Here are some lovely quotes for your encouragement and inspiration. Following is an Addendum to the Tea~Time With Finer Femininity from the other day….

Friendships in the family require care and culture—as do other friendships. We must win one another’s love inside the home doors just as we win the love of outside friends. We must prove ourselves worthy; we must show ourselves unselfish, self forgetful, thoughtful, and kind, tender, patient, helpful. Then when we have won each other we must keep the treasure of affection and confidence, just as we do in the case of friends not in the sacred circle of home. -J.R. Miller

Domestic Queens are not ordinary run-of-the-mill women. They add homey touches to their work with things that please the senses and make a person feel welcome and loved. A warmth of spirit permeates her household as if you walked in from clouds to a bright sunny day. She radiates understanding, love and happiness and makes the home a place her man wants to come home to. -Fascinating Womanhood http://amzn.to/2oRS2Nm (afflink)

“There is nothing insignificant in the life which we live within our own doors. There is nothing which is without influence in the building up of character. . Let no one think that the history of any day in the life of a home, is not recorded imperishably on the sensitive lives of the children.” -J.R. MIller

Alice von Hildebrand – “St. Francis de Sales tells us that pious women should be well-dressed, but this doesn’t mean they must become slaves of fashion. There’s a way of dressing which is attractive, even elegant, but at the same time modest and simple. More importantly, attractiveness shouldn’t be reserved for guests and those you meet outside the home, while you ‘let yourself go’ when you’re at home. The moment a couple marries, they should begin to try always to be at their best for each other, physically (and above all) spiritually.” The Privilege of Being a Woman, http://amzn.to/2p2Oyrr (afflink)

“There is, however, a second class of saints, ordinary saints. Bear in mind that these saints are no less saints than the others; they are true saints and have reached exalted heights of sanctity, though in a different way. They lead humble, simple lives, performing their daily duties well and using the ordinary but abundant means of sanctity given by God to all Christians. These means we too can use, and by them we can attain a high degree of holiness.” -Rev. Fr. Paul O’Sullivan, An Easy Way To Become A Saint, 1947 http://amzn.to/2fduYWW (afflink)

“Never be ashamed of your home or family because it is humble. People who look down on those whose home is humble and who lack social prominence are not worthy of the friendship of decent families. The most important things in life are character, honest work, humility, loyalty, friendliness, and love.” -Fr. Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook http://amzn.to/2y7iaFI (afflink)

There will be lives only if there are mothers, mothers who respond to their essential and divine vocation. “Give me, O my God, the grace through respect for You and for Your work, always to have a devotion to and a respect for life.. Grant me also the grace to be in Your Hands a not too unworthy instrument of Your creative power. Let me be ‘up-to-date’ whenever it is a question of enrolling a new name in the Book of Life.” – Christ in the Home, http://amzn.to/2mpCpcV Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J., 1950’s (afflink)

Given unconditional love, boundaries to live by, and a Faith to cherish, your children will blossom. They will know that no matter how bad things may be on the outside there is a place of hope and acceptance with family. -Finer Femininity

“The Sacrament of our marriage will impart to us the graces necessary to keep our good resolutions. How few understand this Sacrament! How few prepare themselves for it and expect to receive from it the graces it can give to those who seek them worthily.” – Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J., Christ in the Home http://amzn.to/2f0NuOy (afflink)

Tea~Time With Finer Femininity

This is an addendum to this post.

I get questions from you now and again and I think the answers could be beneficial to others and so I have posted them here….I have changed some words to protect anonymity.

Disclaimer: If in doubt with anything I say, please check with your spiritual director. He knows you and your situation and has the grace of state to advise you.

Question: What is the reason you and your daughters wear dresses vs. slacks? I think it’s wonderful but would like to know the thoughts behind it. Thank you.

Answer: Thank you for your question and well, since you asked…

I am not a confrontational person…at least I don’t think I am. So I would like to be able to say that what a woman wears is a personal choice, it is up to them. But, I think all of us would have to admit, this is not true in so many spheres of the moral order. What we do (and what we wear) affects those around us…greatly! Especially our men, when it comes to our clothing. So here is why we don’t wear slacks…

Pants accentuates our curves. It’s as simple as that. A skirt is more modest and concealing, (provided the woman/girl is wearing a modest skirt).

They are also more feminine. This is what Father Ripperger has to say:

While it is not sinful for a woman to wear pants, nevertheless it is more perfect or virtuous for a woman to wear a dress rather than pants. It more perfectly fits her as a woman. It is more feminine. Therefore it is more modest because it is more decorous.

I remember reading an article about the Latin Mass. It said that the liturgy will actually form who we are, if we give it enough time. The more we attend, the more It will change us on the inside..

Well, I feel the same way about our dress.

