Fathers must imitate the love and authority of God

The vocation of husband also becomes the vocation of father when the married people become parents, either by giving birth or through adoption.

It is not surprising that the letter to the Ephesians, immediately after discussing the relationship between husband and wife, turns to a consideration of the relationship of parent and child.

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise) that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.’ ”

Still, none of us should invoke the commandment without pondering the words that follow and complete it: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

“Of the Lord.” “In the Lord.” All members of a family are equal before God; all are unique and sacred personalities destined for the same eternal life. The natural hierarchy of authority in the family is protected from abuse by those words, “of the Lord.”

It is is not for himself that the father serves his family, but as a minister of Christ. Not only can he not require anything from his children contrary to Christian principles, but also he must see to it that the children subject to the authority shared by him and his wife are formed in Christ, through a discipline rooted in love and aimed at the gradual independence of the children as they mature.

The Christian father teaches and trains

Surely the father who makes the consequences of a child’s unacceptable act inappropriate to the act fails to discipline as the Lord would do. Remember that “to discipline” means “to teach.”

The tyrannical parent, the selfish or unfair parent — and how quickly children recognize unfairness! — is the one who rouses his child to constant, deep-seated resentment and rebellion.

Such fathers are, however, probably just as common as those who are overindulgent or indifferent, who refuse to discipline their children at all.

This lack of correction often disguises itself as love. These fathers rouse their children to resentment, too, the resentment the child feels at not having the order and serenity that only authority can impose and that the child subconsciously craves.

In addition, parents who are tyrannical, overindulgent, or indifferent incite in the child a resentment of any later attempt to impose discipline or authority.

Does it sound strange that we should be told that it is the kind father who is quick to discipline, that the man who exercises his authority is the friend to his child?

Yet any gardener knows that a beautiful flower or a healthy hedge is the result of pruning dead or wayward shoots. The undisciplined shrub, the unpruned rosebush, both soon turn ugly.

The father who loves his children — who wills their good —will not let them grow up without direction, training, and discipline. To do otherwise is to deprive them of that promise attached to their observance of the Fourth Commandment: “That it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.”

Nearly all of our “problem children,” our wayward youth, all of those children with whom things have not gone well and who are not headed for “a long life on earth,” come from homes where there was not a good, balanced sense of discipline and order.

“Responsibility is the trait of getting a job done that has been entrusted to you, and doing the job right, to the best of your ability, and having it done on time. This trait is especially needed when you have no one looking over your shoulder to make sure the job gets done.

This is what so many wives of today are lacking – a sense of responsibility for the work they do in their homes and for their families. You don’t have a time clock to punch or a manager coming by to check on you to make sure the job is getting done. Without this outside pressure, many of us just don’t do as good of a job at home as we would do somewhere else. What’s missing? That trait of responsibility.

Even when parts of your work are done by others, such as with daycare or hiring a housekeeper, your responsibility to see the job gets done is still yours. The children and the house are still yours to look after, and it is a serious flaw to take a lax attitude about your responsibilities.” -Fascinating Womanhood

“I’ve long been wanting a book on various virtues to help my children become better Catholics. But most books focused on the virtues make being bad seem funny or attractive in order to teach the child a lesson. I’ve always found them to be detrimental to the younger ones who’s logic hasn’t formed. This book does an awesome job in showing a GOOD example in each of the children with all the various struggles children commonly struggle with (lying, hiding things, being grumpy, you name it.) But this book isn’t JUST virtue training… it’s also just sweet little chats about our love for God, God’s greatness, etc…
And the best thing of all? They are SHORT! I have lots of books that are wonderful, but to be honest I rarely pick them up because I just don’t have the time to read a huge, long story. These are super short, just one page, and very to the point. The second page has a poem, picture, a short prayer and a few questions for the kids to get them thinking. It works really, really well right before our bedtime prayers and only takes a few minutes at most.
If you like “Leading the Little ones to Mary” then you will like these… they are a little more focused on ALL age groups, not just little ones… so are perfect for a family activity even through the teenage years, down to your toddler.” Available here.

