Painting by Adolf Eberle

In this article, Father is adamant about taking care to monitor what your children are reading and the companions they have. As parents forming our children in the modern world, we add on top of that the movies they watch and the internet they are allowed to dabble in. Let us pray to Saint Isidore of Seville (560-636), patron of the internet,  to guide us in this daunting task…

from True Womanhood – Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

In what consists True Independence of Character

To no one more than the child of the hard-working mother is true independence of soul,—that is, true nobility of character,—necessary and useful. Indeed, the all-seeing Author of our nature, who governs all our ways, has made every element of greatness in our souls and conduct necessary because He knew they would be useful; and He made them all the more necessary that He foresaw they would be more useful.

In what does this independence of soul and character consist? In this: that a boy or a girl brought up by a truly God-fearing mother, is so filled with the fear of that Great Majesty, in whose hands we are at every moment, and into whose hands we are sure to fall after death, that they look up to Him in everything, seek to please Him in all they do, and find it impossible to do anything which is wrong in His sight and contrary to the voice of their own conscience.

Let us understand this well. You rear your boy and your girl, from the very first moment you can make them understand anything, in the conviction that God’s truth, God’s word, God’s will is to be the sole measure by which they are to weigh and estimate everything; so that it will be practically impossible for them to do anything contrary to His truth, His law, or His will.

We say every day that such a man is a noble man, a truly independent man, because he is incapable of doing wrong to any one, of violating truth or honor or honesty, of going in anything whatever against his conscience and his known duty.

Hence it is—and this is the golden lesson which our forefathers learned so well and practiced so nobly, that they made their moral greatness and independence consist in depending on God alone and their conscience.

They were poor in this world’s goods,—for they had been stripped of everything,—they were deprived of civil and religious liberty and honor, and were thus, in the eyes of men, degraded to the level of the serf or the slave. But nothing could shake their dependence on God, or their implicit and invincible obedience to the voice of their conscience and their faith.

Now such are the noble men and women that can in our days,—in this generation as in the next,—go forth from the home of every laboring man among us, as they went forth in past generations; men attached to conscience, to honesty, to honor, to truth, to duty, to righteousness, and to God in all things and above all things, everywhere, in all employments and positions, though never so high or never so lowly.

Let us have men and women incapable of telling a lie, of wronging the neighbor in thought or word or deed, of wronging their employer in the meanest trifles or the weightiest matters, of betraying the trust placed in them, whether in the last place in lowliest office or in the highest that can be given in city, State, or Church; men and women who fear God alone, and, after Him, fear only what is contrary to truth, honor, and purity!

Dear mothers who read this, you may never be able to give your boys and girls at your death wherewith to buy a suit of clothes or to pay for their meals on the morrow. But if you labored morning, noon, and night till your dying day—because you would allow no dishonesty to taint your lives, and for the sole purpose of making of your children such godlike men and women as this,—you have left them a treasure ten thousand times more precious than all the hoarded millions of our wealthiest.

Make them Choose their Companions Well

In order to do this, you must be careful about two things: the choice of what your boys and girls read, and that of their companions at home or in the street. Choose well the books which you put in their hands, or which you permit them to bring home with them.

Public libraries are like druggists’ shops or public dispensaries; they are like them in this, that they contain all manner of poisons as well as healthful medicines; and they differ from them in this, that, whereas conscientious druggists will give what is healthful to all, they will only deal out what is poisonous in small quantities and to responsible and properly authorized persons;—while libraries and librarians have no conscience, and let the innocent child take away and devour what kills purity, innocence, and conscience forever.

Scarcely less baneful are, taken and read promiscuously, the daily and weekly papers. They are not only dangerous and hurtful to the young mind and heart as mere newspapers, because they reveal in their hideousness and obscenity what should never be known to youth, and what were better ignored by age itself; but they are still more hurtful as teachers and dogmatizers on religion and morality, either reducing the doctrines and practices of revealed religion to the same level with infidelity, and thus producing practical indifference toward divine truth; or they affect and profess to have an authority which can judge the Church of Christ herself, and enlighten her as to the way she ought to teach and to govern.

Thereby the mind is imperceptibly but inevitably filled with prejudices or preconceived opinions distrustful of the Church or hostile to her, and which act on the intelligence as the foul and poisonous air of coalmines acts on the lungs: they fill the organs with deadly exhalations which prevent the entrance into them of God’s pure vital air.

