Category Archives: Catholic Home Life

Our Daily Duties ~ Leane VanderPutten

15 Monday May 2023

Posted by in by Leane Vdp, Catholic Home Life

≈ 3 Comments

Painting by Vilhelm Rosenstand,1883.

by Leane VanderPutten

What do our daily duties consist of and how important are they in the success and happiness in our life here on this earth and in our after life?

When Our Lady appeared at Fatima, she stressed the importance of prayer and sacrifice. She also stressed the importance of the fulfillment of our daily duties as Catholics.

Our Lord said to Sister Lucia “The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require.”

What are those daily duties?

Well, each of us has our own particular daily duties according to our state in life. For each of us this will be different.

As a wife and mother, we have certain things we need to attend to. When we attend to them with diligence, we are rewarded in many ways. We achieve a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in a duty well done. Our homes run smoother because tasks are fulfilled. We gain success in many areas of our lives including the raising of children who will also be diligent to their duties, following our own good example.

And we are gaining merit for heaven.

Fr. Fulgence Meyer from Plain Talks on Marriage says:

“We all need to be periodically enlightened and animated regarding our particular life duties.

The Holy Father, the cardinals, bishops, priests, friars, brothers, and nuns make a retreat or a mission once a year. They are then told very plainly what their duties are within their state of life; they are warned against certain dangers; and their defects and shortcomings are pointed out to them, without gloss or varnish.

They appreciate this much, and are sincerely grateful for it, conscious as they are of the blinding influence of self-love, and of the advantage there is in seeing ourselves as others see us.

For the same reason married people need to be reminded of the importance of their daily duties and their adherence to them.

 Life is often compared to a stage, upon which we are all given a part to play.

God Himself has assigned our individual roles to us. In calling you to the married state, He has allotted to you a distinguished and arduous part on the stage of life.

And if you are a parent, your part is immensely more sublime and difficult. It is no small task to be a Catholic husband, wife, and parent. This requires virtue and ability of the highest order.”

So…what does that look like for a wife and mother?

Prayer

Well, our spiritual duties will be on top, with the Morning Offering being very important. This, in particular, will offer up all of our duties on that day as a sacrifice to Our Lord.

We must be faithful to our prayers or our days will not be what they could be. Not only that, the small decisions of saying our prayers each day will be the ladder that gets us to heaven! Now, that’s rather important!

We can pray throughout the day by offering little heartfelt prayers or just a turning of the heart to God. This will sanctify our daily duties.

Father Paul O’Sullivan from How to be Happy, How to be Holy reminds us:

“We have our duties, our work, our various occupations, but the first and greatest duty we have is to pray to God. How can we say that we love and serve Him if we do not pray?

There are 24 hours in the day—five minutes given in the morning, five in the evening, is very little to give to God. Give Him this at least.

But these minutes must not be given by rushing over our prayers, pouring out words as if we were so many gramophones. We must pray as intelligent beings.”

Prayer is most important, and then next in line is our actual duties of the day.

A few quotes on the importance of the particular duties of our state in life:

“… Prayer, in a wider sense, must consist of more than mere words beseeching God’s mercy; it embraces everything we do with a dedicated spirit of faith in the service of our Creator.” – St. Bede (from a homily)

Abbot Marmion wrote to a student:

“What you tell me of your progress in your studies much consoles me, for true piety, real love of Jesus urges us ever to do our best to fulfill our duties of state.”  (Union With God)

St. Therese:

“Our Lord has granted me the grace never to fear the conflict.  At all costs, I must do my duty.”  (Story of a Soul)

So…first duty is prayer.

Husband

Next is our husband. We must fulfill our duties towards him. Things like:

Does he need a lunch made to take to work…make it. What about dinners each night? And his laundry? These don’t have to be perfect but just the decision to get them done as best as we can each day is very important. Wives tend to know what makes their husbands happy and we need to make that a priority as best we can.

Children

The children are next…their prayers, their meals and their schooling…whatever that looks like in your house.

Home

And then…order in the house by keeping it clean and running smoothly.

There…that seems to be a good general list for daily duties.

We all know that there will be times when things are not as perfect as we would like. We have to give ourselves grace for that.

