Category Archives: FF Tidbits

Parish Life

06 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in FF Tidbits

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It’s interesting to read this article from the 1940’s when it was easy to find and go to a local church that still practiced and preached the Catholic Religion of the Fathers. It’s not so simple, now. If we take our faith seriously, we must go to a parish where there is a reverent Mass and where the preaching is sound. The effort to get to one will not go unrewarded. And our parish life will then be a blessing…

by Emerson Hynes St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota

+J. H. Schlarman Bishop of Peoria President NCRLC

Sacramental Protection of the Family

(Notes from a talk by Emerson Hynes to the Rural Life Summer School, St. Bede College, June 25, 1945.)

Parish Life

Family life in Christ is a noble aim and one to which we cannot devote too much energy. Yet we know that the “true and indispensable” source of Christian life is Holy Mass, because obviously the family is not self-sufficient either economically or socially or spiritually.

We have not the time to explore all the possibilities, all the opportunities for leadership in helping families to work with other families in community life. Economic and social cooperation of families is a topic in itself. But a few words about the cooperation of families in religious life will be useful.

Holy Mother Church has built her structure wisely. The normal relationship of families is a part of that community called a parish. The parish is in many respects a “little Church,” a cell of the whole Church. Composed of families, usually in a geographic area, it is admirably suited to promote the spiritual growth of the members of those families.

The offering of the parish Mass is the central act of this community; and the priest, the father of the parish family, has the honor, right, and duty of offering that Mass, dispensing the sacraments, and instructing. Thus family life reaches its flowering in parish life.

How important that parish life is! How great the opportunity and how great the responsibility of the priest!

And it is a good thing for priests to know that the laity thank God for the great system of parishes that we have in the United States, where few families are so far removed that they cannot be active members of parishes; and that the laity appreciate their blessings in having priests, who serve them faithfully in this first and necessary function of the parish.

For a number of reasons, it is true that we Catholics do not make the best use of the means of worshipping and of growing spiritually. But can anyone in this whole nation complain that the means are not there at his disposal?

But no Catholic can ever be complacent. There is always the opportunity of intensifying the religious life of the families of the parish, of making them realize more fully the privilege of being a part of this cell of the Church.

We are all so human; and so the practices that have been traditional in the history of the Church are needed today as in the past. All of you undoubtedly have them. I need but mention a few.

There are, especially on Rogation days and Corpus Christi, processions in which the members of the parish join as a body to worship and petition.

There is the meaningful custom of visiting the cemetery, where the deceased members of the mystical body (but just as truly part of the living body) rest. There is the restoration of the true meaning and prayers of Halloween.

There is the beautiful practice of making each baptism of a new member of the Church and of the parish a real parish function. We lay people make a great fuss over baby showers and have all kinds of secular excitement over the birth of a baby. Could we not be helped to achieve even more enthusiasm for the birth (baptism) of a new member into the Church?

To make baptism a parish affair is to teach the unity of members of the mystical body. Not only the parents, but also the parish should rejoice.

The parish also has secondary purposes: to serve as a social and cultural center for the people who are united in this basic religious society. This, too, is a broad topic, and one from which we could all profit by exchanging ideas.

Complaints go to the two extremes: that the parish is “dead” and without any activities of this secondary nature; and the opposite, that there are so many societies and activities that the family which joined all they were exhorted to join would never have any time at home.

I suggest merely that on this point we keep one thing in mind. The parish should not simply be duplicating secular activities that are already well organized. Of course, that is the easiest procedure. The people like card parties, bowling, athletics, bingo, and what-not. I am not condemning them. But in most places secular agencies provide enough outlet for such recreational and social urges.

There is so little time, and the parish is so important that the busy pastor and his willing people should use the opportunity to higher ends. I mean that social, fraternal, and recreational devices should not be ends in themselves, nor should they be merely money making devices.

They should be used as a means to build a rural culture, a Christian rural culture. Thus they should lead to higher things. Endless playing of cards will not build any culture. Endless bowling is not going to develop the human personality. Cards may be used as a bait, but creative recreation (plays, recitations, music, folk dances, the ancient crafts and arts) should be our aim.

The secondary parish activities should be building personality and building culture, not merely providing parasitic and passive ways of spending time. Let Hollywood have the reputation for that.

I might add in passing that this is important, for unless a genuine rural culture is built in this country, rural America is doomed. Unless rural people have spiritual and cultural values, they will use their improved economic condition as a stepping stone to urban life. Unless rural children are trained to know and appreciate the special cultural values of the open country, they will not stay on the land.

I grant that most rural people think they must relax and be entertained. That is the job of leadership, to show them how more re-creating and more entertaining creative activity is. And incidentally it will build better parish unity and keep the parish numerically strong.

“Parents are often to blame for the rebellious spirit of their children, because they give little of themselves – of their time, interest, and practical love – and then complain that their children do not obey. Let your good example be a sufficient motive for your children’s obedience, even when you are obliged to ask them to do things that few other parents ask.” – Fr. Lovasik, The Catholic Family Handbook http://amzn.to/2opoz9Z (afflink)
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Re-Establishment of Traditions

05 Tuesday Oct 2021

Posted by in FF Tidbits, Seasons, Seasons, Feast Days, etc.

≈ 3 Comments

by Emerson Hynes St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota

+J. H. Schlarman Bishop of Peoria President NCRLC

Sacramental Protection of the Family

(Notes from a talk by Emerson Hynes to the Rural Life Summer School, St. Bede College, June 25, 1945.)

We need instruction because we Americans came to this country in a violent way. Most of the home ties were broken. We came to a strange land where there were no traditions of Catholicity. We left home and village and nation where traditions may have been strong, but in this new land all was new.

Some of the nationalities, of course, settled as units and thus some of the traditions were transplanted. But often they died with the first or second generation. Thus we find our country in many ways barren of the solid religious spirit and practices that characterize the homes of our ancestors in Europe.

Those traditions have to be rebuilt. We are often simply ignorant of how to make our home a place worthy of a religious vocation. We know how to wash floors and operate vacuum cleaners and electric stoves, but we do not know how to sanctify our baking, our meals, our action.

We need confidence because the traditions have been lost. We Catholics without embarrassment walk into church, attend Mass, and abstain from meat on Friday. But in the intimacy of our own homes we are often self-conscious about the countless practices, symbols, and words which are needed to make our homes fitting places for a continuous sacrament.

