Last week a few youth from my congregation took a trip to St. Louis. I was able to accompany them and help to show them around town and to tour the Seminary. As many of you know, youth trips typically have at least one issue even if it’s minor. We had such an incident. Nothing was earth shattering, and what happened wasn’t intentional. It did provide the opportunity for teaching, and I was not going to miss that chance.

The time came to sit the boys involved down while the others went away and did something else. I told them that all they were going to hear in the next several years about growing up (they’re entering high school) is how much harder it is to be a girl than a boy. Now, I’ll admit. I know nothing of being a girl or the difficulties and challenges girls go through in middle school and high school. Despite what our society is trying to tell us, I never will. One of the difficulties for girls is that they’re somewhat forced into womanhood (or at least young womanhood) as their bodies begin to change and very noticeably physically change. What’s difficult in that area for boys? A few pimples and a voice that cracks every now and then? Oh, the horror!

When I was making this point with the boys, I said, “They’re right. Being a girl is harder than being a boy…if you’re going to stay boys.” In that case, being a boy is easy. You’ve already mastered it! You can run around having no respect and living as if the world revolves around you. You need not have a care in the world because someone will always be right behind you to clean up the mess. That kind of life is easy, and it’s the life boys have if they never grow up. It might seem appealing to the boy, but it’s not to be desired.

That’s not to say that being a boy is bad. It’s just not the end goal. The goal is to grow into a man, and this is where things get exponentially harder for boys. First of all, becoming a man demands that we begin to take responsibility for our actions and that we understand that we’re not the center of the universe. Boys must learn to love sacrificially, setting aside their wills for the sake of the other. This difficulty that must be overcome is what I’ll call “the Peter Pan Problem.” Peter never wanted to grow up. He wanted to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, and that revolved around chasing pirates and smoking the peace pipe while fantasizing over mermaids and Tiger Lily. Let’s not forget that seductive Tinkerbell was always close by! It’s every boy’s dream! But it’s not for men!

Another difficulty that must be overcome is more societal. The fact of the matter is that society doesn’t want our boys to become men. To our world, man is the reason everyone in the world hates one another. Man is the cause of every single problem. Listen to the news. Read the articles. For our society, the absolute worst thing you can be is a man. Do you not think this is why so many are pretending to be girls? We’ll call this “the Mowgli Melee.” It is indeed a fight. In The Jungle Book there was a fear that Mowgli would one day grow up to be a man, and if that were to happen, the jungle would be overcome. Don’t you remember how Baloo wanted to train him to become a bear so that he could stay in the jungle with him?

It doesn’t seem like a lot of fun or very easy to take on responsibility, to learn sacrificial love, and to go against an entire jungle that doesn’t want you to become what they fear while fighting against their desire to change you into something acceptable to them. But it must be done. We must be training our boys to become men, and where better to be a firm foundation for this raising than in the church while pointing them to the ultimate man, Jesus Christ?

As our boys grow in the church, we need to teach the Catechism early on. Teach them responsibility and attention as you train them to be reverent crucifers and acolytes. Teach them to be confident in their voices (even if they crack)! Take away the mermaids and Tiger Lilys and teach them what love is. And as likable as that friend like Baloo can be, they need not give up their manhood to become anything else.

This is a topic that has been covered here on Gottesdienst many times much more elegantly and by much wiser minds, but we cannot say it enough. It has also been covered by this outstanding book. Whatever the situation or circumstance, we need to be training our boys up to become men. Let them enjoy playing Peter Pan and Mowgli while they are boys, but they must not remain in Neverland or in the jungle. There’s a world out there. You’ve seen in the last year or so what that world looks like when it’s being run by boys who are only out for their own good. We need men who will cast aside their own wills and love to the point of death. Being a boy is easy if you’re going to stay a boy. It’s exponentially harder if you’re learning to become a man.