How to Honor Your Mother and Father (Part Two) ~ Special Problems & Examination of Conscience

04 Friday Nov 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Virtues

by Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R.

How to Honor Your Mother and Father (Part One) is here.

SPECIAL PROBLEMS

The outline (in part one) sets forth the principles that must be held as an ideal for every Christian family, even though the ideal may be failed against often and in many ways. As long as the ideal is held sacred, and striven after by both parents and children, families will not be in great danger of falling to pieces.
But in the kind of society in which we live today, many special problems arise in regard to the obligations of the fourth commandment. Children often find themselves in special circumstances that make it difficult to know just what their obligations are.

Here are some of the special problems that arise in this matter, stated just as they are often presented by children themselves.

1. My father is an alcoholic, has not been able to hold a job for several years, has forced my mother to go to work, and has brought shame on us all. I cannot love him; in fact, I have a feeling of hatred and loathing for him. Am I committing a sin in hating my father?

You must learn to distinguish between feelings, which may not be controllable, and the obligations that can still be fulfilled, with the grace of God, by your free will.
There is no sin in a feeling of revulsion for one who disgraces himself, wrongs your mother, brings shame on your whole family by his sins. Our feelings react automatically to what hurts us and our loved ones with what seems to us to be a kind of hatred.

It is not, however, the real hatred, which is necessarily a product of our own free will. No matter what your feelings are, you are bound to love your father in two ways.

You must pray for him each day, begging God to grant him the grace to overcome his weakness and to save his soul in the end. Secondly, you are
bound to try to hide your feelings and to do everything you can to influence your father to change his ways.

Some day you may understand that there was as much sickness of mind responsible for your father’s actions as moral guilt. When that realization comes, you will not want to look back and recall that you added to his difficulties by signs of bitterness and hatred.

2. My father divorced my mother and attempted marriage with another woman. Am 1 bound to call on him as he wants me to do? I cannot do so without at the same time calling on the woman who wrecked our home. Since he is living in sin with this woman, may I not stay away from him entirely?

Even if you still felt a great affection for your father, it would be wrong to act in any way that would show approval of his sinful living. The fact that you feel bitter toward him for having wrecked your family does not of itself give you a right to ignore him; but you may stay away from him on the ground that it is impossible to see him without seeming in a way to accept the whole sinful set-up in which he is living.

At the same time you must pray for him, and, as you grow older, look for opportunities to use your influence to make him realize the terrible state in which he is living. You may not and must not hate him, in the sense of refusing even to pray for him, or to see him under any circumstances whatsoever.

3. 1 am eighteen years old, am just finishing first year of college, and I would like to become a nun. But my parents will not hear of this. They say I must wait until I am at least twenty-one before they will give their permission for my entering a convent. Do parents have the right to prevent their children from following what they think is their vocation?

Strictly speaking, parents do not have the right to interfere with their children’s choosing a priestly or religious vocation, either before or after the children are twenty-one. Since such vocations are very often lost if the individuals wait to enter upon them until they are twenty-one, parents who forbid a daughter to enter a convent until she has passed twenty-one are in effect decreeing that their child shall not follow a religious vocation.

These parents have no right to do; such a vocation is a matter between an individual and God.

However, many circumstances can enter into a situation of this kind that make it unwise, and often even impossible, for a teenager to walk out of his or her home, against the commands of parents, to follow a religious vocation.

There is always the possibility that a youth has a mistaken idea of his fitness for such a vocation. Therefore any young person who feels a call to the higher life should select a regular confessor who will also be an adviser in this matter. No step should be taken without the backing and encouragement of the spiritual director.

4. Have parents a right to decide with whom their children should or should not keep company? I am an eighteen-year-old girl, and my parents insist on deciding for or against my boy friends as soon as I start to go out. Do
I have to be obedient to them?

Parents do have an obligation to see to it that their children do not keep company with persons who are objectively unfitted to make good partners in marriage. Thus they have full authority to forbid a son or daughter to go out with a divorced person, or one who clearly lacks the moral character indispensable for a happy marriage.

Parents should also use their authority, combined with loving exhortations, to prevent their teenaged sons and daughters from keeping company with persons who are not of their faith.

Apart from these important obligations, parents would do wrong if they were to set themselves up as autocratic censors or dictators concerning their children’s friends when the children reach their later teens.

Some parents try to prevent any possibility of their children getting married by forbidding them to keep company; others set up arbitrary and unreasonable standards for the kind of person with whom they will permit their children to keep company. In all such cases the son or daughter thus treated should have recourse to a confessor or spiritual director, and follow the advice that he gives.

EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE FOR THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

I. MORTAL SINS

1. Have I deliberately given in to hatred of my mother or my father, refusing to speak to them over a considerable period of time?

2. Have I deliberately wished serious harm to my parents, e.g., that they would die so that I might possess their goods?

3. Have I habitually treated my parents harshly, speaking contemptuously to them or of them, ridiculing them, cursing them, causing them severe pain and sorrow?

4. Have I refused to relieve the serious needs of my parents when I was able to do so, leaving them dependent on strangers for necessary food, clothing, or without medical care In sickness and danger of death?

5. Have I done nothing to insure spiritual care for my mother or father when it was needed, neglecting to provide for their receiving the Sacraments in danger of death?

6. Have I, as a lawyer or politician or influential business man, used my power to break down or render useless just laws of the state made for the welfare of all?

7. Have I purposely struck my mother or father in resentment or deliberate bad will?

8. Have I disobeyed parents when they forbade my going with bad companions, or to bad shows and dangerous places?

9. Have I, as an official of the state, seriously failed in my duty by accepting bribes, permitting corruption, letting criminals off, etc.?

10. Have I, as a parishioner, fomented rebellion and disobedience among the people of a parish, by slander, conspiracy, etc., against my pastor?

11. Have I upset the home of my parents by frequently disobeying the rules they had a right to make—concerning the persons to be brought into the house, concerning the hours I kept at night, concerning decent conduct within the home?

12. Have I, when earning money while living under the parental roof or while still subject to parents, refused to give them part of my earnings when they needed it or demanded it?

13. Have I, as a parent, given in to deliberate hatred of a son or daughter, by continual mistreatment, cursing, driving them out of my home without a serious reason?

14. Have I failed entirely to teach and discipline my children in serious matters such as morality and religion?

15. Have I, with deliberate and grave carelessness, endangered the life of a child, either by seriously dangerous conduct before birth, or by neglect of proper attention through the years of infancy?

