May your Thanksgiving Day be filled with blessings! I am thankful for you, your prayers and support! ❤
Some inspirational quotes
Mothers, on Thanksgiving, know how very special you are. You are the essence, the heart of your home. Your smile lightens the burdens, your words brighten the hearts of those who will be part of your festivities. The tone of this special family time is set by you! We, as mothers, are privileged to have such an important part in the making of our homes! May your day be filled with grace and love! ❤
This Thanksgiving let us offer up our little inconveniences, our stresses, our fatigue for those less fortunate than ourselves. And, on the flip side, let’s start becoming more aware of the little things and thanking God for them.
“After committing a fault of whatever kind, rather than withdrawing into ourselves indefinitely in discouragement and dwelling on the memory, we must immediately return to God with confidence and even thank Him for the good that His mercy will be able to draw out of this fault!
We must know that one of the weapons that the devil uses most commonly to prevent souls from advancing toward God is precisely to try to make them lose their peace and discourage them by the sight of their faults.” Searching For and Maintaining Peace, Fr. Jacques Philippe https://amzn.to/2pSwDmQ (afflink)
Thank God for His many blessings. Make the most of each and every day. Enjoy the journey. The world will keep whizzing by but we must take time to smell the roses. Each day is a gift, each person in your life is special. Take nothing for granted.
“For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy!” ❤❤❤-St. Therese of Lisieux
Be attentive to the sacrifices your husband makes for the family. Each day he battles the world, the flesh and the devil out in the workforce for you. Don’t let that go unnoticed. Thank him often! Appreciate him. -Finer Femininity
Discussing the dynamics of Catholic family life…
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Author Mary Reed Newland here draws on her own experiences as the mother of seven to show how the classic Christian principles of sanctity can be translated into terms easily applied to children even to the very young.
Because it’s rooted in experience, not in theory, nothing that Mrs. Newland suggests is impossible or extraordinary. In fact, as you reflect on your experiences with your own children, you’ll quickly agree that hers is an excellent commonsense approach to raising good Catholic children.
Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, the renowned author of The Hidden Power of Kindness, gives faithful Catholics all the essential ingredients of a stable and loving Catholic marriage and family — ingredients that are in danger of being lost in our turbulent age.
Using Scripture and Church teachings in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, Fr. Lovasik helps you understand the proper role of the Catholic father and mother and the blessings of family. He shows you how you can secure happiness in marriage, develop the virtues necessary for a successful marriage, raise children in a truly Catholic way, and much more.
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I was praying one night to understand a matter I often hear discussed these days. People say you need not go through Mary or anyone else to get to Jesus; when you pray, they say, go straight to Jesus.
I asked my Guardian Angel why I should often be talking to him!
That night I had a dream, in which I was six years old; it was my dad’s birthday. Being six, I quickly thought of a present for him: I knew he loved apples, that my uncle had an apple tree, and that I loved climbing. So I went over to my uncle’s house, and asked if I might pick some apples.
“Yes,” he said. “Have all you like.”
So I picked from the tree all I could. Being young, I was not very careful. Many apples dropped, and bruised as they smashed against a branch or fell to the ground. When I finished, I had a full paper sack; I walked home with them, tired and struggling, as the sack had a rather large hole and apples kept falling out.
I did manage to return with more than half of them–more than enough for a birthday feast. I watched as I sorted the remaining fruit. Three! All that work, and only three apples were fit for dad’s birthday gift!
Once again, I looked over all the fruit. The rest were bruised, scuffed, cracked or pitted with dirt from having fallen on the ground. I began to cry. Hearing me, my mother came into the room and asked why I was crying.
As I told her the story, she looked over the fruit and said, “We can still give your father apples for his birthday.”
“But Mom, I can’t give Dad only three apples! I planned to give him a whole sackful–not just three!”
She looked at me with sort of a sad smile. “You dad would be very happy to have the three apples for his present. But I know a way he can have all of your gift.”
“How? They’re all ruined!”
Her face lit up with a large smile. “They’re not ALL ruined. We can wash them, peel them and cut away all that is bad. We can make your father apple pie!”
At Mom’s words I became happy again and said, “That’s right! Only part of each apple is bad.”
So, with Mom’s help–she added her flour, sugar and other fixings–I began to make apple pies. We baked them and waited for them to cool. Three! Three apple pies! I could give Dad three apple pies! I was very happy, because without Mom, most of my work would have gone to waste and unsavored.
Mom cut a large slice of apple pie, put it on a plate, and added two scoops of ice cream. I took this and a glass of milk to the living room and gave them to Dad, with a sense of achievement.
From this dream, I learned that we can truly go straight to Jesus with our prayers, and Jesus is always happy to receive them. But with them could go the blemishes of our pride, hatreds and other weaknesses and imperfections.
With Mary’s help and merits, we are able to give Jesus His prayers . . . a la mode!
MARY INTENSIFIES DEVOTION TO CHRIST
Some people fear that praying to Mary will drive Christ out of the forefront of religious consciousness. But experience shows otherwise. It is precisely the masters of the religious life, the saints, who honored Mary the most.
This veneration did not lead them away from Christ. Indeed, it led to that profound oneness with Christ which makes men and women holy. Mary is not a barrier to Christ, but the way to Him.
Those Christian splinter groups which turned away from Mary, also turned away, to a greater or lesser extent, from Christ. Their tabernacle is empty: And even their faith in the Godhead of Christ is often shaken. –Father Herbert Madinger
Never weary in cheering your family with your smile. It is not enough to avoid depressing them; you must brighten them up and let their spirits expand. Be especially vigilant when the little ones are around. Give them the alms of a smile, hard though it be at times. What a pity when children have to say, “I don’t like it at home.” – Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J. http://amzn.to/2rHXstq (afflink)
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24 Windows to Open
Find a Picture & Corresponding Bible Text Behind Each Window
Glitter on the Front
A Great Family Tradition
11″x14″
24 Windows to Open
Find a Picture & Corresponding Bible Text Behind Each Window
Glitter on the Front
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Femininity is a beautiful thing…and Mary Reed Newland teaches us to relish in it. Let it be a light to the world around us who has seen a very negative side of womanhood. Let’s bring it back, Ladies!
