Category Archives: Parenting

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

06 Friday May 2022

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

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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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Outside Influences and Your Child

28 Thursday Apr 2022

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

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How many more deadly influences there are now than in Father Kelly’s time! We, as parents, have a difficult line to walk. It takes prayer, forgiveness (especially forgiving our own failings), everyday proactive diligence and confidence in the help of Our Lord!

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George Kelly

The kind of adult your child will become will depend upon his heredity and upon three environmental factors: the influence you exert over him at home, the influence of church and school, and finally the influences of the society in which he lives–the television programs and movies he views, radio programs he hears, books he reads, and companions with whom he associates.

It is true that you, as his parent, will influence him the most. But it is a serious mistake to believe that he can be exposed to bad influences without the danger of being corrupted by them.

The Church has long recognized that even the best home training for a truly Christian life can be counteracted by other influences which oppose parental teaching and example.

It is precisely for that reason that she has insisted, wherever possible, that children attend schools which teach principles of godly living. It is also for this reason that she firmly urges parents to watch constantly over external influences to which their children are subjected.

These outside pressures are probably more pernicious today than at any time in Christianity’s history. Almost everywhere established standards are under attack.

Note the trend toward secularism which seeks to remove God’s influence from the everyday lives of the people. This trend prevents the reciting of prayers to the Almighty in many public schools and in many public meetings and is responsible for the shocking divorce rate and widespread practice of birth control.

As a result of the secularist trend, almost half of the adults in the United States hold no church affiliation at all, and millions of others who claim to be Catholics, Protestants or Jews make no visible effort to apply God’s teachings in their everyday affairs. Evidence of this movement away from God is apparent also in the growing materialism of American life.

This materialism leads persons to believe that success lies not in the development of the interior spirit but rather in the attainment of things–bigger motor cars, larger homes, more efficient appliances and the like.

A second destructive trend is that toward socialism. It is reflected in efforts to remove the home as the center of influence in a child’s life and to substitute the school or other state-supported organization.

Because of the state’s growing tentacles, for example, we see the pronounced campaign to educate youngsters about sex in the classroom instead of in the privacy of their homes.

Finally, the attack on established standards is nowhere more evident than in the flagrant obsession with sex. In modern America, sex stimulation is unending.

Almost everywhere there are lurid photographs, provocative songs, enticing scenes in films, and the glorification of sexy women in popular newspapers and magazines.

This flood of sex is not something which puritans alone are aware of; it strikes the eye of almost every observant foreign visitor. For as Pitirim A. Sorokin, the famous Harvard sociologist, pointed out in his book “The American Sex Revolution,” every aspect of our culture is literally packed with this obsession.

“Its vast totality bombards us continually, from cradle to grave, from all points of our living space, at almost every step of our activities, feeling and thinking,” Dr. Sorokin wrote.

“If we escape from being stirred by obscene literature, we may be aroused by the crooners, or by the new psychology and sociology, or by the teachings of the Freudianized pseudo-religions, or by radio-television entertainment.

We are completely surrounded by the rising tide of sex in every compartment of our culture, every section of our social life.”

These influences–of secularism, socialism and sex–strike at our fundamental religious beliefs and actions. They are insidious poisons, and unless you control their intake with the utmost care they may corrupt the minds and hearts of your children.

They exist in almost every area of public communication. They can be found on television, in movies, in books and magazines.

It is an error to assume, however, that those media are, in themselves, dangerous. As the late Pope Pius XII pointed out on many occasions, all instruments of communication can be marvelous forces for good.

They can be used to uplift minds and hearts and to intensify our devotion to the Almighty and our spiritual growth.

Much that your youngster might encounter in these media may be harmful or merely tasteless and–at least in a moral sense–neutral.

Much, however, will also help him to gain a mature understanding of the world and a greater insight into idealistic achievements of which he may be capable.

Therefore do not condemn movies, or television, or books out of hand. Rather, exercise a diligent watch over them.

Encourage your child to seek out what is good and helpful on the spiritual, emotional and intellectual levels, and restrain him from the bad.

In this necessary function as guardian of your child’s development, use the guidance of professionals and their listings of movies, plays, books, etc., which are suitable for children of different ages.

To protect your youngster from evil forces outside the home will require much patience and application. There are so many sources of possible moral harm that you will have to be constantly alert.

Your constant concern will be reflected, however, in your child’s wholesome development. Eternal vigilance is the price of sanctity.

“Keep a hobby and ride it with enthusiasm. It will keep you out of mischief, to say the least; it will keep you cheerful. Here as in all things you can apply the Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (for the greater glory of God).” – Fr. Lasance, My Prayer Book, Painting by Marcel Marlier (1930 – 2011, Belgian)

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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.”

