Some beautiful meditations on the sacredness of our homes and all that goes on within…
From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, L.D., 1893
Who is not struck with beholding your lively faith; your piety full of sweetness and modesty; your generous hospitality; the holiness which reigns within your families; the serenity and innocence of your conversation? (ST. CLEMENT, Pope and Martyr, First Epistle to the Corinthians). We are about to describe the sacred sphere within which God has appointed that true women should exercise their sway, that most blessed kingdom which it is in their power to create, and over which the Author of every most perfect gift will enable them to reign with an influence as undisputed as it may be boundless for all good. The home of the Christian family, such as the Creator wills it to be, and such as every true woman can make it, is not only the home of the wealthy and the powerful, but more especially still that of the poor and the lowly. For, these constitute the immense majority of mankind, and must ever be the chief object of His care who is Father and Lord over all. From Him spring the laws which regulate all the sweet duties of family life, and the graces which enable the members of a household to make of their abode a paradise. Hence it is, that when the Author of our nature deigned to become man and to subject Himself to these same laws and duties, He chose not a palace for his abode, nor a life of wealthy ease, while upon earth, but the poor home of an artisan, and the life of toil and hardship which is the lot of the multitude. It was a most blissful design, worthy of the infinite wisdom and goodness. The human parents He chose were of royal blood, that the highest on earth might learn from Joseph and Mary how holiness can exalt princes to nearness to God, and how the most spotless purity can be the parent of a regenerated world. And He made all his human virtues bloom in the carpenter’s home at Nazareth, in order that the poorest laborer might know that there is not one sweet virtue practiced by the God-Man, Jesus, which the last and hardest driven of the sons and daughters of toil may not cultivate in their own homes, though never so poor, so naked, or so narrow. So, dear reader, standing on the shore of the calm and beautiful Lake of Galilee, near which our Lord was reared, let us see his humble home and his home-life reflected therein, as in a most beautiful mirror; and with that divine image compare our own home, and the life with which we study to adorn it. There is nothing here below more sacred in the eyes of that good God who governs all things, and will judge all men in due time, than THE FAMILY HOME. All the institutions and ordinances which God has created in civil society or bestowed upon His Church, have for their main purpose to secure the existence, the honor, and the happiness of every home in the community, from that of the sovereign or supreme magistrate to that of the most obscure individual who labors to rear a family. There is nothing on earth which the Creator and Lord of all things holds more dear than this home, in which a father’s ever- watchful care, untiring labor, and enlightened love aim at creating for his children a little Eden, in which they may grow up to the true perfection of children of God; in which a mother’s unfailing and all-embracing tenderness will be, like the light and warmth of the sun in the heavens, the source of life and joy and strength and all goodness to her dear ones, as well as to all who come within the reach of her influence.Tidbits from J.R. Miller
Another says of his mother: “My mother’s habit was, every day, immediately after breakfast, to withdraw for an hour to her own room, and to spend that hour in reading the Bible, in meditation and in prayer. From that hour, as from a pure fountain, she drew the strength and the sweetness which enabled her to fulfill all her duties, and to remain unruffled by all the worries and pettinesses which are so often an intolerable trial in a home with many children. As I think of her life, and of all that it had to bear, I see the absolute triumph of Christian grace in the lovely ideal of a Christian mother. I never saw her temper disturbed; I never heard her speak one word of anger, or of complaint, or of idle gossip. I never observed in her any sign of a single sentiment unfitting to a soul which had drank of the river of the water of life, and which had fed upon manna in the barren wilderness.”
God’s ideal for His children
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” Philippians 4:4
For most of us it is not easy to be always joyful; yet we should learn our lesson so well that whether amid circumstances of sorrow or of gladness — our song shall never be interrupted.
Joy is God’s ideal for His children. He means for them to be sunny-faced and happy-hearted. He does not wish them to be heavy-hearted and sad. He has made the world full of beauty and full of music. The mission of the gospel is to start songs wherever it goes. Its keynote is joy — good tidings of great joy to all people. We are commanded to rejoice always.
This does not mean that the Christian’s life is exempt from trouble, pain, and sorrow. The gospel does not give us a new set of conditions with the hard things left out. The Christian’s home is not sheltered from life’s storms — any more than the worldly man’s home is. Sickness enters the circle where the voice of prayer is heard, with its hot breath — as well as the home where no heart adores and no knee bends before God. In the holiest home sanctuary, the loving group gathers about the bed of death, and there is sorrow of bereavement.
Nor is grief less poignant in the believer’s case, than in that of the man who knows not Christ. Grace does not make . .
love less tender,
the pang of affliction less sharp,
the sense of loss less keen, or
the feeling of loneliness less deep.
God does not give joy to His children by making them incapable of suffering. Divine grace makes the heart all the more tender, and the capacity for loving all the deeper; hence it increases rather than lessens the measure of sorrow when afflictions come.
But the joy of the Christian is something which lies too deep to be disturbed by the waves and tides of earthly trouble. It has its source in the very heart of God. Sorrow is not prevented by grace, but is swallowed up in the floods of heavenly joy. That was what Jesus meant when He talked to His disciples of joy just as He was about to go out to Gethsemane. He said their sorrow would be turned into joy, and that they would have a joy which the world could not take from them; that is, a joy which earth’s deepest darkness could not put out. God’s joy is not the absence of sorrow, but divine comfort overcoming sorrow — sunshine striking through the black clouds, transfiguring them!
“You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy!” John 16:20
The truly religious wife finds God at Mass and from Him receives the strength to become the ideal helpmate to her husband. She does not leave God at church but keeps Him with her every minute of the day in every nook and cranny of her home. Each menial, repetitious task she must perform is a work of love for her husband and children, and through them, a work of love for her Creator. – Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J. 1950’s
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Formerly titled The Spirit of Loveliness.
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