There is a saying….

“The body is the shell of the soul, and the dress the husk of that shell. But the husk often tells what the kernel is.”

What is that saying to us? Our externals matter. Our husk, our clothing, reveals who we are on the inside. And on the reverse, our mode of dressing, will work to change us intimately, too.

The virtuous person will manifest this virtue through the use of proper dress.

From Cardinal Siri, 1960:

The clothes a person wears conditions, determines and modifies that person’s gestures, attitudes and behavior such that from merely being worn on the outside, clothing comes to impose a particular frame of mind on the inside. So when a person changes their dress it will change how that person views her self image. On the converse of that, if she has a distorted self-image it will be manifested in her dress.

Fr. Ripperger:

Women who go back to dressing like women find an inner change which occurs within them. They feel more feminine. Which is a good thing…femininity is a perfection proper to a woman. And those perfections are very admirable.

I believe and have experienced this myself, that when we, as women, dress like women, we will change. We will become more feminine in what we do, the way we walk, the activities we take part in, the way we think. This is good. We will see a very positive change in ourselves. We will also see a positive change in how others treat us.

Another important tidbit was something I read quite a bit later along my modesty journey.  And it served to reinforce in me and my girls our decision as a family. It was this…

From Dressing With Dignity:

Advertising agencies quickly prepared marketing research to find out the reaction of men to a woman wearing pants. Do you know what they found? Using newly developed technology, they tracked the path that a man’s eyes take when looking at a woman in pants.

They found that when a man looked at a woman in pants from the back, he looked directly at her bottom. When he looked at a woman wearing pants from the front, advertisers found that his eyes dropped directly to a woman’s most private and intimate area. Not her face! Not her chest!

Advertisers figured out a long time ago how to apply Gestalt psychology and the Law of Closure (Humans tend to enclose a space by completing a contour and ignoring gaps in the figure) and the Law of Good Continuation (Humans tend to continue contours whenever the elements of the pattern establish an implied direction) when devising advertising that is aimed at men.

Gracious, what does all of that mean? It means that the eye will follow a line, and a viewer will complete the picture with his or her imagination.

Advertisers know that the same holds true when a man views a woman wearing slacks or a skirt with slits. Men’s eyes will follow the lines right up her legs and finish the picture in their imagination.

Women’s eyes may do the same thing, but since women don’t have the same type of temptations, their imaginations don’t complete the picture in the same way as men’s do.

Because we have raised our girls in dresses, this negative aspect of why we dress modestly is not something we dwell on too much.  We don’t think about it…dressing this way is part of who we are. And we like to focus on the positive aspects of wearing dresses. There are so many…

Consistently wearing dresses may seem over-the-top to many these days. And that’s okay. The rewards are great! (And every one of my daughters and daughters-in-law will attest to that!)

 

Cardinal Siri wrote a strong article in support of dresses for women. The article is here.

This Maglet (magazine/booklet) is for you…dear young (and not-so-young), Catholic, Feminine Soul. It is a compilation of traditional, valuable Catholic articles on the subjects that touch the hearts of serious-minded Catholic young ladies. There are articles on courtship, purity, singleness, vocation, prayer, confession, friends, tea parties, obedience, etc. This information is solid, written by orthodox Catholic writers (most of them gone to their eternal home) that cared about the proper formation of a young Catholic adult in a confused world. Take this information to heart and your journey through adulthood will be filled with many blessings! It is 40 pages, packed with information. See photo for Table of Contents.
My Disclaimer: This book is, in general, appropriate for ages 14 and up. There are some articles on purity in courtship, etc. These do not go into graphic detail but you are the only ones to decide if it is good timing. I would let my own 14 year old read it. If she came up with questions, good. I would answer them. Ignorance is not innocence.

Available here.

Package of all 3 Maglets here.

This booklet contains practical advice on the subjects of dating and choosing a spouse from the Catholic theological viewpoint. Father Lovasik points out clearly what one’s moral obligations are in this area, providing an invaluable aid to youthful readers. Additionally, he demonstrates that Catholic marriage is different from secular marriage and why it is important to choose a partner who is of the Catholic Faith if one would insure his or her personal happiness in marriage. With the rampant dangers to impurity today, with the lax moral standards of a large segment of our society, with divorce at epidemic levels, Clean Love in Courtship will be a welcome source of light and guidance to Catholics serious about their faith.

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A Frank, Yet Reverent Instruction on the Intimate Matters of Personal Life for Young Men. To our dear and noble Catholic youths who have preserved, or want to recover, their purity of heart, and are minded to retain it throughout life. For various reasons many good fathers of themselves are not able to give their sons this enlightenment on the mysteries of life properly and sufficiently. They may find this book helpful in the discharge of their parental responsibilities in so delicate a matter.

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