An older book but very relevant today….Rooted firmly in Scripture, these pages call on husbands to stop thinking of themselves simply as bosses and breadwinners. Rather, says author Clayton Barbeau, husbands should see themselves as co-creators with God, imitators of Christ’s love for His people, high priests in the domestic Church, teachers of their children, witnesses to society, providers of spiritual and material goods, and models of holiness…

A very valuable book for the guys plucked out of the past and reprinted. It was written in 1894 by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly and the words on the pages will stir the hearts of the men to rise to virtue and chivalry…. Beautifully and eloquently written!
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This site is dedicated to women. Through the articles posted here, we are constantly being reminded of our duties towards home…towards our husband and our children.

Here is an interlude…for the men. There are so many good things out there for guys, too.

This is a great reminder from a Jesuit priest to be on guard against the complacency that comes with daily living…..

By Father Martin Scott, 1934

The shortest and best advice I can give a man is that he regard his wife with the very same care and consideration that he has for himself. If he does that, I promise him he will have a happy married life.

The main reason why a marriage turns out badly is that the man proceeds to live for himself, instead of for his wife and himself.

The selfishness of the man is the most common cause of marriage blight. Selfishness never pays, least of all in marriage.

A young man after marriage sees his sweetheart every day. She may not have the same opportunity of adorning herself that she had before. He sees her as she is ordinarily, and she sees him in the same way.

It is a maxim that the commonplace does not affect us. Husband and wife tend to become commonplace to each other. A man cannot utterly change his nature neither can a woman. Instead of quarreling over the impossible, they should endeavor to amalgamate.

If the husband makes it his main purpose in life to live for his wife and to please her, the chances are that she will make it her sole aim to live for his peace and welfare.

No matter how tired he may be after his day’s work, a wise husband will never be too fatigued to greet his wife warmly on returning home, and to do everything to make the evening a recompense for her long day of waiting.

If she wants to go out, he will not offer an excuse for staying in. While courting her he did not put off calling on her for any slight reason. A husband can do at least as much for his wife as he did for the girl he was engaged to.

Some men make the dreadful mistake of thinking that a woman changes her nature when she becomes a wife. She wants attention and love then just as much, and more perhaps, than she did before. Wise is the man who realizes this and acts on it.

The downright neglect which some men show their wives after marriage is appalling. Nothing contributes so much to turning marriage into a mockery.

Love, like everything else, needs nourishment. You can starve the strongest love to death by indifference and neglect.

A wife’s love is the greatest fortune a man can possess. It is worth every effort made for it.

What shall we say of the man who risks the loss of that treasure by overlooking any, even the slightest of the things which help to preserve and increase it.

Wherever possible, dissension should be avoided. Instead of disputing, it is well to confer. Talking a thing over as if seeking information will banish many dissensions.

A husband should not expect his wife to make all the concessions. Let him meet her at least half way. Often, when he has given in to her, she will reverse the decision and yield entirely to him.

At all events, dissension should be avoided as a serpent, for like a serpent, it will work its deadly way into marriage and poison family happiness.

Dissension costs too much to indulge in it. It produces most frequently the disruption of the bond of affection between man and wife, and when that is broken there is little left of marriage. Dissension usually has its beginning in some indication of disregard shown by the husband for his wife. It may have been the omission of some little token of love, the forgetting of some sign of affection towards her.

A wife is keen to feel any diminution of her husband’s love, and even the slightest sign of its lessening will pain and embitter her.

Of course she cannot expect matrimony to be a perpetual honeymoon. She understands that during the honeymoon the ardent passion of love reaches its climax and that a climax is not perpetual.

But the subsiding of love’s climax does not mean the passing of love. Most married people find love growing stronger and stronger with years not its passion which characterized their first “love making,” but a calm, peaceful, satisfying and comforting love which makes their hearts beat in unison and makes each live for the other.

This love is far more valuable than the violent emotion, and its possession and maintenance depend in great measure on the husband.

If a man does not cherish his wife, if his first thoughts are not for her welfare, if he does not manifest those little signs of consideration and regard which will show her that his heart is hers, he does not deserve this abiding and consoling love.

Love must not only be planted, it must be cultivated. Of all flowers it is the most beautiful and most delicate. It will last forever if it be carefully guarded and nourished.