For the most part we need to make a firm decision to get these things done each day in order to fulfill the important duties of our state in life.

Does it get old and do we not feel like it….day in and day out, week after week? I understand. I don’t feel like it either at times.

Fr. Edward Garesche from the Catholic Book of Character and Success says:

“Rely on your will, not on your feelings  You should draw a very clear distinction between the feelings and the will in your own mind and observe it in your conduct.

For want of this distinction, many persons grieve unreasonably and suffer foolish regrets.

Because they make too much of their feelings, they allow themselves to be carried away by them, when a strong will would keep them steadfast to duty.”

Doing our daily duties consists of making small decisions, regularly throughout the day. And if the decisions are in accordance to what we should be doing …in other words, our daily duties according to God’s will for us, we will be accomplishing much!

This also includes the  decisions to take some time to read a book, take a walk or whatever else we need to rejuvenate us.

From Divine Intimacy:

“‘Sanctity properly consists only in conformity to God’s will, expressed in a constant and exact fulfillment of the duties of our state in life.’” (Benedict XV).

 This statement confirms my knowledge that sanctity does not consist in doing extraordinary things, but is essentially reduced to the fulfillment of duty; therefore, it is possible for me.

For this reason I must be punctual and persevering in the fulfillment of my duties: punctual, that is, diligent, being careful to please God in all my actions, in order to do His holy, sanctifying will.

Hence, I must accustom myself to see the expression of God’s will in every one of my duties, for then everything I do will be an opportunity to submerge myself in God’s love and to unite myself to Him; persevering, that is fulfilling my duties faithfully,  not only when I feel great fervor, but also when I am sad, tired or in aridity; constancy calls for generosity.

This untiring, generous fidelity will not always be easy; however, I must not become discouraged by my failures, but begin again every day, fully confident that someday, God will make my poor efforts fruitful.”

Father O’Sullivan from How to Be Happy, How to be Holy, also says about daily duties:

“We expect the soldier to do his duty. If not, he is looked upon as a coward. We insist on our hired servants doing their duties. If they fail, we dismiss them.

The doctor who does his duty, whose whole heart is in his work, rapidly becomes an eminent practitioner. If he is remiss, he may cause the death of his patients.

The student who studies with great earnestness makes far more progress than his fellows, and he carves out an honorable and lucrative career. In contrast, the idler will likely, sooner or later, have to face poverty and disgrace.

The mother who instills into the minds of her children this golden rule gives to the world splendid men and women. If she neglects her duty, she is the cause of their unhappiness in life and very possibly of their eternal ruin.

It is the same in every branch of life. The person who invariably does his duty is happy, is successful and wins the esteem and confidence of everyone.

This is the first thought that must occupy our minds …to ask our Blessed Mother to give us a clear idea of the far-reaching importance of this great rule of life: ‘Do your duty, do it always.’

There are occasions when it may be hard to do it, but if we are accustomed to do our duty in the small things of everyday life, then God will give us strength to do it under more difficult circumstances.

We must pray fervently for this essential virtue, the love of duty, the grace to do our duty on all occasions, fearlessly and unswervingly.

The Venerable Simeon and the Prophetess Anna watched daily for the coming of the Redeemer, and they received as a reward of their diligence the joy, the grace of being among the first of the children of Israel to see and adore the Messias. Whoever, like them, does his duty, is no less certain of a great reward.”

Fr. Fulgence Meyer, Plain Talks on Marriage says:

“But every profession in life imposes certain hardships and severe trials that try our mettle and test our love for God, and our worthiness to be received in His kingdom.

Married life hardly has more taxing duties, not excepting the one we are discussing, than other states of life have, all things considered. We are here on earth on probation. Not by shirking difficult obligations, but by meeting them resolutely and generously, shall we gain a claim to God’s recognition and reward.”

In doing our daily duties, St. Francis de Sales reminds us…

“Accept the duties which come upon you quietly, and try to fulfill them methodically, one after another. If you attempt to do everything at once, or with confusion, you will only cumber yourself with your own exertions, and by dint of perplexing your mind you will probably be overwhelmed and accomplish nothing.”

