Category Archives: True Womanhood, A book of Instruction for Women of the World, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, L.D., 1893

The Mother’s Office Toward Childhood ~ Fr. Bernard O’Reilly

25 Wednesday Jan 2023

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

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From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

THE MOTHER’S OFFICE TOWARD CHILDHOOD.

Oh! the joy

Of young ideas, painted upon the mind

In the warm glowing colors fancy spreads

On objects not yet known; when all is new

And all is lovely: he looks around, and lo!

As if returned to Eden bowers, everything

Is very good.

You know the manners of boys, the characteristics of children —that these are innocence, simplicity, purity, truth, and humility. They have no passion they need blush for, no ambition, no care for riches, no anxious solicitudes, neither malice, nor fraud, nor suspicion, nor hatred. . . .

All is pure, so that the very word boy, or puer (in Latin), is derived from purity. O happy state of boys! O golden age of children! Add intelligence, and what will be wanting to make them angels? For in both are the same beauty, the same countenance, the same native joyousness.

O how often, when I see them passing by, do I wish that they might grow in intelligence and not in stature! Truly it would be good for them to continue thus until Christ shall come.—St. Thomas Villanova

Assuredly if Christian mothers make it the chief purpose of their life to be supernatural in their own interior, and in all their motives, actions, and methods,—they will only have to labor with the divine assistance, “to add intelligence” to all the treasures of mind and heart bestowed upon their babes by nature, increased and hallowed in such a wondrous way by Baptism,—and nothing “will be wanting to make them angels.”

Nay, if they cultivate in them the “gifts of the Holy Ghost,” bestowed in an inferior degree in Baptism and in their fullness in Confirmation, they will grow in that understanding which is all divine in its objects and the light it pours on all things, without ceasing to grow ” in stature.”

Such mothers, by the careful and loving culture of the pure souls confided to them, will omit nothing that is “wanting to make them angels ;” and as the result of such training many will continue angels “,until Christ shall come.”

We have some of these angelic men and women before our mind’s eye now, watched over in childhood, as if they were incarnate spirits entrusted to the mother’s care, to be trained in all the perfection of manhood and womanhood while preserving all the glorious characteristics of their angel-nature.

They grew up in the spiritual beauty and spotless innocence of their baptism, unfolding in mind and heart these priceless “gifts” of the Holy Spirit, just as they developed all the exterior graces and loveliness of their human character; and so they continued till Christ came to summon them away,—all too early, the world thought,— from the society which so much needed the light of their examples.

Once more, let us see in the baptized babe of the Christian mother what God sees in it: let the same sublime conception of the child’s position and destinies which is in the Divine Mind be also in the mind of the parent.

Just as a savage, ignorant of the value of gems or the precious metals, will prefer brilliant-colored glass beads to the diamonds of Brazil, the emeralds of New Grenada, or the pearls of Coromandel, even so will it be with the mother who forgets or ignores what is the divine destiny of her babe, what price Christ has paid on the cross to lift it up to His own level, and what capacities are in that young soul for the most godlike virtues and goodness.

In the child brought back from the baptismal font to the mother’s arms, there is the human being with the fallen nature inherited from Adam, but redeemed. and restored in Christ, and there is also the godlike being created anew in baptism in the likeness of its Divine Parent.

In spite of the sacrament of the second birth and the grace of elevation with all its attendant gifts and aids,—there remains in the child the wound left by the primeval transgression: our inclinations are downward, and they have to be resisted, to be overcome, mortified and deadened, if we would rise to the glorious heights of Christian heroism and godliness, which belong to the angelic and heavenly nature we have put on in Christ.

Thus, the mother has to watch over the manifestation of the evil dispositions which early peep out in the child, and tend to drag it down, because they are the inclinations of flesh and blood, and are of earth, earthly.

These have to be combated, counteracted, immediately and unceasingly, from their first appearance in infancy and childhood, if the mother would not see them shoot up in boyhood and girlhood, overtopping and choking the growth of every supernatural, or even natural, virtue.

It would be a fatal neglect,—one, in all likelihood, irreparable,—to allow the babe to have its own way in everything. Wise mothers are careful to check the temper of their youngest infants, and they do succeed in making them acquire even then habits which ever after grow with their growth.

Even pagans looked upon the soul of the child as a something so mysterious, so deep, and so holy,—as if a divine being tenanted the little helpless body,—that they would have their babes treated with infinite reverence.

We Christians know clearly what mighty spirit dwells within that regenerated soul; and we may divine somewhat of the workings and promptings of the Paraclete in His living tabernacle.

Who of us, who has roamed in boyhood or early manhood through the solitudes of our great virgin forests, but has come unexpectedly upon a lovely little lake,—the parent spring of some lordly river,—nestling in a secluded valley, with the great trees along its margin sending their roots down to drink of the pure waters, that margin itself fringed all around with wild flowers,—while the calm mirror-like bosom reflected the blue skies above, with their white or golden clouds, and the mighty hills which stood sentinels around to protect from intrusion or profanation all the sanctities of the place?

It is not a mere reflection of the heavens, or an image of the eternal hills that the attentive and wondering mind can see within the pure passionless depths of the soul of infancy or childhood. We know that the God of that great temple we call the universe, the Spirit Creator and Sanctifier, is there Himself in person.

What is the nature of his working within these mysterious depths of the child-soul? What foundations of mighty things to come is His hand laying beneath the untroubled surface of that life in its well-spring?

Mothers,—the educated, the wealthy, the God-fearing,—would do wisely to ask themselves such questions as these, —when they gaze into the upturned face of their babe, and look down into these deep and fearless eyes, through which a glimpse is had of the mysterious infant world of thought and feeling within.

“Children in their tabernacle know the secrets, not of cities, not of human society, not of history, but of God—their fair eyes are full of infinite sweetness—their little hands, joyous and blessed, have not committed evil—their young feet have never touched our defilement—their sacred heads wear an aureole of light—their smile, their voice, proclaim their twofold purity.

O the paradisaical ignorance, coveted, perhaps, by angels, of all the errors which heresy has sown in later times What cruelty to intercept the view of children by suffering their feet to get entangled in such briers, and their minds to be thus cankered, as is the bud bit with an envious worm, ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, or dedicate his beauty to the sun!

Later they will not thank you; far happier had it sufficed them to have known good by itself, and evil not at all! As terns and other birds from arctic solitudes, when found flapping their long, silver, tapering wings over our rivers that wind. through woodlands and rich yellow meadows, show no fear of man, but keep close hovering over the clowns who with stones and staves assail them, so these innocent souls, coming first amid the crowded haunts of life, are ignorant of evil, and of all dangers unsuspicious.”

