The Large Family – Rev. George A. Kelly

08 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Family Life

This is a good article. It is a balm to the souls of mothers and fathers who have many children, whose lives are in survival mode…training, teaching, feeding, clothing many little people.

It is NOT to say that those with a small family are not blessed…because they are. They have their own crosses…and their own advantages.

And God is pleased with each of us, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves, when we continue to seek His will in our lives, remembering…

“To the servant of God…every place is the right place, and every time is the right time.” ~Catherine of Siena

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, 1950’s

Before marrying, many young couples decide how many children they will have–a decision which often reveals that they are more concerned with how few children they will have rather than how many.

Thus they begin their marriage with intentions of limiting the number of offspring. In this respect they reflect the birth-control frame of mind so prevalent today–a frame of mind which regards children as a liability rather than a blessing.

Although the first purpose of marriage is the procreation of children, Catholic couples will not necessarily have offspring. There may be many reasons why they cannot have babies or why they are limited to one or two.

Some wives have difficulty in carrying a fetus to full term and have many miscarriages. Sometimes the husband or wife may be sterile. There may be mental, eugenic, economic or social reasons which make it justifiable to practice the rhythm method. The fact that a Catholic couple has no children, therefore, is no reason for concluding that they are guilty of any moral lapse.

In most marriages, however, there probably are no physical hindrances to births or justifiable reasons to limit them beyond those limitations which nature herself and unchangeable circumstance impose. Hence the typical Catholic family will have many more children than are found in the average family of other beliefs.

The large family provides many distinct advantages for both parents and children. For instance, it brings the mother and father closer together, giving them a joint source of love, and they achieve a closer sense of unity in planning for their children’s welfare. Their love for each child extends their love for each other, and in each child they can see qualities which they love in their mates.

Children help parents to develop the virtues of self-sacrifice and consideration for others. The childless husband and wife must consciously cultivate these qualities.

In contrast, a father and mother who might have innate tendencies toward selfishness learn that they must subjugate their own interests for the good of their children, and they develop a spirit of self-denial and a higher degree of sanctity than might normally be possible.

The fact that children help to increase harmony in marriage has been proved in many ways. Other researchers have established that the percentage of divorces and broken homes decreases as the number of children in the family increases.

Large families also teach children to live harmoniously with others. They must adjust to the wishes of those older and younger than themselves, and of their own and the other sex.

In learning to work, play and, above all, share with others, the child in a large family discovers that he must often sacrifice his own interests and desires for the common good. For this reason, the “spoiled child” who always insists on having his own way is rare in the large family, if he can be found there at all. For the child who will not cooperate with others has a lesson forcibly taught to him when others refuse to co-operate with him.

In the typical large family, one often sees a sense of protectiveness in one child for another that is the embodiment of the Christian spirit.

Children learn to help each other–to hold each other’s hands when crossing the street, to sympathize with each other in times of sadness or hurt, and to give each other the acceptance which we all need to develop as mature human beings.

This willingness to help one another is often strikingly evident in schoolwork: the oldest child instructs his younger brother in algebra, while the latter helps a still younger one in history.

Another advantage of large families is that they teach each child to accept responsibility for his own actions. The mother of a large family usually lacks the time and energy to concern herself with every little problem of her children.

She must observe sensible precautions with her children, of course, but she is not guilty of supervising her child’s life to such an extent that he has no chance to develop his own resources.

Precisely because she cannot devote her full time to him, he must make decisions for himself. Moreover, he acquires a better understanding of the rules by which the family is run. He sees his brothers and sisters punished for various breaches of conduct and learns what he himself may and may not do.

And as he watches the progress of older children, he learns what privileges he may expect as he too advances in age. This knowledge gives him a greater sense of security.

Another reward for members of the large family, to which those who are now adults can testify, is that it gives the children close relatives upon whom they can depend all their lives. Occasionally, of course, brothers and sisters cannot agree as adults and break off relations completely.

More often, however, they retain a close bond of kinship with each other and the reunions and family get-togethers on occasions like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter form one of the great joys of their lives.

In most cases, the child brought up in a large family never feels utterly alone, regardless of adversities which may strike in adulthood.

If he is troubled or bereaved, in desperate need of financial help or sympathetic advice, he usually can depend upon brothers and sisters to help. Forlorn indeed is the man or woman who, in time of stress, has no close and loving relatives to tell his problems to.

A final, but by no means least important, advantage is that they virtually insure the parents against loneliness, which has often been called the curse of the aged.

How often do the father and mother of a large family remain young at heart because of the love they give to, and draw from, their grandchildren?

In fact, many say that old age is their happiest time of life because they can enjoy to the fullest the love of the children and grandchildren without the accompanying responsibility.

One should not overlook the fact that there are some disadvantages to both parent and child in the large family. However, an objective review of these disadvantages would surely establish that they are outweighed by the advantages.

For example, the large family may require the parents to make great financial sacrifices. They may be unable to afford as comfortable a home, own as new an automobile, or dress as well as can the husband and wife with a small family.

But they have sources of lasting joy in the love, warmth and affection of their children–a joy that money cannot buy. The children of a large family may also be required to make sacrifices.

Their parents may be unable to pay their way in college. But this need not mean that they will be denied educational opportunities.

Thanks to scholarships, loan programs, and opportunities for student employment, the bright boy and girl who truly desires a college education can find the financial resources to obtain one.

And having to earn at least a part of their own way will make them better students. Researchers have established that students who drop out of college most frequently have had all their expenses paid for them and have never learned the true value of an education.

“If your large family brings ridicule from neighbors and even strangers, remember that you have a lasting treasure worth suffering for, and that the Lord called blessed those who suffer persecution for justice’s sake.” – Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook

“It often struck me that if cleanliness is next to godliness, cheerfulness is a near relation. The cheerful are truly benefactors of the world in which we move…” – Fr. John Carr, C.SS.R.

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Women historically have been denigrated as lower than men or viewed as privileged. Dr. Alice von Hildebrand characterizes the difference between such views as based on whether man’s vision is secularistic or steeped in the supernatural. She shows that feminism’s attempts to gain equality with men by imitation of men is unnatural, foolish, destructive, and self-defeating. The Blessed Mother’s role in the Incarnation points to the true privilege of being a woman. Both virginity and maternity meet in Mary who exhibits the feminine gifts of purity, receptivity to God’s word, and life-giving nurturance at their highest.

You’ll learn how to grow in wisdom and in love as you encounter the unglamorous, everyday problems that threaten all marriages. As the author says: If someone were to give me many short bits of wool, most likely I would throw them away. A carpet weaver thinks differently. He knows the marvels we can achieve by using small things artfully and lovingly. Like the carpet weaver, the good wife must be an artist of love. She must remember her mission and never waste the little deeds that fill her day the precious bits of wool she s been given to weave the majestic tapestry of married love.

This remarkable book will show you how to start weaving love into the tapestry of your marriage today, as it leads you more deeply into the joys of love.

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The Land Without a Sunday – Maria Von Trapp

18 Sunday Jul 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in by Maria Von Trapp, Catholic Home Life, Family Life

≈ 3 Comments

Newbury, Kansas

From Around the Year With the Trapp Family by Maria von Trapp

Our neighbors in Austria were a young couple, Baron and Baroness K. They were getting increasingly curious about Russia and what life there was really like. One day they decided to take a six-week trip all over Russia in their car. This was in the time when it was still possible to get a visa.

Of course, at the border they were received by a special guide who watched their every step and did not leave them for a moment until he deposited them safely again at the border, but they still managed to get a good first-hand impression.

Upon their return they wrote a book about their experiences, and when it was finished, they invited their neighbors and friends to their home in order to read some of their work to them.

I shall always recall how slowly and solemnly Baron K. read us the title “The Land Without a Sunday.”

Of all the things they had seen and observed, one experience had most deeply impressed them: that Russia had done away with Sunday. This had shocked them even more than what they saw of Siberian concentration camps or of the misery and hardship in cities and country. The absence of Sunday seemed to be the root of all the evil.

“Instead of a Sunday,” Baron K. told us, “the Russians have a day off.

This happens at certain intervals which vary in different parts of the country. First they had a five-day week, with the sixth day off, then they had a nine-day work period, with the tenth day off; then again it was an eight-day week. What a difference between a day off and a Sunday!

The people work in shifts. While one group enjoys its day off, the others continue to work in the factories or on the farms or in the stores, which are always open.

As a result the over-all impression throughout the country was that of incessant work, work, work. The atmosphere was one of constant rush and drive; finally, we confessed to each other that what we were missing most was not a well-cooked meal, or a hot bath, but a quiet, peaceful Sunday with church bells ringing and people resting after prayer.”

Here I must first tell what a typical Sunday in Austria was like in the old days up to the year before the Second World War. As I have spent most of my life in rural areas, it is Sunday in the country that I shall describe.

First of all, it begins on Saturday afternoon. In some parts of the country the church bell rings at three o’clock, in others at five o’clock, and the people call it “ringing in the Feierabend.”

Just as some of the big feasts begin the night before–on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, Easter Eve–so every Sunday throughout the year also starts on its eve. That gives Saturday night its hallowed character.

When the church bell rings, the people cease working in the fields. They return with the horses and farm machinery, everything is stored away into the barns and sheds, and the barnyard is swept by the youngest farm-hand.

Then everyone takes “the” bath and the men shave. There is much activity in the kitchen as the mother prepares part of the Sunday dinner, perhaps a special dessert; the children get a good scrub; everyone gets ready his or her Sunday clothes, and it is usually the custom to put one’s room in order–all drawers, cupboards and closets.