In all your affairs lean solely on God’s Providence, by means of which alone your plans can succeed. Meanwhile, on your part work on in quiet co-operation with Him, and then rest satisfied that if you have trusted entirely to Him you will always obtain such a measure of success as is most profitable for you, whether it seems so or not to your own individual judgment.”

And remember let us never get discouraged because as is said in the book Divine Intimacy:

“Let not your imperfections discourage you; your God does not despise you because you are imperfect and infirm; on the contrary, He loves you because you desire to cure your ills. He will come to your assistance and make you more perfect than you would have dared to hope, and adorned by His own hand, your beauty will be unequaled, like His own goodness.”

And so, let us wake up each morning and, saying our Morning Offering in order to gain the merits and the indulgences that we can throughout the day, let us roll up our sleeves and dig in.

Let us look squarely at the day, and putting one foot in front of the others let us tackle our daily duties with diligence, at the same time being open to the interruptions that God sends us, as we move from one duty to the next, raising our hearts to God throughout the day.

“… Prayer, in a wider sense, must consist of more than mere words beseeching God’s mercy; it embraces everything we do with a dedicated spirit of faith in the service of our Creator.” – St. Bede (from a homily)

Abbot Marmion wrote to a student:

“What you tell me of your progress in your studies much consoles me, for true piety, real love of Jesus urges us ever to do our best to fulfill our duties of state.”  (Union With God)

St. Therese of Lisieux:

“Our Lord has granted me the grace never to fear the conflict.  At all costs, I must do my duty.”  (Story of a Soul)

Her way, that is, at every moment of her every day, in all her duties, in all her works, joys and sufferings, was confidence and love.  St. Thérèse, sometimes called the “saint of the itsy-bitsy,” found treasures in the smallest happenings, the smallest tasks – all met, all accomplished, with a simple and pure love for God and neighbor.  She also found sanctity. ~Sisters of Carmel

St. Teresa of Avila:

“We shouldn’t build castles in the air.  The Lord doesn’t look so much at the greatness of our works as at the love with which they are done.  And if we do what we can, His Majesty will enable us each day to do more and more, provided that we do not quickly tire. 

But during the little while this life lasts – and perhaps it will last a shorter time than each one thinks- let us offer the Lord interiorly and exteriorly the sacrifice we can.  His Majesty will join it with that which He offered on the cross to the Father for us.  Thus even though our works are small they will have the value our love for Him would have merited had they been great.”

Here is a simple outline to ensure we are carrying out our daily duties as best we can on this road we travel as Catholic women. This is my own list of what I deem the basics of a successful day. It is an ideal I strive for. You may have your own plan, and I hope you do. If this can help in any way, then I have accomplished my goal with this video…

🌺🌺Surrender Novena Prayer Card and Wire Wrapped Chaplet🌺🌺

Available here.

This chaplet is designed to be prayed with the Surrender Novena, which was given to Servant of God, Fr. Don Dolindo Ruotolo.
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SURRENDER TO THE WILL OF GOD ~ “Jesus, You take over!”

Prayer by Father Dolindo Ruotolo 1882-1970 – Servant of God, Man Who Padre Pio Called a Saint!

Great prayer against worry, fear, anxiety, depression and stress!

Many miracles have been obtained through this novena.

Revised under Pope Pius XII, this official collection (raccolta) of the Church’s prayers and devotions was published in English in 1957. It includes a timely supplement of additional prayers for many urgent needs all of which were composed under the same pontiff. Many of the more commonly used prayers and devotions are followed by the Latin text, thus providing the perfect aid for teachers and parents anxious to keep the Church’s language both alive and spiritually efficacious. These eight hundred prayers touch practically every spiritual and physical need, and every personal and societal hope. They are the confidently suppliant voice of the Catholic Church in her maternal zeal, joy and agony, nobility and militancy.