Below is pictures of the two tea parties we have had in the past two months…a lovely way to express our femininity!
When I was a little girl, I used to dream of being a “lady.” The world of Little Women, with its gracious manners and old-fashioned, flowing dresses fascinated me.
Softness and lace, tantalizing fragrance and exquisite texture, a nurturing spirit and a love of beauty-these images of femininity shaped my earliest ideas of loveliness.
Is that kind of femininity a lost value today? I don’t believe it. The world has changed, and most of us live in simple skirts or business suits or jeans instead of flowing gowns. But I still believe that somewhere in the heart of most of us is a little girl who longs to be a lady.
I also believe that today’s world is hungering to be transformed by the spirit of femininity. What better antidote for an impersonal and violent society than warm, gentle, feminine strength?
What better cure for urban sprawl and trashed-out countrysides than a love of beauty and a confidence in one’s ability to make things lovely?
What better hope for the future than a nurturing mother’s heart that is more concerned for the next generation than for its own selfish desires?
All these qualities – gentle strength, love of beauty, care and nurturing – are part of femininity.
Being a woman created by God is such a privilege – and the gift of our femininity is something we can give both to ourselves and to the people around us.
Just one flower, one candle, can warm up a cold, no-nonsense atmosphere with an aura of “I care.” Women have always had the ability to transform an environment, to make it comfortable and inviting. I believe we should rejoice in that ability and make the most of it.
This doesn’t mean we have to follow a set pattern or adopt a cookie-cutter style. Specific expressions of femininity vary greatly.
When I think “feminine,” I usually think of soft colors, lace, and flowers. I love ruffled curtains and flower-sprigged wallpaper, delicate bone china and old-fashioned garden prints. And I feel especially beautiful when I’m dressed up in soft and colorful fabrics.
But I know women with vastly different styles who still exude that special quality I call femininity -women who wear tailored tweeds or casual cottons (or gardening “grubbies”) with an air of gentleness ness and sensitivity.
Women who fill sleek modern kitchens or utilitarian office cubicles with that unmistakable sense of warmth, caring, and responsiveness. Women who combine self-confidence and an indomitable spirit with a gracious humility and a tender teachability.
Women who wear the spirit of femininity with the grace with which they wear their favorite elegant scent.
To me, the spirit of femininity is expressed in objects chosen for their beauty as well as their usefulness… and lovingly cared for. It is people accepted and nurtured, loveliness embraced and shared.
More important, the spirit of femininity is the spirit of care and compassion. In my mind, the most feminine woman is one with an eye and ear for others and a heart for God.
“Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself…do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage.” Introduction the the Devout Life― St. Francis de Sales
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With his facile pen and from the wealth of his nation-wide experience, the well-known author treats anything and everything that might be included under the heading of home education: the pre-marriage training of prospective parents, the problems of the pre-school days down through the years of adolescence. No topic is neglected. “What is most praiseworthy is Fr. Lord’s insistence throughout that no educational agency can supplant the work that must be done by parents.” – Felix M. Kirsch, O.F.M.SaveSaveSave
Necessary advice to Catholic parents building a Catholic home. Reliable advice that is almost completely lost today, from people who know how it’s done. How to make it. How to live it. How to keep it. This book covers every aspect of Catholicizing your home–from spiritual matters like prayer and catechism to nuts and bolts topics like Keeping the Family Budget, Games and Toys, Harmony between School and Home, Family Prayers, Good Reading in the Home, Necessity of Home Life and much more .
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There is a word which can not be said too often to every Christian whom God has destined to live, converse, and labor in the society of his fellow-creatures: Be indulgent. Yes, be indulgent; it is necessary for others, and it is necessary for your own sake.
Forget the little troubles that others may cause you; keep up no resentment for the inconsiderate or unfavorable words that may have been said about you; excuse the mistakes and awkward blunders of which you are the victim; always make out good intentions for those who have done you any wrong by imprudent acts of speeches; in a word, smile at everything, show a pleasant face on all occasions, maintain an inexhaustible fund of goodness, patience, and gentleness.
Thus you will be at peace with all your brethren; your love for them will suffer no alteration, and their love for you will increase day by day. But above all, you will practice in an excellent manner Christian charity, which is impossible without this toleration and indulgence at every instant. -Russell, The Art of Being Happy
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Let us take heed of the habits, tastes, and even the little hobbies of those around us, in order not to cross them in anything, especially our superiors and our kinsfolk.
There are a thousand minute details of manner and conduct, insignificant in themselves no doubt, but to which some, especially old people and nervous people, attach so much importance that a slight negligence with regard to one of these little points puts them in bad humor for a whole day.
There is question, for instance, of shutting a door, of making a little too much noise going upstairs, of being punctual to some appointment, of playing one game rather than another, of listening to a story that we have heard a hundred times before.
A thoughtless or overbearing person will despise such petty matters as mere trifles, and, in despising them, will spoil all the comfort of some one perhaps to whom he owes gratitude and respect.
A more pliant and more amiable Christian will, for virtue’s sake, submit to what is required of him, his fellow-creatures; and he will himself enjoy that sweet satisfaction which charity secures for us when it is joined to humility.
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Be of Good Cheer!
“Be of good cheer!” “Be of good heart!” “Have confidence!” “Fear ye not!” So said Our Lord on various occasions.
And the Apostle admonishes us not to be anxious about our affairs, but to trust in the loving kindness of God, “Casting all your care upon Him; for He hath care of you” (1 Peter v.7).
Don’t brood over what is past; forget it!
Be not too eager and anxious in the present.
Do your best; leave the rest to God, your good Father in heaven; keep your peace.
Don’t worry about the future. What is the use of doing so? When you see trouble, blessing may really be in store for you. Hope for the best. Accept what happens philosophically. Always act with a pure intention and with deliberation.
