Let Your Love Show with Kindness in Family Life – Fr. Lovasik

Art by Harold N. Andersen, American

Let your Love Show in Kind Deeds

Love is not content with words, but seeks to assert itself by deeds. The effect of love is an eagerness to give, to serve, and to console. If you do not wish to cease to love, you must never cease to do good.

Love in action calls for generosity and self-sacrifice. Without the element of self-sacrifice, you are pleasing only yourself. True charity makes the wants of your family your own. It makes you ready to anticipate the least of the needs or wishes of the members of your family and to render them all possible service. Sacrifices will bring joy if motivated by love.

Be glad to perform little services for each other.

Each day brings many opportunities for these unselfish actions. All the monotonous and unglamorous tasks -the duties of the day – will help you to find happiness if you perform them with unselfish love for each other, for your children, and for God.

Love will move you to ease one another’s burdens and to give help in time of need. Even the little acts of politeness and courtesy, which are an accepted part of the relationship between men and women, can do much to make your home a pleasant ant place in which to live.

Courtesy is kindness manifested in your dealings with others. Intimacy should never destroy courtesy. You cannot possibly live in constant contact with others without noticing their faults and selfishness. Your own faults, like theirs, are bound to come to the surface.

The observance of the courtesies of life – little acts of kindness and politeness – can smooth your relations with the members of your family and make them not only bearable, but, to a certain extent, pleasant.

Small signs of consideration for each other’s ideas and plans are outward signs of interest, concern, and love for each other. Saying “Please,” “Thank you,” and “If you don’t mind” will always have a pleasant effect.

In the small things of daily living, you should treat each other with the same unfailing courtesy that you observe with strangers and friends. Why should you sometimes be rude to each other just because you know that your family will understand? The closer you are to each other, the more gracious you ought to be.

Manifest your love by giving thoughtful gifts.

Love has sometimes been defined as the desire to give. Little outward gifts are but a reminder and expression of the gift of yourself and all you possess to your spouse.

Such gifts need not be expensive or elaborate, but they should be marked by unexpectedness and understanding. Unexpectedness takes your gifts from the sphere of mere custom or routine, and understanding indicates a desire to bring special joy.

Give reasonable attention to your personal appearance.

This is a sign of respect and esteem. Even in the privacy of your home, make an effort to be clean and neatly dressed. This does not mean being dressed up at all times, as if you were entertaining company.

Let your charity be wholehearted and sympathetic, for the manner of giving is worth more than the giving itself.

Kindness is the art of pleasing, of contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you associate. If you make it a point in your dealings with your family always to treat them as you would like to have them treat you, you will have no occasion for any breach of courtesy. Learn to think of others first.

If you wish to achieve an ideal marriage, one of the most important obligations you both have is to develop an attitude of loving consideration. This means a constant solicitude for the well-being of each other. Since you cannot exchange jobs, be interested in each other’s work and activities, and try to understand the problems connected with them.

As a wife, you will become less inclined to talk about your own small irritations of the day if you try to understand what your husband’s job involves, what demands are made upon him in a highly competitive world, and what he hopes to accomplish.

This knowledge of what he faces each day in the outside world gives you greater incentive to make your home as clean, comfortable, and peaceful as you can.

Make him always feel welcome, wanted, and the center of everything.  Most of all, try never to nag. Do not talk of failures, of the faults of his relatives, or of the mistakes of the past. There is nothing to be gained by renewed talk about annoying habits that he cannot or will not correct. You must endure them, and must not act like a martyr in doing so.

As a husband, you should have the same loving consideration for your wife. Try to understand what her job as a wife and mother involves, the demands it makes on her energy, time, and patience to keep your home in order and your children happy.

It is good for you to remember her share in the burdens of caring for the children, doing household chores, cooking meals, dealing with money worries, addressing the problems of growing children, facing sickness, and meeting the demands of modern living. She will welcome a word of encouragement, but above all she will welcome understanding.

Gentleness, respect for the feelings of others, and consideration of their circumstances are the chief qualities of a gentleman or a lady. You have no better example to follow than that of Jesus and Mary.

Keep smiling is a wonderful slogan for family life.

A smile costs nothing but creates much. It enriches those who receive without impoverishing those who give. It creates happiness in the home and fosters good will. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something thing that is of no earthly good to anyone until it is given away.

The reward of kind deeds is very great. Kind deeds, like the love of God, have the power to make you truly holy. Love of your neighbor is but another form of the love of God.

Kindness will make you a friend of Jesus, who said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you…. This is my commandment, that you love one another.”

Kind deeds are a source of happiness in the family. Little acts of kindness and little courtesies are the things that, added up at night, constitute a happy day.

The best part of your life is spent in the little nameless acts of kindness and love you have performed in your home. Faithful, self-forgetting service – love that spends itself – is the secret of family borrowed, or stolen, for it is something thing that is of no earthly good to anyone until it is given away.

“Mothers, (as far as possible), be at home with your children. As you nourished your child before he was capable of eating solid food, so in the early formative years, nature has determined that you must nourish your child in virtue.” -Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook

Painting by Trent Gudmundsen

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Patience, Nagging, Sincerity – Catholic Family Handbook

Painting by Al Buell 1910-1996

by Father Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook

Ask God to help you be patient

Even people who constantly strive to please God have a goodly share of hard things to bear. This is the reason patience is so necessary for happiness in marriage.

Be constantly prepared to bear disagreeable things.

When there is an abundance of the good things, there is danger of becoming too occupied with passing and material considerations. Be grateful to God for them.

When disagreeable things, reverses, sorrows, and disappointments come your way, put your confidence in God, who will strengthen you.

Ask for patience. In the mercy of God, reverses are sometimes sent to awaken your wayward conscience or to test your love of God. When God so tests you, you must never be wanting in love and confidence and patience.

Be honest and sincere

You owe your spouse truth and sincerity. Our Lord is the greatest example of these virtues. He wished everyone well and was never anything but kindness itself in word and deed. He never made use of men for selfish ends, but spoke and acted openly, sincerely, and uprightly.

Honesty and sincerity bring about confidence and a spirit of loyalty. Few things contribute more to the success of a marriage.. Such confidence bolsters a husband’s flagging courage and inspires him with the will to win and to measure up to the high opinion that his wife and children have of him and his abilities.

The enemies of honesty and sincerity are nagging, miserliness, jealousy, and in-law trouble.

Avoid nagging

Nagging is not always the fault of women, yet it seems that they often fall victims to this disagreeable habit that spoils family happiness. Do not be a nagging wife.

Do not try to remake your husband. Prize your own individuality and be willing to put up with his.

Do not expect your husband to render daily reports on where he was, why, when, and with whom. Be an eager listener, but a reluctant inquisitor.