It should be our principal business to conquer ourselves and, from day to day, to go on increasing in strength and perfection. Above all, however, it is necessary for us to strive to conquer our little temptations, such as fits of anger, suspicions, jealousies, envy, deceitfulness, vanity, attachments, and evil thoughts. For in this way we shall acquire strength to subdue greater ones. – Saint Francis de Sales

At the end of the day, you need to first and foremost be patient with yourself….look back on the day and see the energy you DID EXPEND for your family….

Our granddaughter, Agnes, who is 8 years old, has started her own little business! It is called “Agnes’ Clayspirations”. She is very good at what she does and, so far, has given her creations away for gifts to all the ladies in the family. We are impressed! Here is her first Clayspiration that she put on our shop. She will be doing more when she finds time. She’s a busy little lady looking after Esther and doing school! 😉

Available here.

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The first of Ronald Knox’s three “Slow Motion” collections, The Mass in Slow Motion comprises fourteen sermons preached during World War II to the students of the Assumption Sisters at Aldenham Park. Modest yet arresting in style, Knox explains the Mass from the opening psalm to the solemn words of conclusion: Ite missa est. While the liturgy Knox contemplates is that of the Tridentine Rite, the abundant fruits of his contemplation can be easily translated to the Ordinary Form of the present day. Indeed, their primary impetus is the powerful portrayal of the continuous action of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in which formula yields to mystery and man participates in his own salvation.

During the WWII bombing of London, Ronald Knox—a priest, radio personality, detective novelist, scholar, and Catholic convert—found himself the chaplain of a girls’ school where students were being sheltered. When his existing homilies were exhausted, Knox began to write new ones for his students based on the Apostles’ Creed. The homilies were so well-received that they were later published as The Creed in Slow Motion.

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Children to be Taught the Value of Time ~ True Womanhood

10 Thursday Nov 2022

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

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A somber reading for this month of the Holy Souls. One day it will be us who will receive the recompense of our lives. Have we used our time wisely? Do we teach this to our children?

Originally, this passage was for written for girls, because the author was focusing on the idleness of wealthy women. It is a valuable lesson for all. Times have changed…video games and idleness are rampant. All children need to learn the valuable lesson of….TIME.

From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

Children to be Taught the Value of Time

Not less important to the future welfare of your children than anything you can teach them is the priceless value you should accustom them to set upon time.

Mothers,—wealthy mothers, in particular, —cannot weigh too seriously and conscientiously how strictly the just Judge will call them to account for the use of the hours and days and years which are wasted in idleness, even though not misspent in vice and dissipation.

There are some persons who live as though they never had been taught when young that the Great Giver of life and time and hourly opportunities would surely exact of them one day a minute account of the use made of every sun that rose upon them, and of every hour that marks his course.

Mothers such as we suppose our readers to be, cannot plead ignorance of their early knowledge of the sacred obligation of employing – every moment of time to good purpose,—and, surely, they will not allow son or daughter of theirs to be ignorant in so vital a matter.

It is in childhood, and in youth especially, that every day is of priceless value, when, in simplest truth, every precious hour well employed is a seed sown in the furrow and covered over with the fostering earth and blessed of God from on high to bring forth certain increase in due season.

But every day and hour idled away or misspent in doing anything and everything but what one ought to do, is an opportunity thrown away for self-improvement, for progress in all true goodness, or, what is infinitely worse, given to the service of the archenemy of souls and of their Al-mighty Creator.

We beseech women of culture to read and ponder well those lines of a man of the world, and to read them to husband and children,—to their young daughters above all. The timely regrets which their perusal is calculated to awaken may prevent eternal and unavailing regret

“The lost days of my life until to-day,

What were they, could I see them on the street,

Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat

Sown once for food but trodden into clay?

Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?

Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?

Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat

The throats of men in Hell who thirst alway?

I do not see them here; but after death

God knows I know the faces I shall see,

Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.

‘I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?’ ‘

‘And I—and I—thyself ‘ (lo each one saith),

‘And thou thyself to all eternity!’ ” * Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Innocent girls, with their quick woman’s wit and the unerring instinct of pure hearts, will easily seize the poet’s pregnant meaning. Our lost days are dead leaves strewing the street along which we daily travel, lying as they fell and never to bloom or live again.

They are “ears of wheat” given to us to sow for food of life eternal, and which we have not cast into the furrow, but thrown on the highway to be “trodden into clay.”

They are “golden coins ” confided to our husbandry, with which the Giver intended we should purchase eternity, and we have squandered them against His will! But they are ” still to pay.” . . .

And presently, when youth has quickly passed, and old age is before us,—like the dry bed of a river out of which almost the last drop has been drained,—we would fain go back to drink of these sweet waters of our life ;— but they are like ” spilt water” thrown on the burning soil, and cheating the ever-thirsting throats of ” men in hell.”

We must not deceive ourselves: every moment of time is ourself living during that brief space, every hour and day, —is our own soul filling that hour and that day with its deeds of good or ill.

You have heard of the “transit” or passage of a star across the sun’s disk: astronomers watch it with their telescopes, and count by minutes and seconds the apparition of a little black speck on the bright round luminary while it moves rapidly across it to the opposite side to be apparently lost in the unmeasured heavens beyond.

The span of our life,—as compared with eternity, is like that bright broad face of the sun projected on the immensity of space behind it; and the stages of our passage through life are as brief and as rapid as the. transit of yonder planet across the sun.

At every minute and second it is “myself ” who am moving before the eye of the all-seeing and all-remembering God. I enter life like one emerging from the boundless void behind me, and appear moving, moving across the narrow circle of my life during the few fleeting years given me to exist,—and then I pass out of the sight of mortal man into that other limitless eternity beyond.

But brief as is my passage across the narrow sphere allotted to me,—I can merit, while it lasts, to shine forever “from eternity to eternity,” or to disappear forever from that heaven where my glory might have been commensurate in duration with that of the sun’s Creator.

Yes,—to God’s eye,—every moment of my existence here below is “myself passing over the circle of this life of trial,”—it is myself living for God, or forgetting Him, or working against Him, while the resistless motion of the heavens hurry me from my birth to my death, from time to eternity, from the use or abuse of the golden moments and days and hours to the terrible, unavoidable, and most righteous judgment of the eternal God.

When “my time” is past, and that judgment is at hand, I shall look back upon the misspent years,—each year shall be myself, looking my conscience full in the face,

“I am thyself—what hast thou done with me?’

And I—and I! “

And what I have made myself, by actual deadly guilt unrepented of, God will adjudge me to remain unchanged and unchangeable throughout all eternity!

We have known men, born, alas, amid wealth, and nursed in the lap of unlimited indulgence, who, having grown up in vice, without any other god but their animal appetite, and without any apparent sense of responsibility for youth and manhood wasted in eating, drinking, and dreaming,—would say to their own young children as these reproved them for their sloth: “What sin. am I committing? I am doing no one harm!”