Throughout the week the meals are usually short and hurried on a farm, but Saturday night everyone takes his time. Leisurely they come strolling to the table, standing around talking and gossiping. After the evening meal the rosary is said.

In front of the statue or picture of the Blessed Mother burns a vigil light. After the rosary the father will take a big book containing all the Epistles and Gospels of the Sundays and feast days of the year, and he will read the pertinent ones now to his family.

The village people usually go to Confession Saturday night, while the folks from the farms at a distance go on Sunday morning before Mass. Saturday night is a quiet night. There are no parties. People stay at home, getting attuned to Sunday. They go to bed rather early.

On Sunday everyone puts on his finery. The Sunday dress is exactly what its name implies–clothing reserved to be worn only on Sunday. We may have one or the other “better dress” besides. We may have evening gowns, party dresses–but this one is our Sunday best, set aside for the day of the Lord.

When we put it on, we invariably feel some of the Sunday spirit come over us. In those days everybody used to walk to church even though it might amount to a one or two hours’ hike down and up a mountain in rain or shine. Families usually went to the High Mass; only those who took care of the little children and the cooking had to go to the early Mass.

I feel sorry for everyone who has never experienced such a long, peaceful walk home from Sunday Mass, in the same way as I feel sorry for everyone who has never experienced the moments of twilight right after sunset before one would light the kerosene lamps. I know that automobiles and electric bulbs are more efficient, but still they are not complete substitutes for those other, more leisurely ways of living.

Throughout the country, all the smaller towns and villages have their cemeteries around the church; on Sunday, when the High Mass was over, the people would go and look for the graves of their dear ones, say a prayer, sprinkle holy water–a friendly Sunday visit with the family beyond the grave.

In most homes the Sunday dinner was at noon. The afternoon was often spent in visiting from house to house, especially visiting the sick.

The young people would meet on the village green on Sunday afternoons for hours of folk dancing; the children would play games; the grownups would very often sit together and make music. Sunday afternoon was a time for rejoicing, for being happy, each in his own way.

Until that night at Baron K.’s house we had done pretty much the same as everybody else. Saturday we had always kept as “Feierabend” for Sunday.

There was cleaning on Saturday morning throughout the house, there was cleaning in all the children’s quarters–desks and drawers and toys were put in order. There was the laying out of the Sunday clothes. There was the Saturday rosary, and then–early to bed.

On Sunday we often walked to the village church for High Mass, especially after we had started to sing. Later we used to go into the mountains with the children, taking along even the quite little ones, or we used to play an Austrian equivalent of baseball or volleyball, or we sat together and sang some of the songs we had collected ourselves on our hikes through the mountains.

We also did a good deal of folk dancing, we had company come or we went visiting ourselves–just as everybody else used to do.

And if anybody had asked us why we began our Sunday on Saturday in the late afternoon, why we celebrated our Sunday this way, we would have raised our eyebrows slightly and said, “Well, because that’s the way it’s always been done.”

But when my husband and I were walking home that night from Baron K.’s house, we realized that our complacency–so prevalent among people in pre-war days–had received a rude shock.

It dawned on us that we had taken something for granted that was, in reality, a privilege: namely, that we lived in a country where Sunday was not so much observed as it was celebrated as the day of the Lord.

This was a new way of looking at things, and the light was still rather dim, but I can see now in retrospect that a new chapter in our life as a Christian family began that very night.

Treat your boys as young men. You want them to grow up to be hardworking and confident. Is it not true, that the more productive we are, the better we feel? Then structure your children’s day to be active and busy—they will thrive under these conditions. -Finer Femininity

Painting by Mark Keathley, 1963

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Stuff ‘n’ June 2021 Gallery

22 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Smorgasbord 'n Smidgens

≈ 4 Comments

A fun post!

Some recent videos Gin and I had fun making….

My daughter, Gin, gives a little tour of her son’s shop that he built.

Gin‘s beginnings of making a vintage dress out of a curtain. (Part one)

Gin gives us a brief peek into her crafty business of making a vintage dress out of a curtain. (Part Two)

Just a little tour of Gin‘s world on a Monday morning in spring time 2021.

A tour of our spring flowers at the beginning of their growth, the beautiful rock garden handiwork and our two grottoes. 🌺💐🌸🌷
“Where flowers, these emblems of purity are found, you may rest assured that they represent a hope, and speak of a goodness of heart not to be found where they are absent.” -Fr. Lasance
“I have always noticed that wherever you find flowers, no matter whether in a garret or in a palace, it is a pretty sure sign that there is an inner refinement of which the world is not cognizant. I have seen flowers cultivated and cherished by some of the lowest and poorest of people. Where these emblems of purity are found, you may rest assured that they represent a hope, and speak of a goodness of heart not to be found where they are absent.” -Fr. Lasance, My Prayer Book

Welcome to my June Gallery of…Home

What do you think makes a beautiful and happy home? How important is this?

Having a happy home is crucial to the spreading of our Faith. To whom do we want to spread our faith? First of all, to our children. They need to see the deep and lasting beauty of our faith shining forth in our everyday lives, making our home beautiful and happy.

Our faith is oftentimes an unspoken reality, the undercurrent in the everyday bubbling brook, that flows into every facet of our lives.

This happiness does not have to be unrealistic. Life is what it is and there are many days where the smiles don’t come as easy and nerves are rawer because of whatever is upsetting the apple cart at the time. These are opportunities too.

A good priest said that if our kids see ONLY that life is perfect at home, if they grow up wearing rose-colored glasses all the time, they are going to get quite a jolt when they enter into their own vocation and it is less than perfect…and it will be. So it is good that the kids see reality, too.

That being said, we need to create a home that is joyful and lovely, in amongst the “real”-ness.

Let us live more for our homes. Let us love one another more. Let us cease to complain, criticize, and contradict each other. Let us be more patient with each other’s faults. Let us not keep back the warm, loving words that lie in our hearts, until it is too late for them to give comfort. Soon separations will come. One of every wedded pair will stand by the other’s coffin and grave. Then every bitter word spoken, and every neglect of love’s duty, will be as a thorn in the heart. -J.R. Miller, early 1900’s

Click on the first picture to view the gallery…. (Thank you to Henry Toenjes for permission to use some of his Pilgrimage photos.)

: I went to our favorite Thrift Store/Coffee Shop one morning and sent this photo to the girls to make them jealous…haha

: Gin found some nice cups there.

: And lots of material for many projects!

: She also got her kids an old sewing machine. This machine is all steel and will be able to take some abuse.

: So Tony is threading it and getting ready to sew!

: As Gin leaves the store, the kids are excited about their new wheels!

: Gin made this jumper out of a curtain from God’s Storehouse. She embroidered the little flowers on the corner.

: New little nephew, Sean, is getting some aunty attention during potluck night.

: We make this homemade ice cream very often!

: The girls and Angelo are off to a Pilgrimage in Missouri.

: At one point, Gemma leads the way!

: Silly girls!

: A grotto along the way…

: The pilgrims. Angelo is holding the banner this time.

: Father leads prayer.

: And says his Divine Office.

: Time for lunch.

: And a little breather.

: Night time.

: I don’t know what Father is saying here…but he is an EXCELLENT story teller!

: At the steps of their destination.

: The Church – The pilgrims are tired and sore, but happy.

: Holy Mass

: Emma (Gin’s first girl after 5 boys) at her home

: Gemma and Juliette.

: Annie and Peter

: Theresa took the boys for an outing. Adrian, Isaac, Brendan, Jacob.

: Gemma’s fooling around again.

: Our yard at sunset.

: Our grotto has been such a source of peace and beauty.

: At night.

: Gemma is fiddling with my settings on my phone. This is sedum that peeks out of the rocks here and there in the yard,

: Our cottonwood tree “snowed” in June!

: Our wisteria in the forefront, Vincent and I in the background.

: A little fawn we found.

: Margy is enamored. We found its sibling and put it back hoping the mother would come back for them.

: Getting ready to go to the ordinations.

: They’re off!

: Mike and Jeanette are heading to the ordinations, too! Angelo is traveling with them and we will meet up there.

: A picture of the ordinations from where I was sitting.

: The after party.

: The ordination reception hall

: The newly ordained Father Audino!

: Talking to newly ordained Father Dalimata

: Rosie, Rev. Mr. Elijah, Brother Maria and Father Adams.

: We will be going to Rev. Mr. Elijah’s ordination in October.

: Meeting other seminarians….

: Toby and Rosie.

: Mike and Jeanette chat with Brother Maria.

: First Blessings.

: Chatting with Father Loftus.

: Mike and Jeanette pose with their two Godchildren.

: I pose with one of ours…Philomena.

: Ben and Annie….getting ready for a party?

: Uncle Vin with new nephew, Sean!

: Our flowers.

: One of the kids took this panorama.

: And this one.

: Uncle Johnny, my husband’s brother is working for us right now. I went to get him for a phone call and found him buried in a mulberry tree, his face and fingers dripping with evidence!

: Jeanette’s strawberries.

: 3 baskets for 3 little pickers!

: Agnes and Magdalene.

: Jeanette’s flowers….

: Clematis

: Viburnum bush

: Gin’s Violas

: Gin’s Petunias

: Rosie is tired…

: Gin bought another curtain and is working on a dress…

: Picking sour cherries at Theresa’s.

: Grandpa devoured them!