You may know of many exceptions, but as a general rule, and increasingly as the rest of the nation becomes more secular and as the radio competes, religious life within the family itself becomes more foreign.

So we need much instruction and much bolstering. The instruction cannot be merely by sermon and handing out pamphlets. The priest must enter the very homes themselves and instruct.

The mothers, in their guilds or societies, must be instructed and encouraged to start a few of the practices. The children in school must come to accept it as ordinary practice of the Catholic family.

Blessings by the father before meals and thanksgiving afterwards, the family rosary, the crucifix on the wall and a picture of the Sacred Heart: these are starting points, but they are not enough. There is a wealth of possibilities over and beyond.

Then there are the blessings for the home: for the house, the barn, the parental bedroom, and others. The priest, for example, might perform these blessings as he is taking the census.

It is scarcely necessary to add what advantage the rural pastor has in building family life. For the rural family still has the unity and the privacy and the authority. The chief need is instruction.

The urban pastor has far greater obstacles. He is dealing with families where the whole family is rarely together, once the children start to school, and where the father is away from home much of the day. He is dealing with family life that goes on under ceaseless environmental difficulties and distractions, and where the competition of the secular attractions is almost insurmountable.

We can place his work in the power of the Holy Spirit and practice the supernatural virtue of hope.

“There is also the question of time. Where do we find the time to participate in the Church’s liturgical year with our children? Like these other questions, the answer is, we can find it if we plan for it. We can find it quite easily by looking to see where we waste it. Not wasting it is not easy, because the habits of time-wasting, although they are harmless, are hard to break – as I know from experience. Mothers have this struggle all to themselves. It involves such things as the radio (now internet) habit, coffee breaks, long telephone conversations, chatting with neighbors, a heavy involvement in outside activities. Somewhere most American women CAN “find time” to devote to the enriching of their families’ spiritual life. The joyous discovery is that once we have struggled and found the time, tasted and seen how sweet are these pursuits together, we begin to gauge all our doings so that there will be time – because we are convinced there must be.” -Mary Reed Newland

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Summer/Early Fall Gallery ~ 2021

23 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in FF Tidbits, Smorgasbord 'n Smidgens

≈ 11 Comments

Well here we are, summer is past and fall has begun! It still feels like summer is in the air here but the nights are getting cooler.

We are very busy getting ready for our Shakespeare Festival that is beginning this Friday. It goes all this weekend and the next. It is a lovely, family-friendly event that is a one-of-a kind experience. The play this year is MacBeth. It is extra special this season because last year the event was cancelled due to Covid. I will post pictures later.

We have 5 daughters/daughters-in-law that are expecting now. Which brings the total number of grandchildren to 40! May God bless our expectant mothers who each have their own set of crosses during pregnancy. It is an exciting time for all…but there are always the thorns among the roses, as you all know. Looking forward to the blossoming of the roses!

The world is crazy right now…and the church has huge problems! And yet, in the way of sanctity, nothing has changed. We continue to have to pull ourselves away and strive for personal holiness. It is a lesson that is hard in this day of information glut that is constantly slung in our direction. We can get so caught up in it!

But, really, what it comes down to is a constant turning back to what has been taught through the ages by the saints, the Church Fathers, scripture, etc. Nothing new under the sun. Let’s look in the right places for this information. That is what will give us peace.

Are there big problems? Do we have personal problems? Does the world have problems, our nation? The Church? It’s all disheartening and, if we let it, it can be discouraging. But there is a solution. Yes, there is.

Our Lady gave us the solution at Fatima…the rosary. Get back to the family rosary. And if you are saying it already…say it better. Spread the word. This world needs it so badly!

And continue to live a Catholic life. Build Catholic culture within your families. After you are gone, your legacy will continue to pass this culture on to make the world a better place to be….and to populate heaven with souls.

And now, a gallery of our summer doings in this “neck of the woods”.

Click on the first picture to view the gallery….And don’t forget the caption below:

The Pupils’ Success ~ The Catholic Teacher’s Companion

17 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Catholic Teacher's Companion, Education, FF Tidbits, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

This excerpt is a lesson for all educators…including, and especially, mothers and fathers. There aren’t many schools nowadays that are reputable (there are some, indeed), so mothers and fathers have had to take much of burden of educating their children, especially in their religion. Take heart, your reward will be great in heaven!

Some readers may be tempted to restrict the idea of the pupils’ success to what is seen on the night of the school commencement. But we have in mind the school commencement merely as the scene whence the graduates must pass to the larger stage of the world to play their parts.

The Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S.J.,  has brought out vividly the part that the Sisters play in both phases of the pupil’s success:

Back stage, hot in heavy habits that were never designed for work among canvas wings, the Sisters, tired, flushed, but happy, watched the end of their year’s work.

The next day they too were to leave; some for the motherhouse, some for the summer courses at Catholic colleges, all eventually for the annual retreat.

The curtain dropped for the last time, and the boys and girls surged out to greet happy relatives, some with a quick good-by to their teachers, others thoughtless and forgetful of all except that for them school was at an end and they were free.

Yet, though few children came to thank them, and fewer still of that seething audience gave a passing thought to the Sisters backstage, all that was epitomized in the entertainment just concluded, and the diploma just conferred was credited by a higher Power to them.

Because of their patient drilling some boy would rise higher in life. Later on some girl would come with the man who loved her, to seek out the Sister who had kept her feet straight in her youthful days.

Some boy in the grip of temptation would remember her insistent lessons of loyalty to God and put sin ruthlessly behind him. Perhaps in some distant day a wanderer from the faith of his fathers would on his deathbed murmur the act of contrition she taught him, and by that childhood prayer open for himself the gates of eternal bliss.

And perhaps before God’s altar some young priest, in the full tide of his newly-received priesthood, would pause at the Memento to whisper the name of the nun whose lessons and prayers had first turned his eyes toward the service of the Sanctuary.

Her work, unrecognized, unappreciated, but heroic with the heroism of patient unselfishness and devotion to a high ideal, is one of the loveliest things in the Church today.

She is the greatest asset of Catholic education. I crave your thanks for the teaching Sister.

The Rev. Robert Schwickerath, S.J., relates an incident of the life of Father Bonifacio, a distinguished Jesuit educator, who for more than forty years taught the classics.

One day he was visited by his brother, a professor in a university, whom he had not seen for many years. When the professor heard that the Father had spent all the years of his life in the Order in teaching Latin and Greek to young boys, he exclaimed:

“You have wasted your great talents in such inferior work! I expected to find you at least a professor of philosophy or theology. What have you done that this post is assigned to you?”