The author of “The Art of Being Happy” says:
“A great secret for preserving peace of heart is to do nothing with over eagerness, but to act always calmly without trouble or disquiet. We are not asked to do much, but to do well.
At the Last Day God will not examine if we have performed a multitude of works, but if we have sanctified our souls in doing them. Now the means of sanctifying ourselves is to do everything for God and to do perfectly whatever we have to do.
The works that have as their motive vanity or selfishness make us neither better nor happier, and we shall receive no reward for them.”
Cultivate a cheerful temper. Says the Wise Man in the Book Proverbs: “A joyful mind maketh age flourish: a sorrowful spirit drieth up the bones” (Prov. xvii.22).
Look at the bright side of things.
“Two men looked out through their prison bars;
The one saw mud, and the other stars.” – Stevenson
“A poet,” writes Father Russell, “was gazing one day at a beautiful rose-tree, ‘What a pity’, said he, ‘that these roses have thorns!’
A man who was passing by said to him: ‘Let us rather thank our good God for having allowed these thorns to have roses.’
Ah! how ought we also to thank Him for so many joys that He grants to us in spite of our sins, instead of complaining about the slight troubles that He sends us!”
“The soul of one who loves God always swims in joy, always keeps holiday, and is always in a mood for singing.”
-St. John of the Cross
As Sr. Lucia of Fatima said this is a time of diabolical disorientation. We find an amazing type or image of this in the life of St. John of the Cross. To conquer this inversion, as St. John did, we must remain firm and steadfast in our faith and employ the power of the Most Holy Trinity in casting the devil out of our lives. This is always done through the making of the Sign of the Cross.
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The following tidbits are taken from this lovely, old “Little Flower Prayer Book” of my mother’s…..
This was Mom’s beautiful (and much used) Little Flower Prayer Book that she had for many years.
It has all sorts of notes throughout, post-it notes, holy cards, etc. As you can see by this page at the back Mom wrote some of the novenas she had done for her family. One of the novenas she said a Hail Mary for 240 days….and she did that one for each of her siblings, her children and grandchildren.
It was a fluke I found this book. And when I did, I was happy to find this note in the front.
St. Therese:
How sweet it was, the first kiss of Jesus to my soul! Yes, it was a kiss of Love. I felt I was loved, and I too said: “I love Thee, I give myself to Thee forever!”
Jesus asked nothing of me, demanded no sacrifice. Already for a long time past, He and the little Therese had watched and understood one another . . .
That day our meeting was no longer a simple look but a fusion. No longer were we two: Therese had disappeared as the drop of water which loses itself in the depths of the ocean, Jesus alone remained; the Master, the King!
Had not Therese begged Him to take away from her, her liberty? That liberty made her afraid; so weak, so fragile did she feel herself that she longed to be united for ever to Divine Strength.
I had taken as my rule of conduct, to receive most faithfully Holy Communion as often as my confessor permitted, without ever asking that it might be more frequent.
I would act differently now; for I am quite sure that a soul ought to make known to her director the attraction that she feels to receive her God.
It is not to remain in a golden ciborium that He comes down each day from Heaven, but to find another Heaven, the Heaven of our soul in which He takes his delight.
What shall I say of my thanksgivings after Holy Communion? There are no moments in which I feel less consolation. And is not this very natural, seeing that my desire is to receive our Lord’s visit, not for my own satisfaction, but solely for His pleasure.
I imagine my soul to be as a plot of waste ground and beg the Blessed Virgin to remove from it all the rubbish—meaning its imperfections; then I beseech her to erect thereon a vast canopy worthy of Heaven and to decorate it with her own treasures, and I invite all the Angels and Saints to come and sing canticles of love.
It seems to me then that Jesus is pleased to see Himself so magnificently received; and I, I share His joy. All this does not hinder distractions and sleep from molesting me; therefore it not rarely happens that I resolve to continue my thanksgiving all the day long, since I have made it so badly in the Choir.
At the time of Holy Communion I sometimes picture my soul under the figure of a little child of three or four years, who at play has got its hair tossed and its clothes soiled.—
These misfortunes have befallen me in battling with souls.—But very soon the Blessed Virgin hastens to my aid: quickly she takes off my little dirty pinafore, smooths my hair and adorns it with a pretty ribbon or simply with a little flower . . . and this suffices to render me pleasing and enables me to sit at the Banquet of Angels without blushing.
The demon, traitor that he is, knows well, that he cannot make a soul who wills to belong wholly to the good God, commit sin; therefore he endeavors only to persuade her that she sins. That is a great deal gained, but it is not yet enough to satisfy his rage; he aims at something further, he wants to deprive Jesus of a loved tabernacle.
Not being able himself to enter into this sanctuary he wishes that it may at least remain empty and without its Lord.
Alas! what will become of this poor heart? . . . When the devil has succeeded in driving away a soul from Holy Communion he has gained his ends, and Jesus weeps . . .
A novice relates that she wanted to deprive herself of Holy Communion because of some lack of fidelity.
She wrote her determination to Sister Therese of the Child Jesus who thus replied: “Little flower cherished by Jesus, it is amply sufficient that by the humiliation of your soul, your roots eat of the earth . . . You must open a little, or rather raise on high your corolla so that the Bread of Angels may come as a divine dew to strengthen you, and to give you all that is wanting to you.”
Goodnight, poor little floweret; ask of Jesus that all the prayers offered for my recovery may serve to augment the fire which must consume me.”
“Love and sacrifice is thus as closely connected as the sun and the light. You can’t love without suffering and suffer without loving. It is with sacrifice that so confirms love “. – Santa Gianna Beretta Molla Painting by Hermann Kaulbach (1846 – 1909, German)
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The saints, who were Christianity at its perfection, at once developed a childlike trust in God and a perhaps more astoundingly childlike trust in their fellow men.
It was natural that they should be happily confident of the protecting and unfailing love of the Father, who made them, the Son, who redeemed them, the Holy Spirit, who dwelt in their soul. But history has regarded saintliness as naively childish.