Had they passed out of life, as these words were uttered, into the hands of Him who giveth to every one according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices, they would have known what is the terrible and irreparable guilt of a wasted life.

It IS interesting, isn’t it, how, in the last decades, women are made to feel as if they are being “losers”, “nobodys” if they are dedicated to the home..They are not using their talents if they aren’t out working in the world.
Truly, I find that illogical. How many talents does it make to run a pleasant home, raise good children, have a healthy relationship with someone you rub shoulders with night and day? That, in itself, is a full-time job…not to mention if some are homeschooling, seeking out healthy alternatives, helping with their parish life, etc., etc.
No, it takes a brave, committed, responsible, hard-working adult to do what it takes to raise a Godly family in today’s society. -Finer Femininity, Painting by Alfred Rodriguez

Excellent sermon! Lukewarmness is the enemy of fervent souls. ” Being lukewarm is a spiritual disease, where one gradually slips from fervor due to a lessening of effort in prayer and other crucial acts of piety. If he doesn’t correct this, he will prepare himself for mortal sin. The best remedy against lukewarmness is (i) devotion to Blessed Mary, (ii) obey a good spiritual director and (iii) recommit to the duties of ones state of life.”

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The rosary, scapulars, formal prayers and blessings, holy water, incense, altar candles. . . The sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church express the supreme beauty and goodness of Almighty God. The words and language of the blessings are beautiful; the form and art of statues and pictures inspire the best in us. The sacramentals of themselves do not save souls, but they are the means for securing heavenly help for those who use them properly. A sacramental is anything set apart or blessed by the Church to excite good thoughts and to help devotion, and thus secure grace and take away venial sin or the temporal punishment due to sin. This beautiful compendium of Catholic sacramentals contains more than 60,000 words and over 50 full color illustrations that make the time-tested sacramental traditions of the Church – many of which have been forgotten since Vatican II – readily available to every believer.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Published 80 years ago, this Catholic classic focuses on the Christian family and uses as its foundation the1929 encyclical “On Christian Education of Youth” coupled with the “sense of Faith.” Addressing family topics and issues that remain as timely now as they were when the guide was first published, “The Christian Home” succinctly offers sound priestly reminders and advice in six major areas…

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Examples of Fidelity ~ True Womanhood

21 Friday Oct 2022

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

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

In What the Wife’s Fidelity Consists

We have insisted much on the qualities which enable a wife to be, in the fullest sense, the most delightful companion, the most efficient helpmate, the most trusted friend and confidante of her husband.

All this she cannot be, without being at the same time most truly devoted to him in thought and affection,—so that he alone, after God, fills her mind and her heart.

We have touching examples of this inviolable fidelity,— springing, in the first instance, from that single-hearted and absorbing love of a good husband which leaves no thought of any other love being possible; and, in the second, from a wife’s own high principle and fear of God, which keeps her true to the love she pledged, even when its object has become most unworthy, or, possibly, most hateful.

Fidelity Illustrated

In the patriarchal ages before Abraham,—in the age of Noe and those preceding the flood,—there was no question among the families of the blessed line of Seth of admitting a second wife into the family.

That was characteristic of the evil brood of Cain,—his son, Lamech, being mentioned as the first who had departed from the unity of the institution of marriage as it came from the hands of the Creator.

But Seth himself, and every one of the blessed descendants who kept alive on earth the primitive faith in Jehovah and the belief in the promised Redeemer, also maintained in their households the faith they had pledged to the wife of their youth.

Though these men lived five hundred, six hundred, or even nine hundred years and more, their hearts were content with the love, and their lives filled with the fidelity, of that one woman: it was a sacred fire in these august patriarchal homes, burning undimmed century after century on the hearth-stone,—an example, even at this distance of time, deserving of the wonder and veneration of their degenerate descendants.

Rebecca’s Fidelity Prefigures that of the Church

The violation of that unity by Abraham, even at the solicitation of his faithful Sara, was a manifest imperfection in him, who should have known better, and a want of faith and error of judgment in her, who had been brought up among the licentiousness of the Mesopotamian idolatry.

But Abraham’s son and successor, Isaac, and his bride, Rebecca, departed not from the great primitive law. For Isaac, who bore the wood of his sacrifice up the mountainside was the figure of Christ; just like Isaac’s early and only love, Rebecca, brought to him so wondrously from afar,— was the type of the Church.

It is the love of both Rebecca and the Church that forms a model and a rule for every Christian wife.

Judith’s Example

We have nearer to us in the Old Testament history other touching examples of fidelity in wives to the husband of their youth.

Judith the Deliverer, “the Joy of Israel,” the glory and honor of her people, was widowed young, and, though surpassingly beautiful, and most wealthy, she remained true to the memory of her husband, inviolably faithful to the love she had plighted to him.

The sudden inspiration which came to her to offer herself to the admiring eyes of the Assyrian general, was no deviation from the law of fidelity which she had so scrupulously followed till then.

She trusted to God’s angel to keep her honor safe in the Assyrian camp, and, as she afterward declared, he had watched over her coming and going till she had struck the blow which freed her country.

The victory once won, and the national thanksgiving over, she put off her rich robes, resumed her sober widow’s weeds, buried herself once more in the solitude of her own house, and gave up the half-century of life which remained to her to prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, and the cherished worship of her husband’s memory.

Anna the Prophetess

So is it with that remarkable woman whom we meet with in the temple at our Lord’s presentation therein,—Anna the Prophetess. She, too, had been left a widow after seven years of companionship with her husband; and “she was a widow till fourscore and four years; who departed not from the temple, by fasting and prayers, serving night and day.”

She was rewarded by beholding in the flesh the Redeemer promised to Adam and Eve in the garden, and whose glory, like the first fires of sunrise above the eastern hills, patriarchs and prophets had only looked on “from afar.”

She was also privileged to see in the temple the Mother most blessed who was prefigured by Eve as well as by Judith.

These are only landmarks on the glorious pathway of true womanhood, pointing out in the inspired writings the honor paid to fidelity and the reward bestowed on it even in this life.

“It is amazing how, with time, the soul comes to dominate the body. Selfish people get the hard, selfish look. Generous people grow more physically attractive each day. People with the peace of God’s friendship develop expressions that instantly attract and constantly charm. A mouth that speaks kindly becomes a beautiful mouth. Hands that serve generously become characterful hands. Eyes that look out for affection on mankind are eyes that radiate an inner beauty not difficult to find.” -Fr. Daniel A. Lord http://amzn.to/2iCGqfN

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The role of fatherhood — Catholic fatherhood — has been diminished in three ways. First, it has become smaller. Fewer things are defined as a father’s distinctive work. Secondly, fatherhood has been devalued. Third, and most important, fatherhood has been decultured – stripped of any authoritative social content or definition.

