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Category Archives: Motherhood

Hectic Days for Helen

18 Wednesday May 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Attitude, by Leane Vdp, Motherhood

≈ 2 Comments

by Leane VanderPutten

The July day was sunny, the scent of petunias wafted in the air. The air was cooling off a bit and the breeze softly wafted through the branches of the trees. Summer was at its peak.

But Helen was not enjoying the breeze or the flowers.

Helen was tired. Not for any particular reason. Yes, it was summer, the kids were done with their home school and, instead of life slowing down, things seemed to have sped up.

June and July had been particularly hot, they didn’t have a pool, so the children spent time indoors during the heat of the day. Without the schedule of school, mayhem seemed to reign with more frequency than Helen liked.

Helen’s husband, Mark, was working lots of hours. Summer was the time his work became very demanding because he was in the construction field. So he was not around much to help out. And when he got home he was tired and even cranky at times.

“Such is life,” Helen sighed. Lately, things hadn’t been working out the way she had imagined. Instead of enjoying the so-called “lazy days of summer” she was fighting inner turmoil.  She was struggling through the days, battling thoughts of self-pity and complaining.

“Why can’t the kids be quiet now on again?”

“Dirty diapers, dishes, it’s discouraging,” she thought. “And life is only going to get more and more hectic as the years go by. I just don’t know if I can do this!”

This day had been particularly trying so when rosary time came around, amid the slouching children and wriggling baby, she implored Our Lady to help her.

The next day Helen woke up with a terrific pain in her side that didn’t want to leave. It was debilitating so she had to call in a babysitter to take over.

That night was sleepless. The next day, after a doctor’s appointment, she started an antibiotic for a bladder infection.

The antibiotic didn’t work so another one was tried. That one alleviated some of the symptoms for a short while but they came back with a vengeance.

The next couple of weeks were harder than ever for Helen. The worst part was the worry. She didn’t know what this mysterious pain was and, since they didn’t have insurance, she wasn’t going to run in and have a bunch of tests done. At least not right away.

So she was stuck worrying. What happens if it was something really bad? She’d find herself looking at her kids and imagine leaving them to fend for themselves in a crazy world.

When her husband came home,  her thoughts wandered to whether he would be left alone… If this was something that could actually take her life? She pushed a lot of those thoughts away but with her melancholic nature, they kept creeping back.

After a very bad night, finally, Helen went back to the doctor….this time a different doctor. He heard all the symptoms and told her that it sounded like she was just trying to pass a kidney stone.

This was news to Helen! She didn’t understand why the first doctor didn’t spot that?

Her step was a little lighter as she left the doctor’s office even though she still had pain. She got home and drank lots and lots of lemon water and took hydrangea tincture.

Within a few of days, she passed that kidney stone and was feeling much better!

The pain was gone, but the best part was that the worry was gone! With all the imaginings of her having a dread disease she had been tied up in knots!
Now that she knew things were OK, her heart filled with joy and thanksgiving!

The following days things began to get back to normal – hectic life came back full force.

But Helen’s heart had changed, indeed!

It still wasn’t easy to drag herself out of bed in the morning, but her heart was filled with thanksgiving because she could actually get up and take care of her children. Were the children any quieter? No. But she appreciated the laughter and the noise instead of always fighting against it. Did hubby come home earlier? No. But she was grateful that her husband had the work that he did and was not upset that he wasn’t around to help.

Her heart sang as she did the dishes.

She still got impatient, things weren’t flawless, but Helen was seeing things through different eyes.

She thought back on that evening when she implored Our Lady, during the rosary, to help her. She realized how much she had helped – maybe not in the way she had wanted or expected but it didn’t matter. She knew it was a gift right from her Mother‘s hands!

The summer days passed quickly. There were many joys in between the rough spots. Helen had learned a lesson. She hoped it would stick. She prayed it would stick.

Those weeks when things got rather dark for her taught her something special besides being grateful for the daily grind. She made up her mind that she would thank God for her crosses as she was going through them, knowing that He had the best possible plan in mind for her and that good would come from them.

It also came home to her that each new day was a gift. She would work hard at tuning her mind into that at the beginning of the day so that when the day ramped up she would have a spirit of gratefulness in spite of everything else.

As Helen sat outside in the early autumn breeze of the evening, amidst the floating aroma of the petunias, she thought to herself, “Indeed, it has been a very productive summer!”

Is it all about being right when we are having a disagreement? Do we need to be on the defensive each time we feel he is being unreasonable? That only seems fair, doesn’t it? Well, go ahead. But your relationship will suffer. It is more important, not that you “win” or that you always come out feeling like you gave the last verbal punch. Like Our Lord, we win through kindness and meekness.
What it comes down to is: Do you want to be RIGHT or do you want to be HAPPY? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!” www.finerfem.com

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Father talks about how important our duties of our vocation are, that they are the will of God for us, we need look no further. He touches on the specific duties of each of our different walks of life….

 

 

 

A Tribute to Mothers

08 Sunday May 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Motherhood

≈ 2 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day to Mothers Everywhere…..to mothers who give and give and then give some more. It is what we were made for, it is what we live for and it will be what we die for. Once a mother, always a mother. We watch them come into the world, we nurture them, try to solve their problems, and then watch them as they leave and embark on their own journeys.

We pray for them, we hurt for them, we rejoice for them. Whether they are near or far, our hearts are entwined with theirs. It is bittersweet…..more sweet than bitter!

“A mother will never desert her child. For she loves them with a love that is as strong and deep as life itself.”

Angelo and Mom (me)

My Mom

A Tribute to Mothers by Rev. John A. O’Brien, 1953

By universal proclamation our nation has added another memorial day to her calendar – Mother’s Day.

It is a day on which we pause to pay the tribute of our love and reverence to our mothers if living, to their memory if dead. It is eminently fitting that we should thus pause for a brief moment in the turmoil of life to give explicit expression to sentiments which have been latent in the hearts of each of us throughout all the days of the year.

It is good psychology to give fitting expression to such sentiments. For instead of allowing them to wane, we thereby strengthen and intensify them.

Such considerations are, moreover, wholesome and salutary for us because they render us more clearly conscious of the debt we owe our mothers.

“Motherhood,” says Frederick A. Stowe, “is the Gethsemane of nature.”

When the child is born the mother begins to die—die for the new life dearer than her own, die in service for another, die in dreams of peaceful valleys she shall not enter, die upon battlefields whose shouts of victory she shall not hear.

No sacrifice for the young is begrudged by the mother. Toward the sun of a new life, all nature turns. The springtide bursts with prodigality but there is not a drop of sap for the autumnal leaf. At the meridian declination begins. Reproduction is the inexorable ambition of the material world.

“In its spiritual aspects, motherhood is isolated because it is great. There is no speculation as to mother’s status. Conceded eminence is as lonely as some crag which lifts its head above the fugitive clouds and defies the furious winds below.