It has been amazed that the saints were confident that they could live and that they could ask others to live like angels; that religious founders could ask their followers to look upon money as a child might look upon pebbles with which he has tired of playing; that heroism should be demanded as the commonplace of weak men—purity, martyrdom, service to fellow men.
But being childlike, the saints were trustful. And their confidence made them attempt and carry through the glorious triumphs that are recorded in the calendar of the saints and made them actually imbue others with the same glorious spirit.
No Fear
Why should they fear any power in all the world? The Apostles, like trusting children, walked calmly out to win an entrenched Roman empire.
Missionaries, smiling and unafraid, moved into the heart of pagan nations. The devil lost his awesomeness; even children’s hands could push him from his ancient pagan altars; he and his followers were to be met, not with leveled lances, but with prayer, smiles, and a few drops of holy water. There was no longer reason for fear.
These Christians were not babes in the woods, lost and afraid. They were walking a pathway that was marked by the feet of Christ, their elder brother. Heaven leaned down to help them. God was solicitous about the success of each of them, personally solicitous.
Their victory was guaranteed by His victory on Calvary. No power in all the world could successfully assail them. Fear was ended.
Childlike and unafraid, they faced the temptations that rose in their hearts, the army corps that were sent down to smash their altars and lead them to bloody death, the learned books that were flung at their faith, the scorn of those who thought them stupid and childish.
From Young Souls
All of which is, of course, just another way of saying that the saints had found the confidence and calm that rest on innocence and that dwell only in sinless souls. Many of them were sinless till the day of their death; they never knew the crushing, aging effect of sin. And those that had sinned put sin away and looked back on their sins, not with fascination, but with sorrow.
Innocence was so much sweeter than the most fascinating sin. Sinlessness was the state that was originally intended for man. How could sin ever have tricked them so? How could it have held men and women once they had tasted its bitterness and felt its poisonous breath?
The saints were uniquely young, young with all the dear youth of childhood. For they had become as little children. Though they walked the rugged ways of earth, they had already entered into the kingdom of heaven.
What Makes Men Old?
For history grimly records the fact and experience painfully teaches each of us that there are only two things that really make a man or a woman old.
One of these things is sin. The other is a chilly doubt of God and fellow men.
And because our generation worships in the temple of sin and sits at the feet of cynical doubt, ours is a strangely, terrifyingly old world.
Why we even witness the incredible sight of leaders attempting to pull the world back from the young Christ to the ancient and dead gods. Hitler draws from unhonored graves the gods and goddesses of Valhalla, ancient mythical figures that faded away before the warm smile of the youthful Savior of the world.
The old gods, greed and lust and power personified, shorn of the attractive false forms that they wore in Greece and in Rome, today walk the world stark and unashamed: Might is right; lust moves in high society; power is worshiped with clanging machines and zooming planes.
Old Sin
And sin? Sin is everywhere making our young people old. Passion is wakened long before its time. Tired eyes look out from lovely, brilliant faces. Our little children, become sophisticated, have been inoculated with false and tricky wisdom. Lust demands tribute from the old and the young.
Mother love dies before ever it is born, and men are unwilling to accept the responsibility of fatherhood. Gangsterland rises in might. Crime writes its record so boldly that even the child can spell it out letter by letter. And the world grows old, not with years, but with sin that molders in the souls of men.
There is nothing that so quickly makes a man old as does sin; nothing else so swiftly rips the loveliness from a woman’s face; no other power so speedily drags strong nations to dishonored graves, graves marked as a warning by the hand of history.
Chill Doubt
And chilling, cynical doubt? Millions lift their eyes to heaven but are blind to its glories. They turn toward their own hearts and deny that God is there. Loss of faith in God has given rise to faith in high-powered guns and increased armament. God has been driven from the world of affairs.
The bankers are the high priests that matter. Clamorous tongues shriek their denials of the Christ as hairy arms lift sledges to smash His altars. And remember that the God who is denied and openly attacked is the Father of the human family, the Father of Jesus Christ, our elder brother.
Faith Gone
With the loss of faith in God has come the loss of childlike faith in ourselves. Communism declares that a man is not fit to own even a little piece of property. Fascism declares that man has not sufficient intelligence to choose his government. Nazism declares that man has no rights outside those that the state allows him. Evolution denies man kinship with any but the animals. A cynical philosophy declares that man is nothing but the slave of circumstance and inherited blood.
No wonder that our world is an old, tired world waiting hopelessly for the war that will destroy the present civilization and crush the future. Sin has been given a free hand, and it has etched deep wrinkles in the face of humanity.
Cold doubt has blotted from man’s heart the vision of God in His heaven and has pulled him down from the height to which Christ lifted him.
Saints Stay Young
But always, in every generation, now as in the first ages, the saints stay young. They keep the innocence of the Little Flower. They cling to the loyalty of the young Apostle John. They hold fast to faith in the heavenly Father. On youthful feet they run alongside the swift young Christ.
The weight of years does not press upon their shoulders. Their souls are young and childlike. They have found the innocence and faith, the cheerfulness and trust that Christ gave to the world. The proud certainty in their minds leaves no place for the ice of skepticism. They find the world the beautiful place that God prepared for those who love Him.
The Easy Means
No doubt of it, I should be unfair to you, my good friend, if I failed to point out that not only has Christ, commanded you to stay young but He has given you the infallible means of staying young. You are to be like little children. That is His wish and His command.
And you can remain children by hugging to your hearts the joy and faith, the trust and innocence, the sense, of your Father’s nearness and of your brother’s dearness. You are to look up and see the smiling face of Mary, your gracious mother. You are to look on the world that God made and regard yourself as a member of God’s vast human family..
No fear should touch your heart, for your way is clear, the road well marked by the pioneering feet of the Savior. Mother Church holds you protectingly close. An angel is at your side.
Stay Young
You can return as often as you wish to renew your life by the divine life that flows from the Blessed Sacrament. You can keep your mind keenly alive with the constantly expanding, ever-widening vista of Christ’s revealed truth and beauty. You are in the truest sense immortally young.
By virtue of your union with the Mystical Body of Christ there flows through you the ageless life of God Himself. And you march surely and safely toward heaven, which may rightly be defined as nothing less than the eternal youth of God shared by His beloved sons and daughters.