16. Have I failed to have my child baptized at least within two weeks or thereabouts after birth, when there was no serious obstacle to so doing?

17. Have I given serious bad example to my children, by cursing in their presence, by serious quarreling, by impure talk, by neglecting serious religious obligations?

18. Have I failed to correct and punish my children for serious wrongs, or to forbid them to enter serious occasions of sin?

19. Have I refused to send my children to a Catholic school when I could have done so and had no permission from bishop or pastor to do otherwise?

20. Have I selfishly interfered with the vocation of a son or daughter when God seemed to be calling them to marriage or to a religious vocation and I had no serious reason for refusing to let them go?

21. Have I, as a pupil in school, seriously undermined the authority and harmed the work of my teacher by slander, rebellion, etc.?

22. Have I, as a teacher, seriously neglected my duties by failing to prepare myself in any way for my classes, by not teaching subjects I was hired to teach, etc.?

23. Have I as an employee, failed to a grave degree in carrying out commands of an employer for which I was hired, or fomented rebellion and disobedience and sabotage among others?

24. Have I, as an employer, been seriously unjust to one or many of my employees, by driving them tyrannically, by demanding more than human nature could do, by allowing inhuman working conditions?

VENIAL SINS

1. Have I failed to show love and gratitude to my parents, either by neglecting opportunities to do so, or by positively hurting them in small ways?

2. Have I failed in the respect due my parents, by laughing at them, being openly ashamed of them, talking harshly or angrily to them, saying unkind things about them?

3. Have I disobeyed my parents in small things that they commanded or forbade?

4. Have I lied to my parents to avoid a reprimand or punishment?

5. Have I been stubborn and peevish and openly resentful against parents?

6. Have I neglected to ask or take advice from parents in matters in which their knowledge and experience are meant to guide me?

7. Have I selfishly refused to make life more comfortable and enjoyable for my parents when I could have done so?

8. Have I, in my own mature years, left my parents alone, seldom visiting them, seldom showing any gratitude or love?

9. As a parent, have I slothfully neglected the lesser duties I owed to my children, such as taking an interest in their school work, explaining difficult religious matters to them, encouraging extra habits of piety?

10. Have I given bad example to my children in venial matters, by anger, gossip, lying, etc.?

11. Have I failed to cooperate with teachers of my children by criticizing them to the children, countermanding some of their orders, etc.?

12. Have I, as a pupil in school, been disrespectful and disobedient to teachers?

13. Have I, as a teacher, given bad example to pupils, or failed to prepare well for my classes, or to fulfill minor obligations I assumed?

14. Have I, as an employee, been disobedient to just orders given by my employer, thus causing slight losses?

15. Have I, as an employer, given way to anger, partiality, unfairness in dealing with my employees?

16. Have I, as a citizen, disregarded laws made for the safety and well-being of all, or ridiculed those in authority who made the laws?

III. HELPS AND COUNSELS

1. Have I convinced myself of the truth that all valid authority comes from God, and that obedience to such authority is obedience to God?

2. As a son or daughter, have I ever reflected on the gratitude I owe to parents, which is the basis of the love, respect and obedience I owe them?

3. Have I trained myself to overlook the human faults in those who hold authority, remembering that these faults do not remove my obligation of obedience to all just commands?

4. Have I meditated on what chaos would engulf the world if there were no obedience, and on how much misery has already been caused by rebellion against authority?

5. Have I realized the old Scriptural principle that obedience to parents in youth is the surest means of gaining loyal obedience from others when I may be placed in authority?

6. Have I meditated on the example of Christ, who became man out of obedience and who was obedient to all lawful authority even unto His death?

ASPIRATION: All for Thee, most Sacred Heart of Jesus! (300 days indulgence.)

PRAYER:
O Jesus, my Savior, Thou didst say on entering the world: “I am come to do Thy will, O God,” and didst fulfill Thy promise by becoming obedient even unto the death of the cross—O, do Thou teach me to be obedient in all things like unto Thee.

In the past I have often rebelled against those who represent Thy own authority; permit me now by Thy grace to rebel no longer. Thou didst obey Mary and Joseph at Nazareth, and all Thy civil and religious rulers. Let me
see in my own superiors the same divine authority Thou didst obey, no matter what human defects Thy representatives may possess.

And if Thou willest that I should have authority over others in any sphere, grant that I may exercise that authority with the same gentleness, meekness, kindness and charity that were always present in Thee. O Mary, who didst say to the angel who represented God: “Be it done unto me according to thy word,” let me echo thy beautiful submission whenever God’s will is made known to me through my superiors.

One time in 1949 Padre Pio was talking with a certain doctor who was very close to him. They were discussing prayers for the dead. Padre Pio said to him, “Maybe you don’t know that even now I can pray for the happy death of my great-grandfather!” But the doctor remarked that he has been dead for many, many years. Then Padre Pio explained, “For the Lord the past does not exist. Everything is an eternal present. These prayers had already been taken into account. And so I repeat that even now I can pray for the happy death of my great-grandfather!”

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Foster Love in Your Home ~ Fr. Lawrence Lovasik

11 Tuesday Oct 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook - Fr. Lovasik, Catholic Home Life, Parenting

≈ 2 Comments

by Father Lawrence Lovasik, The Catholic Family Handbook

Two things in particular must be nurtured in the home: love and self-sacrifice.

Sincere parental love makes the child home-centered and gives security, purpose, and direction to young lives. Self-sacrifice, demanded by discipline, remains the basis of order in the home.

Firm parental discipline frees a child from his own confusion. It places the parents in their rightful place in the home. It sets the rules of family life and teaches respect for authority.

If a child learns obedience early in life, he will extend that obedience to his teachers, and to wider authority as he matures.

As a parent, you stand in God’s place in the home, and in such a position you have God’s authority in training your children. Do not surrender that authority.

What a child needs more than anything else is to belong to two devoted, God-fearing parents who work together to bring about his eternal salvation.

He wants a cheerful home where there is love, goodness, and generosity of heart. He needs the security of knowing his mother and father consider him a precious gift from God.

He needs the faith that sustains a family whose members pray together and speak confidently of God watching over them.

He needs parents strong enough to say, “This is right,” or, “That is wrong,” no matter what other people around them may be saying.

He needs to share his parents’ time and thoughts often enough and intimately enough to feel the blessed closeness that makes them a family living to love and serve God.

Eight Beatitudes for the Home

Blessed is the home where the father, mother, and children love God sincerely and keep His commandments faithfully, go to Confession regularly, receive Holy Communion frequently, and pray much; for the Lord abides in such a home.