The question is, “What do fathers do?” The tragedy of our society is that it can’t answer the question and neither can most Catholics. Forward – thinking Integrity Magazine gives answers:

• Men, Mary, and Manliness
• The Family Has Lost Its Head
• Economics of the Catholic Family
• Afraid to Marry?
• Glorifying the Daily Grind
• The Heroism of the Big Family
• Bringing the Church into Work
• Forward to the Land.
• Holiness for Men
• The Confirmed Hero
• What Is a Grown-up?
• The Father in the Home
• A Man’s Work
• Our Work Can Help Us to Pray
• Money, Money, Money!
• The State, Our Common Good

Archbishop Sheen knew that no matter what our circumstances may be, the deadliest enemy we face is armed not with a gun but with temptation. In dangerous, uncertain times like ours, the Devil lures us quickly into lust, anger, hatred, and despair. Fulton Sheens Wartime Prayer Book will help keep you from these vices so that you, too, can put on the armor of God and triumph over evil in our day.

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The Wife’s Crowning Duty ~ Fidelity

06 Thursday Oct 2022

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

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

The home is the nursery of the nation, and the deep and sacred love that binds into one existence the hearts and lives of husband and wife, is the soul of the home life. Everything which tends to lessen, to divide, to sully that sacred union of hearts, strikes at the very life of the family and aims at upsetting the foundations of the moral world.

The sacred virtue, the immaculate honor of every family, is inseparable from the purity and perpetuity of the love pledged to each other by both parents; more especially, in universal estimation, is the family honor dependent on the inviolable fidelity of the mother toward him to whom she gave her early love.

Hence the deep significance of the prayer of the church in the solemn ceremony of marriage. She who had proposed to the imitation of all wives the undivided and unalterable love which she ever bears to Christ, her Spouse,—who gives them in her inviolable and eternal fidelity to him, to his honor and interests, the model of the true woman’s unwavering, sustained, and devoted fidelity to her husband,—makes of this notion the central point in her magnificent marriage ritual.

Throughout all ages known to history, the most refined peoples have looked upon the ring as the symbol of eternity —as the proper emblem, therefore, of the union of souls underlying the matrimonial contract.

The Ring: Symbolic of Eternal Fidelity

When the Church has witnessed and sanctioned by her blessing the mutual and solemn pledge given by bride and bridegroom, she proceeds to bless a ring, which is given to the bride as a symbol and seal of the union into which she has entered, and of the enduring fidelity with which she is to feed the sacred fire of mutual affection and to watch over the honor of her hearth-stone.

“Bless, O Lord, this ring,” such is the prayer, “which we bless in thy name, in order that she who wears it, by preserving unbroken fidelity to her husband, may continue in peace and the accomplishment of thy will, and also ever live in mutual charity.”

Where the beautiful ceremonial is carried out in its intended fullness, the nuptial benediction is followed by the offering of the adorable sacrifice. Christ comes down on the altar, who so loved the Church, his Bride, that he ” delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

There, at that altar and in that presence, kneel the two for whom the Savior God comes down, his hands filled with blessing for these his children beginning life together, and his heart overflowing with untold treasures of grace,— so needful to them on their pathway of pain and labor.

But there is more than this; the Church breaks in on the most solemn portion of the liturgy,—that between the consecration and communion,—to pronounce a further blessing on the bride.

Turning toward the newly-married, the priest, as if his hands were laden with the blessings brought from on high, and his lips touched with the hallowed fire to prophesy good things to the suppliants prostrate there, thus prays:

“0 God, who by thy might didst create all things out of nothingness; who, having ordered the first stages of this universe, and made man to the image of God, didst make man’s substance the principle of woman’s being, that she should thus be his inseparable companion, teaching us thereby that a union originating in such unity may never be broken without crime;

O God, who didst hallow this conjugal union by so surpassing a grace as to make the primitive nuptial alliance the prophetic figure of the mysterious union of Christ with the Church;

God, by whom woman is thus united to man, and the primordial society thus formed is endowed with a blessing which alone survived the punishment of original sin and the judgment executed through the deluge;

look down propitiously on this thy handmaiden, who, about to begin her companionship with her husband, beseeches Thee to grant her Thy protection: in her may the yoke of love and peace ever abide;

faithful and chaste, may she wed in Christ, and be evermore the imitator of holy women: may she prove lovely to her husband, like Rachel; wise, like Rebecca; long-lived and faithful, like Sara;

may the fell Author of (Eve’s) prevarication find no trace in her of the actions which he counsels; may she be immovably attached to thy faith and law: the spouse of one man, may no other love ever touch her;

may she school and shield her own weakness by home-discipline: may she be modest and dignified, chaste and venerable, enlightened by wisdom from on high; . . . may she win approval by her stainless life, and thus attain to the rest of the blessed and the heavenly kingdom.” * * The Roman Missal in the ” Nuptial Mass.”

“It is amazing how, with time, the soul comes to dominate the body. Selfish people get the hard, selfish look. Generous people grow more physically attractive each day. People with the peace of God’s friendship develop expressions that instantly attract and constantly charm. A mouth that speaks kindly becomes a beautiful mouth. Hands that serve generously become characterful hands. Eyes that look out for affection on mankind are eyes that radiate an inner beauty not difficult to find.” -Fr. Daniel A. Lord

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“Heartlessness” ~ The Effect of a Wrong Education

17 Friday Jun 2022

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

≈ 1 Comment

Painting by Henry John Yeend King ~ (English: 1855-1924)

From True Womanhood by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly

There is no such thing as natural heartlessness. Cold as certain grown-up women, as well as men, seem to be by nature,—we may be certain that neither nature nor its Author is to blame for this lack of genial warmth and affection.

No child is born without the disposition to love and the power of loving warmly: this may be not so apparent at the surface in some children as in others, or exist in the same degree of energy; or, again, this coldness in some may be only such as contrasted with the passionate and impulsive fervor of others.

But let mothers rest assured that the heart is there, with its natural and essential powers of returning love for love, and of practicing, not only the virtue of supernatural charity so indispensable to the sanctity and salvation of the adult Christian, but all the other charities of private and public life, with the many virtues which never fail to adorn the soul in which true charity reigns.

Indeed were it possible (which is not so) that any human being could be born without natural affection, the Creator Spirit, coming into the soul in baptism, would most surely repair the defect.

But comparatively feeble (and we use this expression most reluctantly) as the power of loving maybe supposed to be, — it is there in the soul for the mother’s tender hand and fostering charity to nurse into fullness of life, into perfect bloom and fruitful maturity. And God’s abundant and unfailing help is secured to the mother in this training of her child’s heart.

But the real heartlessness which shows itself so offensively in the girl and in the woman is, you may be sure of it, the result of neglect in the parent, or of a training in every way vicious. For this heartlessness is but undisguised selfishness obtruding itself upon us in all its own repulsive deformity.

