by Father Lawrence Lovasik, The Catholic Family Handbook
Two things in particular must be nurtured in the home: love and self-sacrifice.
Sincere parental love makes the child home-centered and gives security, purpose, and direction to young lives. Self-sacrifice, demanded by discipline, remains the basis of order in the home.
Firm parental discipline frees a child from his own confusion. It places the parents in their rightful place in the home. It sets the rules of family life and teaches respect for authority.
If a child learns obedience early in life, he will extend that obedience to his teachers, and to wider authority as he matures.
As a parent, you stand in God’s place in the home, and in such a position you have God’s authority in training your children. Do not surrender that authority.
What a child needs more than anything else is to belong to two devoted, God-fearing parents who work together to bring about his eternal salvation.
He wants a cheerful home where there is love, goodness, and generosity of heart. He needs the security of knowing his mother and father consider him a precious gift from God.
He needs the faith that sustains a family whose members pray together and speak confidently of God watching over them.
He needs parents strong enough to say, “This is right,” or, “That is wrong,” no matter what other people around them may be saying.
He needs to share his parents’ time and thoughts often enough and intimately enough to feel the blessed closeness that makes them a family living to love and serve God.
Eight Beatitudes for the Home
Blessed is the home where the father, mother, and children love God sincerely and keep His commandments faithfully, go to Confession regularly, receive Holy Communion frequently, and pray much; for the Lord abides in such a home.
Blessed is the home in which Sundays and holy days are properly observed, for the members will one day meet again at the festival of Heaven.
Blessed is the home that no one leaves to go to sinful amusements, for in it the joy of Christ shall reign.
Blessed is the home where unkind speech does not enter, nor cursing, nor bad literature, nor intemperance, for on that home will be heaped the blessings of peace.
Blessed is the home where father and mother are conscious of the sacred dignity of bringing children into the world and educating them in the service of God, where they faithfully fulfill the obligations they have toward each other and their children, and detest the sins sometimes committed in the married state, for they will merit the favor and abundant blessings of God.
Blessed is the home to which a priest is called to attend the sick, for their illness will have its consolation and death will be happy.
Blessed is the home where Christian doctrine is properly appreciated and learned from the Catechism and good books, for in that home, the Faith will be kept firm and active.
Blessed is the home where the parents find their joy in children who are dutiful and obedient, and where the children find in their parents the example of the fear and love of God, for that home will be the abode of just people, the haven of virtues, and the ark of salvation.
Where there is faith, there is love. Where there is love, there is peace. Where there is peace, there is God. Where there is God, there is Heaven.
There will be loveliness, too, in the home where true love causes order and comfort to reign. For the poorest room can be made lovely by a woman’s cunning hand. She can have flowers at her window, and flowers on her mantel and her table. And the curtains of windows and beds may be beautified by some simple ornament devised by a woman’s taste and executed in spare moments by the hand of even the busiest. -Fr. Bernard O’reilly,The Mirror of True Womanhood http://amzn.to/2t7GyVt (afflink)
Fall coloring pages for your children….
A book of your favorite litanies….
Chosen by God for the incomparable vocation of spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and foster father of Our Lord Jesus Christ; St. Joseph received magnificent divine graces and favors not granted even to the Old Testament Patriarchs. Known as the most humble of men; St. Joseph received from Almighty God the authority to command both Our Lady and the Son of God Himself; and in Heaven he continues to have great intercessory power with God. The Divine Favors Granted to St. Joseph shows how this greatest of the Patriarchs is the patron of all Christians and how wonderfully he answers prayers; plus; it gives many of the ways of honoring him and many prayers to request his intercession. One of the finest books on St. Joseph; it will surely inspire the reader with a profound devotion to this great “Patron of the Universal Church.” Impr. 176 pgs;
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A great follow up to yesterday’s reading, need to keep those 8 beatitudes close. Thank you!
Yes, lay the foundation from the beginning. Expect obedience from early on! It is much harder when they’re older…