Blessed is the home in which Sundays and holy days are properly observed, for the members will one day meet again at the festival of Heaven.

Blessed is the home that no one leaves to go to sinful amusements, for in it the joy of Christ shall reign.

Blessed is the home where unkind speech does not enter, nor cursing, nor bad literature, nor intemperance, for on that home will be heaped the blessings of peace.

Blessed is the home where father and mother are conscious of the sacred dignity of bringing children into the world and educating them in the service of God, where they faithfully fulfill the obligations they have toward each other and their children, and detest the sins sometimes committed in the married state, for they will merit the favor and abundant blessings of God.

Blessed is the home to which a priest is called to attend the sick, for their illness will have its consolation and death will be happy.

Blessed is the home where Christian doctrine is properly appreciated and learned from the Catechism and good books, for in that home, the Faith will be kept firm and active.

Blessed is the home where the parents find their joy in children who are dutiful and obedient, and where the children find in their parents the example of the fear and love of God, for that home will be the abode of just people, the haven of virtues, and the ark of salvation.

Where there is faith, there is love. Where there is love, there is peace. Where there is peace, there is God. Where there is God, there is Heaven.

There will be loveliness, too, in the home where true love causes order and comfort to reign. For the poorest room can be made lovely by a woman’s cunning hand. She can have flowers at her window, and flowers on her mantel and her table. And the curtains of windows and beds may be beautified by some simple ornament devised by a woman’s taste and executed in spare moments by the hand of even the busiest. -Fr. Bernard O’reilly,The Mirror of True Womanhood http://amzn.to/2t7GyVt (afflink)

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Are You Available? & New Podcast ~ Sadness: Causes and How to Overcome

10 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Motherhood, Podcasts - Finer Femininity, Virtues

≈ 4 Comments

I am a doer. I like to be accomplishing something at all times. I have my to-do list written out (most of the time) and I have a hard time sitting still.

So this book, Hands Free Mama, has been valuable for me. It reminds me of my priorities…what could be more important than my family? To be present to them is the most important thing of all!

So….be available to your children. Work hard on it. It will be the one thing that will matter most to you when you enter your golden years….that you have not put your dear ones on the back burner!

Here is an excerpt from Rachel’s book:

Are You Available?

by Rachel Macy Stafford, Hands Free Mama Blog: Hands Free Mama

When my daughter received the DVD boxed set of Little House on the Prairie for her birthday, I was nearly as excited as she was. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve cuddling with my family as life in Walnut Grove played out on a static-lined television screen.

Yet when I looked at the discs and realized there were forty-four Little House episodes, my first thoughts were very Non – Hands Free.

I looked at that collection of DVDs and saw forty-four opportunities to be otherwise highly productive. Although my inner drill sergeant doesn’t hold as much authority as it once did, that demanding voice of productivity and efficiency still tries to tempt me to the other side — straight into the arms of distraction.

Just think how much you could get accomplished while the girls watch Little House. They will not make a peep for the entire fifty-minute episode, and in that time you could easily knock several items off your to-do list!

But my Hands Free inner voice gently reminded me about what really mattered. This is your chance to sit your constantly moving body down on the couch, hold your daughters, and be a part of their world. Don’t blow it.

So after dinner the following Friday night, we put on our pajamas, popped popcorn, grabbed the softest blankets we own, and pushed the Play button on episode one, “A Harvest of Friends.” I was the first to find a spot on the couch.

And just as my backside hit the leather, my two children drew to my sides as if they were being sucked toward me by the world’s most powerful magnet. One child magnetized to my left, the other to my right.

Not even the tiniest popcorn kernel, should it fall from our hands, could come between this solid mass of togetherness.

Sit on the couch much, Rachel Stafford? I decided this was not the time to berate myself for not doing more couch time with my children.

It was time to enjoy this moment, the one I chose over dishes, laundry, writing, cleaning, emailing, or multitasking all five activities at once.

I had gotten this choice right. And I got the following forty-three consecutive episodes right too. I stayed true to the promise I made myself.

Little House means family time, and my children are fully aware and delighted that we do this together. For that fifty-minute period, I am not a moving target that my daughters have .01 percent percent chance of hitting.

Instead, I am available to sit there and simply love them. I don’t really like to think about it too much, but my older child will only live in my house for ten more years. Ten years. That’s nothing — the blink of an eye.

And if I continue darting about the house, going from one activity to the next for the remaining ten years, I can be sure of one thing: I will not hear my children’s thoughts, questions, revelations, troubles, or triumphs.

Because here’s some reality: No child wants to talk to the back of a parent’s head. No child wants to make an appointment to get a little of a parent’s time. No child wants to talk to a parent who can’t look up from distraction long enough to make eye contact.

Thanks to an experience shared by a blog reader, I’ve been given some insight about what children do want from a parent.

My eighteen-year-old son who left for college in August called me on Sunday night. After we had the “How are classes going?” conversation, the “How much money is in your account?” conversation, and the “Do you have any clean laundry?” conversation, he said, “I really miss you, Mom.”

I was thinking, Yes, I’m sure you do miss me — washing clothes and making dinner.

It was then that I asked him, “Oh, yeah, what do you miss about Mom?” His answer was simple, but it stunned me. “I miss just talking to you. You know, at the end of the day, when we were both home . . . I miss talking to you.”

Before I knew it, I was crying. Of all the things I had done for him as his mom, the thing he missed the most was talking to me.

A few days after reading this, I was gathering activities for Avery to do while we sat at Natalie’s swim meet. Normally I would have packed my writing folder, but it struck me that maybe this was not an opportunity to check something off the list . . . maybe this was an opportunity to be available.

I left my work at home and instead brought a few of my daughter’s favorite books and a snack to share.

Avery spent a lot of the time just sitting on my lap — a lap that, for once, was empty. We had the most wonderful conversation and snuggle time.

As my legs grew numb under the weight of her body, she turned to me and said nine of the most blessed words I have heard since beginning my journey to live Hands Free. “This is the kind of mom I always wanted.”

By “this” I knew exactly what she meant.

Present

Attentive

Still

Available

Completely available to love her.