The mother’s eye had failed to detect this weed in her child’s soul, or allowed it to grow up during infancy and girlhood, under the delusive hope that the good qualities in her girl’s nature would choke out the bad when she grew up to womanhood. But it is the contrary which happens, unless God should interfere and perform a miracle in favor of the neglected or petted child.

Selfishness is pretty sure, when continually ministered to and nursed by all around it, to absorb and draw to itself all the vital energies of the soul.

In the tropical forests,—in the West Indies particularly, there is a formidable species of parasite creeper whose power becomes fatal to the mightiest trees in the forest. It first shows itself like a little green plant on a sturdy branch of the forest tree, or a hole in the trunk, whence it sends down thread-like feelers to the ground.

There they take root and reascend along the trunk, increasing in number and size, till not one feature of the parent-tree is visible. The whole is now enclosed in a network of serpentine forms so firm, so robust, and so vigorous, that the tiny plant has become a giant, strangling in its embrace the generous trunk which fed and supported it, and hanging high in mid-air, above the topmost branches of its dead benefactor, its brilliant clusters of flowers.

Thus does selfishness prosper and flourish!

The wise wife recognizes her need of God. Frequently she tells Him of her insufficiency. To inspire her husband, to be patient, to be unselfish and loyal, to be the dozen and one other wonderful things a desirable wife must be –all this postulates the presence of God always at her side. – The Wife Desired, Fr. Leo Kinsella

Where I discuss the dynamics of Catholic family life that helped them to form their children into God-fearing, joyful Catholics.

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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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A True Woman Has Charity – The Leprous Infant

08 Wednesday Jun 2022

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

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From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

Is not this the significance of a most beautiful legend from the life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary?

Her mother-in-law, Sophia, was, at the time of the occurrence about to be related, bitterly prejudiced against the saintly wife. She neither shared nor approved Elizabeth’s charities and merciful ministrations. In her son, however, she found no sympathy. Yet one account shows how even his kind heart was overtasked.

One day a child afflicted with leprosy was brought to the hospital in the Wartburg; but his state was in the institution would neither touch him nor admit him.

Elizabeth, coming at her usual hour, no sooner beheld the little sufferer lying helpless and forsaken at the gate, than she took him up in her arms, carried him to the castle, and placed him in her own bed.

Sophia, indignant, flew to the landgrave. “My son,” she burst forth, “come with me instantly, and see with whom your wife shares your bed;” and she led him to his chamber, relating in exaggerated language the extraordinary occurrence that seemed to crown all the mad acts of his wife’s charity.

The landgrave, though he said not one word, could scarcely conceal his irritation and loathing. He snatched the coverlet from the bed, and lo! instead of the leper, there lay an infant, surrounded with a halo of light, and bearing the features of the new-born babe of Bethlehem!

This example is, however, more admirable than imitable. It is a rare thing to have to perform heroic acts of any virtue,—even that of charity. Where a miracle occurs, as here, Providence means to inculcate a lesson.

The teaching, to the Catholic mind, is a plain one: it is only the repetition, under a different form, of the Master’s doctrine, that He is represented by the persons of the poor and the suffering.

So, with this conviction firmly seated in the soul of the Christian mistress of a household, it will be easy for her to see with what reverence and generosity she must treat the poor. We say “reverence.” For if her womanly heart has schooled itself to behold Christ present in every one of the needy who come to her door, she will not have to be reminded to show to all, without exception, kindness.

Kindness is something far beneath reverence; yet let us insist upon the absolute necessity of  kind looks and kind words. No one better than a woman knows how far kindness goes, or how much and how long a kind word or a look of tender sympathy will be treasured up by those on whom they are bestowed.

If you have nothing else to give,—if your purse is empty, and your bread has failed,-— open the spring of kindness in your heart and let it pour out on the hearts of the poor sweet words of compassion, often more needed and more rarely bestowed than food on the famishing or cold water on the faint and weary.

Follow the rule of the great St. Francis, therefore: Be invariably and unfailingly kind to the poor. And this precious quality in the temper and bearing of man or woman can only be secured by the habitual practice of that “reverence” just mentioned.

It is more needful than ever that in every Catholic home mothers should cultivate that ancient respect for husband and children which was inspired by a lively faith, and made every member of the Christian community view in his fellow-Christians the children of God, the person of Christ himself.

This feeling inspired the father of the great Origen,—a father found soon afterward worthy to die the death of the martyrs,— with a reverence for his infant son so deep and so sincere, that he was wont as he passed his cradle to uncover the child’s breast and to kiss it, kneeling,—knowing, as he said, that the babe was the living temple of the Holy Ghost.

Surely Catholic fathers and mothers ought to find an exquisite pleasure in such elevating thoughts and sentiments as this; surely they should so consider each other and respect each other as if they too were chosen vessels, vessels of grace, bearing about in their bosoms the Creator Spirit; and most surely ought it to be the mother’s chief delight to reverence in every child of hers a something far more holy, more precious than the chalice used in the Holy Sacrifice, or the sacred vessel shut up in the Tabernacle and enclosing Christ’s divinest gift to our souls.

Can we school and accustom ourselves so to reverence the poor as to see in them the Person of Him who is represented as evermore standing in the night, wet by the dew or the rainstorm, at the door of every one of us, and gently knocking for admission to the light and warmth of our fireside?

This said, it is not our design to say either to the wealthy or to the needy housewife what measure she is to follow in relieving the wants of the poor. Let our spirit be the royal spirit of the ancient Catholic charity of our fathers.

To the rich let this suffice. “A modern author relates that a merchant in Spain once said to him: A rich Spanish tradesman would laugh at you if you talked to him of keeping his carriage; ~but ask him for alms, and he will think nothing of giving you a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand dollars”.

The early verbalizing, the magic and romantic lyricism of love letters, and long, late-night telephone conversations — all of these are left behind. Even the constant repetition of the words of love finds husband and wife admitting to each other that words do not express what they wish them to express. Thus, verbal symbols give way to a thousand variations of concrete symbols: a surprise gift, a note on the refrigerator, an evening planned totally for the other — always designed to unlock in the other that secret closet of joy. In creating their masterpiece, truly “their life’s work”, husband and wife each look to the other’s needs. -Father of the Family, Clayton Barbeau https://amzn.to/2tnTeJO (afflink)

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Seriously wounded at the siege of Pamplona in 1521, Don Inigo de Loyola learned that to be a Knight of God was an infinitely greater honor (and infinitely more dangerous) than to be a Knight in the forces of the Emperor. Uli von der Flue, humorous, intelligent and courageous Swiss mercenary, was responsible for the canon shot which incapacitated the worldly and ambitious young nobleman, and Uli became deeply involved in Loyola’s life. With Juanita, disguised as the boy Juan, Uli followed Loyola on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to protect him, but it was the saint who protected Uli and Juan. Through Uli’s eyes we see the surge and violence of the turbulent period in Jerusalem, Spain and Rome.