But if a man does not value and cultivate his wife’s love, it will gradually change into mere toleration or perhaps into positive dislike.

The husband took a good deal of pains to win his wife’s love. Why should he not take as much or more to retain it? Some men think that a wife is like an object which, once obtained, may be used or laid aside as it suits them.

Such men come to grief.

Every wife has a natural hunger for the spontaneous affection of her husband and if he fails to give her the love she craves, he is starving not only her but himself as well. It is useless to tell her of his love. He must show it.

While courting, he knew the art of love. He cannot say that marriage has made him ignorant of it.

I insist so much on this, my dear men, because I am concerned for your life’s happiness. I know of many families wrecked because the husband assumed that, once married, he could let affection take care of itself.

A husband should bear in mind that his wife has left father and mother and home associations for him. He is her all.

If a man says that his love has grown cold, and that he cannot show what he does not feel, it is because he mistakes love for passion, or else because he has neglected to foster the love which he once cherished.

Love itself does not die easily, and when he married, he felt that his wife was the most lovable girl in the world. Love made him willing to go through fire and water for her.

She is the same girl now. She has not changed, and if his love for her is not what it should be, ordinarily it is because he himself has changed.

Of course close and continued association has taken the bloom off in some respects, but the love that made him leave all and give himself forever to his betrothed was too deep and strong to pass away, unless little by little he has caused it to depart.

“The bright husband will never relinquish the prerogative of being a gentleman. Thoughtfulness is his watch word. A kindness here and a consideration there go a long way to promote companionship with his wife. The opening of a car door for her, helping her with her coat, seating her at table, these and a dozen other little actions evidence his tenderness for her. She is precious to him, so he surrounds her with attentions.” -Fr. Leo Kinsella, 1950’s http://amzn.to/2nypip6

Penal Rosaries!

Penal rosaries and crucifixes have a wonderful story behind them. They were used during the times when religious objects were forbidden and it was illegal to be Catholic. Being caught with a rosary could mean imprisonment or worse. A penal rosary is a single decade with the crucifix on one end and, oftentimes, a ring on the other. When praying the penal rosary you would start with the ring on your thumb and the beads and crucifix of the rosary in your sleeve, as you moved on to the next decade you moved the ring to your next finger and so on and so forth. This allowed people to pray the rosary without the fear of being detected. Available here.

If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn’t change. Thank you for your support.

 
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We make the world we live in; and we weave about us webs of good or ill, which leave their impress on our souls.

From True Men As We Need Them, Fr. Bernard O’Reilly, 1893

Man’s True World is His Home

The world, which is to be to you a fairy-land where all is perpetual spring and unclouded sunshine to the soul, is your own home, as you make it; it will be the ever-present image and foretaste of that other land where joy is none, nor peace, nor love, nor hope, if you fail to fulfill these sacred home-duties which are to you the law of life.

Where there is self-caused misery within the home, there can be, for any man who has the fear of God, but little happiness or enjoyment in the wide world outside.

To a husband and a father, with a home still left to him, the roses with which pleasure would crown him outside of it, would be a crown of piercing thorns, the laurels bound round his brow would seem a diadem of flame, and the most delicious fruits of the world’s banquet would turn to ashes and bitterness in his mouth.

God, who ordained the home-virtues as the foundation of the moral world, owes it to himself and to us that no father of a family shall find solid happiness or lasting honor anywhere else than by the side of  his wife, in the midst of his children, and beneath the roof which the divine blessing has hallowed as his home.

If he has won her love, their reverence, and the admiration of the outside world, the wreath that she will weave for him will seem dearer and more enviable than the diadem of kings, the caresses of his children sweeter than the enthusiastic applause of multitudes, and the meal spread forth by love on his own table, more delicious than the viands of the gods.

How many homes have we not seen among the laboring poor where the simple, and often the scanty fare, seasoned by contentment and true love and a good conscience, was, in very truth, a foretaste of the banquet of heaven!

How truly were the mutual affection and the delight in each other that welled up in these pure, simple, brave hearts, the magnificent reward of Him whose ecstatic presence even in this life overflows hearts unoccupied by worldly affections, as the rising tide fills with its rushing waters the bare bays and creeks of the seaboard!