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Nailed to the Cross…A Fruitful Meditation

12 Tuesday Apr 2022

Posted by in Family Life, Parenting, Spiritual Tidbits

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From The Stations of the Cross and Their Relation to Family Life

By Joseph A. Breig

It is a fruitful meditation for a parent to think of his own son or daughter nailed to the cross. This does not mean that my child is substituted for Christ, but that through my child–through my love for my child–I am brought closer to Christ.

We parents must learn that it is not our vocation–as it is the vocation of some few–to go to God by forsaking others. Our vocation is to go to God through the embracing of others. From love of those who are ours, we are to deepen our love of Him Whose we are.

Christian marriage does not mean that a husband and wife love each other with one love and Christ with another love. They are to love Christ and each other with the same love, and indeed with the same kind of love. There are not really various sorts of love; if we know what love is, there is one love only.

Love is not the physical embracing of another. The embracing is, or ought to be, an expression of love; and if it is not that, then it is not what it ought to be. If a husband and wife do not love each other in God and in accordance with God’s rights over us, then what they feel for each other is not truly love at all.

To love (let us mark it well) is to desire the good of the beloved, and to endeavor to bring that good to pass. But the beloved’s truest good is to live in the friendship of God; in oneness with Christ. Christian marriage, then, is a state of life in which two who truly love each other, in the true meaning of love, assist each other to love Him by obedience to Him.

For the husband, then, the wife is a door into holiness; she is a way to God; and for his wife, the husband is a path to sanctity. In the Sacrament of Matrimony, husband and wife are to cooperate with Christ in each other’s sanctification. Why else, pray, did Christ raise marriage to the dignity of a sacrament; why else did he make it one of the channels through which He pleases to dispense His divine grace?

This is not to destroy, nor to whittle away, the bodily aspects of life together in marriage. To the contrary; the joy of the coming together of husband and wife cannot be as great and as unalloyed as it ought to be unless consciences are clear.

If there is anything of spiritual reproach in married love, their married love will not give the happiness it ought to give. Nor will it confer the unity it is intended to confer–the unity, the peace, the harmony, the serenity which ought to be its fruits.

This harmony and serenity of husband and wife are the deepest foundation for the happiness of the family. How many, many children live in a deep unease, rebelling against what they know not, because their father and mother are not united in Christ, or at least imagine that they are not united in Christ!

“Imagine that they are not united in Christ.” This is a real and painful condition in our day of the opposite errors of puritanism and hedonism. Many a husband and wife are prevented, either by prudery or by the prevailing over-emphasis upon sex, from finding in marriage the joy and the security-in-God that this great sacrament was instituted to give them.

Either they enter into their giving of each other with consciences stricken by rigorism, or they expect more of their giving than even this great giving can give. In the one case, they feel guilty; in the other, they feel cheated. No; the Christian husband and wife must acquire the Christian attitude of mind toward marriage, if they are to find in marriage the depths of joy and goodness which they ought to find there.

Marriage, the Sacrament of Matrimony, is first a union of souls. Husband and wife love each other; not in the modern mistaken meaning of being “in love,” but in the right meaning that they are prepared to serve each other, to defend each other, to sacrifice for each other, to work together in mutual well-wishing for success in marriage.

Out of the union of souls, out of this true love of each other, comes the union of bodies; and each union contributes constantly to the perfecting and deepening of the other.

Husband and wife must understand that Matrimony, like the other sacraments, was earned for us by Christ on the cross. It was not a niggling and fearful thing that He wished to confer upon us–and did confer. No; Christ desires that marriage shall be generous, and that husband and wife understand that their mutual giving is good and pleasing to Him. He wants husband and wife to see each other as pathways to Him; He wants them walking hand in hand, and heart in heart, toward Him.

If we are to see Christ in the least of His brethren, are we not to see Him in our own husbands and wives? Indeed, it is in our husbands and wives, in the Sacrament of Matrimony, that we ought to see Christ most clearly and intimately.

Marriage is its own vocation, and into it we are to throw ourselves with the same kind of dedication and self-abandonment that we expect of a priest in his vocation.

For the husband, his wife and children are Christ most closely and immediately. Wife and children are his vocation; his way to holiness. It is a lesser vocation than the religious vocation, in the same sense that a man is a little less than an angel.

But this does not mean that a man is not a marvelous being; and it does not mean that marriage is not a marvelous vocation. And as a man or woman, in the order of grace, can rise higher than an angel, so can a husband and wife rise higher, in the order of grace–in the Sacrament of Matrimony–than this or that priest or Sister in another vocation.

We are not to be comparing our way of life, we wives and husbands, with the way of life of those in religion. We are not to be comparing our way of life with any other way. Our task is to devote ourselves to our own way wholeheartedly, with full trust in God’s grace and providence, and with the fullest possible realization of the sublimity of our own vocation.