Louis de Wohl has again created an exciting and spiritually inspiring novel for all readers of historical fiction.

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True Womanhood ~ Supernatural Atmosphere of the Home

16 Monday May 2022

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

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Painting by Loren Entz

With inspiring and beautiful words, Rev. O’Reilly compares the role of womanhood in the home to the fire and warmth of the sun, which, were its light to go out, all would wither and die.

He talks about the how the “springs of true joy” will flourish in our homes if we have certain virtues flourishing within its four walls. In this short piece he talks about the first and most important virtue, faith.

From True Womanhood

The most learned men of modern times agree in saying, that the sun’s light and warmth are, in the order established by the Creator, the sources of all vegetable and animal life on the surface of our globe.

They regulate the succession of seasons, the growth of all the wonderful varieties of tree and shrub and flower and grass that make of the surface of the earth an image of Paradise.

They give health and vigor to the myriads of animals of every kind that live in the air or in the waters or on the dry land, and to which, in turn, the vegetable world furnishes food and sustenance.

The very motion given to the rain in falling, to the rivers in their course, to the oceans and their currents, comes from that sun-force, as well as the clouds which sail above our heads in the firmament and the lovely colors which paint them.

Nay, there is not a single beauty in the million-million shades which embellish the flowers of grove or garden or field, or clothe, at dawn or noontide or sunset, the face of earth and heaven, which is not a creation of glorious light, the visible image of His divine countenance in whom is the source of all splendor and life and beauty.

Even so, O Woman, within that world which is your home and kingdom, your face is to light up and brighten and beautify all things, and your heart is to be the source of that vital fire and strength without which the father can be no true father, the brother no true brother, the sister no true sister, since all have to learn from you how to love, how to labor lovingly, how to be forgetful of self, and mindful only of the welfare of others.

The natural affection by which the Creator of our souls draws to each other husband and wife, and which, in turn, they pour out on their children and receive back from these in filial regard and reverence, is the very source of domestic happiness.

We cannot estimate too highly this holy mutual love which knits together the hearts of parents and children.

It is as necessary to the peace, the comfort, the prosperity, and the bliss of every home, as the dew and the rain and the streams of running water are necessary to the husbandman for the fertility of the land he cultivates and the growth of the harvest on which depend both his subsistence and his wealth.

Let the dew and rain of heaven cease to fall on the fairest valley, let the springs of living water be dried up all over its bosom, and the rivers which brighten and fertilize it cease to flow but for a few seasons, and it will be like the vale of death, forsaken of every living thing.

Do you wish, O reader, to learn how the springs of true life, of true love and joy, may flow, unfailing and eternal, within the little paradise of your home?

Then weigh well the words of the great Martyr-Pope placed at the head of this chapter:
“Who is not struck with beholding your lively faith; your piety full of sweetness and modesty; your generous hospitality; the holiness which reigns within your families; the serenity and innocence of your conversation?” ST. CLEMENT, Pope and Martyr.

These point out the virtues and qualities which should adorn every household in which Christ is worshiped : a lively faith, a piety full of sweetness and modesty, a generous hospitality; holiness of life, serenity and innocence of conversation.

Let us examine together how much there is in every one of these.

We need not send to a great distance for one of those men famed for their skill in discovering hidden and plentiful springs of water beneath the surface of the ground.

Their mysterious knowledge and the use of their magic wand are useless here. For, here we have seven pure and exhaust-less wells of living water, created for our home by the Maker of all things, and placed ready to our hand for every need.

And, first of all, is a lively faith. We Christians are given that eye of the soul which enables us to see the invisible world, as if the veil which hides it were withdrawn. God becomes to us an ever-present, most sweet and most comforting reality.

The great patriarch, Abraham, was bidden, in his long exile, and as a sure means of bearing up against his manifold trials, to walk before God, that is, to have God ever present before the eye of his soul.

This sense of the Divine Majesty as a vision always accompanying us in our every occupation, in labor as well as repose just as the pillar of cloud went with the Israelites in their journeying toward the Promised Land gives wonderful light to us in our darkness and difficulties, cheers us marvelously in distress and adversity, lightens the hardest labor and the most intolerable burden, imparts a divine strength in the hour of temptation…

For, what can we not undertake and accomplish, what enemy can we not resist and put to flight, when we feel that His eye is on us, that we have him there face to face, that His arm is ever stretched out to support and to shield us, and that all the love of His fatherly heart sweetens the bitterness of our struggle, and rewards our generosity in overcoming all for his sake?

Joseph and Mary at Nazareth were privileged above all human beings to behold that Wisdom which created the world living and laboring daily beneath their humble roof, and growing up into the successive perfection of holy infancy, boyhood, and manhood, while concealing his quality from the surrounding multitude, and revealing only to a few like themselves his Godhead and his mission.

It is certain, that he practiced all the virtues and fulfilled all the duties of his age and station in the way best fitted to glorify his Father : he was enlightening the world, sanctifying himself, and marking out the path of life as truly for every one of us, during these long and obscure years of his abode in Nazareth, as when his teaching and his miracles drew around him all Galilee and Judea.

And what an eloquent lesson was there, exemplifying that “life of faith,” without which the existence of the Christian man or woman is barren of all supernatural merit!

Christ, in the helpless years of his infancy and boyhood, when his life was one of entire dependence and submission, glorified and pleased his Father by solely seeking his good will and pleasure in obeying those appointed his earthly parents, and in accomplishing the obscure duties of his age.

This lesson Mary and Joseph were not slow to learn and to practice. They read in the rapt charity with which their worshiped Charge offered to the Divine Majesty every day and hour and moment of these golden years of humility and toil, this all-important law of life for the children of God: ‘ That the value of what we do does not depend on the greatness or publicity of the work accomplished ; but on the spirit of love toward the Father with which it is undertaken and carried out ; and that the pure purpose and offering of the heart is what God prizes above all else.

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“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)

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sermon recommendation

Excellent Sermon! We need to trust God as little children trust their parents….

 

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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

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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!

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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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A Companion to Her Husband – True Womanhood, 1877

08 Tuesday Feb 2022

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

≈ 1 Comment

The more we read this kind of inspiration, the more it sinks in just how much power we have in the home….and how much we must pray to have a right spirit within those four walls.

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

ANGELS GUARD THE CATHOLIC HOME

It is for every father, who is by the divine law of nature, king in his own family, to consider well the truth here presented to him, and to conceive of his own little kingdom the pure and lofty notion, which is that of the divine mind as well as the mind of the Church.

When a father, though never so poor, firmly believes that his little home and his hearth-stone are a thing so precious and so holy that God will have “His angel keep, cherish, protect, visit, and defend it, and all who dwell therein,” he, too, will lift up his eyes and his heart to that Father over all and most loving Master, and exhort himself daily and hourly to walk before Him and be perfect.”