Father Bonifacio quietly opened a little book, and showed him the list of hundreds of pupils whom he had taught, many of whom occupied high positions in Church or State, or in the world of business.

Pointing at their names, the Father said with a pleasant smile:

“The success which my pupils have achieved is to me a far sweeter reward than any honor which I might have obtained the most celebrated university.”

Father Schwickerath justly adds to this account that “not all teachers have the consolation of seeing their pupils in high positions. It happens that the best efforts of a devoted teacher seem to be lost on many pupils. Even this will not discourage the religious teacher.

He will remember that his model, Jesus Christ, did not reap the fruit which might have been expected from such a Master. Not all that He sowed brought forth fruit a hundredfold, not even thirtyfold. Some fell upon stony ground, and other some fell among the thorns, and yet He went on patiently sowing.

So a teacher ought not to be disheartened if the success should not correspond with his labors. He knows that one reward is certainly in store for him, the measure of which will not be his success, but his zeal; not the fruit but his efforts.”

It is the prospect of this reward that inspires the devoted service of our Sisters.

Not long ago, in distant Algiers, an American tourist visited the lepers’ colony out of pure curiosity. These poor lepers were cared for by a Community of Sisters. The man was attracted by one of these self-sacrificing women because of her youth, beauty, and refinement, and to his surprise he learned that she was an American girl.

Being introduced to her, he said: “Sister, I would not do this work for $10,000 a year.”

“No,” said the Sister, “nor would I do it for $100,000 nor a million a year.”

“Really,” said the stranger, “you surprise me. What, then, do you receive?”

“Nothing,” was the reply, “absolutely nothing.”

“Then why do you do it?”

The Sister lifted the crucifix that was pending from her rosary and, sweetly kissing it, said, “I do it for the love of Him, for Jesus who died for the love of them and for the love of me. In the loathsome ulcers of these poor lepers I see the wounds of my crowned and crucified Savior.”

For the rest, we believe that the very choicest reward will be meted out to the School Sisters for that portion of their work that to human seeming is generally in vain. Our School Sisters may gain honor from their talented pupils; they will earn their bread (in a certain sense) by training the vast body of mediocre children; but they will merit heaven by the patient labors they devote to the dullards in their schools.

A holy house is one in which God is truly King; in which He reigns supreme over the minds and hearts of the inmates; in which every word and act honors His name. One feels on entering such a house, nay, even on approaching it, that the very atmosphere within and without is laden with holy and heavenly influences. -True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894 https://amzn.to/2PsM94w (afflink)

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

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

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

What About Good Looks? ~ Rev. Daniel A. Lord

24 Tuesday Aug 2021

Posted by in FF Tidbits

≈ 1 Comment

“I want to marry a beauty myself. Life for a husband must be pretty dull if his wife isn’t pretty. I’d hate to spend my life looking at some of the girls whose only recommendation is a pleasant disposition.”

One thing that has always puzzled me is the faces of some men I’ve known who demanded beautiful wives. How is it that homely men think they are entitled to pretty wives? You’ll hear some most unattractive male demanding for himself an extremely attractive female.

There ought to be some balance in looks, I’d say. When the onlookers say, “What a handsome couple!” I find myself thinking it quite right that beauty should draw beauty; when I hear a man demanding beauty in his partner, I always look twice to see if his partner will find good looks in him.

However, if our newspaper records are accurate, marriage to a raving beauty seems to lead to some raving divorce proceedings.

Beauty is natural in some women, painfully acquired in others, and in still others retained only through a lifetime’s service.

I can think of no husband as likely to be neglected as the husband of a professional beauty. She owes too much of her time to the care and cultivation of her good looks.

And when she is out, she is constantly walking in the presence of an audience to which she carefully plays.

Beauty, like all natural gifts, demands a lot of time. If a woman hasn’t the inner spirit to keep her beautiful, then she has to put in tireless thought and continued effort to keep the fragile flower of physical beauty from withering.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, BEAUTY?

It is important, however, before answering the demands of the young man bent on finding a beautiful wife to ask just what he or anyone else means by beauty.

Regular features?   A perfect complexion?   A figure meeting the latest standards?

I doubt if those are the types of a beauty with which it would be pleasant to live.

For regular features, like anything else regular, some seem less regular than routine. Right now Hollywood is far less interested in regular features than in the expression that lies back of them.

There are a thousand girls with regular features waiting counter in cafeterias and pounding typewriters in Los Angeles; the girl who registers in the present tests for good looks has lack of those features — regular or irregular, according to the classic tradition or in the current eclectic vogue — aliveness, interest, character, charm, an inner glow that comes out in her eyes and her general expression.

The day of beauty, classic and orderly, comes and goes.

In the end, beauty is what pleases the beholder; and it is amazing how attractive people defy the rules of art and are beautiful despite a slight twist to a nose, freckles, eyes that are just a little off alignment, a mouth with a fascinating quirk, and a chin that would look odd indeed on Venus of Milo.

Beauty is worth having only if it attracts. Beauty is worth possessing only if, after the passing of time, it remains.   And that is why surface beauty is a poor thing to look for and a worse thing to marry in a girl.

Good health, that wholesome look, the “well-scrubbed look” praised by the current novelists, the face and eyes and figure that mean a lifetime of decent food and enough fresh air and clean living — these are what matter on the physical side.

But looks will fade.

Sickness, child-bearing, the passing of the years singularly alter the physical aspects of a woman. Then the inner girl begins to show more and more, to dominate the looks and bring the character to the surface.

Her face is charming because she is constantly cheerful. Her features remain surprisingly unlined because she smiles easily, her mouth curves upward, and she doesn’t let worry or annoyance dig furrows into her forehead.

She moves rapidly and easily because she has an inner spark that keeps her alive. She has something better than regular features; she has regular habits; and the regular possession of virtue and of sanctifying grace.

It is amazing how, with time, the soul comes to dominate the body. Selfish people get the hard, selfish look. Generous people grow more physically attractive each day.

People with the peace of God’s friendship develop expressions that instantly attract and constantly charm. A mouth that speaks kindly becomes a beautiful mouth. Hands that serve generously become characterful hands. Eyes that look out for affection on mankind are eyes that radiate an inner beauty not difficult to find.

A young man is wise to ask of his future wife a wholesomeness and moderate health.   Her smile soon comes to compensate for regular features.