: Uncle Johnny… haha

: Brendan picked a centerpiece for their table!

: I’m working on my cabochons…

: Lots of lovelies!

: At Vin and Gin’s for Sunday brunch!

: Theresa and Gin. Gin broke the news that morning that they are expecting number 10!!

: Margy and Z.

: One of Gin’s kids made this dish!

: Gin and her girls.

: Agnes and Magdalene are busy baking!

: Mike and Jeanette’s little people

: Toby likes the fresh asparagus!

: Hannah and sweet baby Sean!

: New kittens at Gin’s!

: Edward (Gin’s oldest) is working on something…

: Wonder what it could be?

: Annie wonders too…

: Peter is trying it out!

: Oh lovely!

: A little bridge for Gin!

: She is busy putting a landscaped edge along her fence!

: Flowers from the garden to the table!

: Hollyhocks are blooming this year.

: We planted them up by our shed hoping they would do something.

: I gave Adrian some “slime” for his birthday. He finds it quite intriguing.

: Picnic lunch at Theresa’s with Z’s family!

: Mike and Toby went fishing!

: Vin and his boys…

: Angelo is fishing

: Barbeque at Colin and Z’s!

: Wowsers! Yum!

: Our golf cart comes in real handy! Angelo got it free off of FB Marketplace and fixed it for us.

: One side of the garden…Inca marigolds, zucchini and tomatoes, and zinnias

: The other side of the garden….beets, chard, cucumbers.

: Rosie like to sit and say her prayers here.

: Mary Garden

: Sacred Heart Grotto.

: Our wheelbarrow with wave petunias, sweet potato vine and geraniums

: Emma, Gin and Juliette

: My son, Sep, that doesn’t like pictures of him posted. Oh well, I got one anyway! The logo on the back of his T-shirt is for his granite company…Sarto.

: Edward (our oldest grandson) is out haying.

: Our gerbera daisies and verbena.

: Theresa’s new soap cutter!

: Jeanette’s new potatoes.

: Yum!

: Jeanette’s gladiola

: And her lovely dahlia.

: First zucchini

: Father Huber does the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart at Mike and Jeanette’s

: Little Annie

: Tony, Nathan, Peter

: Off to Idaho with Father Adams….

: Staying in a guest cabin at a good friend’s home.

: Lovely cabin!

: Lots of lakes

: And things to see

: Places to shop

: Lake pier

: Easting breakfast with their friend, Ernie, who lives in Post Falls.

: Gemma, Rosie, Angelo and Hannah.

: Boating…

: Tubing….

: Beaching….

: Vacationing is pretty tough sometimes….haha Angelo!

: Beach at night

: Going on the lift up to the top of the mountain.

: Gemma’s not impressed.

: Eating on the top of the mountain

: Father and Kiki

: Sunset…

: One of Vincent’s rabbit hutches

: Butterfly bush. These make the loveliest cut flowers!

: Pretty flowers at Theresa’s.

: My butterfly bush centerpiece.

: Three vibrant colors of Echinacea…red

: white

: yellow

: Peter and Annie trying to cool off in 100 degree weather!

: Edward and Vin cook dinner as Gin is suffering from morning sickness….

: Vincent’s declicious? breakfast he cooked up. Fresh chard on top.

: Agnes’ new bunnies!

: Jeanette’s raspberry garden

: Devin’s Father’s Day gift!

: A cute little trailer for his four-wheeler!

: Peter in the back of his dad’s truck.

: The kids are still in Idaho and I sent them this photo saying this is the excitement at home! In other words…no excitement…which is the way I like it!

: Theresa’s soaps for the fathers in her life. With the added rope to easily hang on their shower faucet!

: Baking with friends….

: Magdalene and Toby’s birthday cakes…soon to be part of the strawberry shortcake!

: Little girls everywhere!

: Grandma gives them some tips.

: Princess for a day!

: Toby’s new boots!

: Mulberry Maggie!

: New baby with Rita as Sarah looks on.

: Beautiful evenings…

: Baby Sean

: Sweet!

: Awake!

: Dad David…Happy First Father’s Day, Dave!

Catholic Education in the Home (Part Three – Conclusion)

14 Monday Jun 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Family Life, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

This is Part Three of an excellent article! It was given the Nihil Obstat in Australia in 1955. The name of the Dominican sister was not included.

The article has many things to ponder and take to heart!

Part One

Part Two

ON EARTH THE BROKEN ARC. . . . . . .

I know some may be tempted to think that all this talk of beauty and art is too impractical, too much far away from the business of everyday life – or that the country home cannot do much about it. But a Catholic should never let himself think like that. He should know that to be a complete person, means to be able to see and to feel, to imagine and even to create what is beautiful.

I cannot go into this any further, much as I would like to. I shall say just this:- the home can do more in this matter than the school. Like love for our Holy Faith, appreciation of the fine and lovely things of life comes from constant association with beautiful things themselves and with people who have a genuine love and understanding of them.

So it is for parents to help their children in this vital matter. Simplicity, neatness, color, brightness, and good taste can make the house and garden lovely without great expense. A few really good pictures by great artists can help to form the children’s taste.

There are, for example, so many of Our Lady by artists such as Fra Angelico, Botticelli and Raphael, that it seems a shame to have instead, ones that are unworthy of Our Lady’s beauty and dignity.

A good book for helping children to understand art has a significant title, Pictures to Grow Up With.

Children take great notice of pictures in the home and I know I can recall vividly all the pictures in our home. Hence the importance of having lovely ones and of encouraging the children really to look at them – and to make their own, to draw and paint and make things.

Much of a child’s future happiness and goodness depends on what the home and the school have done to help him to discover and develop his special creative powers, his capacity for making something beautiful

RESPONSE TO POETRY

It seems harder to discover what can be done at home to foster a love of poetry. There are collections of works by genuine poets (i.e. not just writers of verse for children) which are produced in such a way as to captivate the attention – such as the Adventures in Poetry series by Mary Daunt, or The Blackbird in the Lilac, by James Reeves or an Australian Adventures in Poetry, edited by Donald McLean, and Gospel Rhymes, published by Sheed and Ward.

If these could be read aloud and talked over, it would be a good beginning. The attitude of the adults to poetry has a great deal to do with the child’s response to it.

MUSIC -TO UPLIFT OR DEGRADE?

To develop appreciation of good music is both easier and harder – easier because modern people will listen more readily to music than to poetry; harder because so much music is heard that is utterly worthless, if not vulgar and degrading.

Positive efforts are always best in this as in all education. You can find ways of knowing what is good; and by wise choice of radio programs and the playing of records of good music the home can set up right standards for the children before their taste has been spoilt.

If it is at all possible, some members of the family who have the gift should learn to play the piano or other musical instruments. They can then give great joy to the others.

I could say much more, but I daresay you are thinking that I have said enough. Still I think you will see from the above, that one of the defects of the education of girls, especially of those who are going to be home-makers in the country, is that it is too similar to a boy’s education.

Training in art and music, in subjects such as history and great literature, in all that would make for good taste in dress, speech and home decoration and management would do more to fit a girl to be a Christian mother and the mistress of a Christian home.

EDUCATION FOR RURAL LIVING

And so I come to my final point – what the country home can do to educate the child for rural living.

An American writer on the “Forward to the Land movement”, expressed the value of rural living thus:-To live a decent, human life a man needs space for family living, a good environment for bringing up children, one where children are welcome, the possession of property so that the family can have both independence and responsibility, and a chance for genuine community living, for true neighbourliness.

Only the country can give all this. A nation can be no stronger than its families are, and they can be at their best in the country. And when to this natural strength we add the crowning glory of the Catholic Faith, when we strive to bring Christ to the countryside, and the land to Christ, we are certainly exercising a great apostolate.

This is the ideal and the vocation we wish to hand on to our children. They will learn it best by living it, by being given an active share in it, while still young. If the chance to be truly responsible for what one does is one of the values of rural living, then the rural home must give each child jobs to do which he must do with faithfulness and responsibility.

It is not enough that he sees, what is easily seen on a farm, that the feeding of animals, the watering of plants, the milking of cows, the gathering of eggs, the preparing of meals cannot be put aside for another day. He must share that responsibility if he is to experience the joy of a job well done.

The jobs should not be burdensome to the child, but they should be really necessary jobs, and the child should be really responsible for doing them.

Anyone who has had much to do with modern children, would realize their need for a sense of responsibility, and for acquiring a spirit of work and a respect for its dignity. At the same time the children will learn from sharing the family work to care for things with reverence and detachment, to use them properly – a very valuable lesson that is so hard to teach to the child who has to spend his growing years in a flat or in a few rented rooms.

COMMUNITY LIFE

True neighborliness or the spirit of genuine community living is really an extension of a sense of responsibility. It is living a truth that, as members of the Body of Christ we are almost as responsible for the goodness and happiness of others as we are for our own. We are all one in Christ. Someone has put it thus: ‘The countryman retains in his very fiber the knowledge that God’s answer to “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is an emphatic “Yes.”

Children should not only see the genuine concern which their parents have for the troubles of others and their readiness to give help; they should have their share in helping.

Picnics and parties and games together are the joyful side of neighborliness; children need this, and the more serious side as well. As they grow up in the more spacious country environment, they can learn the meaning and value of quietness, serenity and solitude; but they should realize that they are never isolated, no matter how far away the nearest homestead.

From their parents, too, children learn to take an active part in parish functions and entertainments, to give time and energy to supporting movements such as the Rural Movement, or any movement or club that is working to help the Catholic boy or girl to be, in time, an intelligent and contented member of a country community.