“So even if he’s around most every day, why not light up when he walks in the room? Tell him how handsome he’s looking today…. How glad you are to see him. A big hug and maybe a bit more. Put on your sweet face and say nice things. Be like a breath of fresh air to him.” – Lisa Jacobson, 100 Way to Love Your Husband https://amzn.to/2tyHWTp (afflink)

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Singing and Acting in the Family Setting

30 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Baby Charlotte, Catholic Home Life, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

We like to take part in our annual Talent Show at the parish. It is good for the kids to discipline themselves to practice and it is (mostly) fun! 😀

It builds confidence in the children and helps them to get out of themselves to perform. And if mistakes are made….well, it’s character-building!

From How to Raise Good Catholic Children by Mary Reed Newland

As a family we know very little about singing except how to sing. We have a modest collection of albums, and we can read music well enough to pick out tunes with one finger on the piano.

There’s the radio (pretty carefully supervised), and a little sheet music we’ve bought, and some we’ve been given.

Our friends who go to the Trapp Family Music Camp have sung for us the things they learned, and given us help with our attempt to interpret chant notation. And our school music supervisor, who teaches charming songs at school, gave us a lovely Huron Indian carol (which the neighborhood children are learning for the next carol sing).

Then there are the books of Christmas carols and the songs in Laughing Meadows, the Grailville song book, and there are many fine American folk songs recorded.

All these things satisfy the appetites of children for good songs, and vastly minimize the temptation to pick up the sophisticated and often very vulgar lyrics of popular music. Even in homes where radio and TV are carefully supervised, it’s futile to think children can be kept from hearing these tunes and memorizing the lyrics, but we can help them form judgments about singing in the same way as we can about dancing, by having them sing what is good to please God.

Several years ago, a popular recording star had youngsters all over the country singing with her, “Lover, it’s immoral, but why quarrel with our bliss?” And we wonder why youth centers with their supervised dances to such music as this don’t help as much as we had hoped to keep the barriers to moral danger intact.

A voice is a gift from God, and we can teach our children to listen not only to songs, but with reverent wonder to voices, and to judge whether the voice and the song are reflecting any of the glory due to God, who gave the gift.

Listening to fine recordings of great choral music can help them develop a sense of the anonymity which should mark group singing, where soloists are a distraction rather than an addition to all-together singing the praises of God.

And we discover now and then that fine operatic recordings communicate to them audibly ideas they have struggled to put into visual form.

Such is the Whistling Aria from Boito’s Mephistopheles. After debating which of the pictured forms of the Devil was probably most like him, hearing that eerie whistle dart about so diabolically left no doubt in their minds as to how he sounds and how fast he gets about.

When children sing all their songs for God and sing together often in our families, they’re creating, just as surely as when they use their hands to draw or their bodies to dance, and our homes are warmer and more full of love for the harmonies we’ve created with our voices.

Acting should be part of a child’s creative activity, too, because it’s such a happy way to learn, to develop his observation of the nature of simple things and explain in a combination of all the arts the many things children want to explain.

Little children love to act out spontaneously the things they see around them, like a chair, or a table, or a clock, or a cat; and little boys profit enormously from special occasions for indulging their animal spirits.

John does a magnificent imitation of a goat chewing her cud — more goaty than even the goats. When this is his contribution to a session of “What am I?” the screams and howls are lovely satisfaction for the goat in him and he behaves better in public for it — well, for a few days, anyway.

One year on Mardi Gras, we had family charades to describe what fault each one would give up for Lent. This is a good way to make fun of yourself, admit your weakness, and face up seriously to the kind of mortification that would be most important for you.

One child came in chewing on a thumb. Another slugged imaginary playmates with such abandon that we were moved to great compassion for the real playmates. Another carried a pillow and a dinner plate, symbols of the two daily chores most repugnant and most successfully avoided.

One grown-up came in jawing silently and wagging a finger this way and that, and another grown-up said, “Oh! I was going to do that!”

We were properly overcome to see our faults displayed publicly, and as not one act was greeted with any dissent, it was a penitent group who wagged their way to bed that night, well aware that Lent had come just in time.

Charades are never-ending fun for children; I’ve never heard them say they had too much of them.

Puppets they love, too, and they’re easy to make and use. Our easiest puppets have been hand puppets, made with stuffed socks, faces painted or embroidered, costumes designed from leftover scraps of material, yarn, beads, buttons — anything that’s around.

Our Puppet Show

We’ve had them for liturgical feasts, such as Epiphany, the three elegant Magis with jeweled crowns, oriental hairdos and robes, and for ordinary Punch and Judy shows, and one for Thumbelina, made with a really live thumb.

Our stage is an old threefold screen. We took each panel apart, slip-covered it with sprigged yellow calico, cut a square window in the middle panel for the stage and tacked gray flounces with red ball fringe across the top and sides for a curtain.

Rehinged so that the wings fold back, it’s easily stored away when not in use, and even portable when we want to lend it to other puppeteers. Friends of ours devised a stage with two deep flounces to tack across the top and middle section of a doorway, with a space open in between for the performers.

Even tiny children can maneuver hand puppets, and the illusion is so complete that all they need to do is wag the puppets to a folk song or a Christmas carol in order to carry their part in a family entertainment.

One of the reasons puppet shows are especially successful with small children is that they submerge their self-consciousness in the antics of a tiny little person they do not identify with themselves, and the laughter of the audience never seems to be directed at them — a puzzlement many small actors find it hard to understand when they appear in person.

Songs such as “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” which the audience can sing with the puppet, are a great success.

Graduating from these to reciting nursery rhymes and little poems provides plenty of material for small fries who are not able to memorize lines of plays or carry on dialogues between two puppets at once.

Older children can write their own scripts and invent stage business that they’re sure is hysterically funny; for these it’s especially profitable to suggest tableaux and simple recitatives relating to the liturgical feasts.

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One of Hannah and Gemma’s acts in the past….

“We can change the world within our own families. We do not need heroic deeds, exceptional intelligence or extraordinary talents. Every day, our daily duties, our interactions with our family, our living out the Faith in the small ordinary things, will be the thread that weaves the beautiful rug that future generations will be walking upon and building upon….” Finer Femininity

I was looking for a good family shot in my photos and ran across these ones. Z and “kids”

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Author Mary Reed Newland here draws on her own experiences as the mother of seven to show how the classic Christian principles of sanctity can be translated into terms easily applied to children even to the very young.

Because it’s rooted in experience, not in theory, nothing that Mrs. Newland suggests is impossible or extraordinary. In fact, as you reflect on your experiences with your own children, you’ll quickly agree that hers is an excellent commonsense approach to raising good Catholic children.

Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, the renowned author of The Hidden Power of Kindness, gives faithful Catholics all the essential ingredients of a stable and loving Catholic marriage and family — ingredients that are in danger of being lost in our turbulent age.

Using Scripture and Church teachings in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, Fr. Lovasik helps you understand the proper role of the Catholic father and mother and the blessings of family. He shows you how you can secure happiness in marriage, develop the virtues necessary for a successful marriage, raise children in a truly Catholic way, and much more.

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Do Your Part and Trust in God’s Help

29 Wednesday Jun 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook - Fr. Lovasik, Catholic Home Life, Family Life

≈ 3 Comments

It IS interesting, isn’t it, how, in the last decades, women are made to feel as if they are being “losers”, “nobodys” if they are dedicated to the home. They are not using their talents if they aren’t out working in the world.

Truly, I find that illogical. How many talents does it make to run a pleasant home, raise good children, have a healthy relationship with someone you rub shoulders with night and day? That, in itself, is a full-time job…not to mention if some are homeschooling, seeking out healthy alternatives, helping with their parish life, etc., etc.

No, it takes a brave, committed, responsible, hard-working adult to do what it takes to raise a Godly family in today’s society.

And for those women who have to work on top of all that, what a load, indeed! My own mother had to work for a period in our lives and it was very difficult!

Father Lovasik, in this excerpt, talks about happiness in marriage, and how it must be worked for…

Painting by John Sloane

by Father Lovasik, The Catholic Family Handbook

Happiness in marriage must be earned. It is something you must work out for yourself, chiefly by forgetting yourself and serving others.

Marriage involves the art of human relations, the psychology of children, the economics of running a home, the maintenance of health, but, above all, the development of the moral and spiritual life of the family.

All this demands a wide range of talents and skill. No marriage is a success unless less you make it so, and that takes persistent effort and, still more, a constant and humble reliance on God.

The supreme object of your effort and striving is the family. You worked and saved in order that you might be married and have a home of your own. Once married, you worked and saved that you might successfully bring up a family.

Your purpose in Matrimony should be to bring God’s children into the world and rear them properly, to be one in body and spirit, and to make a happy home. You are to help one another and your children in every possible way, especially to get to Heaven, which is the final and eternal destiny for us all.

You and your spouse must be willing to work at marriage as the greatest job of your lives and not desert when problems arise. When you married, each of you took on a responsibility for some part of the work that goes into the making of a home.

Both assume the responsibility of encouraging and helping the other, insofar as is possible, in the specific tasks designed for each.

The training of children is the mutual responsibility of both husband and wife. Thus, marriage is very much a fifty-fifty proposition. Only when you are willing to bear your share of the burdens of married life can you hope to have real love and peace.

Marriage is normally a source of equilibrium for you, because cause it brings you legitimate and healthy pleasures. But equilibrium always consists of an effort to impose the guidance of reason upon all your activities.

Welcome without narrow-mindedness and weakness the joy marriage offers; use your reason in meeting the difficulties that marriage inevitably entails.

If your temperament is inherently unstable, if your life is weighed down with unfavorable conditions, you can recover the health of your emotional and spiritual life only if you seek above all what is right according to the sane reason that God has given you, providing, of course, that you make yourself do it.

Only this effort can bring you the joy that is worthy of you.

At any rate, she has by nature the power, the art, and the disposition to please, to soothe, to charm, and to captivate. It is a wonderful power; and we see daily women exerting it in a wonderful way. Why will not women who are truly good, or who sincerely strive to be so, not make it the chief study of their lives to find out and acquire the sovereign art of making their influence as healthful, as cheering, as blissful as the sunlight and the warmth are to their homes? – Rev Bernard O’Reilly, True Womanhood, 1894 http://amzn.to/2mPm81e (afflink)

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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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Heart of Hearths – The Sacred Heart of Jesus

26 Sunday Jun 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Prayers

≈ 1 Comment

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

Praise God!

“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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Family Prayer

16 Wednesday Mar 2022

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

≈ 1 Comment

by Fr. Francis X. Weiser. S.J., 1956

Going home from church, the newlyweds are not going out of the spiritual atmosphere into a worldly one. They are not leaving the Sacrament behind in the house of God. Their union in marriage, their home and their hearts must remain filled with the grace and love of the Lord. A family is actually a little kingdom of God.

These thoughts have prompted Christians at all times to express their union with God, not only as individuals, but also as a family.

It was the ancient custom among Catholics that, at least once a day, father, mother and children would gather in the home for common prayer. This practice deeply impresses its lasting mark on the hearts of the children.

It is not only an addition of individual praying, but a special source of grace and blessings which far transcends the power of an individual’s prayer and unites us with the Lord more deeply and intimately, according to His own word, “Where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

If this is true of any group, how much more does it apply to the prayerful union of parents and children! In fact, it is a common experience that even the small children who cannot yet talk, quickly adjust themselves to the spirit of devotion when the whole family prays. They seem to be inspired by the grace of Baptism, which gives them an instinctive grasp of the supernatural far beyond their natural capacities.

Held in the arms of the mother, such a little child will watch the praying family with large and solemn eyes, even try to fold his hands and assume an attitude of reverence, which is entirely different from his usual behavior.

When parents sometimes complain that their smaller children are not quiet or silent in church, perhaps the reason is in many cases that their children have never breathed the atmosphere of prayer at home.

There is a radiance of warmth and attractive dignity about a father and mother who not only give their children the example of individual prayer, but join with them in a common practice of devotion and family prayer.

In recent times this practice has died out in many homes.

Some people still keep a trace of it in the form of grace at meals; but even this custom is fast disappearing, especially among the younger ones. They are either ashamed or careless, or they persuade themselves there is not enough time to pray before meals. Thus many a “Catholic” home never unites the family in common prayer, to the great spiritual loss of each individual member.

Thank God, in recent years the practice of the family Rosary has spread far and wide. Besides obtaining graces and blessings, it has also resulted in a revival of family prayer. All those who have at heart the kingdom of God in the home can do no better apostolic work than spreading the family Rosary among their friends.

Even in our attendance at liturgical services, especially Holy Mass and Communion, the participation of the family as a whole should be the ideal. It is a pity that practical considerations make it seem necessary in many churches to separate the children from their parents on Sunday, that special children’s Masses should have to be held at which the parents are not allowed, and vice versa.

Our Lord loves every good family so much that one cannot help thinking how greatly He would enjoy seeing parents and children together at His Holy Sacrifice and receiving Him together, as a family.

