Saint Monica (332-387 A.D.)

We must always have hope and continue to pray for our loved ones who do not have the faith. St. Monica, pray for us!

PATRICIUS

It was a gala day in Carthage when Monica married the wealthy Patricius, but there was little reason for anyone to be envious of the gentle Christian bride. Her husband was a fiery-tempered pagan who had little respect for the teachings of her faith.

At first the young bride trembled whenever the face of Patricius flushed with anger or when his gruff voice thundered out some command. But, timid as she was, Monica always gathered enough courage to argue with him or correct him. This increased his rage and caused him to heap more abuse upon her. What should she do?

His violent temper and his sharp tongue often brought sorrow to her heart She had learned that it was useless to argue with him or thwart him in his fits of anger.

She thought of the meek and gentle Master Who overcame the world by His meekness and resolved to imitate Him. Therefore when Patricius stalked about the house during his violent outbursts of temper, Monica remained meek and quiet as if she deserved whatever was said.

However, she always managed to straighten things out later in the day when Patricius was calm. Often in the evening she would lead him to some favorite nook in their garden to enjoy the cool sea breezes and listen to the laughter of their two boys as they raced over the gravel paths and through the berry bushes.

St. Monica would wait her chance and then speak to Patricius about his fit of anger. She would gently show him how wrong and unjust he had been.

Casting his eyes on the ground or gazing steadily into the rippling fountain, he would listen patiently to St Monica. Her tenderness would conquer him and he would plead for forgiveness.

Time after time he promised, as they sat beneath the tall palm trees, to control his anger. He improved with the years but never became as patient and meek as his gentle and holy wife.

THE STUBBORN SON

Imagine how grieved and worried St Monica was when she noticed that Augustine, her younger son, was becoming more and more like his father. On several occasions he had shown a stubborn, angry temper.

Monica had trained her boys well because she wished them to be good Christians. With all her holy zeal, she was preparing them for the great day when they should be baptized and enrolled among the followers of Christ.

Full well she knew the dangers that beset them with pagan playmates and pagan teachers. Time and again, she warned them against the false teachings of their pagan friends. The loving mother felt that she had done her work well and had little to fear for the future of her boys.

What a blow she received when she heard that Augustine had joined the ranks of the anti-Christians! Could it be possible that the boy she brought up so carefully would turn his back on the God she loved and served? It was too terrible to be true. “It cannot be,” she cried. “Have all my efforts been of no avail?”

Sad to say, it was only too true. Augustine, a bright, clever lad of seventeen years, had joined those who despised the God Whom Monica loved. She heard it from his own lips when he returned from school.

Her loving heart was crushed when he told her that he knew too much to be a Christian and to believe their foolish teachings.

St. Monica was heartbroken. She withdrew to her room and shed tears of sorrow and anger. Her boy—her son—had become a traitor to her God. “It would have been better if he had never been born,” she moaned as she paced the floor, wringing her hands. She tried to pray but could not; the shock was too great.

BANISHED FROM HOME

The chirp of a bird drew her attention to the open window that faced the sea. She paused before it and gazed at the foamy waves as they dashed themselves upon the sandy shore.

Fond memories of other days rose before her—memories of her boys playing on the sand or battling in the waves, as she prayed for them. How proud she had been as they grew into stalwart youths! But that pride was crushed now.

“For seventeen years,” she sighed, “I have watched him and prayed for him. Morning, noon, and night, I have asked God to keep him good and holy and to protect him from evil. I had often dreamed of having him with me in heaven, but now—all is changed. He spurns the true God. He gives himself to sin and his soul to hell.”

The distracted woman cast herself upon a marble bench and wept bitterly. She arose shortly and brushed aside her tears. She had formed a plan to conquer the stubborn will of Augustine.

Banishing him from home would bring him to his senses, she thought. The echo of her son’s voice reached her ears as he called to one of the servants in the garden. She resolved to make a last plea and if this failed, she would send the boy away from his home.

Followed by her faithful brown dog, she approached the bench where Augustine was studying. The boy was surprised to see the sad face of his mother.

Kissing him, Monica begged him to give up his new friends and return to the God he had spurned. He told her very firmly that he had studied the matter most carefully and was convinced that she was in the wrong and he was right He was only a boy of seventeen, but he felt that he was much wiser than his mother.

A mother’s tears and a mother’s pleadings had had no effect on Augustine. There was nothing left for her to do but carry out her determination.

“Augustine,” she said, “there is no room in my home for a traitor to my God. Ungrateful, stubborn son, be gone from my presence forever!”

Augustine was dazed. Never before had he heard his mother speak like this. Nervously pushing the pebbles with his foot, he thought for a moment He was making his choice between his mother and his friends.