And if she has a lovely character, she will year after year, indeed day by day, grow into a comfortable, attractive, gracious, beloved adornment of his house.

Her virtue is the only kind of beauty that does not decay; and the virtue of her soul will take over and mold to full charm the beauty of her whole person.

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

Catholic mothers everywhere are looking for innovative ways to teach their children the basic truths of our Faith. There is so much out there to offer to those mothers on this journey…..so much in the way of the latest software, latest videos, etc.
 
Maybe we need to get back to basics!? …The basics of forming those young minds with tools that our grandmothers and those before them used.
 
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Hands Free Mama is the digital society’s answer to finding balance in a media-saturated, perfection-obsessed world. It doesn’t mean giving up all technology forever. It doesn’t mean forgoing our jobs and responsibilities. What it does mean is seizing the little moments that life offers us to engage in real and meaningful interaction. It means looking our loved ones in the eye and giving them the gift of our undivided attention, living a present, authentic, and intentional life despite a world full of distractions.

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

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

A Good Teacher is Like a Gentle Spring

20 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by in Education, FF Tidbits

≈ 1 Comment

Marva Collins is famous for applying classical education successfully with impoverished students, many of whom had been wrongly labeled as learning disabled by public schools. She once wrote, “I have discovered few learning disabled students in my three decades of teaching. I have, however, discovered many, many victims of teaching inabilities.”

from Ordinary Children, Extraordinary Teachers by Marva Collins

A student is like a tree.

Teachers who spend more time talking about what children should know and what they cannot do are delaying the time when that child’s leaves can once again come into fruition.

Surely the harsh winter of some teachers may be the culprit, but pointing fingers won’t help the child who sits before you. This child will constantly be at risk in society until somewhere someone sees him or her as a blank sheet of paper on which the good teacher will do the writing.

The good teacher gives children the opportunity to have their past failures burned. They are given a new lease on life …a new opportunity to have the past die, never to be born-again.

Caring cannot be forced; it must come of its own accord. When a teacher cares enough to keep polishing, the shiny luster that all children have comes shining through.

Think for a moment about going into an antique shop where one views old silver. One person sees blackened metal and calls it worthless. Another viewer sees the blackened silver and realizes what it can become. With polishing, the true, fine luster comes shining through. The same silver existed all the time. The only difference is how the viewer saw its value and potential.

So it is with children. Without vision of what a child can become, his potential perishes.

The good teacher removes the layers of dead leaves left from a harsh winter of uncaring and gives the child the sweet breath of spring. . .a new life. Spring itself means new beginnings. . .new life.

marva

“To rear your child successfully, begin by resisting the first signs of evil inclinations and by sowing the first seeds of good in his soul. You can never pay too much attention to your child’s character formation in the first years. In this early period, the education of the child is based entirely on habits. On the parents depends the formation of either good or bad ones. To develop good habits in the little one is to prepare for him now the path he will follow as an adult.” -Education of Children, S. Hart

Painting by Marie Witte

 

We often don’t realize the impact of those lessons, those Catholic lessons, that are taught each day to our children. It is so much worth the effort! The signs of the cross, kneeling to say prayers, dipping fingers in holy water, laying fresh flowers at the statue of Our Lady, etc., etc. These are gold nuggets that will live on in your children’s lives. This is building Catholic Culture!

The following  books are to help you parents with those little things…..They are story books from my new little series, “Catholic Hearth Stories”. I wrote them especially for my grandchildren….and am sharing them with yours.

Catholic Hearth Stories are tales filled with traditional, old-fashioned values. They are about everyday situations in the life of a Catholic family…Tales about home, friends, fun, sacrifice, prayer, etc. These are full-color books sure to capture the heart of your children.

Each book is about 35 pages of full-color pictures that tell a lovely Catholic story. The ages they are appropriate for are approximately 4 – 12 years.

Celine’s Advent: Take a walk through Advent as Celine and her family prepare for the coming of the Baby Jesus at Christmas! You will enjoy celebrating the beauty of the season with Celine as she helps her mom with the special traditions and activities that make the liturgy come alive in their home! Her “peanut gallery” consists of a mouse named Percy and some charming and delightful Christmas Angels! They are sure to capture your heart!

Joseph and the Bow Shoot: Meet Joseph, a Catholic boy who wants to enter the Parish Bow Shoot but doesn’t have a bow. How does he overcome this obstacle and what lessons does he learn along the way?

Two Tea Parties and a Sacrifice: Meet Agnes, a fourteen-year-old Catholic girl, who is challenged to make a sacrifice. Will she cheerfully accept what she knows is God’s will in this situation?

Brendan, The Seafarer: It’s Brendan’s birthday and he is fighting pirates, steering ships and wielding swords! He learns of St. Brendan, the Navigator and the pious Christopher Columbus. Life is a nautical adventure for him! Will his daydreaming cause him trouble? What lessons does he learn?

Available here.  (Also sold individually)

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A book of your favorite litanies….

Chosen by God for the incomparable vocation of spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and foster father of Our Lord Jesus Christ; St. Joseph received magnificent divine graces and favors not granted even to the Old Testament Patriarchs. Known as the most humble of men; St. Joseph received from Almighty God the authority to command both Our Lady and the Son of God Himself; and in Heaven he continues to have great intercessory power with God.
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Show Your Child the Dignity of Work

18 Wednesday Aug 2021

Posted by in FF Tidbits, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

Painting by Alfredo Rodriguez

From How to Raise Good Catholic Children by Mary Reed Newland

Show your child the dignity of work

A great many people seem to think that work is a curse. If they know enough to offer it up, this makes it a prayer, but it makes a better prayer if they know it isn’t a curse in the first place.

When God the Father made Adam, He put him in the Garden of Paradise “to dress it and to keep it.” It wasn’t until after Original Sin that He said, “Cursed is the earth in thy work.”

Even then He didn’t curse work. He was referring to the earth, whose harmony had been spoiled. Where formerly Adam could plant seeds and expect them to grow and bear fruit without ever poking a hoe at them, now he was going to have trouble.

Stones that were meant (I suppose) to lie about and give glory to God, were going to sneak down into the soil and break his plow. Plants that had kept to their own, raising their young from seed and lifting their heads in praise, were going to scatter their seed in his wheat and corn and potatoes, and Adam would have to pull them out.

His work could once have been pure joy. It was now going to involve a struggle. There’s nothing very new about this.