Nobody, really, goes directly to God. Everybody must go through certain channels and in some service to fellowmen. The way to God for husband and wife is through each other and their children, and in love of them and service to them. That is why it is a fruitful meditation to think of one’s own son or daughter on the cross.

Our sons and daughters are given to us in order that we may help them to salvation, and they us. A parent thinking of one of his children on the cross can come closer to Christ; can understand much more of what Christ suffered for us, can be more intimately united with Christ in His Passion.

And certainly the parent can better understand, while thinking of his own child crucified, what Mary sacrificed for us.

In this kind of meditation, parents can find the true wisdom of marriage and the family. Making the Way of the Cross, and thinking of their beloved own children, they can more clearly and poignantly think of Christ, and love Christ and thank Him for His goodness.

Then, returning home, a husband can look upon his wife and children, or a wife upon her husband and children, and see Christ in them, and grasp something of the nobility and the deep goodness of Christian marriage and family life.

Valuable lessons are learned when a family works together. A child learns to respect authority. He becomes independent, does not expect others to pave the way before him, but learns that working is part of earning his way. The discipline he develops will be invaluable to him all through his life. -Finer Femininity

 

 

by Cardinal Mercier:

I am going to show you a secret to holiness and happiness.
For five minutes every day let your imagination be quiet, close your eyes to everything they see, and shut your ears to of all the world’s noise so that you can withdraw into the sanctuary of your baptized soul, the temple of the Holy Ghost.

And speak to that Holy Spirit and say to Him:

“Holy Spirit, soul of my soul, I adore Thee.
Enlighten me, guide me,
strengthen and comfort me.
Tell me what I ought to do and order me to do it.
I promise to submit to anything that Thou requirest from me,
and to accept everything that Thou allowest to happen to me.
Just show me what Thy will is.”

If you do this your life will be quiet and peaceful,
and comfort will abound even in the middle of troubles.
For grace will be given to match any stress together with strength to bear it, grace that will take you to the gates of Paradise, full of merit. Such submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of holiness.

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

06 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by in Motherhood, Parenting

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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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Stubbornness ~ The Catholic Teacher’s Companion

29 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in Catholic Teacher's Companion, Parenting

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Painting by Henry Hintermeister

This book was written at the turn of the 20th century for Catholic teaching nuns. It is called The Catholic Teacher’s Companion  – A book of Inspiration and Self-Help by Rev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.C. (1924). The lessons between the covers are valuable for parents, educators and all who work with children.

STUBBORNNESS

Most of the stubbornness among children can probably be traced to false methods of education either in the home or in the school. Many parents and teachers are forever issuing orders without once pausing to consider whether all their orders can be carried out.

Again, they will never offer a word of praise, but instead are liberal of reprimands no matter how hard the effort of the child may have been. With such treatment the child will finally come to disregard all commands and to take a peculiar delight in acting contrary to the wishes of his superiors.

But pupils spoiled in this way are not at all hopeless. Proper treatment is all that they require to be cured. They must be led to realize that they must submit to authority.

Before giving a command the teacher must make sure that she is right, but after that she must insist on obedience to her order.

The stubborn child may never be allowed to triumph over the teacher. Instead, he should be trained to spend his strong will power on the proper objectives, and he may then prove a leader among men.

The teacher should discriminate between the stubborn and the independent boy. The independent boy acts contrary to the teacher’s commands not for the mere satisfaction of following his own sweet will, but rather because he is convinced that he knows the matter in hand better than the teacher.

He feels very keenly the “humiliation” of being compelled to follow in all things the teacher’s guidance. He is eager to break away from the leading strings and to follow his own initiative.

Such a boy may be very gifted and may possess the invaluable asset of having both a keen mind and strong will power. Properly directed he will make his mark in the world or in the Church.

On the other hand, it is difficult to give him, when found in a large class, the special training required for the full development of his powers. Yet it is a safe rule for the teacher to give him as much opportunity for personal initiative as is consonant with class management.

He should not be nagged at for trifles but should be kept busy with tasks that make real demands upon his ability and industry. He should feel that the teacher is glad to assist him in his laudable ambition, yet may not demand that the teacher attend to him to the neglect of the rest of her class.

The proud pupil offers peculiar difficulties to the teacher. If his pride is only a form of vanity springing from the consciousness of good looks, pretty clothes, etc., the check will come naturally enough from his companions, who are not apt to tolerate in their midst any such priggishness.

But where the pride springs from the consciousness of superior ability, the remedy is not so near at hand. Though the boy is proud he may not be censured undeservedly, but may be reformed by exposing certain faults of which he is guilty but not conscious.

But it is rarely advisable to reprimand him in public. It will generally be more effective to direct his attention to what is truly great and admirable, and in this way he may be encouraged to make virtue and saintliness the goal of his striving.

The lazy pupil may be the despair of the zealous and ambitious teacher. But she must be on her guard lest she mistake dullness for laziness. If the Lord has not given a boy sufficient ability to pass the sixth-grade examinations, it would be wrong to punish the pupil for the lack of talent.