Youth loves to dwell in the warm valleys of patronage. It is eager for adventure and the conquests of blood. It rushes toward prospects and is ever willing to take a chance.

Reflection is the fruit of maturity. We do not begin to bear sense until passions are spent, and Time, which is a strict accountant, demands an audit.”

Various Kinds of Love

There are various kinds of love on this earth. There is the love of a friend for a friend, of a chum for his chum.

It is a beautiful sentiment and one which all the world admires. But friends fall out at times; the love cools and even turns to hatred.

There is the love of sweethearts. It is beautiful and tender and sweet. But sometimes the fancy changes, the romance fades, and sweethearts part.

There is the love of husband and wife, tender true and sanctified by divine grace. But the world witnesses at times the separation even of husband and wife, the pitiful tragedy of a broken home.

Then there is the love of a mother for her child. It is the climax of all human love – as strong as the great rugged Alpine Mountain peaks, as tender as the breath of an angel, as infinite as the measureless waters of the ocean, as changeless as the stars that shine eternally in the skies.

Friends may fall out, the romance of sweethearts may fade, husband and wife may separate, but a mother will never desert her boy. For she loves him with a love that is as strong and deep as life itself.

Aye, it seems to rise above all human love, and to burn with a spark that was caught from the flame of the love that is eternal and divine–the love of God for man.

I like to think that God has given us a foreshadowing and a foretaste of His own infinite love for human souls in the love He has planted in a mother’s breast.

From the Prayer Book Precious Blood and Mother:

There are soft words murmured by dear, dear lips,
Far richer than any other;
But the sweetest word that the ear hath heard
Is the blessed name of “Mother.”

O magical word! May it never die,
From the lips that love to speak it.
Nor melt away from the trusting heart,
That even would break to keep it.

Was there ever a name that lived like this?
Will there ever be such another?
The Angels have reared in Heaven a shrine
To the holy name of “Mother.”

 

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“For years, while raising children, a mother’s time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. Hence, a mother raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her will, to constantly stretch her heart.”

Fortunate the child whose mother stands by its cradle like a Guardian Angel to inspire and lead it in the path of goodness! – Pope Pius XII

“Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!” 🙂

Richard “Dick” Sargent (1911-1979)

 

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In With God in Russia, Ciszek reflects on his daily life as a prisoner, the labor he endured while working in the mines and on construction gangs, his unwavering faith in God, and his firm devotion to his vows and vocation. Enduring brutal conditions, Ciszek risked his life to offer spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners who could easily have exposed him for their own gains. He chronicles these experiences with grace, humility, and candor, from his secret work leading mass and hearing confessions within the prison grounds, to his participation in a major gulag uprising, to his own “resurrection”—his eventual release in a prisoner exchange in October 1963 which astonished all who had feared he was dead.

Powerful and inspirational, With God in Russia captures the heroic patience, endurance, and religious conviction of a man whose life embodied the Christian ideals that sustained him…..

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a “Vatican spy,” Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God’s will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer–a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the “arrogance of evil” that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experience, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God–even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, “What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?”

How To Be a Good Mother ~ Rev. George A. Kelly

06 Friday May 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

domestic happiness, domineering mother, good mother, martyr mom, overindulgent mother, raising children

Close to Mother’s Day is a good time to think about motherhood.

Timeless advice from a very smart priest!

iphone-summer-2013-211-002 photo-2The Catholic Family Handbook – Father George Kelly

In view of the many social evils resulting from the decline in the father’s influence, one of the most important functions the modern mother should perform is to help maintain or restore the father’s position of authority in the family. In doing so, you will fulfill your own role as a wife and mother to a greater extent than is possible when you permit your husband to be the lesser figure.

This was the secret of the success of olden fathers. Even though they worked twelve hours a day, their dominant role in the home was guaranteed and protected by the mother.

You can make your greatest contribution to your family as the heart of your home–not its head. From you, your children should learn to love others and to give of themselves unstintingly in the spirit of sacrifice. Never underestimate the importance of your role. For upon you depends the emotional growth of your children, and such growth will better prepare them to live happy and holy lives than any amount of intellectual training they may receive.

Most of us know persons who have received the finest educations which universities can bestow, who yet lead miserable lives because they have never achieved a capacity to love.

On the other hand, we also know of men and women whose intellectual achievements are below normal but whose lives are filled with happiness because their mothers showed them how to love other human beings.

It follows that in helping your child to satisfy his basic emotional needs to love and be loved, you give something as necessary as food for his full development. So do not be beguiled by aspirations for a worldly career or by the desire to prove yourself as intelligent as men or as capable in affairs of the world as they.

The father must always remain a public figure. The mother is the domestic figure par excellence. In teaching your child the meaning of unselfish love you will achieve a greater good than almost any other accomplishment of which human beings are capable.

You are the most important person your child will ever know. Your relationship with him will transcend, in depth of feeling, any other relationship he probably will ever have–even the one with his marriage partner.

As noted above, from you he will learn what true love really is. From the tenderness you show and the security you give, you will develop his attitudes toward other human beings which will always remain with him.

However, his dependence on you begins to wane soon after birth–and continues to wane for the rest of your life. In his first years, naturally, he will rely upon you almost entirely–not only for food, but also to help him perform his most elementary acts.

But soon he learns to walk and to do other things for himself; when he goes to school he can dress himself; when he reaches adolescence and strives for the freedom that adults know, he will try to throw off his dependence so violently that you may fear that you have lost all hold upon him.

Your job is to help him reach this state of full and complete independence in a gradual fashion. And your success as a mother will depend to a great extent upon the amount of emancipation you permit him as he steps progressively toward adulthood. Therefore you should try to judge realistically when your child truly needs your help and when he does not.

If you can reach the happy medium wherein you do for your child only what he cannot do for himself, you will avoid dominating him or overindulging him.

The dominant mother makes all decisions for Johnny and treats him as though he had no mind of his own; the overindulgent mother will never permit her Mary to be frustrated in any wish, or to be forbidden any pleasure her little heart desires.

The overindulgent mother may do without the shoes she needs to buy a doll for her Annie; she may stop what she is doing to help Johnny find the comic book he has misplaced; she may eat the leftovers in the refrigerator while she gives the freshly prepared food to her children.

The overindulgent mother is a common character in literature. Probably every American woman has seen movies and television programs, and has read stories in magazines and newspapers, in which these defects were pointed out.

Yet every new generation of mothers seems to practice the same extreme of behavior. Some excuse themselves by saying that they want to give their children every advantage in life.

Such an intention is laudable, perhaps, but the method is impractical. If you want to do the best for your child, let him develop so that he can face life on his own feet. Overindulging him denies him his right to develop his own resources and thus defeats the purpose of your mission as a mother.