SENSE OF VALUES

A parent’s surest means of developing in their children this intelligent appreciation of a rural way of life, is by giving them a happy home life with parents and children sharing their interests and fun. Nothing can replace the value of that in any child’s life, but it is particularly true of the country child’s life, who at some time or other will be tempted by the seeming enchantment of city life.

It can be a very strong temptation, but parents who have realized that their vocation in life is to educate their children in God’s way, will not be found wanting. Their own love for each other and for God, is the strongest foundation of happiness in the home, and that is one reason why they will keep to themselves any differences or disagreements that may arise between them.

They will realize that the special home virtues of unselfishness, bearing with one another, gentleness, generosity and modesty will not come without prayer and personal effort.

Each of these would be worthy of a talk on its own, but unselfish courtesy and modesty are needed by the child of today to a degree that is almost frightening-courtesy because it means a real concern for the feelings of others, a deep respect, a reverence for the person of others-and reverence, we are told, is fast disappearing from our world.

Good manners is the outward showing of courtesy and good-mannered children have good-mannered parents; that is the only certain way.

This is true also of modesty – a person’s sense of reverence for himself, his own person. Here, the father has a tremendous responsibility for the modest manliness of his sons and their respect for women; and the mother must know that her girl’s womanly modesty and purity depend largely on hers.

A girl nowadays, at least in the city, needs this virtue to an heroic degree, so great are the temptations to unbecoming dress and behavior.

Yet Catholic women, who knew how to dress smartly and modestly, and had the courage of their convictions, could start a revolution in this matter.

THE HOME OF A SAINT

To end my talk, I want to quote the words of our Holy Father, the Pope, spoken when he was canonizing St. Maria Goretti, the twelve year-old martyr of purity. She was, he said, “the fruit of a Christian home with its old simple method of education, a home where one prays, where the children are brought up in fear of God, in obedience to parents, in the love of truth and self-respect, accustomed to be satisfied with little, and to give a helping hand.”

It was a country home, and Maria was a country child, who learnt early the meaning of sharing fully in the joys and sufferings of a family – the give and take of a family life.

I have always loved the ideals of country life, and have loved teaching children from country homes. That is why I am glad and honored to speak to you today, to get to know a little of those who make it possible for children to be truly childlike.

City children have their own lovableness and perhaps a greater need of our work, but I often find myself longing to give them the tremendous benefits of growing up in the country – and that is why I think every effort should be made to establish in the country, colleges and schools that are fully Catholic and truly rural in ideals.

Our Lady was the mistress of a little village home in Nazareth; Jesus was a little village child. I know their loving spirit will guide every step the country child takes on his way to heaven.

“For years, while raising children, a mother’s time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. Hence, a mother raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her will, to constantly stretch her heart.” -Fr. Rolheiser, OMI

“This is the book that traditionally minded Catholic family women have been looking for. Long out of print, this rare jewel is destined to become the favored spiritual guide for Catholic wives and mothers. Msgr. Landriot gave these conferences over 100 years ago but they are as relevant to us today as the Gospels. Think of this book as a practical guide for women who want to achieve sanctity in the home.” Check it out at Loreto Publications here.

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As no sensible person would make a long road trip without first consulting a map, so the person intent upon gaining Heaven should first resort to a competent guide to reach that Goal of all goals. And no better guide to Heaven exists than An Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Doctor of the Church. It is at once easy to read, being laid out in short chapters, yet thorough, authoritative, reliable, kind and gentle a mirror of its author. It is a book, moreover, for all, because all are called to the devout life. True devotion to God, the author points out, adorns every vocation. The devout life, moreover, is a lovely, a pleasant, and a happy life.

If your life seems to make no sense, or if you don’t know which path to take, St. Francis de Sales will console and inform you. In this warm little book, he explains to you what God’s will is and how He reveals it yes, even to you, and even in the seemingly random events of your life.

No matter what you’re going through now (or may have gone through), you’ll see why you should love and trust in God’s will and long for its fulfillment. Best of all, you’ll learn a sure method for discovering God’s will in any situation today!

As you begin to discern God’s loving hand even in seemingly chaotic events, St. Francis de Sales will lead your mind and your heart to the still waters of God’s gentle consolation.

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Heart of Hearths – The Sacred Heart of Jesus

13 Sunday Jun 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Prayers

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by Solange Hertz

No one insisted more than St. Margaret Mary that devotion to the Sacred Heart must not be limited to individual piety, profound as this might be. Nor was Our Lord’s “burning thirst to be honored by men” to be restricted to worship in churches.

“He has much greater plans,” she wrote, “which can be put into effect only by His almighty power, which can accomplish whatever it wills. It seems to me He wishes to enter with pomp and magnificence into the homes of princes and kings, to be honored there to the extent He has been outraged.”

In other words, He wished to establish His loving rule over human society by being acknowledged as true Head of every family, from the highest one down. The divine request was supposedly transmitted at the time to King Louis XIV, but if so, nothing came of it.

The King continued on the disastrous course of secular glorification which eventually produced the French Revolution, and now Marxist tyranny. One by one the nations of the world have said, “We will not have this Man to reign over us!” (Luke 19:14).

The world has now reached the point that the very laws of nature are being ignored, if not outright repealed. Based on the false principle that power comes from below, a giant mechanism of organized disorder has been erected where the bond-woman Hagar habitually and by law dictates to her mistress Sarah. No one knows his proper place, because it can’t be found.

Money manipulators who should be the hired servants of politics and economics are in fact formulating government policies—and that on an international level. Schools are laying down the law to parents, the family itself now the puppet of the state designed by God to serve it. Publishers determine what authors shall write. Manufacturers condition the consumer to the goods they produce.

Agriculture, the sovereign human art, is indentured to industrial production, made to follow factory methods and objectives. The sovereignty of nations themselves is being absorbed into an artificial super-State organized on purely rational lines.

Needless to say, the members of Holy Mother Church, already weakened and divided by the “reforms” of the so-called Reformation, are falling prostrate before the scourges of the New Order, apparently powerless to rise and protest. How to establish the rule of the Sacred Heart in such contrived chaos?

As St. Margaret Mary saw long before the French Revolution, only God’s omnipotence can accomplish a task of this proportion. Exactly how He will do it is His secret, but do it He will.

“What are you afraid of?” He asked her. “I shall reign in spite of Satan and all opposition.”

If His past methods are any precedent, however, He will use as His instruments the same “little ones” in all ranks of society He has always used to confound the wise of this world. St. Margaret Mary in fact predicted this: “He gave me to understand,” she wrote to her Superior Mother de Saumaise, “that He does not need human power for that, because the devotion and reign of the Sacred Heart will be consolidated only by subjects poor and contemptible, amid contradictions, so that none of it can be attributed to human potential.”

As always, He will scatter the proud in the conceit of their heart, putting down the mighty from their seat and exalting the humble, filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty (Luke 1:51-53).

Until then they need only remain in His Sacred Heart, attentive to its every beat, careful to follow its manifest directives. He will tell them what to do, even though for the time being the fulfilment of His magnificent promises remains blocked by the malicious authority of the great ones of this world.

Things being as they are, about the only unit of temporal government left to us that can be brought under the sway of Christ is the private home. Furthermore, for some of us it may be the only place of worship we have left outside the privacy of our own souls. For which God be thanked, for that is exactly what a home is designed by God to be: a domestic economy over which God presides, where He is praised by its members.

If home is where the heart is, then the Christian home must be where the Sacred Heart is.

Rediscovering this truth may be one of the greatest blessings He means to draw from the wanton destruction of parishes and parliaments. It’s a beginning.

At home Christians can still share the “one heart” which God promised Jeremiah He would give His people, “and one way, that they may fear me all days: and that it may be well with them, and with their children after them” (32:39).

The Acts of the Apostles relate how “the multitude of believers had but on heart and one soul; neither did any one say that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but all things were common unto them” (4:32). This “one heart” of saints who lovingly share all they possess is today in open confrontation with the “one world” of androids intent on robbing one another of even the most elementary right to private ownership. There can be no co-existence between the two.

We cannot repeat too often that devotion to the Sacred Heart, promulgated from the very first as a devotion for the latter times, is now only beginning. What has been achieved so far is the merest preparation or predisposition for a fullness yet to be even suspected. It would be ridiculous to think our Lord hasn’t foreseen and provided for all the deprivations we are facing—the desecration of Churches, suppression of sacred images and sacramentals, the defections from the priesthood…

We have noted already that devotion to the Sacred Heart has established once and for all the primacy of the interior life. What it does for the individual in his own soul it is equally prepared to do for society, in the home. We start where we can.

Is there any reason why what our Lord requested of worldly monarchs can’t be accorded Him by lesser heads of families? Let those who preach “power to the people” beware of that power when it is brandished in the service of God! What is to prevent exposing and honoring the picture of the Sacred Heart in our homes—is only because “wherever this holy picture should be exposed to be honored He would lavish His graces and blessings”?

Better still, why not satisfy at home our Lord’s longing to be adored in the Blessed Sacrament? That Benediction has all but disappeared from the liturgy, or that the Church doors are locked, or that the Sacrament itself may no longer be reserved, can be seen to be no excuse at all when we look deeply into the matter.

One of the first to see this was the late Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey, of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, who initiated the movement for Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home. With truly prophetic insight he began preaching Eucharistic Adoration as a practice most proper to the home. Already in the late 1920’s he was signing up families for one hour a month of night adoration, at a time when the Real Presence was taken for granted in every Catholic church and expected to continue there until the end of the world.