Again, the teacher perhaps demands too much of the children, and the less gifted are discouraged in consequence and lack the stimulus to make any further effort whatsoever. The teacher and not the pupils are to blame for their apathy and listlessness. The pupils should not be punished, but should be encouraged to try anew.

Other cases of apparent laziness may be traced to physical defects of various kinds, and should be referred to the physician rather than to the teacher. But if the laziness be real and not merely apparent, the teacher will have a hard task.

She must, first of all, arouse the pupil’s interest and thus release his energy. She must make him work and work hard. This may require some time, but if in the end she brings him to appreciate the fruits of hard labor, she has done her part to fit him for life.

Treat your boys as young men. You want them to grow up to be hardworking and confident. Is it not true, that the more productive we are, the better we feel? Then structure your children’s day to be active and busy—they will thrive under these conditions. -Finer Femininity, Painting by Mark Keathley, 1963

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

 

Penal Rosaries!

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

Most wives possess a deep, existential intuition that they bear primary responsibility for creating the home environment, in cooperation with their husbands, who protect and provide for it. When Leila Lawler started out as a young wife and then became a mother, she had no idea how to keep a house, manage laundry, or plan and prepare meals, let alone entertain and inspire toddlers and select a curriculum to pass on the Faith.

She spent decades excavating deeply rooted cultural memories that had been buried under an avalanche of feminist ideology. Lawler developed and meticulously presented these on her popular website, Like Mother, Like Daughter, and has now collected them in this comprehensive, three-volume set to help women who desire a proficient and systematic approach to home life.

The Summa Domestica comprises three volumes: Home Culture, which delves into establishing a home and a vision for raising children; Education, which offers a philosophy for the primary vocation of parents to form their children and give them the means to learn on their own; and Housekeeping, which offers practical details for meals, laundry, and a reasonably clean and organized busy and thriving household.

All at once lively, funny, calming, and complete, The Summa Domestica an indispensable how-to book on making and keeping a home that will serve your family best.

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Cultivate the Hearts of Your Children

11 Friday Mar 2022

Posted by in Parenting, True Womanhood, A book of Instruction for Women of the World, Rev. Bernard O'Reilly, L.D., 1893

≈ 2 Comments

From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1893

Cultivate the hearts of your children. This is more particularly needful in the case of your girls. It is by the right or wrong in their affections that women become so powerful for good or evil.

Not that their intelligence is naturally inferior to that of men,—on the contrary, in many respects the female intellect is remarkably superior.

Intelligence dawns earlier in girls and ripens at a very precocious age. Hence the wisdom of cultivating the judgment and forming the imagination of girls during their fifth, sixth, and seventh years.

One will often be astonished in conversing with a little girl of that age, on questioning her closely, to see (when she has been carefully watched by an intelligent and virtuous mother) how completely she will master the great scheme of the creation, the fall, the redemption and reparation, the necessity of a visible and infallible teaching authority, the beauty of the sacramental system of help toward all the purposes of the supernatural life in the individual soul as well as in the body of the Church.

All this can be made so clear and so attractive to the childish intellect, without wearying it with theological terms or definitions. The idea of God is connatural to the mind, as well as that of his providence, of moral good and evil, of rewards and punishments.

No child but can be made to ascend from the familiar notion of her father’s house, well governed by firm laws, by love tempered with justice, to the great family of nations under one almighty ruler and judge.

These and a thousand other notions are so quickly taken in by the youngest girl, that one is reminded forcibly of the famous theories about innate ideas. It is impossible in a really Christian family that the head should be wrong if the heart is right.

The teaching of the Church is so complete, embraces in one firm grasp our origin in the past, our duties in the present, and our prospects for all time and eternity; our doctrines are so positive, so clear, so satisfactory, and so comprehensive that they set the mind at rest, and thereby leave the soul free to direct and control its own affections.

Generally speaking, boys and girls in Catholic families have such a clear sense both of what they have to believe and what they have to do, that when they are led astray it is by their affections.

We have explained in the preceding chapter how mothers are to win and to keep the love of their boys and girls. This is one necessary step toward cultivating their hearts and training their affections.

You cannot repair or beautify the interior of a house unless you secure an entrance and be in so far the master in it that no one shall disturb you while you are occupied in your labor.

The heart has been endowed by its Maker with so mysterious and so great a power, — that even a babe in arms can shut its heart against its own parent, and that a child of seven can form, rightly or wrongly, likings and dislikings which may last a lifetime.

It is for the mother to study from the very beginning the dispositions of her precious charge.

We say commonly that some natures are richly endowed, and others but poorly; that some persons are all head and no heart, while others are all heart and no head.