Stay young.
There is no need for one who loves God and believes in Jesus Christ, who has within him Christ’s divine life itself, and who moves toward eternal life ever to grow even slightly old.
“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.” – Fr. Lovasik, Catholic Family Handbook https://amzn.to/2Dbcimb (afflink)
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Here, Baroness Maria Augusta Trapp tells in her own beautiful, simple words the extraordinary story of her romance with the baron, their escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and their life in America.
Now with photographs from the original edition.
Most people only know the young Maria from The Sound of Music; few realize that in subsequent years, as a pious wife and a seasoned Catholic mother, Maria gave herself unreservedly to keeping her family Catholic by observing in her home the many feasts of the Church’s liturgical year, with poems and prayers, food and fun, and so much more!
With the help of Maria Von Trapp, you, too, can provide Christian structure and vibrancy to your home. Soon your home will be a warm and loving place, an earthly reflection of our eternal home.
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Now Christ never used words carelessly. Nor did He make upon His followers demands that He did not mean to help them realize. So if He laid down the general rule that they must be like little children, He must have found in little children and their dear youthfulness qualities of high value.
Beyond the enthusiasm of children, the quick responsiveness that we have already noted, just what other qualities are characteristic of a child? I think that high on the list could probably be placed gaiety, lightness, gladness of heart. Certainly too the normal child has an unspoiled faith in others, a faith that is born of his confident trust in his father and his happy experiences with his mother.
Fearlessly the little child faces the world. It is only after he has been taught to be afraid that he shrinks from a dog or refuses to pet the kitten or draws back from the stranger or is terrified by fire or the falling of water. All this that makes the child unique in the world of skeptical, distrustful human beings is rooted in his youthful innocence and sinlessness.
He is a little like our first parents before they came to know the bitterness of sin, the brutal blows of unleashed nature, the treachery of their own souls, and the cruelty of even their sons and daughters.
Gladly Heard
Now the saints heard Christ’s command with gladness. Did He bid them be like little children? Splendid! That was a dear command and a precious one, and they gladly obeyed. For with the brilliant intuitions that distinguished them, the saints realized clearly that Christ intended them to copy all the characteristics that make life in childhood’s day so beautiful and good.
Did Christ wish them to be joyful? Why then they would be joyful. They would leave tears and sorrow to sinners. Even on the gridiron of St. Laurence they would laugh and jest. Dragged before the statues of false gods, they would jestingly breathe upon them and laugh as the statues tumbled to earth.
Why shouldn’t they be happy? Hadn’t their Father made them because He loved them? Weren’t they redeemed by the blood of God the Son? Weren’t they surrounded with all the protection He had decreed for them: the angel that walked, at their side, not always visible, as he was to Cecilia, but staunchly, reassuringly protecting? the warm arms of Christ’s Church holding them safe?
Saints Laugh
Weren’t they moving steadily along the pathway of grace straight into the presence of eternal truth and beauty? And if the executioner did strike them with his sword, what did it matter? The blow of the steel was only a swift stroke that cut short their life of trial and released them into a life of blissful happiness.
So they laughed and sang, as did Francis of Assisi, the man most like Christ, who became God’s Troubadour and felt he served the Lord best with song and cheerfulness.
Martyrs smiled as they went to death. Virgins wore their innocence with a glad grace never before seen in all history. Grave doctors paused in their learned discussions to sing hymns to God’s mother. And Luke the physician took the time to paint the lovely features of the first Madonna.
And cheerfulness filled the Church, and the Mass moved forward to music and lights and sweet incense and the glory of the liturgy. And within their Father’s house God’s children were happy.
Trust
All this youthful gaiety was of course soundly grounded in the faith that the saints had in other men. The saints knew that Christ had said that their Father was in heaven. Why then if that was true, they were God’s little children. They were in dear reality His sons and daughters.
A glance at the lovely, well-stocked earth showed them how exquisitely their Father cared for the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, and these His beloved little ones. That glorious relationship made Christ their elder brother; and it was not surprising, though not less glorious, that an elder brother should die for his younger brothers and sisters.
That placed over them the dear protection of a mother who was God’s mother. With a sharp sense of joy men realized that they were not cast adrift to struggle with the animals for possession of the earth. Men and women were of God’s household, the sons and daughters of the Almighty Father, blood brothers of the Savior, the sweet offspring of the Virgin Mother.
Always a Child
It followed then that no matter how old or learned a man might be, no matter what the weight of wisdom or of years, he was always God’s beloved child. There might be wrinkles on the woman’s face; she might have many grandchildren; she was still in God’s eyes only His little daughter.
Out of this came the most astounding change in men’s whole viewpoint toward their fellow men. They were not strangers and enemies; they were members of the same human family. One could hope for high things of men, who had been created out of the love of Almighty God, adopted by God’s own Son, and mothered by the Queen of Heaven.
So Christianity taught men to believe splendid things of men: that they could clearly know the truth, could bravely carry on the work that the Incarnate God had begun, could use earth as a take-off for heaven.
“It is our solemn duty as Catholics, therefore, to be conscious of our duty to America, and to preserve its freedom by preserving its faith in God. . . But as we talk about patriotism, it might be well to remind ourselves that in a crisis like this even devotion to the stars and stripes is not enough to save us. We must look beyond them to other stars and stripes, namely the stars and stripes of Christ, by Whose stars we are illuminated and by whose stripes we are healed!”
The Catholic Boy’s and Girl’s Traditional 30-Day Journals! Let’s keep our youth engaged in the Faith! Let’s teach them how to be organized, how to prioritize, how to keep on top of, first, the Spiritual things in their lives, and then the other daily duties that God requires of them… Available here.
