When a House Becomes a Home

by J.R. Miller, nineteenth century writer

Many of  J.R. Miller’s  reflections on the Christian home come strikingly close to the Catholic understanding of the home…

Religion in the Home

A German sculptor occupied eight years in making a marble statue of Christ. When he had worked two years upon it, the work seemed to be finished. To test his success, he called a little child into his studio, and, showing her this statue, asked her, “Who is that?”

She looked at it and replied, “A great man.”

The artist was discouraged. He had hoped that his conception of the Master had been so true, that the pure eye of the child would recognize it at once.

He began anew, and after a year or two more had passed, he invited the child again into his studio, and pointing to his new statue asked the same question as before: “Who is that?”

She looked at it in silence for some time, a feeling of awe and reverence sweeping through her heart and expressing itself on her face, until with eyes full of tears she said in low and gentle tones, “Let the little children come unto Me.”

This time his work was not a failure. He had produced a figure in which the untaught instinct of the child saw the feature of the Redeemer. His work had stood the severest test.

A somewhat similar test must be applied to all our home-making. After we have done all in our power in building up a home, the husband his part, the wife hers, the parents theirs, the brothers and the sisters theirs, and when our home-life is full and complete, before we can say that we have realized the ideal of a true Christian home, we must prove its spirit.

What impression would our home and its life make upon a pure and simple hearted child?

We may build a palace of marble. We may fill it with the rarest beauties of art. We may adorn it in the most luxurious fashion. We may furnish it in the most costly manner. It may be perfect as a gem in all its decor, a piece of art in itself. Our home-life may be as stately as royalty itself. There may be the most perfect order, the loftiest courtesy, and the utmost precision of movement. Each member of the family may fulfill his part with unfailing promptitude.

Bring in the child and ask it what it thinks of your home. “It is very beautiful,” responds the little one. “It is very grand. It is a palace. Does a king live here?”

You turn away disappointed. You have failed to make such a home as you wished. You have piled up grandeur; you have made a splendid piece of art; you have succeeded in setting up a model which all will admire; but you have not made a home of love, of tenderness and of peace.

What is it that makes a home complete after all that the architect, the builder, the painter, the upholsterer, the furniture maker and the decorator can do? What is it that comes into the furnished house—and makes it a home?

This is the question to which answer has been sought in all the former pages of this little book. The duties of the several members of the household have been considered. Suppose they all do their part with the highest fidelity possible in this world; what more is needed to complete the Ideal Christian Home?

Is not the answer found in one word—God?

If we leave him out, our most perfect home will be but like a marble statue, with all the beauty of life—but having neither breath nor heart throb.

There are many reasons why true religion is needed to complete the happiness and blessedness of a home. One is that nothing in this world is full and complete without the blessing of Heaven. “The blessing of the Lord, it makes rich.”

All that labor and skill and soil and seeds can do for field or garden will not avail—unless Heaven gives rain and sunshine. Our very breath is God’s gift, moment by moment. Our daily bread must come day by day from his hand. All our plans are dependent upon his prospering favor. Nothing can succeed, without his approval and help.

We are taught in the Scriptures, to look to God for his blessing on every undertaking. The people were to bring the first sheaf of their harvest and the first ripe clusters from their vineyard to God’s altar, before they had reaped a handful or gathered a grape for themselves, that his blessing might rest upon the whole harvest and vintage.

They were to bring their children to God in the very opening of their life for consecration to him, that his blessing might rest upon all their years.

In the old patriarchal days, when the tent was set up, if only for a night, an altar was also erected, and sacrifices of prayer and praise were offered to God. We need the divine blessing on everything we have, and everything we do.

Surely there is no work, no plan, no undertaking, in all the range of the possible things we may do in the longest and busiest lifetime, on which we so much need God’s blessing—as upon our home. In nothing else are so many sacred interests and such momentous responsibilities involved. Nowhere else in life do we meet such difficult and delicate duties. In nothing else is failure so disastrous.

A business venture may miscarry, and the consequences will be much chagrin and disappointment, some financial loss, some hardship and suffering; but if one’s home is a failure, who can tell what wreck and sorrow may result?

If we need the divine blessing on some little work of an hour, how much more do we need it in the setting up of our home, which carries in itself our own happiness and the happiness of the hearts that are dearest to us, and the eternal destinies of souls who creep into our bosom and find shelter beneath our roof!

Every home in this world is exposed to a thousand dangers. Enemies seek to destroy it, to desecrate its holy beauty and to carry away its sacred treasures. The very institution itself is assailed by the apostles of infidelity and licentiousness.

Countless social influences tend to disintegrate the home, to rob it of its sanctities, to break down its sacred barriers and to sully its purity. Nothing but the cross of Christ will save it.

Those who are setting up a home, their hearts full of precious hopes of happiness and blessing, should consecrate it at once, by erecting the altar of God in the midst of it. This will throw over it, the protecting hand of divine love.

We need true religion in our homes, to help us to do each his own part faithfully. Take the parents, for example—whose duties and responsibilities have been considered in a former chapter—into whose hands come tender young lives with infinite possibilities of development. They are to train these immortal souls in beauty and build up in them a noble manhood or womanhood.

These lives are so sensitive, that the slightest influences will leave imperishable impressions upon them, that a wrong touch may mar them forever. They may have in them the elements of great power or usefulness; God may want them trained to be leaders in the world.