That is to say, there are souls in which the intellectual powers seem to predominate and to absorb into themselves the affective powers; while there are others in whom the affections seem to run away with the understanding and the judgment. There is some truth and a good deal of exaggeration in these estimates which we pride ourselves in forming of the innate faculties of children as well as of grown-up persons.

Doubtless, through some physical accident of formation or birth, the brain may be affected and the reasoning powers partially or almost totally paralyzed;—but there is no instance of this total paralysis of the will or the executive and effective powers in the soul where the mind retains its full vigor unimpaired.

Some persons are less sensitive, less affectionate, less imaginative, less passionate than others; but in all persons of sane mind there is imagination and sensibility and affections and passions,—though in very different degrees of intensity.

Now where a faculty or special power in the soul is known to exist, it can be developed, strengthened, increased almost indefinitely by exercise and proper culture; just as a faculty neglected either dies out or lives on in a sort of rudimentary condition for want of proper exercise.

The hand and arm of one man becomes as terrible an instrument of destruction as the arm of the tiger, by long muscular training. While another man, though more powerfully built by nature, will have a hand as soft as a babe’s, and an arm as feeble as a girl’s, from the absolute lack of exercise.

Women, above all other persons, are familiar with the success which so often attends the cultivation and development of the voice, and how young persons, seemingly deficient in all aptitude for singing, will exhibit, under careful culture and practice, the most splendid vocal powers.

“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 http://amzn.to/2qCq6Md (afflink)

 

Great sermon….

 

Thank you, Brandi!

This journal is absolutely awesome. Thank you so very much for putting this together, it arrived just in the nick of time (by the grace of God because I am notoriously late on everything!) and now I can begin journaling my resolutions in time for Shrove Tuesday. Very excited to have this lovely companion on my Lenten journey this year! God bless you for your efforts in making this book. 🙂

Lenten Journal available here. Printable available here.

Lovely Veils! Old World Veil and Capelet. A beautiful twist on the normal chapel veil. Ties with a ribbon in front..made from chiffon and lace.  Available here.

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

A very beautiful book, worthy of our attention. In it, you will find many pearls of wisdom for a woman striving to be the heart of the home, an inspiration to all who cross her path. You will be inspired to reconsider the importance of your role of wife and mother! Written by Rev. Bernard O’Reilly in 1894, the treasures found within its pages ring true and remain timeless…

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

10 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by 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….?

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

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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Work Can Be Prayer and “Offer it Up”

07 Monday Mar 2022

Posted by in Parenting, Praying

≈ 1 Comment

 How to Raise Good Catholic Children, Mary Reed Newland, Sophia Institute Press

Work can be prayer

And that brings us to work as a form of prayer, and helping children understand that work done for the love of God is as tangible an act of love as if they were to run to Him with an embrace.

In the beginning, learning to make our bed, dry the dishes, and polish shoes is fun and a kind of play at being grown up, but soon the novelty wears off, and the chores that started out being fun can lose their glamour and become unpleasant drudgery.

If they are prayer, however, it can be different. Not that tasks we hate doing are suddenly transformed into occasions of great spiritual joy; but there’s a great difference between doing them because you’re told you must, and doing them because they 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.

Then there’s a good reason to try to make our bed with care instead of pulling up the covers to hide the rumples underneath. Then smoothing the sheets, and squaring the corners, and plumping the pillows can be small ceremonies of love from a small girl who does them because Christ can use them as balm for one of His suffering members.

And one of the loveliest things about teaching children that work is prayer is that mothers can’t help having it rub off on them.

These diapers that are changed daily, these meals that are cooked again and again, these floors that are scrubbed today only to get dirty tomorrow — these are as truly prayer in a mother’s vocation as the watches and prayers of the religious are in theirs.

Encourage your child to offer up his sufferings

There is suffering, too, in the lives of children, and it is eloquent prayer. Mere stoicism has no part in the training of a Christian. Too often it’s the death knell to humility.

But suffering embraced and offered to the suffering Christ, even with howls and tears, is a mighty weapon.

The road to Calvary was one long, unending bruise, and it helps a child to remember when he’s hurt that Jesus was hurt like this, and much more, and this pain in a mysterious way can be poured on His wounds and will help make up for the pain He had to bear. Every mother in the world kisses the bumps and bruises of her young to “make them well.”

We can give them something much more tangible to do with their hurts than merely bring them to be kissed. We can comfort and calm and then direct them in the use of the pain, and it’s surprising how willingly they will learn the lesson of pain and its value.

“Offer it up, dear; give it to Jesus to help comfort Him for the pain of the nails in His poor hands and feet.”

Faced as he is with a lifetime of recurring suffering (in one way or another), we give a child the only wholesome weapon to be used when we teach him to take his own pain in his own two hands and apply it freely, as he does work and play and prayer, to the comforting of Christ and His work in His Church.