Many a work-weary parent has announced plaintively to his children, “Just wait till you grow up and have to work for a living. Then you’ll find out money doesn’t grow on trees!”

Money doesn’t grow on trees, and people have to work for it, but it’s a mistake to think money is the only end of work. Even men who get past the point of needing money continue to need work. They retire at sixty-five, and at sixty-five and a half, they discover that they can’t bear to be retired.

There’s a very good reason. We are the children of God. Our Father is a creator and worker, and we “take after our Father.”

He made us the finest of all His visible creation, but a little less than the angels; He gave us the universe and made us lords over it. His work continues in the continuing miracle of life in all things, and we are the custodians on earth of all its life and the abundance of its treasures.

With our own work in imitation of our Father, we make things, do things, grow things, create things, always with the things He has given. This is the dignity of work. This is why work is holy. This is why, when we do it as well as we can and with the right intention, work gives great glory to God.

For me to presume to say anything new about work would be wild. But for mothers and fathers raising young, who fluctuate so rapidly between periods of liking and disliking work, it’s helpful to return and consider some of the fundamentals with an eye to adapting them for children.

The home is the training ground for life

The home is a world in miniature, a mystical body with the father as the head, the mother as the heart, and the children as the members. As every member in the physical body, each muscle and nerve and cell, contributes to the perfect functioning of the body, so every member of a family is needed for the perfect functioning of the family.

The father is its support and protector, the mother is its center of order and fruitfulness, the children share in their own way in the work and the joy of both, and the whole has as its primary end the training of souls whose destiny is Heaven.

Out of the family will come responsible — or irresponsible — men and women who will form — or malform — society, and society belongs to Christ. He bought it with His Blood on the Cross.

Our ultimate work in the world is merely an extension of this training in work in the home, and no matter what specific work we do, its end is first of all Heaven.

Whether we’re mothers or nuns or nurses or workers in the fields; whether we’re fathers or priests or truck drivers or policemen directing traffic, when we do our work with the right purpose for its end, we’re working with Christ for the salvation of men. And always we begin it at home.

For very little children, work is play. It’s an imitation of something grown-ups do, and it’s the beginning of learning.

Stephen is three and a half and is quite a hand at wiping the dishes — also at dragging dish towels all over the floor. This is very trying, and the pile of dish towels to be thrown in the wash mounts rapidly when Stephen is “helping.”

But to rebuff him constantly (once in a while, when speed is of the essence, he must be sweetly but firmly removed) is to discourage an instinctive desire to serve, and he must not only be allowed to serve, but encouraged to serve.

Christ gave us the example when He washed the feet of His Apostles, doing as a servant would do, then bidding them to follow His example.

When a child is discouraged too often in his attempts to serve, the desire can easily wither away until his whole impression of the world is that it’s a place where other people serve him, and his role is that of the served.

Mothers are quite right when they state that little ones can be more hindrance than help; yet if home is to be a training ground for life, we’re going to have to sacrifice a certain amount of efficiency and begin the training. There are too many victims of over-efficient mothers, roaming around knowing how to do nothing, to argue much with this.

“The one who knows how to profit by his own errors is the one who makes a success of life. To be discouraged over your mistakes is foolish. To disregard them is equally unwise. To face them fearlessly and try to learn from them how to avoid a mistake next time is part of wisdom.” – Fr. Edward F. Garesche, Catholic Book of Character and Success, 1912, Painting by John George Brown

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The Time After Pentecost – The Sundays

01 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in Feast Days, FF Tidbits

≈ 1 Comment

From Our Children’s Year of Grace by Therese Mueller, 1955

The field has been prepared (pre-Lent), the seed has been sown (Lent), we experienced the glorious resurrection of the dead grain (Easter), we witnessed its growing, and at the “fullness of maturity” the Spirit of the Lord came to it in the fruitfulness of pollen, (Pentecost).

Now we are patiently waiting and watching for the growing and ripening of the fruit, for the great day of harvesting with Christ in his glory.

Mother Church’s colors are green, as the fields and the meadows, strewn with the white flowers of virginity and the red ones of martyrdom.

Like the land-man Mother Church keeps on praying for sunshine and rain, for the best for the souls and bodies of her children, that they may ripen full and fair, worthy to be gathered into the eternal barns.

Sunday after Sunday she leads her children to the fountain of eternal life, so that they may eat and drink their daily need of grace and divine help toward the final goal.

Each Sunday is a “Little Easter,” a re-enactment of the great mystery of resurrection from death, of new life out of the supreme sacrifice.

With our brothers from the early days of the church we must stress, concentrate on the one highfeast, celebrated over and over again on “the first day of the week,” we must make it the center of our religious life as well as of our recreation (re-creation!!) in the spiritual as well as the physical sense.

To give ourselves, our life and love, our sorrow and cares, our soul and body, our wishes and fears into the hands of the Father– “through Christ our Lord”–that is what we are expected to do and in return we will be filled with the abundance of Christ’s grace and love and perfection.

We will be transformed over and over again into “other Christs,” we will be united with him, who gloriously overcame suffering and death, who is awaiting us to give us part in his glory, after we share his suffering here on earth.

As we make each Sunday a “little Easter,” let us give to each Saturday something of the spirit of “Holy Saturday”; an atmosphere of happy preparedness and peaceful expectation of the coming day of the Lord. That is a real family task and worthwhile to work for.

Whenever I am lonesome for the home of my childhood, it is the “air” of the “Sunday Eve” I am longing for; the smell of soap and wax and fresh linen, of a simple one dish meal mixed with the promising odor of the cake for the morrow, the tip-toeing through the “best rooms,” locked for us children during the week.

“Moses take off your shoes, the place you are standing on is holy” my father used to say, often with a smile we did not see–to us it was just too true. It was as if the whole house was alive with the expectation of something great and beautiful– almost as wonderful as the Sunday itself!

Let us try to “steal” some hours from the approaching Sunday to make our minds and soul ready, to “tune in” as the church bells of my home town did, spreading peace and happiness over the roofs of the old city–as Mother Church does, when she anticipates Sunday with the Vespers on Saturday evening.

It is up to us to create a new “Sunday cult,” an atmosphere in which our children will grow up to a deeper, more religious understanding of the day of the Lord.