Besides the act of prayer, there are many ancient customs of sanctifying the home through the use of the sacramentals of the Church: holy water, blessed candles, food blessed by the priest on certain feast days, blessed palms, Easter water, etc.

As we have the altars and shrines in our churches, so a Catholic family would do well to keep a simple but dignified shrine in the home. It would be a symbol to all members that their lives belong to God, that religion and prayer are not merely a Sunday affair, and that the home of Christians is a holy place. How cold are the houses and homes in which no trace of a religious object is found!

More and more Catholic homes in the United States are adopting the custom of Mary gardens. A fairly large statue of the Blessed Virgin is placed outside the house, surrounded by nature’s tribute of trees, shrubs and flowers.

This is not only an honor to Our Lady and a public profession of our faith, but also a powerful encouragement of our devotion to Mary and a source of pious inspiration for many who behold this beautiful sight.

In this troubled world we need the prayers of children. Their souls are innocent, their petitions special in the Eyes of God. Let us get our children on their knees, and with fervor and the remarkable confidence of a child, let us get them to pray for our families, our country, our world….. www.finerfem.com

Don’t miss an article! Sign up today to receive an email each time a Finer Femininity post is published! Let’s learn together how to live a joyful, feminine, Catholic life in an un-Catholic world! Subscribe here.

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Originally written as a religious sister’s guide for daily adoration, 100 Holy Hours for Women contains a plethora of profound spiritual insight into the mystery of the Eucharist. 100 Holy Hours encourages Christian women, of every calling and stage of life, to enter into quiet, loving conversation with Jesus. This book enables all to comprehend the love of Christ, who gave us his Body and Blood that we might come closer to him. Only in the Eucharist can we find the perfect example of total humility, self-sacrificial love, and holy submission. Only through the Eucharist can we hope to attain happiness in this world and the next.

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NO THANKS! ~ Leane VanderPutten

14 Monday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in by Leane Vdp, Catholic Home Life

≈ 18 Comments

I just turned 60. As most of you know, I have had eleven children and I have many grandchildren (40, including those yet to be born)!

I deserve a break, right?

I have things that happen in my household that can ruffle feathers…

Hubby has been home all winter due to a bad leg that we can’t seem to figure out. He is constantly coming up with “new ideas” that can cause some chagrin as he pursues his latest.

For instance, he has the beginnings of his mushrooms started….under the table in the corner in our living room!

He has rabbits in what was supposed to be his greenhouse off the side of the home that, when the wind is right, and the weather has warmed, sends an aroma through the house that is not pleasant….to say the least!

He butchers his meat and proceeds to clean them in the sink, leaving guts and giblets behind much to the horror of the girls at home!

His brother works here with him, and I am bombarded regularly each day with adult male interruptions that I am not used to!

And on the kids’ side…

I have had the ping pong table out in the kids playroom, which is a room that enjoins the rest of the house and that has to be trekked through to get to any other part of the home. The table takes up ALL the space in that room, but…you know…the ping-pong tournament is coming up and practicing must be done!

A couple of them have chronic health stuff that cause much frustration and can’t be figured out.

I still pick up after those who leave things around. And I cook dinner each night.

I do the laundry for all here at home, and although it has downsized, it is still no little feat. I will just get done my loads and look satisfyingly at the empty laundry area when my dear son decides to clean his room and dumps twice as much laundry as when I started…

On and on.

Do I wish for some peace and order?

Do I wish that when something is put away and cleaned up, that it stays that way? Do I not deserve that?

Well…yes to the first question.

I will find myself muttering under my breath about something that is irking me at the moment. “If only….”

I DO stop myself short, though. I try hard not to give in to those thoughts.

Do I really want a life free of untidiness, lack of order, noise, and everything that comes along with running a household? In other words…do I want a life free of….people??!!

NO THANKS!

Kids leaving messes, dirty clothes, leaving stuff on the stairs and never remembering to bring them up until someone almost kills themselves IS annoying.

Bickering, regularly wanting some kind of “party” (they remind me it is not a party…just a few friends over), interruptions, wanting to travel in nasty weather (I have 3 relatively new drivers in the family…and may I also mention…fearless!), etc.

Do I wish for peace?? Yes, but…

NO THANKS!

No….I don’t want peace at the price of giving up an active, noisy, “happening” household, full of imperfect people making their way through life, rubbing shoulders with one another.

These are the things that life is made up of. And they are all good.

Life is a journey and it is meant to travel together.

A lot of the people of the world strive to stay in their comfort zone…to do whatever they want and as little of what they don’t want. They tend to isolate, to immerse themselves in technology or anything else that tickles their fancy.

Do I want a life like that?

NO THANKS!

We who have the faith and who realize this is not our final “landing place”, know that this kind of self-isolating life does not lead to happiness.

We have all felt the satisfaction of something hard that we have accomplished, of enduring something painful, of getting out of our comfort zone, of…well…embracing our crosses. It is a blessing.

And the crosses don’t have to be huge to be valuable. Learning to embrace daily annoyances is a powerful way of doing God’s will…and therefore of achieving happiness.

And it is also a powerful prayer for those who need our help….the suffering of others can be alleviated by our own sacrifices. How wonderful is that?

Martyrdom by the little fires of hidden fidelities constantly adhered to, of tormenting temptations courageously and perseveringly repulsed, of the exact and loving fulfillment of duties toward God and neighbor, of prayer faithfully practiced despite disgust, aridity and the pressure of work–is it not a martyrdom? Who can estimate the value of its countless offerings which are not publicized but which cost . . . and which count!” -Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J.

And on the flip side of this…

All of the things I just mentioned above come with another side to it.

My hubby, with his butchering abilities is providing us with food. The mushrooms will be tasty and makes a good hobby for my husband while he is down and out.

He cares deeply for his family and nothing seems to daunt him. If his next new venture is hard to swallow, well….

Would I rather not have a husband??

NO THANKS!

His brother has helped us very much as my husband is somewhat handicapped at this time. I think we provide some comfort to him also. He has been a God-send.

My kids are amazing. For the bit of inconvenience they cause me with their messes, their problems, their bickering (which has gotten so much better!)…

They return to me many times over!

They see the needs around here…monetarily and otherwise. And if they are in a position to help, they will.

And even if they lacked in this area…it’s OK.

God has called us to raise families and to accept…nay, embrace….what goes along with that.

We must learn not to complain. Sure, if things need to be confronted, then do that.

But there will be so many things that are just plain annoyances and we need to accept that. And be good-natured about it. God loves a cheerful giver!