A wonderful book showing how the angels have visited people innumerable times in the past, how they do so today, and would do even more if we asked them. Also, how they prevent accidents, comfort us, help us, and protect us from the devils. Contains many beautiful stories about St. Michael, St. Raphael and St. Gabriel; plus, angel stories from St. Gemma Galgani, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John Bosco, etc.SaveSave
A very optimistic book showing how an “ordinary” Catholic can become a great saint without ever doing anything “extraordinary”–just by using the many opportunities for holiness that to most people lie hidden in each day. Written with an assurance of success that is totally convincing and infectious. Many easy but infallible means of reaching great sanctity.
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As for the interest that will keep you youthfully alive, why “the world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as [and far more responsive and alert and alive than] kings.”
A painter may be—and many are—a perfect dullard in everything but his painting. But the fact that he is so keenly interested in subjects for fresh canvases and in precisely the technique by which he will imprison the new beauties of those subjects in undying color makes him vividly alive, perpetually young.
A scientist may have for his field of research only one small fraction of the universe, but the exhaustlessness of the fraction keeps him young, alive. He dare not grow old; there is too much to learn in this intriguing field. He will stay young; his mind is too active to permit him to shrivel and mummify.
Doomed to Grow Old
One of the curses of our modern industrialism is just this fact: For eight hours a day (or whatever the number of hours that the union permits) too many millions of men and women work and slave at jobs that from their souls they almost hate. They stand at a punch machine. They put nuts and bolts together. They count bottles. They paste labels. They sit at the wheel of a tractor. They drive the shuttle subway train back and forth between two bleak stations.
And in the grind of a few dull years they grow prematurely old. It would seem that they exist for the sole purpose of doing something that they fiercely dislike. They are not alive when they are working. They die by degrees at the machine that masters and dominates them.
Yet even these men and women could save themselves, could stay alive and remain young if there were something else in their lives that filled their leisure time (each of us has a portion of it these days) with interest.
But only when we have developed education to a point where it concerns itself less with how a man makes money and far, far more with how he lives, less with his job and more with what he does when he is free and at leisure, what joys and hobbies and interests fill his non-working hours, only then will education help to keep men and women young.
Any Interest
What interests should you have? What interests and enthusiasms will keep you young? How could I possibly enumerate them?
There is the absorbing interest of getting something, anything, done . . . anything from building a skyscraper to turning out an excellent enlargement of a pet negative, from building bridges to laying out a tennis court or training a hunting dog, from writing a novel to playing the piano well enough to have a bowing acquaintance with important music, from mastering some important scientific problem—the cure for a disease, the analysis of the atom, the control of weather conditions in a certain farm area—to gathering first editions or triangular stamps or china or matchbox covers.
Man is essentially a creator. He must be doing things, making things. Modern industry has largely deprived him of the opportunity to create. He no longer makes a carriage; he simply stamps the trademark on the hubs of the wheels. He no longer carves a statue; he handles the lever of a machine that presses out on tin ash trays profiles of Krazy Kat.
Creators
Until man recaptures his right to create a thing completely, to fashion the whole of a beautiful or useful object, he will grow old at the workbench and exhausted at the machine. That is why, if one wants to retain one’s youth, it is so tremendously important to select for one’s career a job in which one can accomplish an entire work, whatever that work may be—saving souls or bodies, making music or statuettes.
For creation is the great renewer of the creator’s youth. So parents live again in their children; authors find their life renewed in their books; the great builders of the world have remained young in heart and mind and aspiration and effort until the day they died.
Youth From People
Then there’s the youth-giving interest in people. Mothers experience that in most astonishing ways; if their children give to them even a fairly decent return of love and devotion, mothers often remain remarkably young.
The man who is interested in people has a limitless means of keeping his soul alive. Great lawyers remain young. Great doctors, despite their heavy work and often dangerous exposure to all sorts of peril, keep, as long as they are sincerely interested in the people for whom they are working, youthful hearts and fresh outlooks.
Blessed the man or the woman whose work throws him or her with young people and who thus endlessly renews his or her youth.
There are undoubtedly men and women who keep young by collecting, not stamps and bric-a-brac and menus, but varied associations with their fellow men. And they have in that hobby a youth-reviving and youth-sustaining interest.
Intelligent readers have an aliveness of mind that keeps them young. Collectors, unless they come to be pedantic specialists —out of touch with life itself and valuing the thing for itself and not for its association with human beings—often remain young.
So there are a thousand different ways of keeping that alertness of mind and aliveness of soul that are the basis of youth and the revivifying fountain that perpetuates youthfulness. The listless and the uninterested, the surfeited and the blasé, men and women who lose their enthusiasms because they have too much of life’s goods or too hopelessly little—these are the ones who grow old. There is no real reason why any intelligent person should be numbered among them.
Paradox
But I stated earlier that as a group the saints were delightfully young. That brings to mind one of Christ’s most surprising paradoxes. The world to which Christ spoke was a very old, tired world. Paganism was old, as paganism is always old.
Its gods were dead or dying; its faith was gone; wearily it let slip even its human rights and yielded to tyrants who gave in return for youthful freedom bread and circuses; it had little hope in humanity, slaves most of them, soldiers, prostitutes, the wretchedly poor; it distrusted its philosophers to such an extent that it laughed at the word Sophia (wisdom) and flung at those who professed to teach wisdom the epithet Sophists.
The Jewish world was old. It had waited very, very long for the coming of the Messiah. Its religion had grown stiff and formal, encrusted with all the customs and the traditions of a wearisome past. Its law, growing out of ancient pride, had solidified into a matter of strict forms and meaningless ablutions and fringes; and out of this very rigidity had come a kind of limpness, a despair of humanity.
While a man was not expected to lift a finger on the Sabbath, not even to heal a friend, he could not be asked to remain faithful to his wife.
Christ’s Dear Command
It was an old, weary world, far older and wearier than ever it has been in the centuries since that time. It was to that world that Christ addressed His astonishing paradox.
Taking a child into His arms, He looked up at the grey-bearded Pharisees and the weary-eyed Roman soldiers and said: “Unless you . . . become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
He calmly announced that His followers must not only be young and stay young; they must be actually childlike. No wonder the weary soldiers of Rome and the custom-encrusted scribes and Pharisees turned away from this man who demanded that His followers be born again of water and the Holy Ghost and remain like little children all the days of their life.