Fr. Mateo may not have been so sure. He wrote, “We are in fact on the brink of an abyss of social corruption; the home already undermined in its very foundations by this upheaval of immorality; a good part of the portion of society which by right is considered the best, the most Christian, seriously affected by the contagion of unbridled sensuality… What is sadder still, the enemy has now penetrated into our own ranks; the wolf is encountered with unheard of cruelty in a full sheepfold. More, he is tolerated there, even encouraged by the cowardice of friends. This Satan and the world have without pity struck and scourged their God and their Lord. His very bones might be counted through His wounds, for there is no soundness in Him.

Urging reparation to the Sacred Heart, his practical suggestions for domestic adoration are very instructive: “In large families the adoration may be arranged in such a way that each member of the family watches in turn before a picture of the Sacred Heart. If the Sacred Heart has been enthroned in the home, then the adoration should take place before the enthroned picture of the Sacred Heart, around which lighted candles and flowers have been placed, if this is possible and practical…

The adoration should be made as far as possible on one’s knees, in a spirit of salutary penance… It should be throughout a Eucharistic Adoration, in spirit and in truth. It makes His Passion ours: “The same love which made Me suffer such extreme pains and affliction for the salvation of men, makes Me also suffer now in your heart, immortal and impassible as I am, by the intimate compassion with which it is penetrated for the salvation of my elect, in consideration of my afflictions and bitterness. Therefore in return for the compassion which you have had for my sufferings, I give you the whole fruit of my Passion and death, to insure your eternal beatitude.”

Spoken to St. Gertrude, these words make plain what meditation on the Sacred Heart is meant to lead to. Fr. Mateo suggested prayers for the following intentions during hours of home adoration: “our Holy Father and Pope, peace, the clergy, the members of your family who may have gone astray, those in their agony this night, the Social Reign of the Sacred Heart, particularly through the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home. Oh, be true angels of Gethsemane in this nocturnal adoration, you who have an advantage over the angel from heaven, since you are able to suffer and to weep in union with the agonizing Heart of Jesus!”

Most significantly, Fr. Mateo urged adorers to begin their hour by uniting themselves in spirit with the priests who at that moment might be offering the Holy Sacrifice anywhere in the world. He wished them if possible to recite the Canon of the Mass in view of a spiritual Communion, all the while adoring, praising, petitioning and atoning “through Him, with Him and in Him.”

Aware of the importance of Fr. Mateo’s latter day apostolate, Popes Benedict XV, Pius XI and Pius XII each accorded the Apostolic Benediction to those engaging in it. In his enthusiasm Pope Pius XI dubbed it “the actualization of my Encyclical” Miserentissimus Redemptor, on the Sacred heart.

With such encouragement from the highest Authority, why not adore at home kneeling in spirit before our Lord’s true sacramental Presence in all Churches or places where It may still be found? Isn’t it this Real Presence that the image of the Sacred Heart is precisely meant to evoke in our homes? Wouldn’t our Lord intend to follow His Heart’s image personally into any place where it was lovingly exposed? If not, how could devotion to the Sacred Heart make any real sense?

Prayer to the Sacred Heart:

May all the words that I speak be dipped in the Blood of Thy Sacred Heart, O Jesus, that they may be so many arrows to pierce the hearts of all who hear them with love for Thee. Amen. -The Precious Blood and Mother Prayerbook, Painting by Gregory Frank Harris

“It often struck me that if cleanliness is next to godliness, cheerfulness is a near relation. The cheerful are truly benefactors of the world in which we move…” – Fr. John Carr, C.SS.R.

In the words of this humble seventeenth-century lay Carmelite, “we must trust God once and for all and abandon ourselves to Him alone.” This difficult task necessarily requires perseverance and continual conversation with God in all activities great and small: “speaking humbly and talking lovingly with Him at all times, at every moment, without rule or system…” In reading these conversations, letters, and spiritual maxims, we learn the key to endless joy.

In short, this little spiritual classic — in its fresh, contemporary English translation — renders the simple wisdom of Brother Lawrence accessible to every Christian who yearns for the fullness of life….

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Catholic Education in the Home (Part Two)

11 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Family Life, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

This is Part Two of an excellent article! It was given the Nihil Obstat in Australia in 1955. The name of the Dominican sister was not included.

The article has many things to ponder and take to heart!

Part One is here.

Part Two is here.

NURSERY OF SAINTS

In truth, the family circle is the nursery of saints as of sane, human beings. There the child finds the love, security and guidance which are his greatest needs.

It is by loving and being loved that persons grow as persons. It is in the family that relationships are essentially personal and each person is valued as a person.

So we look to the family to preserve that form of society, that way of life which respects the personality, the unique value in God’s eyes, of every human being.

The mothers who humbly strive to open the eyes of the children to the truths of the first chapters of the catechism are doing a work of incalculable, irreplaceable value.

Maybe that is the vocation of the country family – to keep alive a sane view of life by educating their children to be, as Fr. Gerald Vann expresses it,’creative personalities who will share the redemptive work of Jesus Christ through their lives, their work, their homes and their love.

If ever you get the chance read the stories of Saints Pius X and John Bosco, Saints Therese and Maria Goretti, you will realize how close is the connection between good homes, nobility of character and sanctity.

VOCATIONS

You will understand too, why vocations to the priesthood and the religious life come usually in the good home; and with grateful love you will encourage the children who want to serve God in this great way.

I am afraid I have too little time to deal adequately with the three other aspects of educative work in the home. But, as a Dominican, I must speak at least briefly, on the parent’s share in developing in each child a deep respect for the things of the mind, for the work of the human intellect.

The work of the intellect is to grasp truth, to grasp the meaning of things as they are in the reality of their own being, to come always nearer to seeing things as they must be in God’s sight.

It may be the Divine Knowledge of God as He has revealed it to us, or the natural knowledge of the universe He has created, or the world of ideas by which the human mind strives to understand the purpose of existence-why the world is, what we are, what are our real powers, what are the relationships between things and men and the unseen world.

Whatever it be, the unspoilt human intellect seeks this knowledge and yearns for it, because even when it does not know it, it is always seeking the greatest reality, God, the source of all Truth.

The modern world has little taste for this thirst for truth. Too often, insensitive and blind to the inner meaning of things, it asks only Of what use are they to us? Is there any money in it for us?

It degrades everything by commercializing it. It scorns those who have no material gain to show for all their study. There is nothing wrong with putting our knowledge to practical use.

The Holy Family at Nazareth had to do so daily. The grave mistake is to forget the higher value of knowledge, to let our minds be tainted by the materialistic outlook around us; even sometimes to encourage our children to adopt this attitude. That is why I am dwelling on a point that may at first, seem to have little to do with education in the home.

THE COUNTRY HOME

I can see in country life and the country home great possibilities for keeping alive a right love for knowledge. I can sense a danger too in the fact that parents are often dependent on non-Catholic schools for the outside education of their children.

There is bound to be confusion and conflict in the child’s mind, if the ideals and standards of value differ, especially if one held that man, not God, was the measure of Truth.

The home must therefore deliberately set itself to correct this, to give the child the right meaning of truth and knowledge.

For this the country child has the great advantage of living from his earliest days in close contact with natural things, with things that have come straight from the hand of God.

Everything that is, is more than it is, and the child can gain real knowledge from the company of living and growing things.

Natural things exert an almost incredibly strong influence on the child mind, which can surrender its whole being so fully to what it sees and loves- a fleet of ducklings on a pond, a calf on its rickety legs, a moonlight walk to turn off the windmill, the tall trees always in their place, the ride round the thirty-acre on the Massey-Harris pulled by eight strong horses.

GOD’S PURPOSE IN ALL THINGS

Experiences such as these things can hardly fail to give real knowledge and at the same time to guard and guide the spirit of the child, giving it a sense of true peace and true grandeur which it need never lose.

In your own minds, now perhaps you are seeing again what used to give you a special joy or comfort, reassurance or inspiration. The meaning and purpose of these natural things is something a child can understand, and at the same time he is led, almost, unawares, to see God through them. Thus is developed a sense of wonder at the mystery of being that could be a most precious possession for life.

This power to see the creatures of God as the symbols of His goodness and beauty, if rightly developed, is a means of enabling the child to enter more fully into the spirit of the liturgy, that is, the Church’s public worship of God.

It would help him to see the significant way in which flowers and candles, oil and wine and bread and water are used in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacraments.

And though I cannot dwell on the thought now, it would be worth your while to think deeply about the educative value of the Church’s liturgy, all Her ways of giving worship to God, and bringing man to God. This seems a long way from so-simple-seeming a subject as the study of nature; but all real knowing has such far-reaching effects.

READING

By encouraging children to read and to reflect on what they read, parents can also strongly influence a child’s attitude to learning. But the books must be worth reading, for you cannot develop a taste for what is good, nor the power to seek and find the beauty or truth of what is written if the book is of poor quality.

There is now a great wealth of good books for children and young people. It would be difficult to over-estimate the value of helping your children to love reading.

Some great educators do not hesitate to state that the test of the well-educated person is the quality of his reading. Can he really read a great book? If you could bring back to your home the custom of reading aloud to your children (or their reading to you) and of letting them try out their powers of thinking and discussing with you, you might help to make Australia a land of genuine culture.