Many times, parents will turn to scolding the “naughty chair” or the “bad table” in an effort to ease the pain and insult of a child who comes to grief through his own carelessness.

In the process, they feed little desires for vengeance; they give him no recourse but senseless, continuing rebellion against anything and everything that crosses him.

One time, a man who lives in our town was working on his car with no success, growing more and more angry because the cursed (and I do mean cursed) car would not start.

In a rage, finally, he threw his wrench at it, broke a part, and instead of a tricky repair job, he had added to his woes the problem of thumbing a ride to a service station to buy a new part, thumbing a ride back, and starting from scratch to install the new part.

Perhaps his explosion was only the fault of an ungovernable temper, but perhaps — who knows? — it had its beginning long ago in childhood when the only solace for a barked shin was, “Naughty chair to hurt the baby. Kick it back, sonny, kick it back.”

Living in a fallen world, our children are bound to be hurt, both physically and spiritually. We will save them years of wasted opportunities if we teach them that, along with everything else, pain is part of their prayer.

“It is astonishing what undreamed-of qualities a sense of responsibility awakens in a young soul; how the very idea that something depends on her, that she is being trusted, puts our little maid upon her mettle. Therefore it is a good plan to leave to a young daughter some particular duty or duties for which she is entirely responsible. This may of course be a very slight thing to begin with—the dusting of a room, or the arrangement of flowers or books, or the superintendence of the tea-table; but whatever it is, the mother should insist that it be done regularly and at the appointed time. Thus will she teach her child punctuality and a primary lesson in a method, which is the key to all perfect housekeeping. Of course it is a little trouble to the mother to superintend the performance of such little duties, but she will have her reward in the daily increasing helpfulness of the daughter in the home.” – Annie S. Swan, Courtship and Marriage And the Gentle Art of Home-Making, 1894

 

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

 

 

This is a unique book of Catholic devotions for young children. There is nothing routine and formal about these stories. They are interesting, full of warmth and dipped right out of life. These anecdotes will help children know about God, as each one unfolds a truth about the saints, the Church, the virtues, etc. These are short faith-filled stories, with a few questions and a prayer following each one, enabling the moral of each story to sink into the minds of your little ones. The stories are only a page long so tired mothers, who still want to give that “tucking in” time a special touch, or pause a brief moment during their busy day to gather her children around her, can feel good about bringing the realities of our faith to the minds of her children in a childlike, (though not childish), way. There is a small poem and a picture at the end of each story. Your children will be straining their necks to see the sweet pictures! Through these small stories, parents will sow seeds of our Holy Catholic Faith that will enrich their families all the years to come!

This revised 1922 classic offers gentle guidance for preteen and teenage girls on how to become a godly woman. Full of charm and sentiment, it will help mother and daughter establish a comfortable rapport for discussions about building character, friendships, obedience, high ideals, a cheerful spirit, modest dress, a pure heart, and a consecrated life.

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From Three to Five ~ Christ in the Home

23 Wednesday Feb 2022

Posted by in Christ in the Home - Fr. Raoul Plus S.J., FF Tidbits, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

From Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J., 1950’s

FROM THREE TO FIVE

At this period of their life, children have not in general arrived at an awakening, at least not a complete awakening, of their moral sense. They are midway between the unawareness of their first years and a completely rational contact with life; their principal occupation is play–the little boy will be busy building and tearing down; the little girl will be busy scribbling away at indefinite designs or dressing and undressing her sawdust doll, the first in a series of many dolls.

They will have just the beginning of a contact–depending upon their family, their mother particularly–with the invisible world. They will learn their prayers, know that there is a God who is good and they will hear about little Jesus.

They will also know that there are things that are forbidden, but they will not as yet see the wickedness of sin; they take what belongs to mamma without knowing that they are stealing; they do not always tell the truth without knowing really that it is an evil thing to lie and when they do speak untruly it is much more through an instinct of self-defense than through innate perversion.

They would go to the end of the world for a kiss and much further still for a piece of candy. But if they must give up the piece of candy to a little brother or sister, they will do it with not too bad a grace but they will see to it that they get a lick of it themselves before parting with it; after all, aren’t they being quite generous already?

And if for Christmas mother has suggested that they sacrifice some of their sweets to little Jesus, they do it eagerly but see nothing wrong with coming back quietly later to eat up their sacrifices.

It is important to capitalize on this marvelous period of the child’s life.

Since the child loves to imagine, it is necessary to suggest images to its mind and since the child needs to be educated, these images should be elevating. That can be done very early by using the lives of the saints, the life of Mary and of Jesus.

Why not? How many details of Scripture are most picturesque and quite within the grasp of the child’s mind; this is especially true if the Gospel episodes have first come by way of the mother’s heart; she will know how to awaken without straining, instruct without fatiguing, and adapt it all to the mentality of the child.