Too stubborn to give in, he decided in favor of his friends and hastened to the house to gather up some clothing and a few books. He left without a word of farewell. A mother’s love had banished Augustine from his home in order to bring him to his senses.

Night and day, St. Monica prayed for him. She pleaded with God to have mercy on her wayward son and to bring him back to see the truth. She asked the priests and the bishop to reason with the boy. But the stubborn youth refused to listen to reason.

The priests grew tired talking to him and they avoided his mother because the same cry was always on her lips, “Will you see my boy? Will you talk to Augustine? Will you pray for him?”

One day the good bishop, who was weary of listening to her pleadings, told her that he would trouble himself no more with the stubborn boy. This answer grieved the poor, distracted mother. She had determined to save her boy’s soul and she would have no rest while that soul was in danger of damnation.

Tears filled her eyes as she looked into the face of the bishop. “Oh, good bishop,” she cried, “during all these years have I prayed for him; during all these years have I wept for him. Yes, and gladly would I lay down my life for him. Do not tell me that there is no hope.”

This tender plea was too much for the bishop. Blessing the weeping mother, he said: “My friend, continue your prayers. It is impossible that the child of such tears should be lost.”

AUGUSTINE GOES TO ITALY

By this time, Monica had permitted Augustine to return home. Year followed year, but there was no change for the better in him. Finally when he was about twenty-nine years old, he decided to go to Rome to teach.

Monica feared that life away from his native city would only delay his conversion and, perhaps, bring him in contact with still more evil companions. She used all her powers to induce him to remain at Carthage.

But the call of Rome was ringing in his ears. His love for learning and adventure was stronger than his love for his mother.

Unknown to her, he boarded a small sailboat that had been lying at anchor in the harbor and sailed for Italy. When poor Monica heard the sad news, she hastened to the shore to bring her wayward boy home, but, alas! it was too late. The boat was fast disappearing from view.

“My boy is gone,” she cried, “but I shall follow him. I have prayed and suffered too long to give up the struggle now.”

St. Monica sailed on the next boat She wished to be near her son to protect him as much as possible. Augustine’s surprise was very great when his mother greeted him one day on the streets of Rome.

Augustine and his mother lived for some time in Rome but Augustine was not contented. Milan, the city of the north, attracted him. Thither he went, accompanied by his mother and brother and a few friends.

Monica was secretly pleased at this journey because the great St. Ambrose lived at Milan. Stories of his wonderful powers had long before reached the shores of Africa. New hope now dawned in Monica’s heart.

“If Augustine would only meet Ambrose,” she repeated over and over again. One day, through curiosity, Augustine and some of his friends wandered into the church to hear St. Ambrose preach. They wondered if the stories about his wonderful sermons were true.

The stirring sermon more than proved Ambrose’s greatness. The curious visitors returned again and again. They listened to Ambrose as he denounced their sins and their errors.

CONQUERED

The grace of God began to work in Augustine. He made private visits to St. Ambrose, who clearly showed him the error of his ways.

St. Monica was overjoyed when she heard this. However, she did not stop her prayers on the eve of victory; she doubled them.

The great day finally came when Augustine was baptized and received into the church of God. The grace of God had brought success after thirteen years of prayers and tears, and the mother’s prayer was answered. Monica was satisfied and happy. She felt that her life work was over.

She yearned for her home in far-away Carthage. Augustine was now more obedient to her wishes. He made arrangements for the homeward journey.

It was, indeed, a joyful group that set out from Milan—Monica, her two sons, and some of their friends. They traveled by land to Ostia, a seaport near Rome.

Here a deadly fever attacked St Monica. She knew that her end was near. As Augustine sat at her bedside one day, she said to him, “My son, there is now nothing in life that gives me any pleasure. All my hopes in this world are now at an end. The only thing for which I desired to live was that I might see you a Christian and a child of heaven. I ask for nothing more. Be loyal and true to your God till death calls you.”

During the next few days the fever increased and, in her delirium, Monica spoke of nothing else but her love and prayers for Augustine. He had never realized until now the terrible sorrow that he had brought into his mother’s life. He stooped to kiss her fevered brow and his silent tears fell upon the holy face that had shed so many tears for him.

Just before the end, the dying mother opened her eyes and smiled at her sons. They told her that it grieved them to have her die in a strange land, far removed from home and friends.

But with her dying breath she whispered: “It makes little difference where you bury my body. The only thing I ask of you both is that, no matter where you are, you remember me at the altar of God.” Breathing became more difficult and soon St. Monica passed to God.

Augustine, the boy of her prayers and tears, later became the great St. Augustine.