A nation can be no stronger than its families are, and they can be at their best in the country. And when to this natural strength we add the crowning glory of the Catholic Faith, when we strive to bring Christ to the countryside, and the land to Christ, we are certainly exercising a great apostolate. -An Australian Dominican Sister, 1950’s, Painting by Eugenio Zampighi

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How to Be Good Parents (Part Two)

30 Friday Jul 2021

Posted by in FF Tidbits, Parenting

≈ 2 Comments

Painting by Alfredo Rodriguez

By Father Donald Miller, C.SS.R (1950’s)

Part one is here.

PRINCIPLE V.

The authority of father and mother must be mutually exercised, each contributing what is most natural to their particular role.

The mutual exercise of parental authority means that neither one will abdicate authority, nor delegate to the other the making of all decisions concerning the direction, correction and punishment of the children.

Fathers, in particular, do great harm to their children (and, incidentally, to their wives) who, in all problems and questions that arise concerning the children, say to them: “Let your mother decide.”

Each parent has something to contribute toward the proper development of a child.

By the design of nature, a father leans toward justice and severity; the mother toward mercy and leniency. Both these shadings of authority are needed for the rounded development of the child. Children need to see the father and mother working together, complementing each other, in bringing them up. Above all, it is important that they never be given grounds for “playing” their father and mother against each other.

Therefore the father must permit his masculine sense of justice to be tempered at times by the mother’s leaning toward mercy; the mother must want her feminine leniency to be bolstered by the father’s instinct toward strictness.

Yet decisions must appear to the children as coming from both parents, the one always supporting and upholding the other when the decision has been mutually made.

PRINCIPLE VI

The authority of Christian parents must be exercised with full recognition of the fact that false, dangerous and bad standards of conduct are approved or tolerated by many parents in the world today, and that Christian parents must band together to reject and resist all such standards.

The grave mistake of many Christian parents is to let themselves be swayed by customs, practices and permissions that are indulged by children who have parents “who don’t care,” or who are guided by wrong principles.

They cannot resist the plaintive appeal of children: “Other parents allow these things; why shouldn’t they be allowed to me?”

Children, even in their teens, cannot be expected to make the distinction between the good and the bad, the dangerous and the harmless, in the customs that are prevalent around them.

Indeed, they of all human beings are most apt to call upon the false principle that what is widely done is rightly done.

At the same time, widespread experience proves that children want to be guided; they want to be told by their parents what they should do and not do.

Therefore parents are bound to use their own knowledge and experience, their own faith and principle, to guide and direct their children toward what is good and away from what is bad, no matter what the popular modes of juvenile conduct may be.

And because the weight of false principle and bad example is so great, they need to get together with other parents like themselves, and to establish norms and rules that all will observe together. The effect will be that no child of Catholic parents will be able to say:

“You are the only parents in the world who ask or demand such-and-such of me.”

A number of clear examples of the contradiction between what is popular or widely permitted and what is right can be set down.

Under each heading below the wrong principle or practice will be set down followed by the right.

1.Recreation outside the home

Wrong:

Parents need not be concerned about the circumstances in which their children seek recreation outside the home.

Right:

Parents are bound to know and pass judgment on

1) where their children (including teenagers) go for recreation;

2) with whom they go;

3) how long they will be away from home.

In a rightly run home, definite rules regarding these three points will be laid down and enforced for the children from their earliest years to their late teens.

2. Recreation in the home

Wrong:

Parents are justified in discouraging gatherings or parties of their children with their friends in their own home. If on occasion such parties are permitted, the parents need not be bothered with supervising or chaperoning them in any way.

Right:

Parents have an obligation to welcome the friends of their children into their home for informal or formal gatherings, because this is the only adequate way in which they can get to know the kind of company their children keep. Further, they are obliged (this word should be unnecessary: it were better said, “they should desire”) to chaperone and take part in such gatherings, and enforce definite rules concerning modesty, decency and propriety at all times. “Crashing” should be prohibited, and break-up times agreed upon and observed.

3.Company-keeping

Wrong:

There is no harm, and perhaps some good, in permitting a youngster in the eighth grade or in the three early years of high school, to keep steady company, that is regularly to have “dates” exclusively with a certain individual.

Right:

Steady company-keeping is lawful only when marriage is considered possible and desirable within a reasonable period of time, which may be estimated at about a year.

There are two reasons for this. The first and most important is that steady company-keeping without prospect of marriage within a reasonable time practically always leads in due course to sins of impurity.

The second reason is that no child can acquire a worthwhile high school education if it is distracted from its studies by an immature love-affair.

On this principle parents are bound to prohibit steady company-keeping to their children at least until the latter part of their senior year in high school. Even then it may be permitted only if the teenager is willing, with the seriously considered advice of parents, to face the prospect of marriage shortly after the completion of high school.

If a high school senior seriously plans on going to college or university, the parents should inform him (or her) that steady

company-keeping in high school represents a decision to give up all thought of college or university, and that they (the parents) will enforce that decision.

  1. Sex-instruction (This post may be helpful in this area)

Wrong:

Parents may trust that their children will learn all they need to know about sex from their teachers, their companions, and from books and magazines.

Right:

Parents have the primary responsibility for seeing to it that their children are not only properly informed on matters of sex, but prepared to meet the problems that will arise in this matter.

On no point in the upbringing of children, is it more important today that Christian and Catholic parents inform and train their children properly than in the matter of sex.

On no point should they be more aware of the false principles their children may learn from companions and bad reading than here. For the task involved they should prepare themselves by well-directed Catholic reading and study, and by discussions with other responsible Catholic parents.

There are many other topics on which a false or dangerous principle for parents might be set down, and true norms succinctly stated.

Some such topics are:

1) the use of the family car;

2) money and allowances for children;

3) the use of alcohol;

4) the taking of jobs by children and the disposition of the income from such jobs;

5)proper attitudes toward school authorities, and toward the pastor and the parish church.

Serious thinking about these matters, and discussions from other parents, against the background of the principles set down above, will reveal to them what sort of program will be to the best eternal and temporal interests of their children.

Imprimi Potest:

John N. McCormick, C.SS.R.

Provincial, St. Louis Province,

Redemptorist Fathers

May 18, 1959

Imprimatur:

St. Louis, May 22, 1959

Joseph E. Ritter

Archbishop of St. Louis

When children are taught that their chores can be prayer….that the drudgery can be applied to the sufferings of some other child somewhere, who has no bed to make, who must spend his nights curled up in a hole, shivering, starved, unhappy, and with no one to care for him…those same chores can be changed into great spiritual joy! -Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children http://amzn.to/2op5ZSs (afflink)

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Rainy Afternoon – What a Baby Does

23 Friday Jul 2021

Posted by in FF Tidbits, Parenting

≈ 3 Comments

From Mind the Baby by Mary Perkins, 1950’s

Poor Thomas Edmund is almost as damp with tears as is the world outside with rain. He is just getting over his rage at not going to the park, and his further rage at seeing his brother depart to play with the children next door. Big drops roll down his cheeks as he stretches on tiptoe to look out the window.