You must assure yourself of your husband’s unwavering devotion. The result of your placing implicit confidence and trust in him will not incline him to take advantage of your refusal to snoop or pry, or to step out of line.

He will be won by decency, gratitude, loyalty, and trust, but never with fear.

A sincere and trusting wife will have a great influence in shaping her husband’s life. Stand by your husband and share with head and heart his successes and failures.

Give him due encouragement, but have the courage to drive home a sometimes unpleasant truth.

Never be afraid of responsibility, but be prepared to embark on a new course of life with your husband, should the need arise.

You will bring to your husband the love and inspiration he needs in the many problems of life, and that love and inspiration will weave threads of gold in his life’s pattern.

Wealth, fame, and power are no satisfactory substitutes for the hard-earned joys of the married life, for not one of them can satisfy the hunger of the heart for love.

When your husband knows he is married to his most trusted confidant, your influence soars. -Matthew L. Jacobson https://amzn.to/2MtbcTT (afflink)

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Tidbits from Fr. Lovasik – Trust in God, Patience, Anger, Etc.

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Fr. Lovasik

Put your family ahead of your activities outside your home

Marriage demands companionship. The wish to be with the one loved is a sign of true love. To be satisfied being with each other only when this can hardly be avoided leads to taking love for granted.

So many people crowd their lives with too much activity and squeeze out of their schedule some of the things they would like to do or ought to do. They are doing many things that are good, but they are neglecting other things that are better and more important.

Perhaps this is because they lose sight of the primacy of the obligations arising from their family and home.

Your first duty is to your home and family. You have solemnly sworn an obligation to work for their happiness and salvation.

To be successful, families must be happy; and to be happy, the members must anticipate and fulfill the reasonable needs and desires of one another.

Trust in God

You are assured of God’s help. The Church teaches that through the sacrament of Matrimony, you and your spouse are assured of God’s constant help. Therefore, you must firmly trust in God.

In the next life, you may expect still greater blessings if on earth you have tried to build your home on the model of the Holy Family of Nazareth. God is never outdone in generosity.

If you serve Him as well as you can, you can be certain that He will bless you abundantly. If, on the other hand, you deliberately break His laws, you can be sure of depriving yourself and your family of His blessing.

The primary requisite for family happiness is union with God, who is the source of all happiness in this world and in the next. No one has such powerful means and more frequent opportunities of being united with God than a conscientious Catholic.

Keep in touch with God through the frequent reception of the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist and by much prayer. Work hard for your family and their happiness as if everything thing depended upon you. Pray to God and trust Him even more, because everything really depends upon Him.

Our Lord said, “Abide in me, and I in you…. Apart from me you can do nothing.””

Be patient

Patience is a powerful help in married life. It controls and restrains strains angry feelings and outbursts of anger. It is a mature virtue that shows superiority of intellect, practical wisdom in daily life, strength of will, and a good, humble, and benevolent heart.

The more spiritual progress you make, the more patient and gentle you will become. Patience procures for you love and influence. It attracts people to you and is of the utmost importance in the family, since you spend so much of your lives together.

Impatience, on the other hand, drives people away. It does no good and much harm, especially in the case of parents who are engaged in the rearing of children.

Impatience is certainly not the spirit of Jesus. In order to be patient, you must be prayerful and prepared for the inevitable unpleasantness in this life.

Although you will never be able to arrange matters so that there will be nothing to provoke you to impatience, you can live by the principle that there is no reason in the world for getting impatient.

Avoid being unjustly angry

Anger, which overrides the requirement of justice and charity, is a destroyer of family peace and happiness. There is such a thing as just anger, and even Christ became angry when He saw something wrong that deeply offended Him.

But anger is wrong when it is out of proportion to whatever occasioned it, when it becomes senseless fury, or when it accomplishes more harm than good.

In the family, you must practice forbearance, clemency, and patience, lest your children suffer from anger that runs wild. Anger is a homewrecker of deadly efficiency. It causes family members to lose respect for each other, and where respect is missing, love can hardly survive.

If you indulge in anger frequently, conditions get worse instead of better, because you are constantly seeking new, sharper ways of hurting others.

Anger leads to deep dislike and brooding hatred. This is the worst possible atmosphere in which to raise children. Giving in to anger was condemned by Christ. Outbursts of temper are contrary to the whole idea of charity that He preached.

There are occasions, however, when reasonable anger may be a forceful means of correction or the lesser of two evils. Scripture says, “Be angry, but sin not.”

You may be justly angry when your spouse suggests something sinful. In that case, you are directing your anger to the correction or prevention of sin, and your anger may be justified if it is held in reasonable bounds.

A short flurry of anger may at times be the lesser of two evils – for instance, if you are temperamentally inclined to hold a deep grudge for a long time unless you bring the matter into the open at the start and so end it.

A secretly nursed grudge may also be the cause of anger. A grudge is a permanent refusal to forgive a real or imaginary injury. As long as you hold a grudge, you are inviting anger, and you are in some degree responsible for anger in others.

This anger can be detected in your tone of voice, in the silence of your mood, and in the very atmosphere of your home. If you want to prevent explosions of anger in your home, do not permit grudges to last more than a day.

Correction of temper is mostly a matter of self-control. Hide your feelings of displeasure. Be silent when you feel like saying harsh words.

Cultivate a spirit of forgiveness and humility. You will seldom rejoice over your explosions of anger. But you will be glad that you did not say the things you wanted to say when you were angry.

“Holiness means happiness. Holy people are happy people at peace with God, with others, and with themselves.
There is only one requirement. You must do God’s will. This embraces various obligations and gives you corresponding rights and privileges.
This is the lesson of the Holy Family. The will of God must count for everything in our daily lives. Prosaic deeds done for God can lead to spectacular holiness.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were human, intensely human in the best sense of the word. They show us how our lives, too, should be human–truly warm and Godlike.” -Fr. Lovasik

 

 

Women historically have been denigrated as lower than men or viewed as privileged. Dr. Alice von Hildebrand characterizes the difference between such views as based on whether man’s vision is secularistic or steeped in the supernatural. She shows that feminism’s attempts to gain equality with men by imitation of men is unnatural, foolish, destructive, and self-defeating. The Blessed Mother’s role in the Incarnation points to the true privilege of being a woman. Both virginity and maternity meet in Mary who exhibits the feminine gifts of purity, receptivity to God’s word, and life-giving nurturance at their highest.

You’ll learn how to grow in wisdom and in love as you encounter the unglamorous, everyday problems that threaten all marriages. As the author says: If someone were to give me many short bits of wool, most likely I would throw them away. A carpet weaver thinks differently. He knows the marvels we can achieve by using small things artfully and lovingly. Like the carpet weaver, the good wife must be an artist of love. She must remember her mission and never waste the little deeds that fill her day the precious bits of wool she s been given to weave the majestic tapestry of married love.