Children miss nothing when their father comes first, but rather feel more secure and happy. This is because when you make your husband number one, you build a happier relationship with him. Your happy marriage will be the foundation of a happy home in which the entire family benefits. If you find it hard to understand how to make your husband number one in priority, without neglecting your children, keep this rule in mind: Don’t put the comforts and whims of your children ahead of your husband’s basic needs.
-Fascinating Womanhood, Helen Andelin https://amzn.to/2SHlS4k (afflink)

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An Introduction to the Devout Life is a book to be read with pencil in hand. It is a book to be read again and again. It is a book to make your guide for the rest of your life. It goes to the heart of becoming good. Its aim is to help you be rid of sin and even the inclinations to sin. Alone, its 10 brief meditations in Part I will orient you toward God for the rest of your life. No one will come away without being profoundly impressed and without being motivated to enter upon the devout life . . . which leads ultimately to God and to Heaven.

In Consoling Thoughts on Trials of an Interior Life St. Francis de Sales, beloved Doctor of the Church, gives us treasured insight from the master of spiritual direction. How can the soul persevere in piety in the midst of affliction? How should we conduct ourselves when suffering interior trials? How can we profit from our own faults? St. Francis de Sales explains all this and more.

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Is Your Time Spent Well?

A somber reading for today reminding us of the value of time…not to make us scrupulous, though. Busy mothers need legitimate recreation and time to recharge. Keeping that in mind, let us read today’s article asking ourselves if our pursuits are worthy….if the time spent doing our duties, which can be taxing indeed, is embraced with an attitude that this, yes this, is what is important.

 

From Counsels of Perfection for Christian Mothers

by The Very Venerable Reverend P. Lejeune

Need we be astonished at the fidelity with which the Saints have put their maxims into practice? I defy anyone to find even one of them who did not employ his time to the best advantage.

Are not holiness and the proper employment of time intimately related then? A saint who would have trifled with time, who would have squandered it, or thrown it to the winds of vanity or frivolity, would be one whom we might well ridicule, and you yourselves would politely invite him to descend from a pedestal to which he had no right.

St. Francis Borgia, when he was yet in the world, thus answered those who sought to have him devote a part of his time to the vanities of social life “Let me alone, for I prefer to pass for a common person, rather than lose my time.”

A Tribute to Mothers

Happy Mother’s Day to Mothers Everywhere…..to mothers who give and give and then give some more. It is what we were made for, it is what we live for and it will be what we die for. Once a mother, always a mother. We watch them come into the world, we nurture them, try to solve their problems, and then watch them as they leave and embark on their own journeys.

We pray for them, we hurt for them, we rejoice for them. Whether they are near or far, our hearts are entwined with theirs. It is bittersweet…..more sweet than bitter!

“A mother will never desert her boy. For she loves him with a love that is as strong and deep as life itself.”

Angelo and Mom (me)

My Mom

A Tribute to Mothers by Rev. John A. O’Brien, 1953

By universal proclamation our nation has added another memorial day to her calendar – Mother’s Day.

It is a day on which we pause to pay the tribute of our love and reverence to our mothers if living, to their memory if dead. It is eminently fitting that we should thus pause for a brief moment in the turmoil of life to give explicit expression to sentiments which have been latent in the hearts of each of us throughout all the days of the year.

It is good psychology to give fitting expression to such sentiments. For instead of allowing them to wane, we thereby strengthen and intensify them.

Such considerations are, moreover, wholesome and salutary for us because they render us more clearly conscious of the debt we owe our mothers.

“Motherhood,” says Frederick A. Stowe, “is the Gethsemane of nature.”

When the child is born the mother begins to die—die for the new life dearer than her own, die in service for another, die in dreams of peaceful valleys she shall not enter, die upon battlefields whose shouts of victory she shall not hear.

No sacrifice for the young is begrudged by the mother. Toward the sun of a new life, all nature turns. The springtide bursts with prodigality but there is not a drop of sap for the autumnal leaf. At the meridian declination begins. Reproduction is the inexorable ambition of the material world.

“In its spiritual aspects, motherhood is isolated because it is great. There is no speculation as to mother’s status. Conceded eminence is as lonely as some crag which lifts its head above the fugitive clouds and defies the furious winds below.

Youth loves to dwell in the warm valleys of patronage. It is eager for adventure and the conquests of blood. It rushes toward prospects and is ever willing to take a chance.

Reflection is the fruit of maturity. We do not begin to bear sense until passions are spent, and Time, which is a strict accountant, demands an audit.”

Various Kinds of Love

There are various kinds of love on this earth. There is the love of a friend for a friend, of a chum for his chum.

It is a beautiful sentiment and one which all the world admires. But friends fall out at times; the love cools and even turns to hatred.

There is the love of sweethearts. It is beautiful and tender and sweet. But sometimes the fancy changes, the romance fades, and sweethearts part.

There is the love of husband and wife, tender true and sanctified by divine grace. But the world witnesses at times the separation even of husband and wife, the pitiful tragedy of a broken home.