Learn we then to “make the world we live in,” “to dress and to keep” the paradise, “the garden of delights” we call our home.

In that twofold labor, the Divine Author of man’s being would not have him to be alone: He gives the man of the world a companion, a helpmate, a friend, dear, devoted, and to be cherished beyond all that is not God.

The true man’s first duty, after God, is to his wife.

For the guys! Take a look! Sharing information with you!

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“What is man without a home? More helpless and wretched than the beast, the fowl, or the insect. He is both the enemy and the prey of every creature on the face of the earth. But with a home, which he has labored to create, or to preserve and perfect, which he lights up with the lofty examples of his life, where—like God Himself in the world—he only lives to do good and make others good and happy, where the love he gives is returned to him a hundred-fold by the dear ones who owe him everything—is not man a most God-like being?” -Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, True Men As We Need Them: A Book of Instruction for the Men in the World

Lecture on raising a man in a society of boys. Modern society has effeminate males even in their 40s & 50s so how do you raise a man to be an actual man of virtue?

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CHARLES PEGUY called fathers of families, “these great adventurers of the modern world.” How correct he was!

What courage is needed to step out before life, with a companion on one’s arm, aspiring to have children and hoping that Mother Earth will be able to support and nourish their own little world!

Certainly the joy that attends the birth of a babe is sweet.

Here is how a father describes it: When one sees a little one so weak yet so well formed one loves the Creator still more and how much more one thanks Him for giving us life!

What a beautiful mystery maternity is!

To see a young mother feeding her babe suffices to incite one to adore God.

There is nothing more touching than to see this dear little treasure resting in the arms of its mother.

It was baptized on March 28.

What a majestic ceremony it was and how proud one feels to be able to say his son is a Christian!

But what anguish is suffered if the children are sick; if the mother’s strength fails beneath her work.

How anxious one grows when the little ones cough and gasp for breath.

And even if all goes well as far as health is concerned, there is no end to buying clothes, having shoes resoled, and providing food for the ever hungry mouths.

When the children grow up, one must be concerned about their education.

One must start thinking about school for the boys and the girls. Which school is best? Which teachers are best qualified?

Will they take the same interest in our children that we the parents do? Will they give them what they really need to face life?

Then come the sudden worries–auto accidents, accidents in sports, war in which the worst bodily dangers threaten!

But worse still and more serious by far are the soul dangers–the boy who keeps bad hours, who has an evil tongue and a shifty glance, who evades questions and begins to lie.

Yes, indeed, what magnificent and courageous adventurers are fathers of families!

A reporter recounted the enthusiastic acclaim the people of Paris gave the intrepid sailor Alain Gerbault who had succeeded in sailing around the world in a very frail skiff.

“For my part,” said the reporter, “I gave to Alain Gerbault the recognition that was his due.”

But in the crowd that had gathered about the famous sailor, the newspaper man found himself next to a family of rather humble means to judge by their appearance, although they did not lack dignity.

There were five children with the father and mother, all modestly and neatly dressed.

The father was explaining to his sons, “Oh, what an admirable type is this Gerbault! What a hero!“

“I shared that idea,” commented the reporter, “but I thought that father was also a hero to pilot a skiff loaded down with children on the ocean of life as he was doing . . . . I even wondered if it were not more admirable than to guide a boat on the high sea with only oneself to think of.”

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“The Holy Family lived in a plain cottage among other working people, in a village perched on a hillside. Although they did not enjoy modern conveniences, the three persons who lived there made it the happiest home that ever was. You cannot imagine any of them at any time thinking first of himself. This is the kind of home a husband likes to return to and to remain in. Mary saw to it that such was their home. She took it as her career to be a successful homemaker and mother.”
-Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook

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TRUE MEN AS WE NEED THEM – Rev. Fr. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

A very valuable book for the guys plucked out of the past and reprinted. It was written in 1894 by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly and the words on the pages will stir the hearts of the men to rise to virtue and chivalry…. Beautifully and eloquently written! A great Father’s Day gift!