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Avoid Unkind Words and the Harm They Do – Father Lovasik

Speak Kindly

Kind words are a great blessing. They soothe, quiet, and comfort. When a kind word proceeds from your lips, it blesses you and fills others with gladness.

If you greet your family with kind words and a cheerful disposition, even though you are at times weighed down by trials, you will put your worries to flight and lift your spirits.

As hatred breeds hatred, love creates love. There are many dispositions in people, but there is no one who will not respond to kindness and sympathy. Kind words have converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.

Your spouse or children may sometimes betray bitterness toward you and expect unkindness. Respond with a word of kindness, and the rebellious one will be defenseless and often return the kindness. Each kind word will cost you only a moment in this world but will have an important bearing on how you will spend eternity.

Avoid Unkind Words and the Harm They Do

~ Unkind words put others down. By detraction, you make known the hidden faults of another without a good reason; by slander, you injure the good name of another by lying; and by harsh words of ridicule or contempt, you undermine the trust and confidence that should be the basis of family life.

~ Some of the worst sins in this matter are committed in the home by gossip. Children hear their parents using abusive language to condemn their neighbors, to discuss their peculiarities, and to enlarge upon their shortcomings.

It is a wicked thing to teach innocent children to become gossips. Gossip is all the more harmful when it has to do with a member of the family.

Do not listen to gossip about your spouse, much less be easily influenced by it. Gossip is often started by malicious informants who secretly hope to awaken jealousy.

Mutual trust is a great aid toward the preservation of love and harmony in the home.

~Harsh words more than harsh deeds are the termites that can undermine the foundation of a marriage. Even though words seem like little things, so quickly and briefly spoken, does not minimize the power that lies in their bitterness.

What you do is often easier to forgive than what you say. Moreover, when an angry word provokes a quarrel, each party soon has a position to defend.

A “principle” is at stake, you think, when in reality vanity and pride are the only principles involved.

Reinforcements in the form of in-laws enter the picture; soon both sides are mobilized for an all-out war.

People will at least consider almost any suggestion made in a friendly manner. But they will bristle with resentment if it is shouted at them in ill temper.

Not only words but even an angry tone can slam the door of understanding. In disagreements, abusive words crowd the mouth, the doorway way of the heart.

Then stubbornness gets its chance, and the peace that a simple, kind word of apology could have quickly restored is rendered exceedingly difficult.

Too many marriages end up on the rocks because of little words and phrases. Many divorces could have been avoided if husband and wife had refrained from angry bickering and talked over their differences in a spirit of mutual understanding and goodwill.

Uncharitable talk should cause you deep concern, because it may be the source of great harm to your family. You have only to think of God’s judgment and the account that you will have to render on your observance of the Eighth Commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

If you thoughtlessly wag your tongue or make it the tool of anger or hatred; if you permit yourself to be swayed by bad temper, selfishness, and vanity; if you judge and blame rashly, try to begin to improve today for the love of God and your family.

The following remedies may curb uncharitable talk in your family.

~ Learn to be silent, especially when you are angry or disturbed, because silence is one of the great helps to avoid sin, to safeguard virtue, and to grow in close union with God. Do not repeat gossip and slander, even if by so doing you can hold the interest of your spouse, children, or friends. Carefully sift the talk you hear. Speak your mind, if you will, but mind what you speak.

~ Openly oppose uncharitable talk or counteract it by eloquent silence. It is a great work of charity to show by your conduct that uncharitable talk disgusts you as much as impure stories do.

~Have a sense of humor, which comes to the rescue in many a trying situation. It enables you to see the funny side of a situation when your attention had been previously engrossed on the distressing side.

Do not save your sense of humor for parties; put it to work in your home, where it is needed most of all. The ability to see humor in a situation often enables you to extricate yourself from a predicament quickly.

A good, hearty laugh will encourage a cheerful spirit in your family. But good humor does not mean ridicule.

A certain amount of good-humored kidding between husband and wife is usually a sign that they are getting along well. But if ridicule is used to sting and hurt, it is a sign that one has lost respect for the other.

~Speak of events, not of people, because a good name – that is, the esteem in which a person is held by his fellowmen and the mutual confidence resulting from this esteem – is a sacred thing, and everyone has a right to it.

If you cannot say anything good about someone, one, say nothing at all.

~ Do not deceive yourself by false excuses for unkind talk, such as, “It’s not so bad or important,” “What I said is true,” or “I told him to keep it confidential.” Consider the damage that might be done to a person’s good name even in what you consider a trifling matter.

~ Avoid harsh and disrespectful words. They wound the heart and disturb the soul. Wisecracks can hurt others, arouse resentment in them, and even engender hate. Avoid personal remarks and bitter sarcasm.

If you wish to keep those you love close to you, laugh with them, not at them. You can destroy love by making scornful, sarcastic, belittling remarks to others, or by telling your friends jokes and humorous incidents that make a laughingstock of your spouse or your children.

At social gatherings, you can offend your spouse’s and friends’ sensibilities by displaying a form of rudeness that you would never tolerate from your children.

How often do you interrupt a conversation to correct someone or to give your interpretation of what he is saying? How often do you contradict him?

~ Make a promise never to speak an angry word to your spouse. Difficulties will arise between you and your spouse, for you are only human. Yet there is no difficulty – no matter how serious – that cannot be settled if you talk it over in a calm, friendly manner.

If you are angry with your spouse, talk it out together. You should share your grievances against each other in loving sympathy: in this paradox lies a precious secret to happiness.

Psychiatrists testify that there is healing in unbosoming ourselves to a sympathetic and friendly listener. It restores peace of mind and a normal healthy outlook. Troubles shared are troubles halved; troubles hidden are troubles doubled.

True psychology is expressed in the Christian teaching that we must make peace with our adversary quickly, by coming to an understanding with him.

What the heart cries for is not an explosion but a release, and the healthy way to achieve that release is for one person to make feelings of injury or injustice clear to the other.

The words most difficult to say are: “I was at fault…. I’m sorry…. Please forgive me.” Yet the person who utters them first proves superiority in character and in magnanimity and wins the greater victory.

Of course, it is destructive to swallow grudges and nourish them quietly. You can rid yourself of resentments without letting them boil up inside you. The best way to approach such situations is to prevent them from developing.

If not nipped in the bud, the tendency to quarrel can become chronic.

~ Be kind and considerate in speech. Substitute expressions of kindness for quarreling and bitterness. Be quick to praise and commend, but slow to criticize. Take particular pains to see that you use your tongue for good, not for evil; to console, not to condemn; to build up, not to tear down; to rejoice at the good fortune of others, not to begrudge them success.