So next time we wish for a quieter, more orderly, less worrisome life, may our response be…

NO THANKS!

Every day you need to lift your husband up in prayer. Ask St. Joseph to help him to be a good husband and father. He needs you, who are his closest companion, to lift him up each day to our Heavenly Father. Ask Our Lord to protect him and to protect your marriage. What a wonderful gift a praying wife is! -Finer Femininity

Thank you, Juhmorri!

“A lovely way to incorporate prayer into your everyday life. I appreciate that this helps me journal my days as well as keep track of my prayers, show my gratitude, and express my love for God more and more. A great concept that is executed with grace and beauty.”

Thank you, Mom of Boy!

“I have been wanting this journal and now that I have some time off it is great to be able to write! It is so beautiful and Traditionally Catholic. Thank you!”

Our attitude changes our life…it’s that simple. Our good attitude greatly affects those that we love, making our homes a more cheerier and peaceful dwelling! To have this control…to be able to turn around our attitude is a tremendous thing to think about!

This Gratitude Journal is here to help you focus on the good, the beautiful, the praiseworthy. “For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8 – Douay Rheims).

Yes, we need to be thinking of these things throughout the day!

You will be disciplined, the next 30 days, to write positive, thankful thoughts down in this journal. You will be thinking about good memories, special moments, things and people you are grateful for, lovely and thought-provoking Catholic quotes, thoughts before bedtime, etc. Saying it, reading it, writing it, all helps to ingrain thankfulness into our hearts…and Our Lord so loves gratefulness! It makes us happier, too!

Available here.

Twelve sermons on key aspects of the Christian life given during Lent, 1622–fasting, how to resist temptation, the danger of losing one’s soul, living faith vs. dead or dying faith, Christian attitude toward death, proper conduct in illness, God\’s special providence toward those living a spiritual life, the hidden meanings of Our Lord’s Passion, eternal happiness, mutual charity, etc.

There are as many paths to holiness as there are saints in Heaven . . . but you cant follow them all. Yet there’s one thing every saint practices that you can imitate: the simple art of loving God, which the beloved St. Francis de Sales explains for you here.

Under his wise and gentle guidance, you’ll discover the secrets to growing holier through the simple things in life work, play, and rest. You’ll learn to avoid the distractions (even religious distractions) that trouble and weary your soul . . . and you’ll soon be able to focus your energy simply on loving God.

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Our Talk at Home ~Fr. Garesché

21 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, Power of Words

≈ 2 Comments

by Father Garesché, Your Neighbor and You, 1919

To LOVE and do good to one another, that is, after all, a very great part of what we are to accomplish here in this world. And to do us justice, we are usually willing enough to help and benefit our neighbor, if only we see a practicable and present way.

Half of those who do next to nothing for other folk, act so because they think of nothing to do. But tell us what is to be done and how to go about it, and you shall see some hearty workers indeed.

Now there is a great deal of very useful talk nowadays about various apostleships, and the word “Apostleship” in this connection, usually means nothing else than a way of doing to our neighbor some spiritual good.

Some of these are for the rich, like the Apostleship of Endowment; some for the learned or the talented, like the Apostleship of the Written Word; others(and those the most interesting), are for any one and every one among us, like the Apostleship of Prayer, or the Apostleship of Speech.

We have said something already, very briefly, about the second of these apostleships, that of frank, kindly and familiar speech upon Catholic subjects and Catholic views and beliefs, with those who come within our everyday circle of influence and appeal.

We are all of us constantly talking to one another, discussing, inquiring, replying, exchanging opinions and ideas. And so, we said, any one of us needs only to throw into his daily talk some genial, honest, interesting words of Catholic truth, to become at once a real apostle, that is to say, a messenger, a herald of Catholic Ethics and Faith.

Now let us descend a little into some of the special forms which this Apostleship of Speech may assume and some of the special opportunities it may offer us, and it would be well to begin, where charity does in the proverb, right at home.

Fathers and mothers, big brothers and big sisters, I wonder how many of us realize the power we are constantly using for good or ill, the influence of our daily speech at home.

We boast sometimes that “home” is one of the most tender and meaningful words in our English tongue. We declare that many other languages have no real equivalent to convey all the wealth and warmth of loving thought and memory, of kindly, generous feeling which stirs in us at this holy syllable “home”.

To have a happy home is, we rightly think, an unspeakable blessing. To lack a home, for man or woman or child, is a capital and dire misfortune. “A man’s home”, according to the old English saying which we have made our own, “is his castle”, his secure retreat, a kingdom of comfort and of cheer, a little stronghold of affection and interest and kindly sympathy against the rude buffets of this selfish and unfeeling world.

We know, too, when we reflect on the matter, that home is a little commonwealth, where each one has his part to play for the well-being of the whole.

Mother and father have, to be sure, a paramount influence; but everyone down to the youngest child has his share in making or unmaking the peacefulness and holiness of home.

In what way is this influence most often and most effectively exerted? To be sure, by our daily and common speech!

What is hastily said at breakfast, or slips from us as we pass about the house, or is discussed at the family dinner, or chatted about around the evening lamp, or mooted in the parlor — this most perhaps of all, makes or mars the peace and happiness and holiness of our home.

For in these chance remarks, these off-hand conversations and familiar, cozy talks, we throw off countless little hints and coruscation, so to speak, of our most inward and intimate selves. We reveal our sudden thoughts and impulses, we show our desires, our principles, our aims, all, whether it be good or ill, that we have been cherishing and fostering and brooding over for years and years.

These things leap out, sometimes in a tiny sentence, sometimes in a single word like little sparks of goodness or of wickedness, and kindle fires of good or evil in our hearers’ inmost heart. The doors and windows of their hearts are all thrown open in the summer air of trustfulness and love, and our flying words blow in easily for weal or woe.

And this goes on, not for an hour or a day, but for all the long months and years of the familiar intercourse of home. No wonder then that we influence one another by our daily speech of words and actions; for actions, too, are a sort of speech and often carry our meaning very much better and more easily than words.

Parents sometimes feel deeply distressed when they see, growing in their tender children, the lineaments of their own shortcomings and sins. They will put on a very serious expression and take Mary or Tom aside to warn him earnestly against letting that evil habit gain upon him.

Do they hope that one official warning so ceremoniously given will stand for a moment against the long, quiet talk and action of so many years?

“Don’t, for Heaven’s sake,” they will say, “get into that ugly way of criticizing people!”