A prime guiding principle here is Never anything inexact! Children at this age are extremely docile. “Papa said it or Mamma said it,” makes it sacred. Therefore, great attention to the stories they are told, to the allusions made or the conversations held in their presence.

At this age the child is inclined to refer everything to itself, but very likely to be disinterested in goodness. By nature it is selfish; it has a terrific sense of ownership; will share nothing; wants everything.

Since it has numerous needs and knows itself to be little, it seeks to surround itself with the greatest possible number of things to its own advantage. But if little by little it is taught to look about to see that there are others less privileged, that to give up things for love of another is something fine, it will be found capable of remarkable generosity.

The child at this age has not since the time of its baptism become incrusted with the shell of negligence and the faults an adult might commit; simplicity is inherent in it; it is pure; it has infused Faith and the Holy Spirit in its soul is at ease.

But it is essential to avoid scandalizing the least of these little ones, giving them the example of evil, of impurity even material impurity, of lying, of anger.

Further, the child is readily distracted, forgetful, has its head in the clouds. You speak to it and it listens or does not listen as fancy strikes; it follows its own thought and interior emotion. Your commands fall on its ears like water on marble. You must catch its attention, reiterate your suggestions or commands without impatience on your part or fatigue for the child.

Constant attention is necessary to train them in manners, in proper sleeping habits, in conduct at table; to check the first symptoms of greediness, laziness, lack of discipline, sensuality. The child is still thoughtless but the educator must not be. Long explanations are not needed; a word, simple look go a long way and speak volumes at times.

Parents should never lose courage even if the results are imperfect. Let them examine their methods and change them if necessary. Let them see in these little ones only Christ– “Whatsoever you do to these, the least of My brethren, you do unto Me.”

Patience connotes a “self-possession, especially under suffering or provocation,” and it brings to one a quiet confidence. The patient wife is master of her own soul. She, and not every imp to come flying into her mind, is in charge of her own fort.

Since no one can be truly successful without patience, it should be expected that the possession of the virtue is a requisite for every desired wife.

Indeed, no vocation or profession in life requires patience more than that of husband and wife.

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As a young monk seeks to understand the meaning of a mysterious Scripture passage, little does he know that two visitors from Heaven are about to give him the surprise of his life!
A heartwarming short story of an obscure Irish saint, based on an ancient legend. Perfect for Saint Patrick’s Day reading!

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Lazy Children – Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J.

16 Wednesday Feb 2022

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

≈ 1 Comment

From Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J., 1950’s

It has been said that a great difficulty in child-training is to know when to caress and when to use corporal punishment. While it is true that many of the child’s faults arise from his physical condition, we should not exaggerate that fact; however, until we have proved that the fault is not the result of a physical state, an embrace is of more value than a spanking.

But here is a child whose faults are moral not physical, nor is there a psychological difficulty involved; he is sensual, he lies and he steals. There is nothing for it but to use restraints and punishments, without, however, neglecting wholesome encouragement at any manifestation of good will.

This is all very simple in theory, but the practical application of it is not always easy especially when the fault in question happens to be laziness.

When a normally intelligent child dawdles at his work; when in spite of all efforts to stimulate him with high motives of courage, hope of reward and similar attractions, he persists in his inertia, chances are that he has something physically wrong with him or he is suffering from poor hygienic conditions.

There was, for example, the little boy who appeared to be disgustingly lazy. One day, however, an attack of appendicitis made an operation imperative for him. Six months later, the child was at the head of his class.

Another child was in a classroom that was overcrowded and the atmosphere was so vitiated that he had difficulty breathing. He was sent to the country and immediately his work habits improved.

Corporal punishment in either of these two cases would have been no help in curing the laziness of the children; all that was necessary was to make conditions favorable for work.

But there are truly lazy children; theirs is a moral laziness: They won’t work at all because they don’t have the least bit of energy.

The Catechism defines laziness as “an excessive love of rest which makes one avoid every painful duty.” That is exactly what it is. Now people who work do so either through a taste for it, through self-respect or because of duty. The problem, then, with the really lazy child is to try to stimulate in him a liking for work or awaken in him a legitimate self-respect or develop in him a sense of duty.

Stimulate a liking for work: Sometimes children dislike school work especially because their beginning lessons in a subject were poorly taught. The child was repulsed by initial difficulties. That is often the case in mathematics.

“My son is getting along all right,” a mother explained, “but he is a little weak in Greek.” The fact was that the elements of that language had been badly explained to him.

A clever professor took him in hand, showed him that Greek was easier than Latin once the first difficulties of the alphabet, the declensions, and the conjugations had been conquered. The boy won a first in Greek.

Awaken a legitimate self-respect: Some children prefer rest and comfort to all else. The last place bothers them very little. They seem to have no ambition; they are utterly indifferent to success.

We need not fear to humiliate them but we must be vigilant not to discourage them. The dunce cap worn too often frequently produces a real dunce.