Just as you are careful of what books or papers your children read, even so be watchful over the companionships they form. It is impossible to take kindly to the low-minded, corrupt-hearted, or ill-bred and ill-mannered, without laying aside one’s own good manners, good breeding, purity of feeling, and innocence of mind in habitual intercourse with them.

There are worse consequences, as you know, which soon follow this familiarity with the low and the unworthy. Precisely because the great majority of young people around you are without sound moral education,—untruthful, intemperate, and as careless of honor and honesty as they are of decency,—it is your most pressing interest and duty to keep your treasures away from such contact.

“When we hold that tiny bundle in our arms for the very first time, a flood of hopes and dreams emerges like a great blue whale cresting to spout his spray into the air. But somewhere in the day-to-day busyness of life, encouraging words can get lost among the to-dos and not-to-dos. We need to take a fresh look at motherhood and recapture the commitment to be the great encouragers along a child’s journey toward adulthood.” -Sharon Jaynes, The Power of a Woman’s Words (Painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau)

Painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)

NEW! GRATITUDE JOURNAL PRINTABLE!

Save this to your desktop and do it often! *For personal use only* ©Finer Femininity

Our attitude changes our life…it’s that simple. Our good attitude greatly affects those that we love, making our homes a more cheerier and peaceful dwelling! To have this control…to be able to turn around our attitude is a tremendous thing to think about!

This Gratitude Journal is here to help you focus on the good, the beautiful, the praiseworthy.

You will be disciplined, the next 30 days, to write positive, thankful thoughts down in this journal. You will be thinking about good memories, special moments, things and people you are grateful for, lovely and thought-provoking Catholic quotes, thoughts before bedtime, etc. Saying it, reading it, writing it, all helps to ingrain thankfulness into our hearts…and Our Lord so loves gratefulness! It makes us happier, too!

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Physical copy is here.

Painting by Gregory Frank Harris

From The Mirror of True Womanhood by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THE DIGNITY OF LABOR

Your boys, your girls must be trained early to be industrious. Not that they must be set to work before their time; God forbid! But it must be your care to give them, from the very beginning, habits of cleanliness, order, industry, self-respect and self-reliance.

You must be careful not to allow them to fancy for one moment that there is in your own laborious habits or in their father’s occupation or trade, anything that is not most honorable, praiseworthy, and pleasing to God.

Recall to them frequently that the most glorious names in heaven or on earth were those of men and women whose daily life was one of toil like your own: how Adam and the great patriarchs who succeeded him were tillers of the soil, husbandmen, and shepherds; that such were the great men and women who founded God’s people in the Old Law, Abraham and Sara, Isaac and Rebecca, Israel (or Jacob) and his wife Rachel, Joseph who ruled Egypt after having been like his brothers a farmer and a shepherd, as well as Moses, the figure of our Lord, who kept the flocks of his father-in-law.

Labor was most honored always down to the days of our Lord, who himself learned the carpenter’s trade and worked at it with his foster-father, Joseph,—a prince of the royal blood of David.

Teach them to look upon idleness as a shame and disgrace, upon sloth as most degrading, and as leading to all manner of evil courses. You can always keep them joyous children, while you make them industrious and laborious children; you can make them and keep them bright, pleasant-faced, and cheerful while coaxing them to learn something new every day and to apply themselves heartily to the tasks you set for them at the appointed hours.

KNOW HOW TO PRAISE THEM

We have already seen what good a true wife can do by praising generously and judiciously her husband, and encouraging him thereby to rise every day higher and higher in her esteem and in his own.

Far greater is the good she can do every one of her children by judicious praise. We say “judicious ; ” for praise bestowed at every moment and for trifles loses its value by becoming common.

Praise only when something is done which deserves it, and praise in well-weighed words. Never give praise when it is not well deserved; for then it would be unjust, and you would make your children suspect your truthfulness and your honesty.

BE GENTLE, LOW-VOICED, AND PATIENT

Be gentle. That does not mean to be spiritless. It means to be the opposite of violent, irascible, ill-tempered, and moody. Study to be so, for your own soul’s sake, and as if you lived in God’s presence, always keeping down for his holy love every movement of anger, irritability, temper, or moodiness.