Reassure each other of your love in words of gratitude, appreciation, admiration, sympathy, comfort, and encouragement.

Love needs and thrives on frequent assurances; it dwindles when it is rarely put into words.

Avoid idleness and gossip, remembering our Lord’s warning, “I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

As long as you devote yourself fully to your work, you will have neither the time nor the inclination to take part in unkind talk.

Above all, pray for each other. If you prayed for the members of your family half as much as you talk about their faults, how many sins would you avoid and how much happier your family life would be!

“When the results of life are all gathered up—it will probably be seen that the things in us which have made the deepest and most lasting impressions in our homes and upon our children—have not been the things we did with purpose and intention, planning to produce a certain effect—but the things we did when we were not thinking of training or influencing or affecting any other life!” -J.R. Miller

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The saints assure us that simplicity is the virtue most likely to draw us closer to God and make us more like Him.

No wonder Jesus praised the little children and the pure of heart! In them, He recognized the goodness that arises from an untroubled simplicity of life, a simplicity which in the saints is completely focused on its true center, God.

That’s easy to know, simple to say, but hard to achieve.

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Kindness in the Family – Catholic Family Handbook, Fr. Lovasik

From Catholic Family Handbook, Fr. Lovasik

Practice Kindness

Charity is practical love of our neighbor, the endeavor to do good to him in soul and in the highest sense of the word. But love that resides in the soul ought to manifest itself through the body and its actions.

The Gospel says that Jesus “went about doing good,” and in this He is a beautiful example for you. You have innumerable opportunities for doing good in your family. You have a heart, good thoughts, good words and deeds, and, above all, prayer.

Kindness is never more important than in the family, and never more necessary than in parents.

Be Kind in Thought

Without kind thoughts, there can be no real charity in the home. The thought eventually takes shape in words and works of charity, and gives to them their life, beauty, and worth. Words and works of charity are dead unless they are accompanied by a loving thought.

Kind thoughts preserve you from many sins against charity in your home. Uncharitable judgments, misunderstandings, suspicions, envy, jealousy, and uncharitable words will not take root in your soul if you think kind thoughts.

Strained relations between your spouse or your children and you will be smoothed out, petty arguments will end of themselves, and aversions will disappear.

Kind thoughts are the secret of success in dealing with the members of your family. Only a kind person is able to judge another justly and make allowances for his weaknesses.

As a mother or father, you wield the power to influence your children for good if your thoughts are always kind.

A kind thought never fails to bring joy to your home. It gladdens you and those around you. Happiness is not necessarily won by deeds, but it is readily held by a simple loving thought which can dispel the clouds of depression, discontent, and sadness.

Your family will not fail to notice the presence of such thoughts, even if no word is spoken. If it should happen that no one is aware of the kind thought in your heart, God is aware of it, for He who Himself is Love knows all things.

You cooperate in God’s work when you wish your spouse or your children well, when you implore God’s blessing on their work and rejoice and thank God for their success. The good you do in this way will be rewarded more than any other because cause it is wholly selfless.

To foster kind thoughts, remember these suggestions:

• Put yourself in the place of the other person, and ask yourself how you would feel if you were the subject of such thoughts or judgments. Does God want this?
• Remember your own faults. Perhaps they are greater than those you condemn in others.
• Remember the good points and virtues of others, which usually outweigh their faults.
• Try to find some excuse for the things that others do which you do not like. This means having your eyes open to the whole truth, lest hasty judgments and prejudices close them to a part of the truth.
• Forgive injuries and try to make up at once with those who have offended you, or with those whom you have offended.
• Be sympathetic. Feel for others, and take a sincere interest in all that concerns them.
• Try to see God in your spouse and children. Love for your neighbor – and no one should be closer to you than your family – means loving God in your neighbor. This will lift your kindness to a supernatural plane and, at the same time, make it more generous, active, and universal.
• Pray for your family that God may be glorified in and through them. Above all, receive Holy Communion frequently, and ask Jesus to increase and preserve love in your heart for your family.

If the Eucharist is the bond of charity that unites all Christians as members of one spiritual body, the Church, it is also the bond of charity that keeps your family together.

By giving you a fuller share in the life of Christ, Holy Communion unites you more intimately to each other. It also gives you the help through actual grace to carry out God’s great commandment of love in your own home, and to put away all unkindness.

Through frequent Holy Communion, you will learn to overcome your selfishness and to resist your natural feelings of hatred and bitterness. You will develop kindness and sympathy, forbearance and forgiveness.

“At a certain moment when going to confession to a Capuchin father, St. Therese came to understand that it was just the opposite: her “defects did not displease God” and her littleness attracted God’s love, just as a father is moved by the weakness of his children and loves them still more as soon as he sees their good will and sincere love.” -Fr. Jacques Philippe,The Way of Trust and Love, http://amzn.to/2fpXVzl Painting by Millie Childers

In this sermon I teach the two ways of meditation, Lectio Divina and Mental Prayer, according to St. Bruno and St. Teresa of Avila, respectively.

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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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Combat Your Jealousy/In-Laws – Fr. Lovasik

Art by Veronica Algaba

Combat your jealousy

Jealousy makes you eager to have all the affection and attention of your spouse. It may also be an enemy of honesty and sincerity, and consequently of love and harmony.

A jealous husband is one who feels uncertain about his wife’s love – usually because he knows he is guilty of faults that make him undeserving of it – and who foolishly thinks that he can hold her loyalty to him only by preventing her from being friendly with anyone else. He deprives her of every kind of social life that he can forbid or prevent.

He is suspicious of every innocent friendly contact his wife makes with others. He tries to keep her separated completely from her own family. This jealous possessiveness transforms any feelings of love the wife once had for her husband into feelings of hate.

It makes a wife’s duty of fidelity to her husband much more difficult than it should be.

An unreasonably jealous wife is usually in some degree responsible for the wandering of her husband’s love. It is natural that after several years of married life, some degree of taking one another for granted sets in. It would be better if the courtesy, consideration, and thoughtfulness that marked your courtship and the first years of marriage could survive through the years.

Your husband may strain to appear his best before other women and show his worst side to you, not because he no longer loves you, but because he considers your love safely in his possession. This conduct is no reason for jealousy.

If you are a jealous wife, put yourself back into competition not only for your husband’s love but also for his kindly attention. It is your job to win and hold, by giving proofs of your own love, the love you may think is turning away from you.

Jealousy is not a constant passion. Even if you have never felt the sting of jealousy, you may, under certain circumstances, experience a blind surge of it. Be resolved to avoid with utmost care those things which might awaken the passion of jealousy in your spouse.