But the right book is the important thing and it is your responsibility to do all you can to get them, plenty of them-Saints’ books, Nature books, stories, fairy and folk tales, stories of real life. But remember there is a world of difference between a genuine fairy story as found in Hans Andersen’s Tales or Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books and some pixie story by Enid Blyton.

Before I leave this problem of developing a deep respect for the things of the mind perhaps I could mention the right attitude to take towards the children’s progress in their studies.

A Catholic parent should never be tempted to ask-What is the good of all this study of poetry or history or Latin-it won’t help you to get a job-nor is it wise to use, as a spur to urge children to work, the argument that they will not get on in the world.

Again, keep always in mind the truth that children differ very greatly in natural gifts and aptitudes. One of the greatest lessons we have to learn in life is to accept ourselves as we are and our children have to learn it too. What is needed is to find what one can really do and do it as perfectly as we can.

SUCCESS IS NOT ENOUGH

How much more sane and balanced is the personality of the child who is not for ever being harried by unfair comparisons with what other children can do. Often we are so anxious for the success of our children that we forget the harm we may be thus doing to their characters their attitude to life. Rather should we train our children to rejoice sincerely in the gifts and success of others.

When I come to consider what it means to have given a child a love and appreciation of what is beautiful in life, in art, in music, in literature, I could wish I had a poet’s power to convey in a few words, a whole world of meaning.

It is indeed fatally easy to think we have educated a child when we have trained him to think, to acquire masses of useful information, to do many useful things. We could do all this and leave his inner spirit untouched or dulled.

Someone has written that modern education has produced a world, completely out of tune with beauty, unaware of it, and incapable of seeing it, reverencing it or producing it.

The ugliness of much that we see in big cities – advertisements on hoardings, factory buildings, radio programmes, comic strips and popular songs and dance music, that are utterly empty of all loveliness and graciousness – These are evidence of wide-spread disregard for beauty, and, to quote a great Catholic writer, Jacques Maritain, “The dismissal of beauty is a dangerous thing for humanity.”

It would scarcely be too much to say that in dismissing or belittling what is beautiful we are dismissing God. For God is Beauty as well as Truth and Goodness, and ‘all the beauty we can see is but an addition to the store through which we become aware of God.

(To be continued…)

We are called to be great Apostles of Love in our ordinary, daily life. We are Christ’s Hands and Feet as we wipe noses, feed hungry little ones and change diapers with an attitude of service and love. When we are cheerful to those we rub shoulders with each day, when we kindly open our door to those who enter into our home, we are taking part in Christ’s Apostolic Work. “Jesus was an Apostle in the stable of Bethlehem, in the shop of St. Joseph, in His anguish in Gethsemane and on Calvary no less than when He was going through Palestine, teaching the multitudes or disputing with the doctors of the law.” – Divine Intimacy, Painting by Morgan Weistling http://amzn.to/2p0dxg8 (afflink)

Lovely reviews from Amazon on my book, Cheerful Chats for Catholic Children: Thank you, Dear Ladies!

“Love it! Love it! Love it! A grace filled book that gives young children a faith perspective, more of a God’s eye view if you will, of daily events.All the ups and downs of life are considered in relation to Christ and His Blessed Mother. My own grandchildren love hearing these tales every night. The stories give them hope, security and understanding.”

“I’ve long been wanting a book on various virtues to help my children become better Catholics. But most books focused on the virtues make being bad seem funny or attractive in order to teach the child a lesson. I’ve always found them to be detrimental to the younger ones who’s logic hasn’t formed. This book does an awesome job in showing a GOOD example in each of the children with all the various struggles children commonly struggle with (lying, hiding things, being grumpy, you name it.) But this book isn’t JUST virtue training… it’s also just sweet little chats about our love for God, God’s greatness, etc…

And the best thing of all? They are SHORT! I have lots of books that are wonderful, but to be honest I rarely pick them up because I just don’t have the time to read a huge, long story. These are super short, just one page, and very to the point. The second page has a poem, picture, a short prayer and a few questions for the kids to get them thinking. It works really, really well right before our bedtime prayers and only takes a few minutes at most.

If you like “Leading the Little ones to Mary” then you will like these… they are a little more focused on ALL age groups, not just little ones… so are perfect for a family activity even through the teenage years, down to your toddler”

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Hands Free Mama is the digital society’s answer to finding balance in a media-saturated, perfection-obsessed world. It doesn’t mean giving up all technology forever. It doesn’t mean forgoing our jobs and responsibilities. What it does mean is seizing the little moments that life offers us to engage in real and meaningful interaction. It means looking our loved ones in the eye and giving them the gift of our undivided attention, living a present, authentic, and intentional life despite a world full of distractions.

With his facile pen and from the wealth of his nation-wide experience, the well-known author treats anything and everything that might be included under the heading of home education: the pre-marriage training of prospective parents, the problems of the pre-school days down through the years of adolescence. No topic is neglected. “What is most praiseworthy is Fr. Lord’s insistence throughout that no educational agency can supplant the work that must be done by parents.” – Felix M. Kirsch, O.F.M. https://amzn.to/2T06u28 (afflink)

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Catholic Education in the Home (Part One)

09 Wednesday Jun 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Family Life, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

This is an excellent article! It was given the Nihil Obstat in Australia in 1955. The name of the Dominican sister was not included.

The article has many things to ponder and take to heart!

Part Two is here.

Part Three is here.

Artist: Richard Sohn (1834 – 1912, German)

(A talk given to the 1954 South Australian State Conference of the National Catholic Rural Movement, by a Dominican Nun, Cabra Convent, Adelaide).

The purpose of my talk today, is to think over with you, some of the ways in which Catholic parents may play their part in the Christian education of their children. It would hardly be possible for anyone to choose a topic more important than this, and that for two reasons.

MATERIALISM

Firstly, it seems no exaggeration to say that our civilization, our way of life is on the verge of destroying itself. Materialism, that theory which denies all spiritual realities-God, the soul, the life hereafter, which makes the human being a mere object, has gained a terrifying hold on the minds of men.

Almost every day we hear something which forces us to realize that the Catholic Church is one of the few institutions that still respect every human being as a person, of priceless value in the sight of God.

I cannot develop this point any further, but it leads to the second of my reasons. It is obvious that our children will have to bear the brunt of this struggle against anti-human, anti-Christian forces.

The fate of the world lies in our children’s hands.

As a nun writing in America states, ‘Even a quick look around will assure us that the influences set against our children today amount almost to a diabolical plot. But the ‘child is still the strongest bridge between God and man. And when we realize that no educational influence on earth is as powerful nor as permanent in its results as that of the family and home, you will see why I think this topic is so vital.

The enemies of religion know that their most effective weapon is the attack against family life. You, too, must realize as fully as possible, the power that is yours.

IN THE HOME

‘Education, it is said, ‘is the help that is given to the growing personality of the child to recognize itself and to become all that God intends it to be,-a truly human person, with all its powers and gifts fully developed and used for the glory of God and the service of others.

It is the home that makes possible the growth of the child’s personality. With every waking moment the child becomes more conscious of itself, more ready to absorb the influence of those nearest to it.

Its soul is, as it were, untouched soil which places no obstacles in the way of anything planted in it.

In later years, many interests compete for its attention. In early childhood, the mother first, and in lesser degree the father and other members of the family absorb the child’s whole attention and so can contribute very deeply to the development of its personality. From them it learns natural independence in walking and talking. From the parents it discovers the meaning of love, security and authority. No one else can love the child in exactly the way a mother loves it as part of her very self-no one can therefore know it nor influence it as she does.

WHAT THIS MEANS

It is not hard to see from this the tremendous importance of a good home. What is there, almost subconsciously imbibed, will never be rooted out of the person’s being though it may be clouded over or twisted for a time by later experiences.

How great then is the parents’ responsibility and their need of the graces of matrimony, to bring up their children in the fear and love of God.

In discussing more in detail the parents share in the education of their children, I shall consider four main aspects of the way in which the child is prepared, as Pope Pius XI expressed it ‘for what he must be and what he must do here below in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created.

The home must set the child well on the way to:

. . . a deeply sincere religious life and sense of spiritual values.

. . a deep respect for the things of the mind.

. . . a love and an appreciation of what is beautiful.

. . . a respect for the rural way of life and its special place in God’s plan.

It is in the first of these, the development of the child’s religious life, that the parents must be to the child an authentic revelation of God. He sees God through them. Seeing their love for one another, he more readily grasps the truth of God’s love for all; seeing them pray he senses the holiness of God and the reality of the unseen world of saints and angels.

Their trust in God, despite bad seasons and the like, their kindness to less fortunate neighbors, their unsparing attention to their jobs, all mirror for the child the fatherhood, the very love of God.

THE CHILD IS INFLUENCED

Consider too, the power a mother wields in developing the conscience of her child-the care she should take that it is rightly formed, delicate but not scrupulous and over fearful. Then, as the children grow older, the father’s influence becomes stronger, and his attitude to prayer, to the Sacraments, his way of speaking about priests and the Church, determine, even without his being aware of it, the way his children, especially the boys, will regard these things.

Besides these indirect ways, there are also many ways of directly helping the child to know, love and serve God.

I am sure you all have experienced the power and the joy of family prayers, of Grace before meals and the evening Rosary, of hearing Mass together. You have known perhaps the joyous share the whole family can have in the first Holy Communion of the six-year old or the Baptism of the new baby.

Make the most of these events, and do all you can to bring your children to a reverent joy in all the feasts of the Church by having special practices for Lent and Advent in preparation for Easter and Christmas, by establishing family customs, e.g. a home Crib, Carols and even a Christmas Play, or welcoming the Christ Child by inviting an orphan child to the home. Let the children save up for Masses for the Holy Souls in November, or to help the Missions.