But it is to his companion,—the queen of that little kingdom, the wife,—that it is most necessary to have high and holy thoughts about the sacredness of her charge, the obligations incumbent on her, the incalculable good which she can do, and the many powerful helps toward its accomplishment that the All-Wise and Ever-Present is sure to multiply under her hand.

To every true man and woman now living there is no being on earth looked up to with so pure, so deep, so grateful, so lasting a love, as a mother.

Let us look at our mother, then, in that dear and holy relation of wife which she bears to him who was for us in childhood the representative of the God “of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named.”

WOMAN’S DUTIES AS WIFE

The first duty of the wife is to study to be in every way she can the companion, the help, and the friend of her husband.

Indeed on her capacity to be all this, and her earnest fulfillment of this threefold function depends all the happiness of both .their lives, as well as the well-being of the whole family.

Hence the obligation which is incumbent on parents providing for the establishment of their children, — to see to it, so far as is possible, that the person chosen to be a wife in the new home should be a true companion for their son, a true helpmate in all his toil, and a faithful friend through all the changes of fortune.

SHE OUGHT TO BE A COMPANION TO HER HUSBAND

One half of the unhappiness of married life comes from the fact that the wife is either unfitted or unwilling to be a true companion to her husband. This companionship requires that she should be suited by her qualities of mind and heart and temper to enter into her husband’s thoughts and tastes and amusements, so as to make him find in her company and conversation a perfect contentment and delight.

Persons who are perfectly companionable never weary of each other,—indeed, they are never perfectly happy while away from each other;—they enter into each other’s thoughts, reflect (and increase by the reflection) the light in each other’s mind; cultivate the same tastes, pursue the same ideals, and complete each other in the interchange of original or acquired knowledge.

But there is more than that in the companionship of the true wife. She studies to make herself agreeable, delightful, and even indispensable to him who is her choice among all men.

If true love be in her heart, it will suggest to her, day by day, a thousand new devices for charming the leisure of her husband.

Woman has been endowed by the Creator with a marvelous fertility of resource in this respect: it is an unlimited power, productive of infinite good when used for a holy purpose and within her own kingdom; but productive of infinite evil when employed in opposition to the design of the Giver, or allowed to lie idle when it should be used to promote the sacred ends of domestic felicity.

There are wives who will study certain languages, sciences, arts, or accomplishments, in order to make themselves the companions of the men they love, and thus be able to converse with them on the things they love most, or to charm the hours of home repose by music and song.

The writer of these lines remembers, that, while a young priest in Quebec, upward of thirty years ago, he was much struck by seeing a young lady of one of the best families there, applying herself assiduously to study the sign-language of the deaf-mutes in order to converse easily with her husband—a wealthy young merchant, thoroughly trained himself in the admirable Deaf and Dumb Institution of his native city.

They were devoted to each other, and the young wife’s earnestness in making herself companionable to her husband, must have brought many a blessing on the home in which the writer beheld them so rapt in each other, so virtuous, and so full of bright hope!

It must not be concluded from this, that a woman who applies herself to acquire knowledge for the purpose of being more of a companion to her husband, should thoroughly master either a language, a science, or an art. . . .

In the case of the young wife just mentioned, a thorough familiarity with the language of signs was indispensable as a means of easy conversation with her husband.

But this is evidently an exceptional case;—and is only mentioned to show what difficulties love will overcome to be helpful or agreeable to its companion.

The word helpful, just used, will furnish to every wife the true measure of the knowledge she may be prompted to acquire.

Her husband has to know perfectly whatever he knows, because his success as a professional man or a business man depends on this thorough knowledge, whereas his wife only acquires to please and to help her companion.

But there are other things beside this scientific, literary, or artistic knowledge, which may be more needful to a wife, if she would make herself of all earthly beings the most delightful and necessary companion to her husband.

She must study him,—his needs, his moods, his weak as well as his strong points,—and know how to make him forget himself when he is moody and selfish, and bring out every joyous side of his nature when he is prone to sadness.

God, who has made the soul both of man and of woman, and who has united them in the duties and burdens of home-life, wills that they should complete each other.

Man has bodily strength, because it is his duty to labor for the home and protect it; he has also certain mental and moral qualities which woman does not need, and which fit him for the battle of life and his continual struggle with the crowd.

But she has, on her part, far more of fortitude, of that power to bear and to forbear, to suffer silently and uncomplainingly herself while ministering with aching heart and head to the comfort, the cheerfulness, the happiness of all around her.

At any rate, she has by nature the power, the art, and the disposition to please, to soothe, to charm, and to captivate.

It is a wonderful power; and we see daily women exerting it in an evil way and for purposes that God cannot bless, and that every right conscience must condemn.

Why will not women who are truly good, or who sincerely strive to be so, not make it the chief study of their lives to find out and acquire the sovereign art of making their influence as healthful, as cheering, as blissful as the sunlight and the warmth are to their homes?

Let us give an example of what is meant here—and this illustration will suggest, of itself, many other applications.

We all know—a mother more than anyone else—what a potent spell praise is in making children master whatever they are learning, and, what is far more difficult, acquire a mastery over themselves, both in repressing wrong inclinations and in gaining the habits of the noblest virtues.

A word of praise from a mother will stir the heart of every well-born child—and few children are ill-born, that is, with radically bad dispositions—to the most extraordinary exertions, and fill the whole soul with delight, when that word is sweetly spoken of successful efforts made.

We say nothing here of the stimulus which praise from the queen of the home gives to the zeal and conscientious labors of servants. We are concerned with the master of the home. Do you  not know that all men, even old men, even the proudest and coldest men, are only great children, who thirst for praise from a wife, a mother, or a sister’s lips?

There are men —and they are the noblest, the most high-souled—who care but little, if anything, for the praise or censure of the crowd, even of the learned or titled crowd; but their heart is stirred through all its depths by one sweet word from the lips of mother, sister, or wife.

Why, O women, are you so niggard of a money which you can bestow without making yourselves the poorer, and which your dear ones prize above gold and gems?

Give generously, but discerningly, what is held so dear as coming from you, and which will only encourage those you love above all the world to strive tomorrow for still higher excellence, and look forward to still sweeter praise.

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“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

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Octmystery of the rosary

The Agony in the Garden

Suffering did not come upon Christ unawares. In a very real sense, it had been on God’s mind from all eternity. The Virgin Mary had conceived a Victim. John held him as the meek Lamb of God, destined for slaughter.

Jesus himself spoke often of His death; invited others to do what He was about to do – “take up the Cross”; then deliberately went up to Jerusalem to his earthly doom.

But when that long-awaited suffering was only a sunrise away, Jesus Christ fell upon His face and bled at the thought of pain and asked that, if it were possible, the chalice be withheld.