Be patient and understanding toward your in-laws

One of the most common sources of jealousy is in-law trouble, which can pull a couple apart more rapidly than many of the other disintegrating factors, if this is the chief reason for argument.

Marriage does not release a husband and wife from the duty of honoring and loving their mother and father. But it does make duties to their spouse supersede duties to their parents. That is what God said clearly of Adam, the first husband: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

Some husbands and wives never quite leave their mothers and fathers. They permit them to have more to say over their actions and plans than their spouses do.

In-law trouble is very seldom caused solely by unreasonable jealousy on one side alone. If your spouse dislikes your relatives, look into yourself for whatever grounds you may have given for that aversion.

A wife who was spoiled and pampered by her family will sometimes seek an escape from new responsibility by running to those who will continue to baby her. At the first sign of disagreement, she will seek solace in the overindulgence of her parents. This will react unfavorably on her husband, who will gradually feel himself to be second in her affections when she has promised to hold him first.

Thus, antagonism for the parents-in-law will grow with every incident. If you are the husband of such a person, you will not awaken her to a sense of duty to you by violently asserting your rights or by using harsh language.

Never look upon in-laws as rivals for your partner’s affection. Filial love differs vastly from conjugal love, so there is room for both in the heart of every spouse.

As in courtship, you won your wife from possible rivals by making yourself appear so kind and noble that she could not resist your appeal, so after marriage you have to prove yourself superior to her parents and relatives in devotion to her.

You must back up your “rights” by continuous human expressions of love and interest. In this way, the competition between you and her relatives will soon end.

On the other hand, a husband who shows more than usual attachment to his parents almost always has trouble with jealousy on the part of his wife. He does not care what happens to his wife and children. His mother comes first.

He takes her side against his wife. He lets his wife suffer rather than deal sternly with his mother. This is especially the case if he feels that even after marriage he must donate a large part of his income to his parents, even though they are not in great need.

Getting along with in-laws calls for tact and diplomacy. You must make allowance for the tendency of parents to think of their married son or daughter as their little child whom they wish to mother still.

Try to keep the in-law relationships on an even keel by being patient and understanding, and you will have peace. If you think your husband is acting imprudently in giving help to his family, present your arguments to him in a kind way. You may even ask him to discuss the problem with a third and neutral person. Show goodwill by proposing a compromise.

Do not adopt a bitter, resentful attitude toward your husband, or say anything unkind about his relatives to him or to anyone else. Whether you win or lose your point, conquer and hide your feelings of bitterness. Showing them would be risking the peace and unity of your home.

Security for the future is bought at too great a price if it means that you are to be divided in spirit by a deeply rooted grudge. Many a home has been wrecked by such resentment, and there is little comfort in the wreckage even if you maintain you were right.

Give preference to your spouse

It is wise to establish distance from in-laws, if that is possible. It is true that there are many cases in which charity demands that an exception to this rule be made; nevertheless, there are other cases in which charity would be better served all around if some arrangement were made other than having an in-law in the same home.

After marriage, a wife’s first duty is to her husband, not to her mother. If her mother remains with her, it should be only on the condition that she will say and do nothing that would in any way mar the relationship between husband and wife.

If a mother who lives with her married daughter arouses suspicions in her daughter’s mind, if she interferes with her right to run her own home, if she nags and complains and makes unreasonable demands, the best thing to do is to rent an apartment for her and let her live alone.

Mothers-in-law should not be permitted to destroy family harmony. When you can do nothing except offer your home to an in-law, at the very outset try to come to an understanding and agreement with all the parties concerned as to the conditions under which you will live in peace together.

Let your in-law know that you are glad to be able to offer your home, but let it be made clear that the home remains yours, and that it is not to be spoiled by interference and meddling.

If there is no present way out of the difficulty, there may be room for an honest examination of conscience as to whether a wife is letting things get on her nerves that should be neutralized by a spirit of patience and charity.

Small annoyances, unavoidable with two women in the same household, can be blown up into major irritations. God will give sufficient grace to bear these annoyances and to better the situation by prudent firmness and willing charity. The advice of a wise priestly confessor will help.

A mother-in-law cannot be such a bad woman if she is the mother of the one you love very dearly. It is most important that you show that you prefer your husband or wife to everyone else in the world. You refuse this sign of preference when you insist on living with a parent, or taking a parent into your home when there is no urgent reason of necessity or charity to do so.

You are failing in your love if you pay more attention to what your parent wants than to what your spouse wants; if you are more concerned about your parent’s welfare and happiness; if you let a parent rule the household; or if you take your parent’s side in disputes.

This is like going back on the promise you made in marriage and acting contrary to God’s revealed plan for marriage.

“Never forget that it is God’s will that the parents should be the ones to teach the child to pray, as Mary and Joseph helped the boy Jesus to advance in wisdom and grace.” -A Dominican Nun, 1954

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I have prepared this Lenten journal to help you to keep on track. It is to assist you in keeping focused on making Lent a special time for your family. We do not have to do great things to influence those little people. No, we must do the small things in a great way…with love and consistency…

Timeless words from the pen of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen inspire the heart and imagination as readers embark on a Lenten journey toward a better understanding of their spiritual selves. Covering the traditional themes of Lent–sin and salvation, death and Resurrection, sorrow and hope, ashes and lilies–these 50 passages and accompanying mini-prayers offer readers a practical spiritual program as a retreat from the cares and concerns of a secular world view.
If you enjoyed learning about holiday traditions in The Christmas Book, you are sure to love its sequel, The Easter Book.  Father Weiser has here applied his winning formula to an explanation of the fasts and feasts of the Lenten and Easter seasons with equally fascinating results.

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Your Marriage; Be Ready to Forgive and Compromise – Father Lovasik

Painting by William Henry Gore

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Father Lovasik

Be ready to compromise and to forgive

There will be many disagreements in your married life. Marriage has many difficulties and trials that are inevitable when two human beings live together in a life-long union of the greatest intimacy, with all the changes in mood and temperament that the varying conditions of life occasion.

Self-sacrifice is one of the standards of measurement for true love. Self-sacrifice is opposed to selfishness. Selfishness means wanting your own way always. It makes you a dictator.

Self-sacrifice must take the form of compromise. This compromise does not surrender in matters of moral or spiritual principle, but does surrender in disputes over the use of money, leisure time, or material things.

If you always insist on having your way, on doing what you want, on buying what you want, on going where you choose, without considering the desires of your partner, there is selfishness in place of love. Such selfishness is the basis of all impatience, and anger is the fruit of impatience.

A happy marriage depends so much on cooperation, self-sacrifice, sacrifice, and understanding that whatever is gained by insisting on rights will be lost in peace and good will.

So never talk about what you have a right to do against the wishes of your partner. It is difficult, if not impossible, to bring peace into a home where either the husband or the wife is stubbornly insisting on some right against the judgment or wishes of the partner.