Someone once remarked in jest that as part of her education for motherhood, every woman should visit the psychiatric ward of an army hospital. If you could see the countless examples of mental disorders caused largely by the failure of mothers to sever the apron strings to their child, you could easily understand why–for the sake of your child’s emotional self–you must make it a primary aim to help him to develop as an independent person.

Priests and psychiatrists often see problems from different angles, yet they display striking agreement in pinpointing other kinds of maternal conduct which do great harm to the child. Their advice might be summarized as follows:

Don’t be an autocrat who always knows best. Your child may have his own way of doing things, which may seem to be inefficient or time-consuming. Have patience and let him do things his way, thus giving him the opportunity to learn by trial and error.

Don’t be a martyr. Naturally, you must make sacrifices. But do not go to such extremes that your child feels guilty when you deny yourself something which rightfully should be yours, in order to give him what rightfully should not be his.

A typical martyr worked at night in a laundry to pay her son’s way through college. Before his graduation, he asked her not to appear at the ceremony–he said she would be dressed so poorly that he would be embarrassed.

Don’t think you have the perfect child. Some mothers, when their child receives low grades, appear at school to determine, not what is wrong with him, but what is wrong with the teachers.

When such a mother learns that her son has been punished for disobedience, she descends upon the school officials and demands an apology. By her actions she undermines the child’s respect for all authority–including her own.

You will probably be on safe ground, until your child is canonized at St. Peter’s, if you conclude that he has the same human faults and weaknesses that you see in your neighbors’ children.

Don’t use a sickbed as your throne. The “whining” mother feigns illness to attract sympathy and to force her children to do as she wills. Who would deny the last wish of a dying person? In this vein she often gets what she wants–for a while. The usual, final result, however, is that her children lose both sympathy and respect for her.

Don’t be a “glamor girl.” Motherhood is not a task for a woman who thinks that ordinary housework–preparing meals, making beds, washing clothes–is beneath her.

Of course, mothers should strive to maintain a pleasing appearance, but they should also realize that they are most attractive when they are fulfilling the duties of their noble vocation.

You would embarrass your family if you insisted on acting and dressing like a teenager; and, if you adopted a demeaning attitude toward household tasks, you would teach your children that motherhood and its responsibilities are unworthy of respect.

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“In the Catholic home there is that modern rarity–fidelity between husband and wife. There is great reverence for parents by the children, great protection of weaker members by the stronger, and a great awareness of the dignity and rights of every member of the family. The Catholic woman has attained a height of respect and authority which cannot be found anywhere else, and the chief factor in her improvement has been the Church’s teaching on chastity, conjugal equality, the sacredness of motherhood, and the supernatural end of the family, in imitation of the Holy Family of Nazareth.” – Rev. George A. Kelly, The Catholic Family Handbook

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Supernatural Mothers ~ Christ in the Home

03 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Christ in the Home - Fr. Raoul Plus S.J., Motherhood

≈ 2 Comments

Mother’s Day coming up! A good time to meditate on this wonderful vocation….

from Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J.

Chesterton expressed himself as well satisfied that education is entirely confided to women until that time when to educate becomes entirely useless–for, “a child is not sent to school to be instructed until it is too late to teach him anything.”

In other words, education depends on the training given during baby days and early childhood and such training is the concern of women.

That is a certain fact. It is also a serious fact. Because at once there arises the problem: Are all mothers charged with educating their children capable of it?

Some women excel in child-training. And often they are equally successful in handling their children once they are grown.

How solicitously these mothers watch over their children even in their babyhood not only in concern for their bodily good but for their soul as well, warding off from them whatever could be a source of trouble later.

With what love of God they profit by their babies’ first glimmerings of reason to teach them how to fold their hands in prayer and lift their hearts to God.

How zealously they prepare them for their First Holy Communion, speaking to them of the marvels of the Eucharist, encouraging them to generosity and love of Jesus Crucified.

Without any thought of self, but with joyful and supernatural austerity, they teach their children to make sacrifices, to think of others; with what divinely inspired skill they show them the immense needs of the world, make them think of little pagan children who have no Christian mother or father or brothers or sisters who have been baptized.

“Children are serious-minded, and to keep a childlike soul means precisely to continue to look at life with a serious attitude,” says Joergensen.

Mothers with a supernatural spirit, whether they have read Joergensen or not, seem to use this idea as a guiding principle and by it help their children to preserve while growing up, the juvenile depth of their serious outlook on life.

Even when their children are grown, how they help them to develop this serious attitude and protect them from losing it or submerging it in an atmosphere of worldliness and frivolity!

How earnestly they try to give their children true Christianity grounded much more in love than in fear; they do not constantly terrify them with the idea of sin; they lead them even more by example than by word, to look upon God as a God of mercy and not as a sort of “super-parent who is always dissatisfied, severe, angry, ready to forbid and to punish.”

Living a life of divine familiarity themselves, these mothers have learned the great mystery of “God nearby,” of God residing in the depths of the soul in grace, a God whose dearest wish is to draw us into closer intimacy with Himself.

It has been said that “there are two ways of giving the consciences of children an intense sense of the privation of God”; either by default, by never putting them in His presence; or by excess, by putting them in His presence in such a way that He becomes a nightmare to them from which they flee as soon as they realize that the whirl of life helps them not to think of Him.”

Supernatural-minded mothers would never fail in the second way.

If their grown boys and girls remain in the state of grace, it is through a holy pride, an interior joy, the result of having been impregnated early in life with the conviction of God’s nearness, with the determination to remain forever living tabernacles of the Trinity, other Christs.

Honor to these mothers, true educators!

“If you are an excellent homemaker, don’t place your goals of perfection above the needs of your family. Make certain your motives are to comfort them, rather than to please yourself or impress others.” – Helen Andelin

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The Catholic Mother (Part Four) – Piety in Mothers, The Teaching of Purity

06 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

The Catholic Mother (Part One) – Assault on Family Life, Family Means Motherhood

The Catholic Mother (Part Two) – Motherhood and Children, Education and the State

The Catholic Mother (Part Three) – The Profession of Motherhood, A New Age, Wise Sacrifice

Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P.

Nihil Obstat: PERCY JONES, Censor Diocesan

Imprimatur: D Mannix,

Archiepiscopus Melbournensis

June, 1958

Piety in Mothers

Right in early childhood piety needs to be taught to children; but even in early childhood children are very different from each other in their attitude to piety. Some seem naturally pious, or at least naturally interested in religious things, or naturally devout and reverent; others seem wearied and troubled by piety, are restless under it, irked by it.

These are merely natural traits of temperament and do not really mean very much. Those who are restless at prayer are, as often as not, restless anywhere; anything that calls for initiative, as prayer does, makes them uncomfortable. They are difficult at occupying themselves, entertaining themselves; they must be entertained by others, need to be amused, cannot amuse themselves.

