? What do you mean?
Have you understood what I wrote? Let me rephrase.
I said that effeminacy was in giving into the passions, which was softness and slavery. Effeminacy and softness are pretty much of the same meaning, a bit repetitive there… in Catholic terminology. And since it’s a vice, slavery.
And that the world teaches one is manly when one gives into passion, rather than governs and restrains it. No? Than ‘manly’ man of the world can’t wait to give into ‘romance’, eat a huge meal gluttonously, and behave rudely and crudely to satisfy himself, less like a man of reason than an animal. But the ‘manly’ man of Christianity is quite the opposite. His desires are different and he restrains the vices.
He governs and conquers all softness and excessive desires, and has the virtue of severity when it need be applied. The forgotten virtue of severity – it is a -virtue-.
Try the Summa on the vice of effeminacy. That might do it!
'You know the temper of the times – how many there are who love to live delicately and shrink from whatever requires manhood and generosity; who, when ailments come, discover in them sufficient reasons for not obeying the salutary laws of the Church, thinking the burden laid upon them more than they can bear, when they are told to abstain from certain kinds of food or to fast during a few days in the year. It is not to be wondered at if, weakened by these habits of indulgence, they gradually give themselves up body and soul to the more imperious passions.
It is therefore necessary to recall to the paths of moderation those who have fallen or who are likely to fall through this sort of effeminacy.
Therefore those who speak to the people should lay it down persistently and clearly that according not only to the law of the Gospel, but even to the dictates of natural reason, a man is bound to govern himself and keep his passions under strict control, and moreover, that sin cannot be expiated except by penance.’
Pope Leo XIII
‘And so as we ought to be careful not to fall into dangerous effeminacy through desire for bodily gratification, nor indulge ourselves with eating before the right time nor take too much, so also we ought to refresh ourselves with food and sleep at the proper time even if we dislike it.’
Abba Moses