You cannot force a person to be a good companion. That must come from the person’s own desire and from his freedom from external tasks and worries. Rather than just laying down the law, you would do far better to show an interest in each other’s work and to make some effort, even with all your own responsibilities, to help each other with it.

The partnership of marriage requires give and take. There are still husbands who feel that only men are entitled to freedom of movement and outside-the-house contacts and associations.

Either they are very jealous men, who unreasonably fear that they might lose their wives’ affection if they permit them to mingle with people outside the home, or they are simply the dictator type, who feel that women should be subject to men and to their duties as wives and mothers, and that they should ask for nothing in the way of relaxation and recreation.

This is not normal, but it is something wives should accept patiently. They can use any reasonable means to correct the condition. Anger, resentment, and bitterness will not accomplish anything; rather they will serve only to harden some husbands in their unjust attitude.

If your husband has a kind of tyrannical temperament – if he thinks he knows it all as far as you are concerned – you will not change his opinion of his superior wisdom merely by butting your head against his will.

You must have a full measure of respect for the judgment and wishes of your spouse. Use spiritual motives to accept with peace the tyranny you cannot avoid without war.

If your husband insists on making all the decisions, no matter how intimately you may be involved, then only by the grace of God, combined with a constant effort to cultivate patience, prudence, and tact will you be able to solve your problem.

Furthermore, you accepted him “for better or for worse,” and when “the worse” comes out in him, remember your promise at God’s altar. Be thankful that you have a good Catholic husband, if that be the case, who does not, with all his faults, make it difficult for you to live up to your Faith and to save your soul.

Be forgiving

Self-sacrifice must take the form of forgiveness. Forgiveness means the sacrifice of anger, bitterness, resentment, and revenge against your partner. There is no marriage in which forgiveness is not sometimes required, because there are no perfect human beings on earth.

It is inevitable when you live with another person day after day that at times your feelings will be hurt, and you will think that your rights are abused. So do not be too sensitive, and do not feel sorry for yourself.

A nagging wife never wholeheartedly forgives, because she never lets her husband forget his faults and defects of character. A husband who bears grudges against his wife and enters into moody silences for long periods of time is too selfish to forgive from his heart.

The causes for disagreements are usually very trivial. If you have misunderstandings, do everything possible to straighten out these domestic problems as soon as possible, and try to keep harmony.

Balance your accounts every day: if you quarrel in the morning, try to be at peace by nightfall. If you have failed, admit the mistake, and your spouse should forgive and forget.

You need a technique for handling the differences that so often lead to explosions of temper in marriage. Try to discuss your differences with calmness and understanding and settle them through reason tempered with good will and love. Without these elements, no disagreement can be solved.

With the help of God and your good will, love, and understanding, a solution can be found for every difficulty.

Accept each other’s faults

The state of being in love is not a sufficient guide to the new life of marriage, as a pagan, secular world would have us believe. The implications of the vows of Matrimony become clear only gradually.

When you were married, each of you had to choose first the interests of the other. This choice could not be accomplished in a matter of days. When you began to live as one, you discovered in yourselves faults of temper and character of which previously you may not have been aware. Even to this day you will find these faults your stumbling blocks.

Your chance of happiness depends on your sincere determination and your capacity for self-sacrifice to get them out of your way. Learn to accept each other’s faults with patient love. Do not brood over them. If you do, you will pile one thing upon another and make mountains out of molehills.

Forgiveness is especially a necessary part of your relationship. If you see a fault in your spouse that you consider serious, and which makes you unhappy, be patient and bring it up to your partner in a kind, prudent way.

Be ready to accept correction for your own faults and failings. If you have complaints about your spouse, begin the process of correction by examining and correcting yourself. A case cannot be settled on the basis of one spouse’s complaints alone. The principal fault may be found on one side only, but you should not take it for granted without self-examination and humble self-improvement.

You must dare to put aside your petty personal pattern, your peeves and fears, and in humble trust and prayer beg the help of God, offered to you in the sacrament of Matrimony.

Make unpleasant experiences fewer. There will be numerous occasions when even loving personalities verge on hatred. There will be spells of boredom and dreariness that even real love does not dispel. There will be days and nights of weariness, discouragement, unhappiness, and almost despair.

Remember that you have enough help to assure you of improvement. Both of you are working for the ideal marriage, and both of you are eager to find ways of making your life happier.

If only you cooperate, God will give you innumerable graces -those particularly conferred by the sacrament of Matrimony – actual grace and sanctifying grace. This means a real lift to progress at the very moment you need it most.

Punctuality exacts self-discipline and detachment; it often asks us to interrupt some interesting, pleasant work in order to give ourselves to another kind, perhaps less attractive or less important.
However, it would be a great mistake to esteem our duties and to dedicate ourselves to them according to the attraction we have for them or according to their more or less apparent importance.
All is important and beautiful when it is the expression of the will of God, and the soul who wishes to live in this hole he will every minute of the day, will never omit the slightest act prescribed by its rule of life. -Divine Intimacy

“Did you ever bewail losses and mistakes in an exaggerated way, out of all proportion to their magnitude? We have all done so….” Fr. John Carr, C.SS.R., Helps to Happiness

The All-New, Full-Color Catholic Mother Goose Volume Two and The Catholic Mother Goose Volume One

Review: The volumes are so thick and worth the price! Both the black and white volume with its intricate pencil illustrations, and the volume with its bright wall-to-wall colors, have equal appeal each in their own way. It is a sturdy paperback, and will last in a house full of kids. Shipped quickly.

Review: Catholic Mother Goose, Volume Two, is a ‘one of a kind’ treasure for young and old alike! Little minds will be captivated by the beautifully colored and illustrated pages. Throughout the nursery rhymes, children will learn the lessons of kindness, unselfishness, the efficacy of suffering and the value of prayer! They will become more familiar with the lives of the Saints, St. Therese, St. Francis, etc. and their great love for Jesus and Mary. These beautifully written poems will plant the seed for good literature and a love for reading for years to come. This is how we make our Catholic faith and culture come alive for our children! This book is a must!

Available here.

Package Deal on Volumes One and Two here.

Originally written as a religious sister’s guide for daily adoration, 100 Holy Hours for Women contains a plethora of profound spiritual insight into the mystery of the Eucharist. 100 Holy Hours encourages Christian women, of every calling and stage of life, to enter into quiet, loving conversation with Jesus. This book enables all to comprehend the love of Christ, who gave us his Body and Blood that we might come closer to him. Only in the Eucharist can we find the perfect example of total humility, self-sacrificial love, and holy submission. Only through the Eucharist can we hope to attain happiness in this world and the next.