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Here, Baroness Maria Augusta Trapp tells in her own beautiful, simple words the extraordinary story of her romance with the baron, their escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and their life in America.
Now with photographs from the original edition.
Most people only know the young Maria from The Sound of Music; few realize that in subsequent years, as a pious wife and a seasoned Catholic mother, Maria gave herself unreservedly to keeping her family Catholic by observing in her home the many feasts of the Church’s liturgical year, with poems and prayers, food and fun, and so much more!
With the help of Maria Von Trapp, you, too, can provide Christian structure and vibrancy to your home. Soon your home will be a warm and loving place, an earthly reflection of our eternal home.
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My mom was a person who always seemed young. She had so many interests! Getting her Docotrate in Naturopathy at the age of 62 was an indication of her unending interest in life and helping others! And she did not quit picking up books and learning about the latest techniques in her field until shortly before she died.
Father Daniel Lord, 1950’s, suggests that these are the very things that will keep us young, in spite of a body that is slowing down….
Young Souls
Youth, maturity, and old age are not a matter merely or even mostly of the body. They are very much a matter of mind, of soul, of emotions. It is rather interesting to notice what groups have a way of staying very young and very much alive.
High in that list all of us would, I think, place artists of almost all types (except those who wreck their youth with folly or excesses of any kind). Actors and actresses stay young. Scientists have a way of remaining young in ripe old age.
Authors often remain youthful and alert quite beyond their period of productivity; they keep on running, like old Shaw himself or H. G. Wells or Dickens or the long-bearded poets.
And when baseball players are tottering to the dugout for the last time, musicians and painters and philosophers are just starting off to a good healthy swing at the ball of their particular art or craft. T
hen saints have an astounding way of staying young. They remain the youngest of the sons and daughters of our race. Many of them seem actually to have found the fountain of perpetual youth. But we’ll come back to them later.
So I think that the whole fundamental measure of youth comes down to this: How alert is your mind? How responsive is your soul? How quick are your reactions? How many interests have you? Is the world wonderful to you, or is it a bore? Do you find most things delightful or annoying? Are you fond of new acquaintances and devoted to old friends?
While you are on the watch for new marvels, do you keep all your affection for the old astonishing things that have always delighted you?
Young Aged
One meets with gratifying regularity old people who are intensely young. I am thinking at the moment of one old lady who is well into her eighties. Her personality dominates the family circle, and she is by all odds the alivest one in the group.
Nothing escapes her interests. She is alternately amazed and amused and concerned by the happenings in her home circle and in the world.She knows all the baseball scores, and she can tell you the odds on the current heavyweight contender.
She enjoys good music and pores over current literature. She is up to the minute on political questions and has violent opinions on every new issue as it arises. She wants all the news of her family and her family’s families. She has become a sort of clearinghouse for the harmless gossip of the family and of the neighborhood.
She sews, and she hums as she sews. She is equally at home with a needle, a book, a rosary, or a cool convivial drink in her hand. No one ever thinks of her as being old.
Only the heaviness of her body and the slow dimming of her hearing keep her from seeming as young as her granddaughters. And when she meticulously cares for her complexion before she retires, using all the correct creams and cleansers, it seems, not the affected vanity of an old woman, but the perfectly proper conduct for one with so young a personality.
Within Control
No doubt about it youth is aliveness, interest, vivid response. Now note: While it is not always possible to retain the youthfulness of our arteries and the pliability of our muscles, it is possible for even the person of little education to keep his interests alive, to develop new interests constantly, and to be youthful in mind and soul.
I have known old Irishmen who could scarcely read but who had souls and minds that were responsive to everything that went on around them. They were interested in everything that happened, in everyone they met.
How different from the young man who sits dozing in the corner of the porch, cigarette pendant from loose lip, daydreaming or entirely dreamless in the midst of a world that is simply pulsing with excitement and wonder and beauty and the march of events and the dance of the days.
I have known old Germans who woke to beautiful life when they heard good music, even though they themselves could perhaps read not a line of it.
To Stay Young
I have known old teachers who remained as young as the pupils they taught, and younger. It was almost as if the youngsters that came into their classroom left behind them some of their youth to keep their teachers eternally young. Often the teachers were vastly younger than the old, bored, uninterested, incapable-of-being-stimulated young people that passed unresponsively through their hands.
So there is just this simple recipe for remaining young: Stay interested—biologically interested. Yes; staying young is a matter of keeping the mind and soul young. And that consists in keeping one’s interest alive. Plenty of interests, plenty of life. Quick of response, much alive. No interests, already old. No response, already dead.
Two Rules
Now it is essential to remember two things:
First no one can keep another person alive. Each one must do this for himself.
Second it really is not very important what sort of interest one develops. Any interest that has permanence will do. Interest in practically anything will serve to keep a person alert, absorbed, alive.
I should like to stress that first point because I grow weary when I see young people who depend upon others for their interests. It is quite true that when a stimulating adult crosses a youngster’s path, that youngster is most fortunate. Some sparks from the electric generator of the adult’s personality may serve to set the young person afire with interests and enthusiasms.
Thrice blessed is the child of alert parents, parents whose interests are varied and spontaneous yet carefully cultivated. Twice happy the young person who finds himself within the magnetic field of some grown man or woman who has kept at high frequency his or her power of response.
But in the long run the seed of aliveness will be found to be within the individual. It requires self-expansion, self-development.
A mother and a father give their child physical life; they and the doctors and the nurses and the teachers nourish and care for that young life. Eventually they turn that physical life over to the care of the child, who makes it, mars it, develops it, stunts it as he wishes.
And the aliveness of his mind and soul in time becomes his responsibility in exactly the same fashion as his body is his responsibility.
Thank you all so much for your kind comments on the Giveaway post. I read each one and they brought a smile to my lips and warmth to my heart! Your words are encouraging…thank you!
And now….The winner of the Finer Femininity Giveaway is…
Congratulations Courtney! I have sent you an email!
If we could get people to work together without jealousy, it would help God’s work immensely. . . .