To tremble at pain is Christlike. Suffering is not a good thing that merely appears evil. It is an evil, which human nature shrinks from – and Grace can sanctify.

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NEW ITEMS at Meadows of Grace!

Handcrafted Graceful Religious Cabochon Pendants!

This graceful necklace can be worn every day as a reminder of your devotion to the Blessed Mother. Get it blessed and you can use it also as a sacramental. Available here.

February ~ Printable Traditional Catholic Daily Planner ~ Meal Menu/Homeschool Page ~ Daily Gratitude/Spiritual Checklist/Daily Goals!

This can be used each year for the month of February.

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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Cultivate the Sense of Duty in Your Children

02 Wednesday Feb 2022

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

≈ 1 Comment

Painting by Sandra Rast

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

The best preservative against dangerous ambition in your children, is found in the supernatural notions and virtues which a Christian mother is careful to inculcate from the earliest dawn of reason in her children.

We insist once more upon it—the royal and rich poverty of Christ, of his Mother, and of his foster-father Joseph, must be made the theme of constant remark and praise in the homes of tradesmen and laboring men.

And, next to that, the mother must fill the souls of her little ones with that scorn and loathing of all dishonesty and untruthfulness, which will, with the ever-present aid of grace, render them incapable of telling a lie or wronging any person, no matter how slight.

CHILDREN TO BE TAUGHT SIMPLICITY IN DRESS AND SOBRIETY IN FOOD

A venerable lady, who died in November, 1870, in her seventy-second year, and who came of the best blood of England, wrote thus, in her last years, of her early training: “The dress of these days (about 1806) was very different to that which children have now. My white frocks were of lawn or Irish cloth, without any work or ornament; and when I went out, I used to wear a little green-baize coat. My food was also of the simplest kind, consisting principally of buttermilk and potatoes.”

The girlhood trained in these habits of simplicity and wholesome austerity led to a lovely womanhood, to a life of spotless devotion to duty, and to the exercise of these private graces and influences which enable a woman, ever living in the privacy of her home, to win the admiration, the respect, and the veneration of all who approach her.

We quote her words and her example to show how women were brought up in the days of our fathers, and how little difference, even in Protestant homes, the deep-seated Christian customs of so many preceding centuries allowed to prevail in the dress, the food, and all the external training of children in all classes.

Mothers in those days, who wished to do their duty conscientiously by their children, did not dream of having for them in the beginning any teachers but themselves. So was it with this lady’s mother; although prostrated by paralysis and consumption, she would daily teach her little girl.

“She taught me in all my lessons except French, but her weak health and bad headaches often prevented her hearing me, and many a time I had to stand outside her door waiting till I could be heard, which fretted me a good deal.

When the lessons went ill, I was sentenced to sit on the staircase till I was good, and the task perfect. I imagine that though my mother was most gentle, she was firm in her management of me.”

Some lady-friend having ” suggested my doing something because it would be pleasant”, my mother appealed to me, “I think my little girl has a better motive for it. What is it, Mia?” and “Because it is right,” was my reply.

The answer given by the child shows how early philosophers call “the moral sense” is developed in a child, in little girls especially, whose intelligence is so much more precocious than that of boys, and whose sense of right and wrong is much quicker and keener.

The sick, —hopelessly sick and infirm mother, here mentioned, while cultivating her child’s memory and understanding by teaching her the usual elementary branches, was careful to form her judgment by making her in all things act for a purpose, and to develop her moral sense by giving her in all she did the notion of duty, as her stimulant in doing both pleasant and unpleasant things.

THE MORAL SENSE IS BUT THE SENSE OF DUTY

 Duty is the fulfilling of an obligation toward one’s self, or toward another in compliance with His will, who being Creator and Lord has a right to bind our wills to do certain things and to refrain from others. Duty is always toward God, even when the immediate object of the action performed is only one’s self, or one’s neighbor.

The very duty of cultivating mind and heart, which regards every intelligent being, is a duty imposed by the Divine Will; so is the obligation to keep one’s soul and body free from every defilement. We own it to be a duty to learn, to know clearly and fully what concerns our condition, our profession, or the office we may hold in Church or State, and a corresponding duty to live up to this indispensable knowledge.

But Christian philosophy teaches us that in acquiring this knowledge, and in acting up to it. we are only doing what is due to Him who has an essential right to every thought and aim and act of ours.

Uprightness is the perfect performance of duty;—and uprightness, in its Christian and supernatural meaning, is the perfect discharge of duty in view of Him who is our Lord and Judge and final Beatitude. The firm look of the soul, in every act of duty or in the gratuitous generosity with which the sons of God go beyond what is of obligation —is upward to God.

CULTIVATE THIS SENSE OF DUTY in all your children. Make them understand that they are to do certain things most unpleasant, and to abstain from other things most pleasant, because it is right to do so; because it is their duty, because this is due to their great and good God.

Experience has taught that of all characters, in men as well as in women, the most trustworthy, the most honored, the most noble in the estimation of mankind, is the man or woman who always acts according to this sense of duty, and whom no love, no fear, no passion, or temptation can turn aside to do wrong,—that is, what is contrary to duty and conscience.

 If mothers will only accustom their children to act, not according to their inclinations, but in obedience to this sense of duty, pointing out what is right to do and what is wrong not to do,—they will buckle round them a suit of armor which will enable them to come victorious out of the terrible battle of temptation.

 And never was this noble sense of duty more needed than in our day,—when men think little of right or wrong, and a good deal of the surest and quickest road to success ;—and when, in the estimation of our public, success once attained makes the wrong right, while failure makes right itself wrong, and the sacrifice to duty foolish sentimentality.

True happiness hides from us whenever we go after it out of egoism or devotion to our own personal convenience. But it comes running to meet us whenever we put self aside and, embracing what is noble, devote ourselves to duty, virtue, the good of our neighbor, God. – Achieving Peace of Heart, Fr. Narcis Irala https://amzn.to/2P5MiLh (afflink)

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The month of February is traditionally dedicated to the Most Holy Family.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give You my heart and my soul.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist me in my last agony.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, may I breathe out my soul in peace with You.

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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.

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Taken mostly from the letters of the saint, this masterful work gives us the consolation he offered to parents on the deaths of their sons, to a lady on the death of her father, a wife on the death of her husband, and others mourning their loved ones. Throughout he gives reason to hope, and explains how much the thought of Heaven should console us, and how agreeable it will be to parents and friends to meet again and converse together in Heaven. (Click on image for more info.)

This treasure of spirituality beautifully explains God’s love for the sinner, how great His joy is upon the return of just one lost sheep, and how God’s mercy extends even towards the damned. St. Francis encourages us to conform ourselves to God’s will, and teaches us to abandon ourselves to the Lord who so desires our hearts.

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