And be gentle,—precisely because you have much to do, much to bear, many cares to burden you, many things which continually try your temper.

Be low-voiced. It is wonderful what effect a mother’s gentle manner and low voice,—when she teaches, or corrects, or praises,—will have on a band of children.

Take a schoolroom filled with very young boys or girls. Let their teacher be nervous, fidgety, and irritable; you will see all these little ones thrown into a ferment and fever and agitation, which is nothing more than a kind of disorder which they catch from the teacher’s manner. Let her be loud-voiced, teaching or speaking in loud, quick, nervous tones, and it is ten to one but you will see within a few minutes all these children becoming restless, talkative, inattentive, and ungovernable.

Now, let some quiet, gentle, calm-mannered, and low-voiced person come in, and all these children will become quieted, stop talking, listen, and be ready to give their whole attention to what is said, or to set to work, and work steadily as long as the calm eye is on them and the gentle, low voice is directing them.

You will spare yourselves and your dear ones much trouble and much unhappiness by laying this lesson to heart. You can do what you like with them,—if you are perfectly mistress of yourself.

Besides, what a service you do them; and how they will bless their mother in after life for having taught them this gentleness!

Be patient. Not only when you are suffering from aching limbs and head and heart, but when you do not succeed in making your dear ones all that you would wish.

There are certain dispositions and characters which seem naturally to defy all control, or teaching, or improvement. They will learn more than you think; and they profit much more than you can see by your lessons, and especially by your example.

Even should son or daughter of yours turn out to be everything but what you trained them to be, the memory of their gentle, patient, loving mother will remain in their souls to their dying day, like a silent voice from the past bidding them return to God and to the paths of their childhood.

Some say that steel beaten into its due form and given a keen edge while cold, is more apt to preserve both form and edge forever. So is it with the temper your patient gentleness will impart to your children’s souls. And this firmness, which is only one of the most precious dispositions of true manhood and womanhood, will be both of infinite value to them and of indispensable necessity.

“The objection that a child should wait until he can understand what he’s doing when he receives Holy Communion is no objection at all. He understands as well at seven as at seventy. The Holy Eucharist is a mystery as profound and unfathomable as the Trinity. One does not understand how Christ can assume the form of bread and wine. One believes.” -Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children http://amzn.to/2qKqcTO (afflink)

Make a statement with this lovely and graceful handcrafted “Our Lady of The Children” apron….fully lined, lace overlay….made with care. Aprons tell a beautiful story…..a story of love and sacrifice….of baking bread and mopping floors, of planting seeds and household chores. Sadly, many women have tossed the aprons aside and donned their business attire. Wear your apron with joy….it is a symbol of Femininity….”Finer” Femininity! 🌺 💗 Available here.

To the modern mind, the concept of poverty is often confused with destitution. But destitution emphatically is not the Gospel ideal. A love-filled sharing frugality is the message, and Happy Are You Poor explains the meaning of this beatitude lived and taught by Jesus himself. But isn’t simplicity in lifestyle meant only for nuns and priests? Are not all of us to enjoy the goodness and beauties of our magnificent creation? Are parents to be frugal with the children they love so much?

For over half a century, Catholic families have treasured the practical piety and homespun wisdom of Mary Reed Newland’s classic of domestic spirituality, The Year and Our Children. With this new edition, no longer will you have to search for worn, dusty copies to enjoy Newland’s faithful insights, gentle lessons, and delightful stories. They’re all here, and ready to be shared with your family or homeschooling group. Here, too, you’ll find all the prayers, crafts, family activities, litanies, and recipes that will help make your children ever-mindful of the beautiful rhythm of the Church calendar.

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

HOW THE CHILD MUST BE MADE ACQUAINTED WITH THE SUPERNATURAL ORDER

To inculcate on her children, as soon as their reason begins to dawn, that God is not only their Maker as He is that of the heavens above them and the earth around them, but also to them a true Father, who cares for them and gives them a right to the most magnificent of all inheritances, must be one of the Christian mother’s early cares.

Her own sense of piety, her womanly wit and instinctive knowledge of child-nature will teach her the best methods to be employed in order to let in by degrees, and one after the other, the beautiful and divine realities of the supernatural order,—of that kingdom of God, whose sovereign is true Father to us,—of that glorious world in which Christ and His Blessed Mother are central figures.