A CHRISTIAN ATMOSPHERE

The Crucifix on the wall, the pictures of Our Lord and His Mother-the loveliest you can afford-the little shrine with lights and flowers-these unceasingly speak to your little ones of God’s love and His Beauty, preparing them for that friendship with God, that willing, personal submission to Him that is true freedom and happiness.

Growing up from babyhood in a truly Christian atmosphere such as this, children are soon ready for more definite instructions in the truths of our Holy Faith.

In giving these, a mother has no equal as a teacher, if she strives sincerely to do it well, remembering that she is not working alone. The divine life of Grace is in the soul of the child, giving him what St. Thomas calls a kind of divine intelligence, the light of Faith, which helps the light of the intellect.

Anyone who has taught religion to children know how eagerly they take it in; they have a natural religious sense.

There are books, e.g.,Christopher’s Talks to Children, which help parents to develop the Faith of their children, but it would be the most wonderful help of all if the parents would read or tell them the stories of the Bible.

Such stories enthrall the children more than any others, and help them to know Jesus and Mary as real people. Even the young ones will listen to the Gospel stories as given in Monsignor Ronald Knox’s version.

We should never forget that the Bible is a source of Divine Truth and it would be hard to over-estimate the value of a child’s continual and loving contact with God’s own words in the Old and especially in the New Testament.

Even when the religious instruction of the children is given in school or by correspondence courses, the responsibility of the parents does not cease.

They should know what the child is studying, discuss it with him, help him to make the knowledge part of his daily life, a real influence on his actions and thoughts.

This is not to be done by nagging at the child but by keeping the atmosphere of the home such that it is easy and natural for the child to practice virtue and live what he learns.

The whole family should be vitally interested in these Religion lessons, and make it clear that they are regarded as the most important part of the child’s schooling. It is a pity that the text-books used are not more helpful and attractive to both parents and children,

TIME CAN BE FOUND

I hope that not too many of you are wondering, How on earth could we find time to do all that? A mother’s day is always a busy and tiring one, especially when the children are young.

I know there are times in the year when it would be impossible to find even a few spare minutes. But I know too, that you long for all that is best for your children; and love feels no burdens and scarcely knows the meaning of the word impossible. It would be helpful to call to mind two principles – the value of going slowly and the power of incidental teaching.

In a story of Ethel Meynell’s, telling of a father’s rearing of his motherless daughter, I once read a line I have never forgotten. He gave her, it said, the inestimable benefit of leisure for her growing. Nothing is gained by hurrying little children on beyond their powers.

A quiet lesson of from eight to ten minutes, given daily or several times a week is enough for little ones, provided there are other times for reading or listening to holy stories and joining in family devotions.

Even prayers need not be learnt all at once. The little one can say Our Father, who art in Heaven, bless your little child, or Hail Mary, full of grace, help me to love your Child Jesus, and thus gradually learn the prayer, phrase by phrase, as its meaning is given time to sink into his mind.

Never forget that it is God’s will that the parents should be the ones to teach the child to pray, as Mary and Joseph helped the boy Jesus to advance in wisdom and grace.

Incidental teaching gains its immense effectiveness from being given at the moment it is needed.

It is the explanation given just when the child asks for it, and so is fully alert to the answer. It is the story told when the child is most receptive, the question asked when the issue really means something and is not just part of a lesson.

Most parents know that daily home life has many such occasions, and mothers especially know that young children are very confidential and responsive when they are being put to bed, or helping them at some little task. Often we teachers envy mothers their chances of cooperating so intimately in the child’s growth to holiness.

“Devote yourself to your labor as well as to the fulfillment of all your duties energetically and with a pure intention to please God and make yourself useful to your neighbor. Raise your heart to God from time to time by means of fervent ejaculations (short, quick prayers to heaven), that it may not be narrowed by earthly occupations.” – Fr. Lasance, My Prayer Book http://amzn.to/2oYAUq3 (afflink)

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Home Sacramentals

08 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Sacramentals

≈ 1 Comment

We pray the rosary here in the cold winter months. Our “home altar”. Gemma just happened to be in the background of this photo. 🙂

by Father Arthur Tonne, The Big Book of Catholic Sacramentals

“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that built it.” – Psalm 126:1.
Van Meter is just a small town in Iowa, but it boasts one of the finest rural homes in the entire state. It is the home built in 1940 by Bob Feller, pitching ace of the Cleveland Indians.

Although Fire-ball Feller was only 22 years old at the time, he already had made enough money to put up a $25,000 home for his father, mother and younger sister.
The building boasts every modern convenience–electrical equipment of all kinds, ventilating and heating systems, venetian blinds, casement windows, plenty of cupboards and drawers, ceiling-high bookcases, and especially an all-metal, all-electric kitchen.

There are gadgets galore, like a floor switch to call the maid, musical chimes, and an electric eye which automatically opens the garage door when a car comes up the driveway. All these conveniences are for the physical comfort of those who live there. They make house-keeping easier. They save time and energy.

Desirable and helpful as such gadgets are, we cannot help thinking that homes would be much more precious if the same effort were taken to provide spiritual helps and spiritual equipment.

From the material standpoint the home of Bob Feller is ideal. What is needed to make a home ideal from the spiritual standpoint?

The sacramentals of the home are varied and numerous. They help make home a holy place. They are not essential, but they contribute to spiritual health and vigor. Some of these sacramentals will receive a more complete treatment on other Sundays.

How make our homes holy?
1. There are several blessings for a home. One is given on the Epiphany, one on Holy Saturday. There is a common blessing that can be given a home at any time, and another special blessing for a new home.
The common blessing includes sprinkling the rooms with holy water, offering several short Bible verses, and reciting an appropriate prayer.
The blessing for a new house begs God to grant to those who live therein “the abundance of the dew of heaven, and food of the fatness of the earth, and let their desires and their prayers find fulfillment in Thy mercy.”

2. Of the numerous blessings of individuals we will speak on other Sundays. Let me merely mention them:
a. The Church blesses an expectant mother.
b. She blesses the mother after childbirth.
c. She blesses small children.
d. She has a blessing for an older child.
e. And still another for sick children.

3. Prayers in the home are important sacramentals:
a. Family prayer is the most helpful religious practice in the home. At some time each day parents and children should pray together. Some do this right after the evening meal, right at the table or kneeling beside it.
b. Individual morning and evening prayer should be an everyday practice. Let father and mother give the example and the reminder to their children.
c. Meal prayer should never be omitted. In addition to thanking God for the food and asking His blessing upon it, the meal prayer serves as a point of pause and spiritual refreshment in a busy day. It is good for the body as well as the soul.

4. Let me mention some other family devotions:
a. The Rosary does not take too long. Try it and discover the peace and powerful helps it will bring your family.
b. There are devotions for different seasons of the year; a crib at Christmas; a May altar; Sacred Heart prayers during June.
c. Remembering the feasts of patron saints of the different members of the family in some way, however small, is an inspiring practice.
d. Some little family celebration at spiritual milestones like First Communion, Confirmation, graduation from a Catholic school, is inspiring.

5. Each member of the family should have a prayer-book and a Rosary. Best of all is a missal. Keep these in a respectable place. Both children and adults should have medals, scapulars, Sacred Heart badges, and whatever helps spiritual life at home.

6. A Catholic home is marked with religious furnishings and adornment.
a. There should be a crucifix in every bedroom at least.
b. Somewhere in every home there should be at least one picture of our Lord and of our Blessed Mother.
c. There should be holy water, and, if possible, a holy water fount which is kept clean and filled, and honored with regular, reverent use.
d. There should be blessed candles.
e. There should be all the necessary equipment if a priest is called to bring Holy Communion or to assist the dying.
f. Many homes have a little altar, which serves as the center of family prayer, the meeting place for spiritual practices like the Rosary, May devotions, and Sacred Heart devotions.

Bob Feller’s home for his parents and sister may be ideal from the physical and material standpoint. Many a home is ideal from that viewpoint. But all too many homes are poorly equipped, miserably arranged from the spiritual standpoint.

The sacramentals will help to bring the thought of God into your little kingdom of love–your home. Do make yours an ideal home by using the sacramentals of Mother Church. Amen.

“Most women I know are busy. There are times when we take on too much. I’ve been there, and I’ll venture to guess that many of you have as well. That’s when it’s time to step back and take an inventory. Sit down and decide what needs to stay and where you need to cut back. Doing this means that we must be willing to make some sacrifices whether personal or financial in order to keep faith and family as our top two priorities, in that order.” Darlene Schacht, The Good Wife’s Guide, Painting by Marina Chulovich (1956)

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The rosary, scapulars, formal prayers and blessings, holy water, incense, altar candles. . . The sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church express the supreme beauty and goodness of Almighty God. The words and language of the blessings are beautiful; the form and art of statues and pictures inspire the best in us. The sacramentals of themselves do not save souls, but they are the means for securing heavenly help for those who use them properly. A sacramental is anything set apart or blessed by the Church to excite good thoughts and to help devotion, and thus secure grace and take away venial sin or the temporal punishment due to sin. This beautiful compendium of Catholic sacramentals contains more than 60,000 words and over 50 full color illustrations that make the time-tested sacramental traditions of the Church – many of which have been forgotten since Vatican II – readily available to every believer.