But it does not always follow that restless children are of this character. Sometimes the reverse takes place. Sometimes it is those who need to be entertained who relish churchgoing. Their temperament is satisfied by what they look at.

So it seems to be impossible to decide why some children are naturally pious and some are not. Certainly it is not always a continuing interest. Some begin like that and end very differently; some never seem to have a love of piety in childhood and yet have it in youth.

This early attraction or distaste for religion can be well set aside as of no absolute importance.

What mothers have to do certainly is to study their children; each child is different. That is the beauty of a home, that children can be studied individually and with sympathy.

In nearly every family, for instance, there is one who is different from the rest. However, the point to be realized is the delicate way in which mothers have to deal with each child in teaching it religion.

First, the mother has to insist upon religion, not as a matter of liking or not liking, but as a matter of duty; yet the duty must not be made distasteful.

Religion of itself is interesting to a normal child. First a child is curious for information. It wants to know things. Hence catechism can be made most interesting to a child. But this depends on the teacher.

Some questions and answers should be learnt by heart. Not all of them need be, for not all of them matter. Some certainly do. But the child should not be burdened in its learning.

Here, then, is the delicacy of the business; on the one hand the child should not be plagued with religion, on the other hand the child should be taught to recognize the demands of religion as of a duty, over and above mere liking and disliking.

Merely because it does not want to pray, it should not be excused from praying; merely because it does not want to obey, it should not be excused from obeying.

It needs to be taught prayer in such a way that it shall find prayer interesting.

The character of Christ, on the other hand, can always be an inspiration to a child; the stories of the Gospels, the scenes, the parables, His patience, courage, endurance, fortitude, fearlessness, His love of birds and flowers and the harvest, His choice of carpentering His love of the sea and the hills and of gardens at night for praying in, His forgiveness, all can be of interest as well as help to a child.

With all these he should be familiar at his mother’s knee. She can teach him to pray by showing him how to form his own prayers, how to ask and thank and praise, how to be silent and listen, how to gaze at Christ. She will have no difficulty in explaining the Blessed Sacrament to him, or the Incarnation; she should have no difficulty in guiding him how to talk to God-which is all we mean by prayer.

But talk here also includes silence and contemplation, for a child is born a contemplative usually. It wants so often to look and be still and say nothing. Let it be helped to do that.

But no one can teach except what he has learnt himself. No mother can teach prayer who does not practice it. No one can give what he has not got.

The Teaching of Purity

Purity must be taught. But purity is not the opposite to impurity. Purity is the thing in itself, impurity is its lack. Purity is the positive dedication of love to Our Lord in such wise that love is not killed, but cleansed.

To love God is not to deny the need to love man, still less the need to love a man, a woman, a child. Purity means that the love of God helps us to love other people, and not merely to love ourselves in other people.

To love passionately may be to serve self only. To love passionately is sometimes to love the passion of love, its thrill, its stir, the pleasures it gives us, and not really at all the apparent object of our love.

Thus to love passionately may be only to love self, not another. Passion can go hand-in-hand with decent, pure love, will be found nearly always to some degree in all love, but it can easily usurp love’s place, if we love merely to have the pleasure of loving. Love is not the same as pleasure; love is as much at home with pain.

But purity means that Our Lord’s friendship is a third in all our friendships. Into our human friendships the body enters as well as the soul. That is as it should be. We are compacted of body and soul.

This love that involves the body in it will not hurt us, for Our Lord can be remembered as present in every moment of every lawful love. The Church has even a blessing for the marriage-bed. For marriage is not something to look down upon, but something to be looked up to.

It was the Manicheans and Albigensians who taught that the marriage act was unclean; and yet the Church has been condemned by many for persecuting them, for wishing to exterminate them. No doubt to exterminate them was a drastic remedy to apply to their disease; but the occasion infuriated Mother Church.

She believed in the Incarnation. She believed that matter could be hallowed, that the sacraments were holy, that marriage had been blessed with a sacrament, that to decry the marriage-act was blasphemy against the Creator of mankind.

For that reason she was bitterly intolerant. Yet in our time such is the ignorance of people that they accuse the Church of teaching what she condemned as worse than heresy seven hundred years ago.

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The Catholic Mother (Part Three) ~ The Profession of Motherhood, A New Age, Wise Sacrifice

04 Monday Apr 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Motherhood

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The Catholic Mother (Part One)

The Catholic Mother (Part Two)

Profession of Motherhood

All this makes the profession of motherhood a very high responsibility. Indeed, it is a profession more challenging than any other profession in the world.

There are professions which demand of those who practice them that they should be ready to face death in the discharge of their professional duties. Thus a soldier and a sailor have to be ready to give their lives upon demand. A doctor, a nurse, a priest, have each of them often to risk their strength, or even their lives, if the need of human service demands them.

But yet soldier, sailor, doctor, nurse, priest, may live to ripe old age without actually having to put their lives in jeopardy. They may never be in danger from the duties of their profession.

A mother is not like that. She has not only to be ready to endanger her life: she has actually to risk that danger. No mother but has actually faced that risk when she has acquitted herself again of motherhood.

Hence motherhood asks of every mother a character of heroism. Mothers are the most constantly heroic of mankind.

Mothers have therefore nearly always been found on the side of religion, for religion demands heroism of its followers.

Religion is not an opiate, for religion does not help people to forget, but to remember. It does not dull people. It does not say Take, but Give.

Religion asks everything of its believers, for religion is love, and love is the most demanding, the most costing, of all the passions of man. That is why Our Lord compressed the whole of religion into one commandment: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart. whole soul, whole strength.

Mothers perhaps more easily understand this than others (except young men, perhaps, who are learning it by falling in love).

Moreover, not only are mothers heroic because they are constantly being challenged to risk their lives, but also because more than any others they find their profession to be a whole-time job.

Mothers are never unemployed, or should not be, for their children are not merely to be born of them but tended by them until death parts them. Children take a deal of tending, children of all ages; and here, in the number of a mother’s children, even their father is to be reckoned.

To the mother, her very husband is always a child. He needs looking after as much as any of them, but he must not realize that she so judges of him. He is even more sensitive than the children are to the indignity of being publicly looked after by the mother. That only means that she must wait on him with the greater tact.

But her cares are only increased the more by this, and her employment is only the more continuous. She has to go on looking after them as long as any of them are still at home; that is what inevitably happens, for she is the home.

The family carries the nation, she carries the family. The whole of Christendom rests on the mother’s knee.

A New Age

Mothers are sometimes discouraged by their experiences to believe that these old ideals of motherhood are done with. In some moods they are led to think that the world has altered and that children no longer obey their parents nor will be governed by them as they once did.

It may be true. But if it is true, the cause for it is manifest. If a whole generation of youth no longer is governed by its parents, no longer reverences them, is utterly selfish towards them, the only people who can have brought this about are the parents themselves.

Individual cases indeed do not prove that individual parents have failed, for good parents can have ill-bred children and, contrariwise, careless parents may have children who worship them.