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This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

 

 

The Precious Crucifix ~ Plain Talks on Marriage

05 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in Catholic Home Life, Family Life, Plain Talks on Marriage - Rev. Fulgence Meyer

≈ 2 Comments

We started this tradition at Dominic and Sarah’s wedding. It is called the “Marriage Crucifix”. You can see the crucifix on their kneeler behind Dominic. They hold it as they say their vows. “After the wedding, the newlyweds cross the threshold of their home to enthrone that same Crucifix in a place of honor. It becomes the reference point of their lives and the place of family prayer, for the young couple believes deeply that the family is born of the Cross.” It is a beautiful custom. You can read more about it here.

The Marriage Crucifix.

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From Plain Talks on Marriage by Rev. Fulgence Meyer, O.F.M., 1927

The family crucifix should be the most precious object, and should form the most cherished and frequented shrine of the entire house. Around it center the sweetest and dearest family memories and traditions. Perhaps it is an heirloom that has come down from father to son, or from mother to daughter in uncounted generations; or perhaps it is a wedding present from the pastor or some dear friend.

When the young couple for the first time entered their own household, it was before this crucifix that they mutually renewed the pledge of their great love and lasting union.

And when the first trials of married life came upon them, it was before this crucifix that they poured out their grief together and asked for solace, courage and strength.

When God gave them the grand blessing of their first child they again knelt before this crucifix in warm appreciation and fervent gratitude.

They repeated this act of whole-hearted joy and recognition at each new addition to the family .circle.

When God, in His inscrutable providence, withdrew one of the children He had given, perhaps the best and dearest or the only one, their first impulse was to throw themselves down before this sacred crucifix, and exclaim grief-stricken but resigned: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it has pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the Name of the Lord” (Job, 1, 21).

And at the death of each member of the family this hallowed crucifix receives the last conscious sigh and kiss of love from him or her who derived their sweetest solace from it in all the vicissitudes and fortunes of life.

A Catholic couple will give evidence of their fear of the Lord by closely keeping the commandments of God and the Church.

This observance must have become such a habit with them and be so ingrained in their character that their children are convinced their parents would rather die than willfully miss holy Mass on a Sunday or holyday of obligation, or violate the Friday or other days of fast and abstinence, or otherwise transgress God’s holy law.

This conviction on the part of their sons and daughters will be the best Catholic education the parents can give them.

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“Lord, Help me to be a good wife. I fully realize that I don’t have what it takes to be one without Your help. Take my selfishness, impatience, and irritability and turn them into kindness, long-suffering, and the willingness to bear all things. Take my old emotional habits, mindsets, automatic reactions, rude assumptions, and self-protective stance, and make me patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. I am not able to rise above who I am at this moment. Only You can transform me.” – Stormie O’Martin

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Cheerful Chats for Catholic Children

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.

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Beautiful Blessed Mother Wire Wrapped Rosaries! Lovely, Durable. Each link is handmade and wrapped around itself to ensure quality. Available here.

This is an excellent prayer book.

Originally published in 1908 by the venerable Benziger Bros., this book has everything–all the basic prayers, litanies and Order (now known as Extraordinary Form) of the Mass. It also has excellent meditations for Eucharistic meditation and prayers for reception of Holy Communion.

The distinguishing feature of this prayer book, however, is that it is chock-full with helpful meditations and inspiring quotes for living the full Christian life. Father Lasance was obviously a very wise man and a holy priest. -T. Berry

Quite possibly the most comprehensive (pre-Vatican II) Prayerbook of the Roman Catholic rite. This is a veritable treasure-trove of prayers, containing both familiar standbys, and many that one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.
At 1227 pages, it is remarkably compact and easy to carry.

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you kindly for your support.

 

 

 

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

04 Friday Nov 2022

Posted by in Catholic Home Life, Virtues

≈ 1 Comment

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!”

The ideal wife gives comfort and encouragement when needed. She is wise with a woman’s intuition…

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Foster Love in Your Home ~ Fr. Lawrence Lovasik

11 Tuesday Oct 2022

Posted by 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 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

 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 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 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.

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Heart of Hearths – The Sacred Heart of Jesus

26 Sunday Jun 2022

Posted by 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 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

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Lovely gifts! These graceful Vintaj necklaces can be worn every day as a reminder of your devotion. Get it blessed and you can use it also as a sacramental. Available here.

 

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 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!

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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

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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.

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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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