Look, old man, life is difficult, but not quite so bad as all that. Here is a cookie, and if you turn around you will see that the toy-box is open. Thomas Edmund looks at me reproachfully. After all, it was Mummy who not ten minutes ago dragged him upstairs kicking and screaming after he had got himself all the way down, sliding so carefully backwards over the slippery descent and thinking he was so clever to be all ready to go out-doors.

But he isn’t one to hold a grudge for long. He sees the cooky and snatches it. At the sight of the open toybox (kept shut except on rainy days), his eyes brighten. “Aii!” he says and trots over to it.

Now we should have peace for a minute and Mummy should have a chance to sit down. If I only had my son’s energy…Look at him now, throwing things out of the box as if his life depended on it, blocks, trucks, pieces of a wooden train, two tin pieplates (so that’s where they have been!), all flying out in a wild shower. Oh dear, what has happened? The shower has stopped, and Thomas Edmund is crying. I’ll have to get up and see what the trouble is.

My gracious, what a mess! He is trying to pull out of the box a horrible tangle of extra ropes for the swing, baby-harness, a peg-block, a dump-truck, and two coat-hangers firmly entwined in the middle. Nothing will budge, however hard Thomas Edmund pulls; he is red in the face with effort and frustration. All right, Mummy will fix it. I pull everything out, disentangle it, remove the pie-plates and the coat-hangers, and again leave Thomas Edmund to his explorations.

Now what? This time the yells are authentic yells of pain. Oh, poor little boy! He has fallen head-first into the big box. His fat legs wave wildly in the air; his arms thrash helplessly. Here we go. Now you’re all right. I stand him on his feet, but that doesn’t seem to be what he wants. He is trying to climb in the box again. Oh, I see, you want to sit in it.

I shove the remaining toys out of his way, lift him inside and sit him down. Is that right? Oh, the cookie…it would never do to lose that. I find it in a far corner, give it to him and retire again to my chair.

He has the cookie between his teeth, rather like a cigar, and both hands are busy with toys; he looks absurdly like a satisfied business man getting at the morning’s mail. To misquote St. Augustine: “How happy is the rich man in the midst of his possessions!”

What a number of desires has a small boy–and, except when Daddy is home, it is Mummy who has to try to satisfy them, or, which is even more wearing, to teach him how to begin to control them or to endure their remaining unsatisfied.

If Thomas Edmund’s desires were only physical–for food and sleep and exercise–I should certainly not be so exhausted at the end of the day. What wear Mummy out are his complex human needs: needs to find out about things and to master them; to find out about his own growing powers and to master them; needs to do things for himself and yet to be protected and helped and loved the same time.

And these needs express themselves so violently and unexpectedly and alarmingly. For they have been made immensely more complicated and difficult to handle by the effects of original sin in the “little angel” (and in his mother, for that matter), making the job of “minding the baby” rather like exercising a team of wild horses while teaching somebody else to drive it.

And, at the same time, the task of helping Thomas Edmund develop and coordinate and integrate his powers is made infinitely more necessary and more important by the fact that he is not just a human baby, but a member of Christ, possessing not only the faculties and weaknesses of a child of Adam, but also the powers and destiny of a child of God.

Yet, of course, I am proud of all his violent desires and impulses and actions. I tell people about them ad nauseam, because, though they exhaust me, they show me that Thomas Edmund has a full complement of human powers, that he is growing up, as a little boy should, towards normal human maturity.

No parents really want their child to stay a baby: a mother rejoices “because a man has been born into the world.” And all parents realize in some fashion that their job is not so much taking care of babies as helping in the development of future men and women.

A Christian mother, then, certainly ought not to complain at having so little time to sit down in a chair, for her job is even more glorious–to help in the development of a Christian, a member of Christ, a co-worker with God, who is called to grow up not simply to human maturity, but to the “measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.”

If my Thomas Edmund were only a kitten, taking care of him would be certainly much simpler, but how much less interesting or valuable than it is. He would need food and sleep and exercise and cleanliness; he would need to investigate things and try out his powers in play. But the kitten would only need my supervision and training if he were being brought up here, in a human environment. To a wild-cat kitten, his own instincts and those of his parents, innate patterns of action and re-action laid down for them by God, are quite sufficient guides to the fullness of wild-cat maturity, to the perfect achievement of God’s purposes for wild-cats.

Thomas Edmund here, sitting so solemnly in his box, has all a kitten’s powers, but none of the kitten’s instinctive skill in using them rightly. He has the same senses as the kitten; he has muscles and nerves; he has a sense for coordinating all his impressions and referring them to himself or to something outside himself; he has a memory for sights and sounds and smells and tastes and feelings and actions, and an imagination to bring pictures of all these sensations into his head. He can move around (he certainly can!) and absorb nourishment and grow; and in time he will be able to help to produce new members of his species.

But in Thomas Edmund all these powers are human, not merely animal. And therefore while he has such strong unformed tendencies towards using his powers for human kinds of actions, he was born with no fixed nature-made patterns as to how to use them for his own good or the good of mankind.

For the beauty of animal actions is that they follow God’s plan and God’s Will instinctively; but the glory of human actions is to follow God’s plan and to obey God’s Will consciously and lovingly and freely. Even though it would make life so much easier for me just now, Thomas Edmund could not have a kitten’s instincts and still be capable of his future manhood, of free and wise and skillful action for the love of God….

But more than this, the kitten’s powers at each stage of his development are always perfectly under the control of his cat-nature, are always used rightly for the purposes of cat-hood. But Thomas Edmund’s powers are developing unevenly and unexpectedly and are by no means under the control of his human nature, for he inherits the dis-integration and perversity which are the effects of original sin.

A kitten inevitably grows into a cat, if it grows into anything. But a little boy does not develop by any means inevitably into a true human being, with all his powers subject to reason and will, and his whole self subject to God; with all his actions truly human actions, wise and skillful and purposeful actions, done for the good of himself and mankind.