But it remains true that a whole generation can fail only because the generation immediately before it disregarded its duty.

The excuse is sometimes made that the young folk grew up in the war without a father to look after them. That alone would not have caused the trouble. The real cause was not that the fathers were not present, but that the mothers were absent. They went to work, or were touched by their excitement, and neglected their duty because, in that pitiful phrase, they wanted a good time.

Wise Self-Sacrifice

Perhaps, after all, the cause of that selfish generation of children was not exactly because mothers were negligent of their duty in that they did not look after their children. The selfishness of children may be due to another cause which, however, will not free the parents from blame.

It may be unselfishness that has been the mother’s undoing. To be self-sacrificing is admirable and motherly; but it has its disadvantages. It can be unwise.

Let us put it in this way. A mother will come to the priest and complain of her child to him. “Father, I have done everything for him, and now he turns round and is most selfish to me.”

Poor mother! All the more shall we pity her because his selfishness is in part her fault. Why did she do everything for her child? She should not have done everything. She should have let him do things for her himself.

When children are little, the mother does everything for them since they cannot do anything for themselves. But gradually she has to steel her heart against doing everything for them. They must be trained to do things for themselves. They must not be forever dependent on her. She has to train them to get on without her, to be independent of her, to live their own lives, to look after themselves.

Even that is not enough. They must not only be trained to do things for themselves, they must be trained to do things for her. And they will want to do many things for her; that is their nature, they will want to help.

There will be some things, of course, that very soon they will not want to do for her..dull, dreary things, fetching, cleaning, carrying. But these also they must be trained to do. The mother will often want to save time and trouble by doing them for herself, but if she does she will hurt her children’s character. She must train them young to work for others, to be unselfish, to give.

It is an almost inevitable effect of a large family that the children of themselves grow up generous and tolerant. This is thumped into them by the aid of many fists. But with a small family, it has all to de done by the mother and father. They have to do for their children what brothers and sisters would have done for them, for, whatever happens, the work needs to be done.

Mothers, then, must not allow their self-sacrificing nature, their heroism, to prevent them from demanding sacrifices in return from their children. Their needs and not her needs must be remembered. They need to be trained to give. Of their very childhood they are impulsive and generous, but this spontaneous character of theirs can be hurt. It can also be developed. Let mothers look into it.

That only is wise self-sacrifice when it encourages and demands sacrifice. A generous mother can reduce her children to selfishness, a mother who does everything for her child has actually taught that child to be selfish. She has no right to complain of his subsequent ingratitude. Her folly has ruined her child.

That is why it has happened that good mothers have ill-bred children; they were not really good mothers, for goodness includes prudence and wisdom.

Really good mothers are also wise mothers.

“The man takes you to the movie, to dinner, to a dance, to a party, or for an automobile drive, but you owe him no liberties for this. If you are an earnest Catholic girl, you will retain the grace of God and your self-respect, while enjoying the esteem of all good men. You will even make evil minds pause, dazzled by the purity in your eyes, the modesty of your actions, and the reserve in your words.” -Fr. Lovasik, Clean Love in Courtship https://amzn.to/2zcAFO7 (afflink)

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We live in an age characterized by agitation and lack of peace. This tendency manifests itself in our spiritual as well as our secular life. In our search for God and holiness, in our service to our neighbor, a kind of restlessness and anxiety take the place of the confidence and peace which ought to be ours. What must we do to overcome the moments of fear and distress which assail us? How can we learn to place all our confidence in God and abandon ourselves into his loving care? This is what is taught in this simple, yet profound little treatise on peace of head. Taking concrete examples from our everyday life, the author invites us to respond in a Gospel fashion to the upsetting situations we must all confront. Since peace of heart is a pure gift of God, it is something we should seek, pursue and ask him for without cease. This book is here to help us in that pursuit.

Reverend Irala here addresses ways to promote mental and emotional well-being to help increase one’s health, efficiency and happiness. He speaks on topics such as how to rest, think, use the will, control feelings, train the sexual instinct, be happy, and choose an ideal. Included are also many practical instructions on dealing with mental struggles of all kinds. This book is most useful in our present times of worldly confusion.

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The Catholic Mother (Part Two) ~ Motherhood and Children, Education and the State

01 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Motherhood

≈ 1 Comment

Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P.

Nihil Obstat: PERCY JONES, Censor Diocesan

Imprimatur: D Mannix,

Archiepiscopus Melbournensis

June, 1958

The Catholic Mother, Part One

Motherhood and Children

In thinking of the children we think of their education, and so of their Catholic education, for Catholic education is not a right so much as a duty. It is a duty which lies on the father and mother as soon as the child is born.

The ancient Greeks insisted on the importance of surrounding babyhood with beautiful things; the psychologist of today entirely agrees with this. Without intermission the Church has taught the same thing; only with her it is holy things that the child should be surrounded by, namely, that particular beauty that is radiant with goodness from God. At least and always the Church insists that the child should have these.

Here Plato would also have approved, for he maintained that beautiful bodies were the lowest form of human beauties. Plato would have approved of beautiful holiness as the best surrounding for a child, that as early and constantly as possible it should be surrounded by whatever true idea, or true representation, of goodness the parents could collect round their child.

Thus the making of the sign of the Cross on itself, the joining of its hands together in prayer, a statue of the Child Jesus, a crucifix, statues of the Mother and Child, of St. Joseph, and of the Angel Guardian, should be familiar objects to a child, so that it grows up in an atmosphere of supernatural life. All this will depend largely on the mother’s sense of her duty to the child’s education and development.

Naturally, the physical well-being of her children must also be present to the mother’s mind; and here, in the earlier stages of its growth, she will have need to consult a doctor and a nurse. Let them, if possible, be Catholic doctors and nurses.

There are good doctors and nurses other than Catholic ones, certainly; but these, if they be properly instructed Catholics, will help a mother more faithfully than the others because she will have no misgiving or anxiety about their advice. She will be able to trust absolutely what they say.

But though the little body must be cared for, yet it must not be over-indulged. It must be kept clean. It is the temple of God.

Again, the right sort of food, for it is a matter about which advice should be asked from experts in motherhood, mothers who know.

Also the character of the child will need training as far as its frail condition will allow. It should not be allowed to grow up any way. Neither should it be nagged at. What is wanted is not to have to say, ‘you must not fight or lie or be selfish or disobedient, but to encourage children not to want to fight or lie or be selfish or disobey.

It is not actions, but character at the back of actions, that has to be laid hold of. Now character can only be formed by character on character. You can only train children properly by making them wish to form themselves on the model of another character. That is why it is a mother’s business to teach her child the beauty of the character of Christ. And she will teach it to her child successfully only in proportion to the way she herself perceives it.