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Do Your Part and Trust in God’s Help

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.

And for those women who have to work on top of all that, what a load, indeed! My own mother had to work for a period in our lives and it was very difficult!

Father Lovasik, in this excerpt, talks about happiness in marriage, and how it must be worked for…

by Father Lovasik, The Catholic Family Handbook

Happiness in marriage must be earned. It is something you must work out for yourself, chiefly by forgetting yourself and serving others.

Marriage involves the art of human relations, the psychology of children, the economics of running a home, the maintenance of health, but, above all, the development of the moral and spiritual life of the family.

All this demands a wide range of talents and skill. No marriage is a success unless less you make it so, and that takes persistent effort and, still more, a constant and humble reliance on God.

The supreme object of your effort and striving is the family. You worked and saved in order that you might be married and have a home of your own. Once married, you worked and saved that you might successfully bring up a family.

Your purpose in Matrimony should be to bring God’s children into the world and rear them properly, to be one in body and spirit, and to make a happy home. You are to help one another and your children in every possible way, especially to get to Heaven, which is the final and eternal destiny for us all.

You and your spouse must be willing to work at marriage as the greatest job of your lives and not desert when problems arise. When you married, each of you took on a responsibility for some part of the work that goes into the making of a home.

Both assume the responsibility of encouraging and helping the other, insofar as is possible, in the specific tasks designed for each.

The training of children is the mutual responsibility of both husband and wife. Thus, marriage is very much a fifty-fifty proposition. Only when you are willing to bear your share of the burdens of married life can you hope to have real love and peace.

Marriage is normally a source of equilibrium for you, because cause it brings you legitimate and healthy pleasures. But equilibrium always consists of an effort to impose the guidance of reason upon all your activities.

Welcome without narrow-mindedness and weakness the joy marriage offers; use your reason in meeting the difficulties that marriage inevitably entails.

If your temperament is inherently unstable, if your life is weighed down with unfavorable conditions, you can recover the health of your emotional and spiritual life only if you seek above all what is right according to the sane reason that God has given you, providing, of course, that you make yourself do it.

Only this effort can bring you the joy that is worthy of you.

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 a wonderful way. 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? – Rev Bernard O’Reilly, True Womanhood, 1894 http://amzn.to/2mPm81e (afflink)

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Women historically have been denigrated as lower than men or viewed as privileged. Dr. Alice von Hildebrand characterizes the difference between such views as based on whether man’s vision is secularistic or steeped in the supernatural. She shows that feminism’s attempts to gain equality with men by imitation of men is unnatural, foolish, destructive, and self-defeating. The Blessed Mother’s role in the Incarnation points to the true privilege of being a woman. Both virginity and maternity meet in Mary who exhibits the feminine gifts of purity, receptivity to God’s word, and life-giving nurturance at their highest.

You’ll learn how to grow in wisdom and in love as you encounter the unglamorous, everyday problems that threaten all marriages. As the author says: If someone were to give me many short bits of wool, most likely I would throw them away. A carpet weaver thinks differently. He knows the marvels we can achieve by using small things artfully and lovingly. Like the carpet weaver, the good wife must be an artist of love. She must remember her mission and never waste the little deeds that fill her day the precious bits of wool she s been given to weave the majestic tapestry of married love.

This remarkable book will show you how to start weaving love into the tapestry of your marriage today, as it leads you more deeply into the joys of love.

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Make Your Home a Place of Harmony, Goodness and Nobility

From The Catholic Family Handbook, Fr. Lawrence Lovasik

A good Catholic home is the one supreme need of the hour. And a good Catholic family life alone makes up a good Catholic home.

A good Catholic home is the source and maintainer of the Catholic way of life. We have many institutions that we call schools, but the real schools where the real lessons of life are learned are our homes.

We hear a great deal about higher education, but the highest that can be had is found in the lofty lessons sons of self-control, self-sacrifice, sublime faith, and splendid trust, which home life has such a marvelous power to teach.

There is no training to be had in school or college or anywhere in the world that can take the place of the discipline of the home.

Even a public school from which every religious influence is banned cannot destroy the Catholic faith of children who come from wholesome Catholic homes.

It is difficult for a child to be better than his home environment or for a nation to be superior to the level of its home life.

In fulfilling its double generation and formation of home becomes a little world in itself, self-sufficient even in its youngest years.

It is vital that you, as a mother or father, make of your home a training ground in character-building for your children, who will inherit the world’s problems.

Home is a place in which the young grow in harmony with all that is good and noble, where hardship, happiness, and work are shared.

Home should not be just a place. Rather, it must be the place. All else should be “outside.”

Home should be the center of activities and interests. It was built for births, courtship, marriage, and death. It is maintained so that children might grow, trained by precept and example – so that they will develop spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, just as they do physically.

Strong home ties have a tendency to weaken in children during high school. Then children work outside the home; they establish friendships independent of the family; they date; and they enjoy recreation away from the family.

These are the years when family spirit is firmly cemented or broken, and the outcome depends, to a large extent, on youthful training.

The more that parents and older brothers and sisters can do to focus all attention within the family, the better it is for the children.

To accomplish the high purpose set for its nature, and regulated by Divine Providence, the family must normally act as a unit. It is recognized as a unit by the Church, which cherishes and protects it as the basic unit of all society.

The family should wield its influence and give a good example as a unit, particularly within its parish. This will be possible only if all the members have practiced the humbler virtues within the sanctuary of the home.

As a Catholic parent, you must consecrate every intelligent effort to the task of developing the love of family as early as possible.

Family consciousness, leading to intelligent love of family, is to be instilled from earliest childhood.

There is need for a reasonable family pride. Home, marriage, love, and children are still the great heart-words of humanity and must continue to be so if civilization is not to sink.

Don’t forget to dress for your role as Domestic Queen! You can still look feminine as you go about your business. – Fascinating Womanhood http://amzn.to/2orXm6w (afflink)

BOOK REVIEW!

This is a wonderful little prayer book that I have used all through my married life. The prayers are beautiful and the promises wonderful!

The following are a couple of examples of special prayers I have used a lot:

Our Lady of this House:

Mary, Virgin Mother of God, conceived without sin, we choose you today as the Queen and Mother of our home.

We ask you, through the Precious Blood of Jesus and your Immaculate Conception, to preserve us from sickness, fire and water, lightning and storms, from war and theft, from loss of faith and sudden death.

