Tidbits from Christ in the Home ~ The Family Table / A Christian Setting / Psalm of Young Mothers

THE FAMILY TABLE

Mealtime should serve not only to nourish the body but also to comfort the soul.

Someone wittily said: “Repast, repose.” Whoever it was made a good point.

While the children are still little the mother and father will probably breakfast alone. When they are older, if the father cannot be present because of his work, the mother at least should be present to set the example for table etiquette, to make sure that the children eat enough, properly, without greediness, and without rejecting what is not to their liking. This is the hour for the household to shake off sleepiness which still stupefies them, and to season the atmosphere with joy and genial good spirit.

At the main meals all will be present. The parents should exercise the greatest care not to come to table laden with their worries, a prey to the preoccupations of their duties or their professional activities.

The only possible exception to this rule would probably be during a time of family bereavement or exceptional sorrow. But even then a just mean should be observed so that the young ones need not be unduly depressed. They ought to keep all their verve and to a certain point, their power of fancy.

Except when it is essential that the whole family share the concerns of all in common, the father and mother should not come to table looking downhearted and pass the mealtime discussing their hard lot in life. Children are quick to sense the worry of their parents, they feel that things are not going well, if there is tension or estrangement, if evil has hit the home. When they perceive things of this sort, their little hearts contract and a certain unease strangles them.

And why make someone who is not equal to it bear the burden and heat of the day?

After the first few moments in which the father and mother exchange a few words about decisions they must make concerning affairs which need not be kept from the children, they ought to direct the conversation here and there to the younger and the older; let them tell how they spent the morning or afternoon; show an interest in the efforts of all, in the work they did, the virtues they practiced or the disappointments they met.

Even if the father and mother have heavy cares, they should force themselves to escape from them long enough to be attentive listeners to the thousand details that all wish to recount. Each one must know that he can speak freely, provided that it is always politely, discreetly and charitably.

Should there be some little chatterboxes, they must be taught to moderate their intemperance which would prevent others from having their say. If one of the children seems to be in bad humor, he should be stimulated by a little kindly teasing, a kind word or an opportune question.

When the children pull out all the stops, call for pianissimo; when they observe too long a pause speed up the tempo. Should one or the other strike a false note get him back in the key again.

The parents should not be satisfied with listening to the little stories of their children. They too should contribute to the broadening of their knowledge by giving them worthwhile information, relating an amusing or instructive story or starting a discussion on an interesting subject.

Rene Bazin, the novelist, speaks of those families in the North of France who still keep to the custom of beginning the meal with a short reading from the life of some saint or famous hero. Wasn’t it Father Lourdel who entered the White Fathers after hearing the story of the African martyrs?

All that relaxes, elevates, and lends variety. It might even be a reading from the letter of a relative or a selection from a newspaper. The main idea should be to entertain and as far as possible expand hearts.

A CHRISTIAN SETTING

One of the most touching descriptions is found in the account by Louis Veuillot of his visit to the home of one of his old friends whom he had not seen since the day of his marriage fifteen years before.

The visitor was admitted by the old servant who did not recognize him; he had to give his name. “Come,” she said, “The Master is upstairs with Madam in their own room.”

They went up. It was still the blue room whose picturesque decoration his old friend had admired so much in days past.

He recognized his friend despite the work of the years upon his features; his eyes were still keen, but it was evident that he had been weeping. The wife he remembered only vaguely.

“In my memory she was the fairy of youth dressed in flowing robes, crowned with flowers, with a smile on her lips, approaching reality over the green roads of Spring. A smile that nothing chased away, a mind that had never known fear, ears which had heard nothing but gentle words, hands which carried only wreaths of flowers, she personified the morning, the gloom, the promise of life.

“So she appeared to me on her Wedding Day–a Christian woman yet a child, a harmony of beauty, faith, love, candor. She was earnest because she believed; happy because she loved; radiant because she was pure.

“Now after fifteen years she is a wife who has aged from the cares of her home; she is a daughter in mourning for her mother, a mother in mourning for her children.

“On her pallid face the torrent of her tears have furrowed more deeply the traces of the years; in her heart, submission to the Cross; she stifles the sob of Rachel. I remembered that we used to call her Stella Matutina, Morning star; now, I thought, we would have to call her Mater dolorosa, Mother of sorrows.”

Then his eyes glanced at the walls of the room. They were not adorned as before. Formerly, there had been no crucifix. Now there was one. It occupied the place once held by a picture of Diana, the Goddess of the Chase. A little distance away, there was a picture of Mary at the Foot of the Cross. “We put it there to replace some poetic pictures at the time our first child died,” the husband explained.

He continued, “This design above the dressing table where we used to have the painting of “The Great Festival of Watteau” is a copy of my father’s tombstone in the village cemetery. It is over in that direction that I began to build and the cypress trees around the house are the first trees I planted.

Here at the side is the picture of my wife’s mother; she died in this room which we alone can use from now on. These other pictures are what remains to us now of all the dear souls who reared us, worked and suffered for us and provided so tenderly for our happiness.

And here is a picture of our dear little Therese, our little saint, the second child God took from us. She left us last year when she was only six years old. She cried out before she died, ‘God, God, where is God? I want to go to God!’ She took with her the last happy days of her mother.”

All that does not depress souls. Earth after all is not heaven. It is only the vestibule. That in itself is beautiful. And, as the author explains at the end of his description, “separations only increase our confidence, love and peace.”

PSALM OF YOUNG MOTHERS

A young mother-very true to her role of mother and at the same time very artistic-got the idea of comparing her role with that of cloistered sisters. Between her washing, her cooking and the care of her youngest, she managed to compose ‘The Psalm of Young Mothers”. It is full of love, full of spontaneity. Every young mother will recognize herself in these passages we are quoting:

“O my God

Like our sisters in the cloister

We have left all for you;

We have not imprisoned the youth of our faces in a guimpe

and under a veil,

And though we have cut our hair, it is not in any spirit of

Penance…

Deign nevertheless, O Lord, to cast a look of complaisance

On the humble little sacrifices

Which we offer You all day long,

Since the day our groaning flesh gave life to all these little

Christians

We are rearing for You.

Our liberty, O God, is in the hands of these little tyrants

who claim it every minute.

The house has become our cloister,

Our life has its unchanging Rule,

And each day its Office, always the same.

The Hours for dressing and for walks,

The Hours for feeding and for school,

We are bound by the thousand little demands of life.

Detached by necessity every moment from our own will,

We live in obedience.

Even our nights do not belong to us;

We too have our nocturnal Office,

When we must rise quickly for a sick child,

Or when between midnight and two o’clock,

When we are in the full sleep we need so badly

A little untimely chanter

Begins to sing his Matins.

We practically live retired from the world:

There is so much to be done in the house.

There is no possibility of going out anyway

without a faithful sitter for the little ones.

We measure out the time for visits parsimoniously.

We have no sisters to relieve us on another shift.

And when the calls for service reach high pitch for us

We have to sweep, to wash the dishes,

Scrape the carrots for the stew,

Prepare a smooth puree for baby

And keep on going without stopping.

From the children’s room to the kitchen and to and fro.

We do big washings; we rub and we rinse

Aprons and shirts, underclothes and socks

And all the baby’s special things.

In this life of sacrifice, come to our help, O Jesus!”

Faith is not transmitted through emotional peaks, but through calm repetition. Children do not need constant novelty. They need stability.

~Finer Femininity

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