But has not the lad heard you for years dwelling on the faults of your friends? Can one brief gust of studied sermonizing avail to sweep away that heavy and brooding cloud of innumerable and daily acts and words?

It is worthwhile, then, very, very much worthwhile, to give some care and thought to how we may carry on this Apostleship of the Home.

And this should weigh on us all the more because of the circumstance that we will all be either apostles or perverters there. Abroad, one can fight shy of company and keep pretty much to himself, not doing any one so very much good or harm.

But it is not so at home. Here we must all be constantly taking sides and influencing our little sphere for good or ill. Talk we must, act we must in the presence of every one, and not to talk and act properly and holily and well, is to be talking and acting badly, doing our share to mar the sanctities of our home.

“A woman’s role is supportive, and she is to be her husband’s helper, confidant, counselor if need be, friend and one of his greatest allies. You should be more than willing to make your man feel important, appreciated and admired.” -Helen Andelin

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Fr. Garesché shows you how to become an apostle for Christ in myriad ways, not only at home among your family and friends, but even at work. Youll learn how to talk about religion with your friends as naturally as you discuss sports or current events. He even gives you tips on how you can bear witness to your faith in Jesus Christ not just in what you say, but in what you do.

Lent is fast approaching! Easily the most popular and best-loved Way of the Cross ever. Traditional, edifying pictures. The Stabat Mater in Latin and in English.

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The Best Catholic Society ~ The Christian Home

17 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Home Life, The Christian Home ~ Celestine Strub, OFM

≈ 3 Comments

by Celestine Strub, OFM, The Christian Home

The world today is full of reformers. Society, we are told, is sick with many ills, and a radical remedy is imperative if the utter breakdown of Christian civilization is to be averted. Yet, while the urgent need of reform is quite generally conceded, there is a wide divergence of opinions as to the proper means of bringing it about.

As Catholics, possessed of the divinely revealed truths that should regulate all human action, we know that many of the remedies proposed for the cure of social ills are inadequate, because they do not reach the root of the evil; and that many a well-meant reform movement is foredoomed to failure, because it is not based on the only true and solid foundation of all social reform; namely, the principle that there can be no real, permanent social justice and morality without private justice and morality; and that there can be no enduring private justice or morality without religion.

A Truism

So much is agreed upon among Catholics: religion and morality must form the basis of all true reform; and it is a truism to say that if all the individuals that make up society were morally good and religious, the ills that afflict society would disappear.

It is furthermore agreed among Catholics that the Catholic Church offers the individual all that is necessary for leading a good life. Why then do so many of her children fail? They have the true Faith; they have the Commandments, which tell them what they must do and what they must avoid; and they have the means of grace, prayer and the Sacraments, to help them to avoid sin and practice virtue. Why, then, are they not all morally good and religious?

The Sin of Adam

The fundamental reason is simply that they do not choose to be so. Sin is apparently so pleasant, at least for the moment, and the constant practice of virtue is so hard, that men often choose the former in preference to the latter. Even in Paradise, where all circumstances were so favorable, Adam and Eve abused their free will by disobeying God.

But in consequence of that first sin of Adam, there exists in all his descendants a strong inclination to evil, which makes the practice of virtue still more difficult. And added to all this is the example of the wicked world in which we live.

The Enemy Without

It is this latter, the bad example of the world around us, which forms the great obstacle to social reform even among Catholics. If man were merely an individual living by himself, he would have only the enemy within to fight against; but being a social being, destined by God to live in society with others, he has also an enemy outside himself-the evil example of many of those with whom he lives.

How to overcome this evil example is the great problem of social reform. It is easy enough to say that the bad example must be offset by good example; but how and where is the good example to be had?

Catholic Societies

Many there are who say that since it is mainly social attractions that lead Catholics into dangerous company and dangerous places of amusement, we must have our own societies, our own social agencies, club rooms and recreation centers, so that our people can satisfy their craving for company and amusement in a harmless manner.

While admitting that our people should be provided with ample opportunity for healthful and innocent recreation; while admitting, too, the importance and desirability of Catholic societies, both secular and religious, and attesting that, when properly conducted under proper auspices, such societies can do an immense amount of good, I am nevertheless of the opinion that it is not by means of these societies that social evils will be greatly reduced.

Let us have these societies by all means; but when we have established them and made them flourish, let us not imagine that our task is done. In all such societies something is wanting,’namely, the intimate daily association of the members in all the important affairs of life.

The Best Catholic Society

Happily, however, there is a society that has this all-important requisite; a natural society in which the great majority of men spend their lives; a society that is capable of exerting a lifelong influence on its members. That society, dear reader, is the family.

In the family we have all the essential things that man requires as a social being for his physical, moral and intellectual well-being and advancement. And since the family rather than the individual, is the unit of society, to reform society one must begin with the family.

Restore religion to its rightful place in the home; let religion direct, control and permeate the family life, and not only will the individual have the safeguard he needs against the evils of society, but society itself will be transformed. This, then, religion in the home, is to my mind, the best of all remedies for the reform of society; and the purpose of this little book is to explain the remedy and to induce all Christian families that can be reached to adopt it.

“For the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ, we implore pastors of souls, by every means in their power, by instructions and catechisms, by word of mouth and by written articles widely distributed, to warn Christian parents of their grave obligations.

And this should be done not in a merely theoretical and general way, but with practical and special application to the various responsibilities of parents touching the religious, moral, and civil training of their children, and with indication of the methods best adapted to make their training effective, supposing always the influence of their own exemplary lives.” -Pius XI, Christian Education of Youth

What is our conversation like each day, especially with the members of our family? Do we continually talk about depressing news, do we regularly voice our negative opinions about the people and situations around us? Do we talk about our own sufferings and our needs in a complaining manner? How about a different approach? Let’s talk about the positive instead. If we are talking of people, let’s make the effort to only bring up the good. Want to talk about heroes? Our grandparents, parents, ordinary folk and how they have overcome obstacles would be a good testimony to your kids. We all have stories to tell….make sure they are bringing out the best in those who are listening! – Finer Femininity

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Finer Femininity

~ Joyful, Feminine, Catholic

Category Archives: Catholic Home Life

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Eight Beatitudes for the Home

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NEW PODCAST!

Singing and Acting in the Family Setting

Do Your Part and Trust in God’s Help

Heart of Hearths – The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Praise God!

Family Prayer

NO THANKS! ~ Leane VanderPutten

Our Talk at Home ~Fr. Garesché

The Best Catholic Society ~ The Christian Home