Only because the mother loves the character of Our Lord is she likely to be able to show its beauty and greatness to her child, and convince it that He was great, is great. That is only another proof of the responsibility of motherhood: she and her child united for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer in the things of the spirit.

Lastly, there is the opening mind of the child to be taught and trained.

Education and the State

Actually the State now imposes compulsory education. (In Australia, all children must attend school from the ages of six to fourteen years, either at public schools, conducted by the State, or at private registered schools, such as are conducted by the Catholic Church.)

It may be that we would prefer education to be optional as long as every parent had the opportunity to send his children to a school, but the conditions actually obtaining make education compulsory. No doubt there is some loss in this.

It is better, both for parents and children, when the mother does some of the teaching herself. She would remember her schooling better herself if she had to teach it. Moreover, it keeps mother and child closer together all their lives long when the child’s memories are thus rooted in her home.

It is right also to remember that the authority which the teachers have over the children has been given them by the parents. The teachers have their authority because they stand in the place of the parents, and not from their relation to the State.

Their power is given them by the parents of the children, and these parents, even when giving them power, never abdicate their own powers. They have always to keep an eye on the education of their children.

Normally they can be sure that in the hands of the teachers, the children will be properly looked after. But parents should get to know the teachers, and be interested in the school, and try to see how they can help forward the education of their children. There should be co-operation between parents and teachers.

The teachers need this co-operation; sometimes they complain that the parents do not help them, that the parents undo their work, undo what the school has done for the children.

Parents, too, sometimes think that the school undoes what the home has done for the children. The best remedy and preventive is cooperation between parents and teachers, and this is the best thing for the child.

But there is a difference between the natural authority of the parents and the imposed authority of the teachers, which makes the authority of the parents the more to be safeguarded, the more to be valued, to be kept the more continuously unbroken.

Of the two the authority of the parents should be more important.

Yet the teachers have a long apprenticeship before they are judged to know how to exercise it; this apprenticeship covers not merely years in which to learn the subjects to be taught the children, but in which to learn how to teach at all.

Now a mother also has to teach her children many things. Does she ever learn how to teach? Is not her need to know this even greater than the need of the teachers? She should learn how to teach her children and she surely will not be able to do this without learning.

It is not that she is ignorant of this, because she is a mother; but mother-instinct, though good, is not enough to live by. There are successful mothers, and mothers who are not in the least successful. It is not merely enough to love a child to be able to help it; wise love is needed.

Love can sometimes be foolish. Natural instinct goes a long way but not all the way. Mothers, however, can learn by watching successful mothers, and seeing how they train their children, and so becoming themselves expert in the art of training.

Let them remember their own homes when they were children, and ask themselves whether their mothers failed with one or other of the children, and why. It is not books that they need to help them so much as a study of the experiences of their life.

A mother will learn more by remembering and watching and asking than by reading or having instructions in maternity clinics, though these, if carried on by sane instructors, can be of great help. Only she must remember that each child is a creature apart, and should be studied individually.

It is due to the small circumference of the home that the children can have individual treatment. That is the value of home training. It can be personal. Not all the children of a family should be treated alike. It is not just to treat everyone alike, because all are not alike. Justice demands a rich variety of treatment and perhaps this is only possible fully at home.

“As a family, try to lead a hidden life with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Through holy Mass, offer yourselves through Mary’s hands as a sacrifice with Jesus; at Holy Communion, you will be changed into Jesus by divine grace so that you may live His life; by your visits to the tabernacle, you will enjoy His friendship in the midst of the many problems of life.” -Photo of my daughter and son-in-law at St. Joseph’s Church, Topeka, KS Quote by Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook http://amzn.to/2oUJDFv (afflink)

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Father weaves a tapestry of the Church’s teaching on the unity of the members of Christ’s Mystical Body using profound and picturesque meditations on the seven sorrows of the Blessed Mother:

• The Prophecy of Simeon,
• The Flight Into Egypt,
• The Loss of the Young Christ,
• Mary Meets Jesus on the Road to Calvary,
• The Crucifixion,
• The Pieta, and
• The Burial of Jesus.

His thoughts are enriched by references to original color etchings of John Andrews. Ideal for Lent and Holy Week.

 

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The Catholic Mother (Part One) – Assault on Family Life, Family Means Motherhood

31 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Motherhood

≈ 3 Comments

Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P.

Nihil Obstat: PERCY JONES, Censor Diocesan

Imprimatur: D Mannix,

Archiepiscopus Melbournensis

June, 1958

Assault on Family Life

Perhaps the most sinister menace of recent years has been the assault on family life, namely, first, on the family as an institution and, secondly, on the various relationships within the family, husband and wife, father and mother, children and parents.

This assault is not indeed only of recent years, for it is to be found at the French Revolution also, and, before that, in Rousseau. But there is this to be noticed: the assault that is being made at present on the family as the single unit of society comes no longer from one quarter, but is being delivered from many different angles.

These attacks are sometimes conscious, deliberate, sometimes utterly unconscious. Thus those who advocate or denounce certain practices or principles are not always aware of what they are attacking, nor how inevitably what they hold today will lead them on to something else tomorrow, which at present they would repudiate but tomorrow will proclaim.

Thus when the practices of birth-control were first propagated, the opponents of them urged that if birth-control was taught there was no reason why abortion should not also be taught; and they were met by a very indignant denial on the part of those who favored birth-control that there was any connection between the two ideas.

No doubt this denial was sincere, but it was short-sighted and futile. The defenders of birth-control are equally now defenders of abortion. Sterilization of the unfit has already been added to their program.

It will be made compulsory, no doubt, and not merely on those that are now held to be unfit. This is merely one instance of what is happening everywhere. Again, the Lambeth bishops would have been disturbed if they had realized where their permissions were leading.

But, with false principles from which to start, there is no end to the degradation that must follow. The next Lambeth Conference, if it is honest, will either go on to further abominations or go back. Thus, under the weight of Divorce, State Education, Sterilization, the present economic organization, etc., the family is gradually being assaulted from every angle.

Family Means Motherhood

Now the first point to realize is that all these various attacks are attacks on motherhood. They are also, no doubt, in part, attacks on freedom. They are attacks on motherhood precisely because what is attacked must inevitably be the center of the family-and round the mother grows up the home.

The father is also the center, but differently. He is the active external worker; the mother’s activities are as great but they have a smaller circumference. They are limited to nearer matters. By her activities the home is kept alive and is a true home.

At no time, moreover, can she “knock off” work. Her factory has no hooter to sound the hour for stopping, her shop has no closing time, her office hours have no end. But since she is the center of the home it must be that her motherhood is most in jeopardy when the family is menaced.

In birth-control it is she who suffers, and she suffers not merely in her nerves but precisely in her motherhood. Again, it is her motherhood that is affected by divorce.

Even the most advanced defenders of divorce will admit that motherhood in its richest implications must suffer from the carrying out of their programs. They regret this but consider that it cannot be helped.