There are few households so poor but they can afford to have one or two sweet prints representing the mysteries of our Lord’s infancy and childhood, as well as a handsome crucifix, or, at least, a good print of the crucifixion.

It is well to reject the abominable daubs published in our large cities and “misrepresenting” every subject they profess to set before the devout mind.

The sweet pictures of the Blessed Mother and her Babe by Luini, or Fra Bartolomeo, and Crucifixions by such religious painters as Velasquez, cannot fail to produce a powerful impression.

There are good engravings of them, for which it would be well to pay a little more;—good chromos, like those published in London by the Arundel Society, are, unfortunately, beyond the reach of poor families.

Would that we had both in city and country parishes some sodality interested in seeing that the homes of the laboring classes were provided with such objects of religious art as would inspire reverence and piety in the beholder.

Nor must mothers forget to have a little statue or a print of the Angel Guardian; he is a friend to be known and loved early. It must be the part of the judicious mother to explain in due time to her little ones, when they are able to inquire about that heavenly Woman and her Babe, what relation they both bear to us.

Some mothers, we know, have in their nurseries “The Flight into Egypt” or the “Adoration of the Magi,” subjects which will naturally oblige the children to inquire about the birth of the Divine Babe, and the whole story of his birth.

When, precisely, parents can draw the affection of the child-mind to the story of the Passion, and the Crucifix, they alone can determine.

Some are averse to doing so before children are a little more advanced in years. Certain it is that they should be made acquainted with the sufferings of our Divine Benefactor before they emerge from childhood.

This point of time being left to the judgment of mothers, let us be firmly convinced that of all the vehicles of supernatural instruction and solid piety there is no one more efficacious than THE CRUCIFIX.

The Crucifix in Catholic households is not only the most eloquent and instructive of books for youth and old age; but it can also be made to speak divinely to the sense of childhood.

Children are all athirst for knowledge once they begin to speak and to be capable of instruction by word of mouth. Their mind and imagination are forcibly impressed by the figure of the Man of Sorrows nailed to the bitter tree.

They are quick to seize the reverence, the love, the worship with which a mother or a nurse looks upon this pregnant story of Love Crucified. Who is He? What brought Him there? What is He to us? What we owe Him, hope, and fear from Him, are lessons which a child may soon learn,—for they are questions which arise in his own mind, and to which he is impelled to seek an answer by a Prompter within him.

For Christian mothers should not forget that in the infant soul dwells the Divine Spirit, communicated in baptism, and never expelled thence save by voluntary mortal sin.

In the soul of every mother, too, who is in a state of grace, dwells the same Divine Instructor, prompting her to do her duty by her child, and pledged to aid her in her work.

“We’re terribly in danger all the time of taking God’s goodness too much for granted; of bouncing up to Communion as if it were the most natural thing in the world, instead of being a supernatural thing belonging to another world.” – Msgr. Ronald Knox, 1948

Make a statement with this lovely and graceful handcrafted “Madonna and Son” apron….fully lined, lace overlay….made with care. Aprons tell a beautiful story…..a story of love and sacrifice….of baking bread and mopping floors, of planting seeds and household chores. Sadly, many women have tossed the aprons aside and donned their business attire. Wear your apron with joy….it is a symbol of Femininity….”Finer” Femininity! 🌺 💗 Available here.

To the modern mind, the concept of poverty is often confused with destitution. But destitution emphatically is not the Gospel ideal. A love-filled sharing frugality is the message, and Happy Are You Poor explains the meaning of this beatitude lived and taught by Jesus himself. But isn’t simplicity in lifestyle meant only for nuns and priests? Are not all of us to enjoy the goodness and beauties of our magnificent creation? Are parents to be frugal with the children they love so much?

For over half a century, Catholic families have treasured the practical piety and homespun wisdom of Mary Reed Newland’s classic of domestic spirituality, The Year and Our Children. With this new edition, no longer will you have to search for worn, dusty copies to enjoy Newland’s faithful insights, gentle lessons, and delightful stories. They’re all here, and ready to be shared with your family or homeschooling group. Here, too, you’ll find all the prayers, crafts, family activities, litanies, and recipes that will help make your children ever-mindful of the beautiful rhythm of the Church calendar.

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