We must be ingenious to find a way to make that pupil succeed in something at least once. This could be a good starting point; then, if nothing comes of it, punishment should follow.

We are, it must be remembered considering the case of a child who does not succeed, not because he lacks the means, but because he does not work.

Develop a sense of duty: “You ought to work because papa and mamma wish it and God asks it.” Bring into play a filial spirit and love of God. Parents must know correct child psychology. They are the ones who have given him his physiological being.

It is up to them to examine whether anything in his physical condition explains his inertia at work; they are in a better position than anyone else to determine this.

If the deficiency is psychological, they have the responsibility for seeking into its cause and supplying the appropriate remedy. It is up to them, without substituting their own activity for the child’s to teach him how to will by stimulating his will.

Laziness is frequently traceable to an early childhood marked by too soft a training, an inadequate training in effort and endurance. The child did not start early enough to use profitably the opportunities to exercise liberty, to assume responsibility and to attack work.

The parents acted for him instead of trying to form him. They lacked skill in transforming play into work and work into play. They gave him toys which offered him no chance to use his intelligence, his constructive bent, his imagination and creative powers.

And whenever they held out the prospect of school life to him they led him to regard it as a task or punishment: “If you are not good at home we will send you to school soon,” instead of “If you are good, we shall be able to send you to school and you will have the joy of beginning to work.”

The child who is poorly trained will get accustomed to cutting his life up into two parts: the principal part belongs to pleasure with the other part thrown in from time to time — those boring moments assigned to work.

He should have been impressed with the idea that work is the law of our whole life; it is the unfolding and the extension of our powers and if it brings with it a certain amount of labor, it also brings with it a greater amount of joy which results from overcoming difficulties, acquiring new knowledge and opening up additional possibilities for advancing farther into the field of truth.

Recreations, games are but opportunities to relax and to stretch out into the open as it were to grasp new strength for further work.

Work should be presented not as a drudgery but as a conquest. Very early in life the child should be led to envision his future career or mission: “If you want to become an engineer, a sailor, then. . . .” Or “You will be a mother maybe and you will have to keep house.”

They should see that papa and mamma find pleasure in work and better still that work pleases God. We must all of us sanctify ourselves in the duty of our state at each moment whether we like it or not.

If we like it, so much the better. If we do not like it, then we ought to put greater generosity into it and offer our suffering for a worthy cause, such as the missions, the sanctification of priests and religious, one’s family and many similar good intentions.

Care should be taken not to overdo the reward idea, especially rewards promised as a prize for work requested; that develops calculating hearts.

Ask for work for the reasons previously indicated and wait for an opportunity to give an appropriate recompense on some other occasion; it will be so much more a prize since it will unexpected.

Question: If the home is such a powerful factor in the future of the children of a nation, why are such powerful groups in the nation arrayed against the home?

Answer: Precisely because the home is powerful. If it were not an important institution, the enemies of God and of man would leave it alone. Because the people who control the home control the future, because parents are the first representatives of God on earth, because within the home is the hope of morality . . . . for these reasons the men who wish to control the future, who hate God, and who would for their own selfish purposes wipe out morality attack the home openly or subtly.
-Fr. Daniel A. Lord, S.J.. Questions People Ask About Their Children, 1950’s

Sermons on Raising Children…

New! The Lenten Way of the Cross Picturesque and Prayer-Filled Cards with Handcrafted Wooden Card Holder ~ Family/Children Activity!

Help make Lent more meaningful for you and your family with the Lenten Way of the Cross Cards!

Follow along with your family and prepare your hearts for the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord each year at Lent and Easter using these special picturesque and prayer-filled cards to help keep your mind and heart focused each day There are 41 cards in total.

Keep the cards in a visible spot in your home as a reminder to you and your children.

Comes with the handmade wooden card holder. Cards are approximately 7″ X 4 1/2″. (The wooden card holder is made with the wood from 100 year old pews that were made by boys in a Catholic School in the 1800’s! *While supplies last on this one).

You can look up more details on the Lenten Way of the Cross here.

Lenten Bundle!

This journal will lay out some simple activities in which your children will be doing their sacrifices and will have a tangible means of “counting” them for Jesus. You, Mom, will have a place to put a check mark if that the activity is remembered and completed for the day. This journal also includes a place for you to check off whether you are fulfilling your own personal resolutions…your Spiritual Reading, your Family Rosary, etc.

Available here.

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.

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Necessary advice to Catholic parents building a Catholic home. Reliable advice that is almost completely lost today, from people who know how it’s done. How to make it. How to live it. How to keep it. This book covers every aspect of Catholicizing your home–from spiritual matters like prayer and catechism to nuts and bolts topics like Keeping the Family Budget, Games and Toys, Harmony between School and Home, Family Prayers, Good Reading in the Home, Necessity of Home Life and much more

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