The problem of children is an old one. Always ordinary traditional Christian teaching has allowed parents to space the arrival of their children; but it forbids this to be done by direct artificial interference with nature.

It recognizes that the virtue of prudence, and also a variety of family necessities and difficulties may, under certain circumstances, allow a limitation to be set deliberately and legitimately to the number of children that parents may have. But it also considers that the will of man (plus the grace of God) is capable of carrying this out by the sole means of self-restraint.

Since human nature has existed for many thousands of years and has been hitherto able to restrain itself by means of its will, it seems pure assumption to say that this cannot be done now-unless, indeed, it is equally admitted that man today is far less able to control himself than he was, that instead of progressing from a lower stage to a higher he has slipped back into the lower, that the loss of religion has meant also the loss of will-power, the disbelief in God ended in disbelief in man.

We cannot, indeed, but agree that economic conditions do now make the support of a large family harder than ever. But our answer to this problem is to urge as the remedy an increase of wages and not a diminishing of the family.

If one of these two things has to happen, let wages be altered, not the family. We urge, moreover, that the money spent on this unclean trade, and on the booming of unclean practices by the trade which profits from their sale, should rather have been spent, and would have been better spent, on social propaganda for improving the circumstances of the people troubled in this way than on continuing them and exploiting the needs of the poor.

Just as the Church forbids even the man who is so poor that he can hardly house or clothe or feed his family to use artificial means to limit his family, on the definite principle that it is immoral, so also she denounces as immoral the artificial means that have made it almost impossible for him to house and feed and clothe a family.

It is society which is falsely constructed, not the family. Motherhood is blessed; therefore what blocks motherhood in the present falsely constructed society is accursed.

“Modern mothers have been relying on psychology books to interpret child behavior for so long now that if all the psychology books were burned to a crisp, few mothers could relax with the conviction that God’s love, the maternal instinct, and divine grace could take their place. What we all — little or big — want is God; if we do not realize it, however, we choose many ignoble things in His place. And if we want to teach children to be good with a goodness that’s lasting, we must teach them to be good for the love of God.”
Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children, 1954 Available here: https://amzn.to/2lEBVjy (afflink)

What happened to Veronica’s veil was simply an outward expression of what happened in Veronica’s soul. Are we “Veronica’s” in our everyday life? Do we seek to serve, to encourage, to listen….?

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The Necessity of Religion in the Home ~ Selfish Life/Consolations of Parenthood/Parents’ Pride

10 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 2 Comments

by Celestine Strub, OFM, The Christian Home

A good perspective on Catholic parenthood….remembering there are exceptions where parents, for serious reasons and through the direction of a good priest, and never crossing Church guidelines in the use of artificial contraception, limit their number of children…

A Selfish Life

The whole argument against large families only shows the absence of the salutary restraints of religion. At bottom it is not the desire to give their children a more excellent training but the desire to lead a more selfish and comfortable life that clamors for the unnatural limitation of the family.

No one is more desirous of having well-trained children than deeply religious parents; but such parents, regarding their office in the light of Faith, are bent mainly on rearing their children for Heaven. They understand that, even should they be able to provide them but scantily with the goods of this world, by training them for Heaven the main thing is achieved and their principal duty performed.

They realize, too, that the success of all their efforts in behalf of their children depends mainly on Heaven’s blessing, and that if they merit that blessing by their upright lives, He who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field will also provide for their children.

Consolations of Parenthood

Happy the parents who still retain this religious outlook on life, whose religion is their guide, their support, and their consolation amid the arduous duties of their state of life!

They know that they are the chosen instruments of Divine Providence for peopling the abode of the blessed. They know that in assuming the office of parenthood, they cooperate with God himself in bringing into existence beings destined to praise and enjoy him forever in Heaven.

They know that every child they receive is a gift of God; since, do what they will, they can have no child that God does not give them.

But above the solace of all this knowledge is the supernatural aid which the true religion affords them. They have the actual graces of the sacrament of Matrimony, of frequent Communion, and of daily prayer to strengthen them, and the example of their suffering Savior to console them.

Yes, with religion in their homes, they can resist the evil example of those godless couples who seek only their own gratification. And though eugenic wise-acres scoff, and even misguided misguided friends smile in derision at their old-fashioned families, they will never thwart Heaven’s designs concerning their families, but look upon every child as a new token of Heaven’s trust and Heaven’s love.

The Parents’ Pride

It is remarkable how often God rewards parents of large families by making the children that came last become the chief joy and pride of their life.

The Little Flower of Jesus was the last of nine children; St. Ignatius of Loyola, the thirteenth and St. Catherine of Siena, the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth.

Many parents owe the honor of having a son raised to the priesthood to the fact that they had large families. Had my own parents been willing to have five children but no more, they would never have had a priest in the family.

But because they were blessed with eight children, they had the happiness of seeing the sixth and seventh celebrate their first Mass on the same day, and though they have gone to their reward, they are no doubt happy to know that two sons of their eighth child are studying for the priesthood.

A few years ago, I received a letter from a young mother of two children, in which she related how certain worldly-wise women try to induce mothers to limit the number of their children.

On the occasion of a social call, a lady acquaintance of hers had remarked: “It is not a woman of refinement nowadays that has more than two children.”

To which the young mother replied: “In that case I hope to belong to the common herd, as I intend to take all that the good Lord wants to give me.”

In replying to her letter, I commended her for her truly Catholic stand, and then added: “I thank God that my own good mother did not have such a false idea of refinement; for if she had, I should have had no chance at all, as I was her seventh child.”

And the very first time I related this incident, namely, to a group of Franciscan Fathers at St. Elizabeth’s Friary, Denver, Colo., each one of the five priests present declared that he, too, was his mother’s seventh child!

“If your large family brings ridicule from neighbors and even strangers, remember that you have a lasting treasure worth suffering for, and that the Lord called blessed those who suffer persecution for justice’s sake.” – Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook

What happened to Veronica’s veil was simply an outward expression of what happened in Veronica’s soul. Are we “Veronica’s” in our everyday life? Do we seek to serve, to encourage, to listen….?

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He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. –from the Song of David (2 Samuel 22:35)
The Bronze Bow, written by Elizabeth George Speare (author of The Witch of Blackbird Pond) won the Newbery Medal in 1962. This gripping, action-packed novel tells the story of eighteen-year-old Daniel bar Jamin—a fierce, hotheaded young man bent on revenging his father’s death by forcing the Romans from his land of Israel. Daniel’s palpable hatred for Romans wanes only when he starts to hear the gentle lessons of the traveling carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth. A fast-paced, suspenseful, vividly wrought tale of friendship, loyalty, the idea of home, community . . . and ultimately, as Jesus says to Daniel on page 224: “Can’t you see, Daniel, it is hate that is the enemy? Not men. Hate does not die with killing. It only springs up a hundredfold. The only thing stronger than hate is love.” A powerful, relevant read in turbulent times.