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Reflections on the Holy Family

28 Friday May 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, FF Tidbits

≈ 2 Comments

Fr. Francis Filas, S.J., 1947

“WHEN God in His mercy decided to carry out the work of man’s redemption, so long expected through the centuries, He arranged to perform His task in such a way that in its beginnings it might show forth to the world the august spectacle of a divinely founded family.

“In this all men were to behold the perfect exemplar of domestic society as well as of all virtue and holiness.

“A benign Providence established the Holy Family in order that all Christians in whatever walk of life or situation might have a reason and an incentive to practice every virtue, provided they fix their gaze on the Holy Family.” Thus did Pope Leo XIII write in 1892.

A divinely founded family…the perfect exemplar of all virtue and holiness…for all Christians in whatever walk of life.

“Why!” you say, “my family life is to make me holy? Did Pope Leo mean that ordinary people can be and should be saints? We who live in the world, who have to spend most of our time watching the budget and earning enough to support ourselves and our children?

Our ideals are subjected to continual battering by the un-Christian teachings and practices of so many of our neighbors. We can’t spend our whole day in prayer like the saints of old.

Evidently the Pope did not realize how ordinary we are. We try to live a good Catholic life, but we don’t deserve special credit for that. Holiness is something reserved for a few select laymen, for priests and religious, for monks and nuns in austere monasteries and convents.”

But the Pope did mean you–you and your husband or wife as well as your whole family. You can be and should be saints, for saints are those common-sense people who act according to their realization that all their happiness lies in obeying God’s law perfectly as it is shown them by the Church and by their conscience.

Holiness means happiness. Holy people are happy people at peace with God, with others, and with themselves.

There is only one requirement. You must do God’s will. This embraces various obligations and gives you corresponding rights and privileges.

God’s will in your regard is not something frightening and preternatural, brought down to you by angels amid trumpet blasts, thunder, lightning, and earthquakes.

No, it consists in the observance of the commandments, the frequent reception of the sacraments, and the practice of certain virtues in your everyday life. That is all. Call it homely, call it an everyday, ordinary, humdrum rule of life if you wish; but you can’t call it difficult and beyond your strength.

God’s grace is with you at every turn, sufficient and more than sufficient to help you serve Him.

Sometimes in your efforts you perhaps will fall out of weariness or discouragement; but you rise quickly, and trusting in God’s abundant grace, you go forward again.

Your goal must ever be the perfect love of God manifested in perfect love for His creatures, your “neighbors”–your husband or your wife, your children, your friends, all with whom you come into contact.

You look for inspiration to attain such an ideal. You ask for a proof to convince yourself that everyday joys can be the means to serve God perfectly; or on the other hand you are possibly too close to the earthly conditions of daily work attended with monotony, disappointment, worry, and fatigue.

This makes it hard to believe that in so ordinary a way you can become someone so extraordinary as a saint, known to God as His special image, His temple in whom He loves to dwell.

You want proof and inspiration? You wish to see everyday life made into a steppingstone to the very heights of heaven? Then you need only look at the Holy Family.

You must contemplate Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. They not only possessed human nature like yours, but they performed workaday tasks as you do. They ate and drank and slept and cleaned house and earned a living and prayed and had their neighbors just like you. Yet who were they?

They were Jesus Christ, God, Second Person of the eternal Blessed Trinity, who took to Himself a body and soul like ours: Mary, the blessed Virgin Mother of God, all-perfect, in whom there was never the slightest sin or imperfection; and Joseph, he whom Jesus called “Father,” the virginal husband of the Mother of God.

Have you ever stopped to do a little arithmetic in studying Christ’s life? Jesus had a tremendous mission to accomplish. He was to teach mankind the new and difficult law of brotherly love; He was to redeem us by means of intense suffering and a painful and disgraceful death; He was to found a Church that would last for all time as the only certain road to salvation.

Nonetheless, with such a task before Him, the Son of God spent ten times as much of His life in obscurity as in His public apostolate.

We are told of no miracles, no preaching, no teaching of the multitudes during that period.

There was merely a hidden and ordinary family life with two lovable persons as His intimate and chosen companions, Joseph and Mary.

No human being has ever been or will ever be holier than this husband and wife. Yet these two souls did not help Jesus in His preaching and teaching, for Joseph was already dead when Jesus left Nazareth to begin His career; and as far as we know, Mary stayed quietly at home during almost all of the Public Life.

Actually, then, Joseph and Mary gained their immeasurable holiness by offering Jesus the love of a father and mother in a true family, while Jesus in His turn tendered them the homage of a son. Could any lives have been more ordinary than those at Bethlehem, Egypt, and Nazareth–yet were any lives ever more holy?

This is the lesson of the Holy Family. The will of God must count for everything in our daily lives. Prosaic deeds done for God can lead to spectacular holiness.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were human, intensely human in the best sense of the word. They show us how our lives, too, should be human–truly warm and Godlike.

By this means we can be sanctifying ourselves more and more. The method is simple. Perhaps we have been following it all along without realizing the fact. At any rate, the leaders are set before us. All we need do is follow.

Write little love notes. Tuck them in his lunch. Or write on the bathroom mirror. Send a text or a quick email. Passing secret love notes never goes out of style. Embrace your differences. If you were both the same? How boring would that be. So rather than trying to form him into a male version of yourself, be glad you each have your own unique strengths and personality. -Lisa Jacobson

Just a little tour of our spring flowers at the beginning of their growth, the beautiful rock handiwork and our two grottoes. 🌺💐🌸🌷
“Where flowers, these emblems of purity are found, you may rest assured that they represent a hope, and speak of a goodness of heart not to be found where they are absent.” -Fr. Lasance
“I have always noticed that wherever you find flowers, no matter whether in a garret or in a palace, it is a pretty sure sign that there is an inner refinement of which the world is not cognizant. I have seen flowers cultivated and cherished by some of the lowest and poorest of people. Where these emblems of purity are found, you may rest assured that they represent a hope, and speak of a goodness of heart not to be found where they are absent.” -Fr. Lasance, My Prayer Book

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Patience, Nagging, Sincerity – Catholic Family Handbook

29 Monday Mar 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook - Fr. Lovasik, Catholic Home Life, Loving Wife, Tidbits for Your Day

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Painting by Al Buell 1910-1996

by Father Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook

Ask God to help you be patient

Even people who constantly strive to please God have a goodly share of hard things to bear. This is the reason patience is so necessary for happiness in marriage.

Be constantly prepared to bear disagreeable things.

When there is an abundance of the good things, there is danger of becoming too occupied with passing and material considerations. Be grateful to God for them.

When disagreeable things, reverses, sorrows, and disappointments come your way, put your confidence in God, who will strengthen you.

Ask for patience. In the mercy of God, reverses are sometimes sent to awaken your wayward conscience or to test your love of God. When God so tests you, you must never be wanting in love and confidence and patience.

Be honest and sincere

You owe your spouse truth and sincerity. Our Lord is the greatest example of these virtues. He wished everyone well and was never anything but kindness itself in word and deed. He never made use of men for selfish ends, but spoke and acted openly, sincerely, and uprightly.

Honesty and sincerity bring about confidence and a spirit of loyalty. Few things contribute more to the success of a marriage.. Such confidence bolsters a husband’s flagging courage and inspires him with the will to win and to measure up to the high opinion that his wife and children have of him and his abilities.

The enemies of honesty and sincerity are nagging, miserliness, jealousy, and in-law trouble.

Avoid nagging

Nagging is not always the fault of women, yet it seems that they often fall victims to this disagreeable habit that spoils family happiness. Do not be a nagging wife.

Do not try to remake your husband. Prize your own individuality and be willing to put up with his.

Do not expect your husband to render daily reports on where he was, why, when, and with whom. Be an eager listener, but a reluctant inquisitor.

You must assure yourself of your husband’s unwavering devotion. The result of your placing implicit confidence and trust in him will not incline him to take advantage of your refusal to snoop or pry, or to step out of line.

He will be won by decency, gratitude, loyalty, and trust, but never with fear.

A sincere and trusting wife will have a great influence in shaping her husband’s life. Stand by your husband and share with head and heart his successes and failures.

Give him due encouragement, but have the courage to drive home a sometimes unpleasant truth.

Never be afraid of responsibility, but be prepared to embark on a new course of life with your husband, should the need arise.

You will bring to your husband the love and inspiration he needs in the many problems of life, and that love and inspiration will weave threads of gold in his life’s pattern.

Wealth, fame, and power are no satisfactory substitutes for the hard-earned joys of the married life, for not one of them can satisfy the hunger of the heart for love.

When your husband knows he is married to his most trusted confidant, your influence soars. -Matthew L. Jacobson https://amzn.to/2MtbcTT (afflink)

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Category Archives: Catholic Home Life

The Large Family – Rev. George A. Kelly

Blessed Mother Graceful Religious Pendant and Earring Sets…Wire-Wrapped, Handcrafted.

The Land Without a Sunday – Maria Von Trapp

Stuff ‘n’ June 2021 Gallery

A fun post!

Some recent videos Gin and I had fun making….

Welcome to my June Gallery of…Home

Catholic Education in the Home (Part Three – Conclusion)

Heart of Hearths – The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Prayer to the Sacred Heart:

Catholic Education in the Home (Part Two)

Catholic Education in the Home (Part One)

LOVELY, GRACEFUL EARRINGS HONORING YOUR FAVORITE SAINT. Available here.

Home Sacramentals

Reflections on the Holy Family

Patience, Nagging, Sincerity – Catholic Family Handbook

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