Much less does a little member of Christ inevitably develop into a perfect Christian man in time and eternity. The terrible danger of human life is that he can choose not to do so, as its glory is that with God’s help he can choose and achieve God’s high purposes. No wonder that it takes a whole life-time of God’s grace and one’s own efforts and those of one’s parents and teachers and friends and unknown benefactors to grow up to the fullness of Christian living. No wonder…

What is he up to now? Everything is suspiciously quiet in the living room. Wouldn’t you know it? He has a box of matches, the most fascinating kind of forbidden fruit in the whole house. He is sitting solemnly on the couch pushing the box in and out of the case. There they go–he pushed it too far that time, and the matches are all over the couch and the floor. “Oh, oh!” he says in comic imitation of my own tones on such occasions.

He picks up one match and tries to put it back in the wrong part of the match-box. Now one in the other. That doesn’t seem to be going so well; he stands up and starts shoving the matches one by one back of the couch. He hears me coming, looks up at me and says “Oh, oh!” again. He pretends that he has no connection at all with this sad state of the matches…What can we do about it, Mummy?

“Thomas Edmund, you know you shouldn’t have taken those matches, that’s bad!” He looks away, his bright little face puckers up, he is almost on the verge of tears. “Come on, fellow, help me put them in the box.” He brightens up and offers me matches from all sides. “No, of course you can’t have the box again. How about a swing?”

He scrambles down from the couch, goes over to the swing expectantly, tries to get on it by himself, finds himself on the floor, looks up at me and laughs. “Here we go, now.” I get the swing behind him, help his two small hands to grab the ropes, put the board under his rear. A gentle push and he is off. He hangs on for dear life, smiling a determined smile of effortful pleasure, and sings a tuneless song…back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…

He may not have the full use of his reason or freewill, but he certainly has the rudiments of a conscience. He knows he should not grab match-boxes. He feels guilty even before I find him with one, and even guiltier when I do. He is sorry and hurt when I scold him, and he wants to make everything all right with me right away…

So I should not complain about all the getting up and the interruptions and the endless minor complexities of minding the baby, since every waking hour of his day is thus evidently a practice session for human living.

In all his funny and infuriating and pathetic activities he is discovering and exercising and beginning to coordinate his powers of body and mind and soul toward the time when he will be capable of a fully human action, of choosing to do something or not to do it according to right reason, and of acting on that choice–his senses and muscles and emotions and tendencies all subordinate in act to his mind and his will.

And, thank God, while he is discovering the strength of the disintegration and perversity in himself caused by original sin– “the evil that I will not, that I do”–at the same time, he will be discovering the power of grace to help him overcome it.

Now he is sorry for having offended Mummy, but in time he will be sorry for having offended God. Now he wants Mummy to love him and be pleased with him, but in time, with God’s help, he will seek only God’s good pleasure…

For there are further powers wrapped up in that small human person swinging so sedately over there on the swing, supernatural powers which are waiting for the ordinary human development of his mind and will to be ready for exercise and growth.

Because of his Baptism, this little boy will be capable not only of human action, but of Christian action. He will be able to make choices not only in the light of right reason, but in the light of faith. He will be able to act on his choices not only by the power of his own will, but with the power of God’s Own Love, Charity. He will be able not only to know himself and his capabilities and weaknesses, but to know himself in the light of God’s mercy and to hope in it.

And, with God’s help, the grace given him at Baptism and its wonderful powers will prove the fruitful seed of life everlasting, of sharing God’s Own Happiness, of seeing and loving God Himself for all eternity.

All this present existence of playing with toys, getting in and out of boxes, falling down and swinging, learning not to do what Mummy says not to do and to do what she says to do–all the unimportant attempts and achievements and tragedies which make up a small boy’s life–are the first steps towards future actions which can affect the whole world, the actions of a Christian, a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, whose every work and deed and suffering and joy can be intelligently and lovingly and willingly united to Christ’s and so help to save his own soul and those of his fellow-men for the glorious life of eternity.

And Mummy, who feels so sorry for herself so often, is really in the amazing position of assistant coach, helping the future athlete of Christ in his first exercises–assistant to the Holy Spirit, the Trainer and Sanctifier of Christians!

Mummy has the job of helping little Thomas to develop human habits of right and loving action which the Holy Spirit will transform with those supernatural habits of faith, hope and charity, of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, already rooted in little Thomas’ faculties by Baptism, flowing forth from the divine life then given to his soul.

By helping little Thomas to find out how to eat with a spoon, how to swing on a swing, how to climb up and down stairs, how to take a tumble with a smile, Mummy is helping to make him ready to cooperate to his fullest human capacity with the Gifts which the Holy Spirit will give him in fullness at his Confirmation, which will make him easy and skillful in the super-human actions of the Christian life.

Surely, then, even in the seemingly endless and wearing and humble job of helping a little boy to gain the simple physical habits and skills of ordinary human living, the light and grace of the Holy Spirit will not be lacking to his imperfect and unskilled assistants, Thomas Edmund’s parents.

Thomas Edmund is tired of his swing. He slips off it without a bump and looks at me expectantly. “Heavens, yes, Thomas Edmund, look at the time! Come on, we have to pick up your toys first. Throw them all in, that’s the spirit.”

The future co-worker with Christ is perfectly willing, for the moment, to be a co-worker with Mummy. “Look, there’s that woolly lamb over there, get him too. All right, shut the lid. Now let’s get to work on your bath!”

“You will never have this day with your children again – tomorrow they’ll be a little older than they are today. Today is a gift, breathe and notice, smile and hold them, study their faces and pay attention. Enjoy today, Mama- it will be over before you know it. Relish the charms of the present.” – Anne Joachim

Coloring pages for your children….

NEW!! The following pages in this Mother’s Maglet (magazine/booklet) is for you…to inspire you in your daily walk as a loving, strong, patient Catholic mother. As mothers we have an awesome responsibility, as one of the key people in our children’s lives, to help mold them into happy, well-adjusted, faith-filled adults. This Maglet is filled with unique articles and anecdotes to help you in this journey.It is unique because most of the articles are written by men and women (some priests and a Dominican nun) who have lived in an age where common sense was more of the norm. Their advice and experience are timeless and invaluable… Available here.

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The book is filled with wonderful advice on how to live a happy life…

Here is a complete guide to mature, responsible, even noble behavior in our complex modern society. Written in the 1930s by a wise Jesuit priest and steeped in the wisdom of the ages, these pages teach the timeless principles that have led countless souls to true success and lasting happiness….

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