For the up-building of their character, for the impressions that shall be stamped upon their souls, for their protection from unholy influences, for the molding and shaping of their lives, for the development and training of their powers and for their preparation for life’s mission and for eternity—the parents are responsible.

Who is sufficient alone for these things? Where is the parent who feels ready in himself to assume all this responsibility—to take an infant child from God’s hands to be tended, sheltered, taught, trained and led, and to answer at the end before God’s bar, for the faithful keeping of his sacred trust?

Where is the parent who is prepared to engage to do all this and who wants no help from God?

That so many do become fathers and mothers who never ask divine aid and wisdom, only proves how thoughtlessly men and women can enter the most solemn duties of life, and with how little conception of their responsibility, they accept the most momentous duties.

Only Christ can fit parents for their high and holy responsibility.

We need true religion in our homes in the time of sorrow. And where is the home into which sorrow comes not? We can build no walls strong enough or high enough to shut it out. We can gather within our doors no treasures so sacred, that sorrow will never lay its hand upon them.

Then when sorrow comes, where shall we find comfort—if not in the religion of Jesus Christ? Shall we find anything in the splendors of architecture, in the beauties of art, in the luxuries of costly furnishing or clothing—to bring calm and comfort to our hearts—when one of our household lies in the struggle of death?

It is related of Heinrich Heine that he found himself in Paris during the scenes of the Revolution of 1848, in the very midst of the mad excitements. Weary, unbelieving and almost hopeless in his endeavors to escape, he entered a room of the Louvre and fell down before that wonder of ancient art, the Venus di Milo.

He looked up with almost worship of its divine beauty and with a vague desire for help—as if this splendid figure could deliver him. But, though an object of exquisite beauty, its arms were fixed and could not reach down to give him any aid. It ears were marble and could not hear his cries. Its heart was stone and could not feel for him, in his peril and alarm.

Just so earthly grandeur and beauty always are—to the human heart in its deep sorrow.

A palace filled with rarest works of art can give no comfort to the stricken father and mother who, in one of its gilded and tapestried chambers, are sitting in anguish beside a dying child.

I have seen such grief in the Christless, prayerless home—and pitiable indeed it was in its wild agony of despair. Though in days of health and joy—no eye there was ever turned to God, no heart was ever lifted to him in praise or prayer, no voice ever cried to him for help or blessing, though true religion was despised or ridiculed and there was no desire for God; yet in the bitterness and hopelessness of their grief, when their refuge failed them, when only God could give help, they turned to him and begged for His help. They wanted to hear the word of God read, and prayer offered by the bed where the struggle with death was going on.

There is something very sad in this despairing resort to the comforts of true religion, in the hour when all else has failed. Yet it ought to teach us the lesson that none but God will suffice in the time of great grief.

Earth can build no home so beautiful, so perfect—that sorrow shall find there, all it needs for comfort. But in the home of prayer—-when trial comes, there is help at hand. An unseen presence walks amid the shadows. A voice others do not hear, whispers peace. A hand others do not see, ministers consolation.

True religion pours light in the darkness. The sorrow is no less bitter—but the stricken hearts are sustained in their pain or loss, by the rich consolations of divine love.

No home is prepared for the trials which are at some time inevitable, which has not its altar standing in the center, whereon the fires burn perpetually. Every home needs the refuge of true religion.

We live in a world of danger. Every life that grows up here, must grow up amid countless perils. Human souls are delicate and tender. Our dear ones are exposed on every hand. Storms sweep the sea—and the wreck goes down, burying noble lives beneath the waves. Just so—there is sorrow in homes, when the missing ones do not return.

The battle rages on the bloody field and many a brave soldier falls to rise no more, or to raise scarred, maimed for life. Just so—there is grief in the homes where the cruel storm strikes.

But there are fiercer storms raging in this world, than those upon the sea—and our dear ones are exposed to them. There are more terrific battles on earth than those whose crash makes the mountains shake and which decide the fate of nations—and the tender souls of our households are in the very center of the strife.

When our children go out from us in the morning to the day’s duties, or in the evening to the night’s scenes and pleasures—we know not to what terrible dangers they will be exposed, before we see them again.

We mourn for our dead—but if they have died in the arms of Christ—they are safe.  Do we never weep for our living—when we remember to what perils they are exposed?

The Christian children that we laid in Christ’s arms, in the sleep we call death, are forever safe. It is our living that are in peril. It is life which is hard and full of danger; it is for our living which we need to be concerned for—lest they be defeated in the field, where foes are thick and battles sore!

Where shall we find protection for these tender lives—but in the keeping of the almighty Savior? We cannot shelter them ourselves. We cannot make our home doors strong enough to shield them. We cannot protect them even by love’s tenderness or by the influence of beautiful things—of art, of luxury, of music, or by the refinements of the truest and best culture.

From amid all these things, children’s souls are every day stolen away. All history and all experience prove that nothing but Our Lord can be a shelter for our loved ones from this world’s dangers and temptations.

Get your heart and soul ready for Lent. It is a time of quiet repair — mending habits, softening words, forgiving quickly, praying more faithfully, and teaching our children by the way we ourselves return to God.

“What each Christian is bound to do at all times should now be practiced more earnestly and devoutly during Lent.” ~St. Leo the Great

We should get used to extracting from ordinary day-to-day life whatever can increase our joy, rest, and legitimate satisfaction, and whatever can fill us with optimism. There is a thrill of joy and satisfaction in the thought that we are the objects of God’s love and can ourselves sincerely love Him… If you enjoy this video , please Like and Subscribe.

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