Cardinal Wiseman’s classic story of the Christian persecution under Emperor Diocletian in the 300s AD. Fabiola is perplexed by the new-found faith of her cousin Agnes as well as her servant, but is especially intrigued when she finds the noblest Roman soldier she knows, Sebastian, is also a Christian. In this moving description of the Roman catacombs and the captured Christians who faced cruel death with unearthly fortitude, a story of faith and renewal unfolds in the decaying Roman empire.

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Showing Up for Life

07 Tuesday Dec 2021

Posted by Leanevdp in Attitude, by Leane Vdp, Family Life, Motherhood, Peace....Leaving Worry Behind

≈ 1 Comment

A good reminder…. Reading this again makes me want to try harder to live in the now….to make time for the priorities. When we are on our deathbed, it won’t be how much we have accomplished, how clean our house is or how many Christmas cookies we baked….  It will be: Do I go to the door to greet my husband when he comes home? Do I take the time to listen to him? Did I take time out to look and listen when the kids were talking to me? Did I read them a bedtime story? Did I make sure they said their prayers? These are the priorities.

A lot of the women I know are very busy. They have a God-given gaggle of children, many of them young. They are up night and day, doing the things that mothers lovingly….and sometimes not so lovingly (but always trying)… do.

Many of us can’t change the fact that we are busy….and really, we wouldn’t want to. But we must take time to smell the roses (or evergreens) along the way….we must take the time to BE.

One of my favorite books is Achieving Peace of Heart which was written by a Jesuit priest and Catholic psychologist in a day when these could be trusted. He helped so many people and his main theme and way of recovery for small anxieties right through to mental disorders….his way of teaching the secret to happiness…was living in the present moment.

“In conscious life there is a lack of clear consciousness, or of adequate response to impressions received. A victim of this escapes from reality and from society into egocentrism. He neither lives in nor enjoys the present; he does not pay full attention to what he sees or hears. He lives in the past or the future, far away from his physical location, wrapped up in sadness, scruples, or worries…..” Fr. Narciso Irala, Achieving Peace of Heart

And an excerpt from the book Hands Free Life – Rachel Macy Stafford:

“Although we’ve been led to believe that our fondest memories are made in the grand occasions of life, in reality, they happen when we pause in the ordinary, mundane moments of a busy day. The most meaningful life experiences don’t happen in the ‘when,’ they happen in the ‘now.’ This concept is not earth shattering, nor is it something you don’t already know. Yet we still continually put off the best aspects of living until the conditions are right.”

So….we need to consciously practice pulling ourselves back to the NOW until we become experts at it! We need to quit thinking so much of what we have to do….running, running, running. Let’s do the job we are doing, let’s do it well, let’s think about living each moment IN the moment.

This takes some effort, it takes a mindfulness that may try to elude us…. but we mustn’t let it. We need to begin to show up for life. This mindfulness will help us with our family life.

 

When those little…or big…. feet come running up to us and their eyes peer into ours, let’s take the time to really listen and look at them. Let’s BE…..for them. So what if we are mopping the floor and want to get it done NOW! Let’s put the mop aside and spend that 5 minutes listening to the latest escapade of what happened when Johnny tried to climb the tree or Susie tripped over her skip rope. Those 5 minute snatches can mean so much to them…..and to us.

When hubby comes home from work, let’s take the time to stop what we are doing and greet him with a smile and a kiss. Isn’t he worth it? Yes, he is worth it. If he wants to talk about his day, let’s try to stay focused and listen. It won’t take much of our time and it sure is a lot more important than getting those clothes off the line….we can do it later.

When 14 yr. old Jenny wants to tell us about how her book ended, or about the movie she watched (Ugh! Don’t you dislike listening to someone retell a movie??), let’s listen….not just listen….let’s hear.

Whether we are married or single, no matter what our life occupation is, we must take time for our loved ones. This doesn’t change no matter what walk of life we are in. We want to be able to go to bed at night knowing that we have spent some time putting first things first….our husbands, our children, our siblings, our parents, our friends.

The people in our lives are so important….much more important than any chore or deadline we may think we have. We can get back to that. Let’s just be there for them. Let’s live in the present…..the NOW….for us, for our families.

So, for today, we will work on doing what we are doing….doing it well….and embracing those “distractions” and “interruptions” with patience and love. Let’s walk with a peace, the peace of doing God’s will in the moment and not letting our mind wander too far away from the NOW. Let us BE…it’s up to ME!

The Important Things- Leane VanderPutten

(based on “Keeping Track of Life Manifesto” – Rachel Macy Stafford)

Not the skin-deep beauty of face and figure

Not the fullness of our bank account

Not the speed at which I get my housework done

Not how nice my vehicle is

Not the cleanliness and beauty of my house

Not the number of chores I do each day

Not the events on my calendar

Not the number of church functions I am involved in

Not the text messages or emails I feel I need to respond to

Instead….I’m paying attention to the important things in life

I am going to live in the present, I am going to BE

for the hugs

for the conversations

for the exchange of laughter to heal my anxious soul.

I am finding happiness in living for the NOW

In the sit-down moments after meals

In the raucous joy of children and grandchildren

In the exchange of knowing looks that come between my husband and I

I’m living for the NOW

By taking the Hand of my Lord

Looking at Him when I feel frenzied

When I feel worried and disillusioned

So I may be present for those I love

my children

my husband

my grandchildren

my friends

By basking in each moment as I pause along the way

I’m living for the NOW

Because I know that there are more important things than accomplishing each task on my list.

Because I don’t want to miss a childhood, a wedding, a friendship

Because I want to be able to lay my head down at night knowing I have connected with those things that matter most…..

Because when my life is at its close it can be said, “You have run the race, you have fought the good fight.” and I will be remembered, not for what I have accomplished,  but for HAVING LOVED WELL…..

 
Share interests together. As many as possible. See how you can join him in his hobbies and invite him to share in yours. Even if you don’t both enjoy the same things, at the very least you can be interested and enthusiastic about what interests him. And then look for activities that you can both learn to enjoy together as well. Start something new if you have to. -Lisa Jacobson
 
 
 
 

Check out my book, Cheerful Chats for Catholic Children here! 🙂

Review:

“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.”

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Why do we call Christmas songs carols? And is the Christmas tree a pagan symbol? Were there really three kings? These questions and so many others are explored in a way that is scholarly and yet delightful to read. Enjoy learning about the history of the many Christmas traditions we celebrate in this country!

Why do we wear our best clothes on Sunday? What was the Holy Ghost Hole in medieval churches? How did a Belgian nun originate the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament? Where did the Halloween mask and the jack-o’-lantern come from? Learn the answer to these questions, as well as the history behind our traditional celebration of Thanksgiving, in this gem of a book by Father Weiser.

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