Are there any against whom I feel tempted to bear a grudge? Any of whose misfortunes I feel a little pleasure in hearing? Why am I willing to listen to conversation disparaging to someone else? Can I cleanse my soul of touchiness and jealousy? How can I become more and more unselfish, and efface myself?
Let me put aside considerations of my own satisfaction. . . . Ask Our Lord in Holy Communion to free you from touchiness and jealousy. -Fr. Daniel Considine, 1950’s
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A book of your favorite litanies….
Chosen by God for the incomparable vocation of spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and foster father of Our Lord Jesus Christ; St. Joseph received magnificent divine graces and favors not granted even to the Old Testament Patriarchs. Known as the most humble of men; St. Joseph received from Almighty God the authority to command both Our Lady and the Son of God Himself; and in Heaven he continues to have great intercessory power with God.
The Divine Favors Granted to St. Joseph shows how this greatest of the Patriarchs is the patron of all Christians and how wonderfully he answers prayers; plus; it gives many of the ways of honoring him and many prayers to request his intercession. One of the finest books on St. Joseph; it will surely inspire the reader with a profound devotion to this great “Patron of the Universal Church.” Impr. 176 pgs;
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Pain and grief clear the mind and help man to know himself. Trouble sweeps away as a mist all deceits and false living, and leaves man to see himself just as he is. Hence he can study his motives, his tendencies, his character honestly.
Temporary pleasures, momentary delights, the glare of sunlight, are all taken away, and just as the eyes can often see farther on a cloudy day than in the full sunlight, so the man sees more exactly his life and all that touches his life.
Thank God that sometimes all the fancy touches and adornments of existence are removed, and we see plainly. For God looks at the heart of us, not at the dress; and to master life is to see it with His eyes.
So, when trouble comes, when loneliness or grief approaches, when a dark day dawns, be glad that there is a chance for self-study, for stock-taking, for a clearing up, for a moral and spiritual housecleaning.
The Path of Sorrow
Do away with penance, humility, obedience, and self-denial, and you abolish the crucifix.
But so long as we retain that symbol, constantly preaching to us the story of God’s sufferings; so long as we believe that He suffered not merely to make atonement for our sins, but to teach us to “fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ” in our flesh (Col. i. 24); so long must the spirit of self-denial remain in practice in the Church that He has founded.
The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
Job’s Comforters
Many, like the comforters of Job, look upon all calamity and suffering as the direct result of sin and say: “Sin, and you suffer; sin not, and you suffer not.”
But Christ seems to point to a higher harmony and a more profound reason, and indeed to a solution of the problem which, though it may leave something to be desired by human reason, is all satisfactory to reason illumined by faith.
“Neither this man hath sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God may be made manifest in him.” Out of suffering comes all good, and in the providence of God it is the means of lifting man to the very pinnacle of greatness here below and to eternal beatitude hereafter.
Peace
When our divine Lord sent His disciples out to preach, one of His instructions was: “Into whatsoever house you enter, first say: Peace be to this house.”
Peace is a good word. It is more than a salutation; falling from the Master’s lips, it is a divine benediction as well. Peace, too, is a fruit of grace, which includes all that is sweetest and divine in Christian culture.
Christ’s peace is a blessing which comes out of struggle and discipline. Well, therefore, does the salutation “Peace!” befit a Catholic home, which ought to be the abode of peace.
Heart and Face
A good heart makes a good face — perhaps not beautiful or classic, but refined, sincere, and noble. The face will shine with God behind it.
There are some faces even today that at times seem to have a glow upon them. There are faces that are quiet and uninteresting in repose that light up amazingly with the animation of talking.
There are some who can never get a good photograph, because the camera cannot catch the subtle sparkle of the eye in which the whole individuality lies.
There are some whom you would not at first call handsome, whose faces grow on you with constant acquaintance until they become beautiful to you.
For you see the soul shining through, you see the splendor of a noble character glorifying every feature.
True beauty in the soul will come out in the sweetness, the brightness, the quiet glory of the face.
Let us make a home that is warm and welcoming, comfortable and freeing – a place where we can express the beauty of our Faith and nurture relationships with people we love. Let us build a home that reflects our personalities and renews our souls. Today, do something special to show your loved ones you care. Put a tablecloth on the table, light a candle, bake a cake, buy some flowers to grace your table….It doesn’t have to be huge…just something to lighten the burdens of the day and to bring a smile to those who cross your threshold. -Finer Femininity
The Catholic Woman’s Traditional Catholic Journal
Our attitude changes our life…it’s that simple. Our good attitude greatly affects those that we love, making our homes a more cheerier and peaceful dwelling! To have this control…to be able to turn around our attitude is a tremendous thing to think about!
This Gratitude Journal is here to help you focus on the good, the beautiful, the praiseworthy. “For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8 – Douay Rheims).
Yes, we need to be thinking of these things throughout the day!
You will be disciplined, the next 30 days, to write positive, thankful thoughts down in this journal. You will be thinking about good memories, special moments, things and people you are grateful for, lovely and thought-provoking Catholic quotes, thoughts before bedtime, etc. Saying it, reading it, writing it, all helps to ingrain thankfulness into our hearts…and Our Lord so loves gratefulness! It makes us happier, too!
Available here.
With his facile pen and from the wealth of his nation-wide experience, the well-known author treats anything and everything that might be included under the heading of home education: the pre-marriage training of prospective parents, the problems of the pre-school days down through the years of adolescence. No topic is neglected. “What is most praiseworthy is Fr. Lord’s insistence throughout that no educational agency can supplant the work that must be done by parents.” – Felix M. Kirsch, O.F.M.
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Necessary advice to Catholic parents building a Catholic home. Reliable advice that is almost completely lost today, from people who know how it’s done. How to make it. How to live it. How to keep it. This book covers every aspect of Catholicizing your home–from spiritual matters like prayer and catechism to nuts and bolts topics like Keeping the Family Budget, Games and Toys, Harmony between School and Home, Family Prayers, Good Reading in the Home, Necessity of Home Life and much more
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