From Around the Year with the Trapp Family by Maria Von Trapp

There is one more feast of Our Lord which comes late in the year, on the last Sunday of October–the feast of Christ the King.

According to the Church calendar, this seems like a recent feast instituted only in 1925. But one glance at the Gospel of the day shows us that it actually goes back to the first Good Friday when Pilate said to Jesus, “Art Thou the King of the Jews?” and Jesus answered, “Thou sayest it.”

This carries us many hundreds of years back into the Old Testament, when God’s chosen people were living in a theocracy, ruled by judges, God speaking to them through the mouths of His prophets.

Then one day the Jewish people wanted “to be as the others”; they saw all the neighboring peoples ruled by kings, and so they went to their prophet Samuel and asked him: “Give us a king to judge us as all other nations have.”

Reluctantly Samuel told the Lord what the people demanded of him, and God pled with his unruly people. “Tell them,” He said, “what will befall them if I give them a king. He will take their sons and make them his soldiers. He will take their men to work his fields. He will take their daughters to be his cooks and bakers. He will take their best fields and vineyards and olive orchards. Moreover, he will take a tenth from all they grow and also from their flocks.”

But all His pleading availed Him little. The people stubbornly repeated, “Nay: but there shall be a king over us. We want to be like other nations and our king shall judge us and go out before us and fight our battles for us!”

Finally the Lord said to Samuel, “Hearken to their voice and make them a king.”

And then it happened as God had foretold it. The kings throughout the ages took their men and women, their young men and maidens, their best fields and meadows and a tenth of all they grew and of all their flocks, and many a time the people cried to the Lord to take away a bad king, but the Lord would not hearken any more.

As if now in our time God had opened His ear once more to the pleading of His people, he presents His Son to us as Christ the King, Whose Kingdom is not of this world, Who is above and beyond all human politics, but Who is eager to be our King so that we may be His people.

The forerunner of our modern feast of Christ the King is the age-old feast of the Epiphany, when the three Magi fall down prostrate and adore the King, bringing among their gifts gold to give Him.

On the feast of Christ the King, our table decoration might relate to the character of the day. Together with the little ones, the mother could make a golden crown either of cardboard or of gold foil, as centerpiece of the table.

“Have courage, women and Catholic girls, under the banner of Christ King and under the patronage of the Queen of Mothers, work for the restoration of home, family and society.”  ~Pope Pius XII

For most people, Halloween is just a fun (or sinister) secular holiday that stands on its own. But it actually used to be an important part of a short liturgical season focused on death, Allhallowtide… Read more here.

Poland does not celebrate Halloween, but Poland sets its cemeteries ‘on fire’ and – believe me – those cemeteries are the most beautiful places to be at the beginning of November.

1st November- All Saints’ Day and 2nd November – All Souls’ Day are days when almost everyone visits graves of their family members. The gravestones are decorated with colorful chrysanthemums in full bloom (in Poland those flowers are associated with this particular occasion) and millions of grave candles (zniczy), which symbolize the presence of God and reminds of the prayer that has been said in a moment of reflexion for those who passed before us.

This Christian celebration of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day roots in a belief that there is a powerful spiritual bond between those in heaven and the living.

Those days are national holidays in Poland. This special time of the year creates a very melancholic atmosphere full of spiritual contemplation about those who are not with us in this world anymore.

If you are planning a trip anywhere in Poland at the beginning of November – make sure to have a look at how beautiful and full of light are Polish cemeteries.

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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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“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 

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