Bless and protect, O holy Virgin, all who live here and preserve us from every other temporal and spiritual misfortune. Amen

Memorare to Jesus, Mary and Joseph

( Inexpressible graces have been received through the use of this prayer, which in one cry of confidence, links together those three most dear and holy names: – Jesus, Mary, Joseph.)
Remember, Heart of my Jesus, Immaculate Heart of Mary, and you, oh glorious St. Joseph, that no one has ever had recourse to Your protection, or implored your assistance without obtaining relief. Animated with the like confidence, I come laden with the weight of my sins, to prostrate myself before You. Oh Merciful Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Heart of Mary, and you, oh glorious St. Joseph, reject not my petitions, but graciously here and grant them. Amen

Here are some titles of other prayers:

-Prayer for Choosing a State in Life

-Act of Consecration to the Precious Blood and the Blessed Virgin for Children

-Memorare to St. Joseph (and many other beautiful prayers to that Glorious Saint)

-A Prayer in time of Affliction, Wars, Pestilence, etc.

…….Beautiful Prayers to many Saints

….and many, many more. It is a small prayer book with around 150 pages. You will find it a superb companion to your prayer life. You can locate the prayer book  here.    

Beautiful, Exceptionally Colorful, Glossy Pages…Your Children Will Love This Book!

Review: Catholic Mother Goose, Volume Two, is a ‘one of a kind’ treasure for young and old alike! Little minds will be captivated by the beautifully colored and illustrated pages. Throughout the nursery rhymes, children will learn the lessons of kindness, unselfishness, the efficacy of suffering and the value of prayer! They will become more familiar with the lives of the Saints, St. Therese, St. Francis, etc. and their great love for Jesus and Mary. These beautifully written poems will plant the seed for good literature and a love for reading for years to come. This is how we make our Catholic faith and culture come alive for our children! This book is a must!

Available here.

Package Deal on Volumes One and Two.

A Catholic guidebook to finding a happy marriage, keeping a happy marriage, and raising happy children…

In these pages, Fr. Raoul Plus provides a remedy for the even the most tangled lives.

Relying on the words of Jesus and the lives of the saints, Fr. Plus maps out a sure path to the simplicity which Jesus praised, a simplicity that bestows on all of us who seek it happiness, courage, and inner peace, no matter how complicated our circumstances may be or how crowded our days.

Holy simplicity.

With the wise help of Fr. Plus, you will soon savor the strength that simplicity brings . . . and the abiding joy. With his help, you can attain it.

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The Holy Family at Nazareth….Your Inspiration

The Catholic Family Handbook, Fr. Lovasik

Model your Home Life on the Holy House of Nazareth

The Holy Family lived in a plain cottage among other working people, in a village perched on a hillside. Although they did not enjoy modern conveniences, the three persons who lived there made it the happiest home that ever was.

You cannot imagine any of them at any time thinking first of himself. This is the kind of home a husband likes to return to and to remain in.

Mary saw to it that such was their home. She took it as her career to be a successful homemaker and mother. And there was never a voice raised in that home.

You cannot not imagine Joseph shouting at his spouse and Mary screaming back at him, or the child Jesus answering impudently. You cannot imagine any of the three sulking or being moody and uncooperative.

In establishing your home, adopt the characteristics of the holy house of Nazareth.

In proportion as you do so, you will have fashioned for yourselves a replica of the happiest home that ever was on earth. The thought of the Holy Family suggests the love of simplicity.

Domestic and marital happiness are closely bound up with the simple but good things of your state of life.

Seek your happiness within the range of your income and your social, domestic, and family circles, and you will spare yourself many heartaches.

Husband, be fair to your wife and family in trying to provide the necessities and ordinary comforts of life.

Wife, strive to live within the income that is provided.

Be loyal to each other in periods of trial, and confidently seek the blessing of God at Mass, Holy Communion, and prayer.

Pray often to the Holy Family to sanctify your family by their example and intercession, so that you may reach the ultimate goal of your marriage: the eternal possession of God.

In all your family needs and problems, confide in the intercession and help of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

They will protect, guard, and keep you in holy fear, in peace, and in the harmony of Christian charity.

By conforming yourselves to the divine model of this Holy Family, you will attain eternal happiness.

Above all, through their prayers, you and your children will be enabled to honor God by a virtuous life so as to be worthy of a heavenly reward.

Every other consideration should yield to the thought of aiding each other to attain that goal.

Only when religion permeates your daily life does your marriage fulfill its purpose. You and your children will find real happiness in direct proportion to your efforts to make God the very center of your married life.

In this, the Holy Family should be your inspiration. As a truly Catholic parent, try to copy the example of the Holy Family and to see in a hidden life of prayer, work, and daily fidelity to the commonplace, the surest steppingstone to sainthood.

As a family, try to lead a hidden life with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Through holy Mass, offer yourselves through Mary’s hands as a sacrifice with Jesus; at Holy Communion, you will be changed into Jesus by divine grace so that you may live His life; by your visits to the tabernacle, you will enjoy His friendship ship in the midst of the many problems of life.

If you have faith, you will discover His presence and see His veiled glory.

If you love Him in the Holy Eucharist to the extent of making the Eucharist the center of your life, He will pour out His grace into your hearts and breathe the peace of God into your souls and make your burdens light.

If you speak to Him, your God, with reverent familiarity, He will enlighten you about His Providence in your regard and strengthen you to bear the crosses He sends you.

Devotion to the Holy Eucharist is the surest and easiest way of making your family resemble the Holy Family of Nazareth.

Joseph, the honest workman, is still the guardian of families.  Mary, the Mother of God, is the blessed mother of every Catholic home. Jesus, subject to the model of every child.

Through their intercession, may you and your family find your joy in God in this life, and may you be reunited to enjoy Him for all eternity in a family! Follow St. Paul’s counsel

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul gives us some general  principles to follow in order to make family life truly Christian.

To the entire family, he says, “Always and for everything [give] thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”‘

To wives he says, “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, His Body, and is Himself its Savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.”‘

To husbands he says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her…. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”‘

To children he says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. `Honor thy father and thy mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), `that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.’”

To fathers, he says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”‘

This is the perfect solution to a major family problem. Let the wife be subject to her husband as if he were Christ. Let the husband love his wife as Christ loves the Church.

If such a relationship existed between husband and wife, they would be in harmony as the Church and Christ perfect love and peace. Finally, let children obey and respect their parents. If they do, God will bless them and grant peace to that family.

 

“It is difficult for a child to be better than his home environment or for a nation to be superior to the level of its home life. In fulfilling its double purpose – the generation and formation of children – the home becomes a little world in itself, self-sufficient even in its youngest years. It is vital that you, as a mother or father, make of your home a training ground in character-building for your children, who will inherit the world’s problems. Home is a place in which the young grow in harmony with all that is good and noble, where hardship, happiness, and work are shared.” – Father Lawrence G. Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook http://amzn.to/2sDb6hw (afflink)

A coloring page for your children for this Month of the Precious Blood….

Do you need some good book suggestions? Visit My Book List here.

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