Then there is the love of a mother for her child. It is the climax of all human love – as strong as the great rugged Alpine Mountain peaks, as tender as the breath of an angel, as infinite as the measureless waters of the ocean, as changeless as the stars that shine eternally in the skies.

Friends may fall out, the romance of sweethearts may fade, husband and wife may separate, but a mother will never desert her boy. For she loves him with a love that is as strong and deep as life itself.

Aye, it seems to rise above all human love, and to burn with a spark that was caught from the flame of the love that is eternal and divine–the love of God for man.

I like to think that God has given us a foreshadowing and a foretaste of His own infinite love for human souls in the love He has planted in a mother’s breast.

From the Prayer Book Precious Blood and Mother:

There are soft words murmured by dear, dear lips,
Far richer than any other;
But the sweetest word that the ear hath heard
Is the blessed name of “Mother.”

O magical word! May it never die,
From the lips that love to speak it.
Nor melt away from the trusting heart,
That even would break to keep it.

Was there ever a name that lived like this?
Will there ever be such another?
The Angels have reared in Heaven a shrine
To the holy name of “Mother.”

 

Mother Songs:

This first video/song was the song for our Mother and Son Dance at my son’s (Colin’s) wedding.

Colin and I, Mother-Son Dance

It has beautiful words and brings tears to my eyes each time I hear it. 🙂

This song is beautiful, also. A Mother’s song by Celtic Thunder.

“For years, while raising children, a mother’s time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. Hence, a mother raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her will, to constantly stretch her heart.”

 

S

In With God in Russia, Ciszek reflects on his daily life as a prisoner, the labor he endured while working in the mines and on construction gangs, his unwavering faith in God, and his firm devotion to his vows and vocation. Enduring brutal conditions, Ciszek risked his life to offer spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners who could easily have exposed him for their own gains. He chronicles these experiences with grace, humility, and candor, from his secret work leading mass and hearing confessions within the prison grounds, to his participation in a major gulag uprising, to his own “resurrection”—his eventual release in a prisoner exchange in October 1963 which astonished all who had feared he was dead.

Powerful and inspirational, With God in Russia captures the heroic patience, endurance, and religious conviction of a man whose life embodied the Christian ideals that sustained him…..

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a “Vatican spy,” Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God’s will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer–a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the “arrogance of evil” that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experience, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God–even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, “What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?”

Tidbits from True Womanhood

This is a beautiful excerpt from a beautiful book.
What struck me in the first small part was this power we have, as mothers, to instill in our children the habits and general dispositions they will tend toward as they grow older. It causes us to “pull up our socks”, once again. We have such great influence over our children’s lives! And what a noble calling motherhood is! We are blessed to realize it!

From: The Mirror Of True Womanhood: A Book Of Instruction
For the Women In The World

Omnis honos, omms admiratio, omne studium ad mrtutem et ad eas actiones
qucB virtuti sunt consentanece refertur.

“All honor, admiration, and zealous endeavor is referred to virtue and to the actions which are conformable to it.” CICERO.

It is said of one of the most celebrated men of the last century, that, when a mere babe, he was made to love flowers and all beautiful things in nature. His father, a distinguished naturalist, would take the child with him into the garden, and while he was busied watering the plants and examining how it fared with each of them, he would place in the child’s hands and on his lap bunches of the loveliest flowers.

Whether or not it was an inbred disposition in the child, he would, so the story of his life relates, amuse himself with the bright and fragrant things, admiring and studying them more and more as he grew up, till this pursuit became an irresistible fascination; and thus, from botany to other departments of natural science, the student progressed, revealing to his fellow-men the wonders that he had discovered, and leaving behind him an immortal name.

Even so is it possible to place in the hands and keep before the eyes of childhood some of the loveliest and most fragrant flowers of goodness, purity, and heroism which bloom innumerable in the Church of God, and thereby awaken in the innocent soul the sense of moral beauty, till the study and pursuit of all that is ennobling and elevating becomes an absorbing passion.

Virtues of a Mother

Generosity, devotedness, self-sacrifice are the characteristic virtues of woman: in Him they shine forth with surpassing splendor; and, next to Him, the Blessed Mother, so near and dear to Him, is the most perfect mirror of womanly perfection. She is the “Woman clothed with the Sun.”

She gave him the Sacred Body in which He practiced the sweet human virtues befitting childhood, boyhood, and manhood, the deeds which graced the lowly home of Joseph and Mary at Nazareth, and those which adorned the three years of his public life, till His work was consummated on the cross.

Enlightened and warmed by this close and continual union with Him, who is the true Sun of Holiness, during the thirty years of intimacy at Nazareth, this Mother, blessed among women, could not help reflecting more perfectly than any other human being the thoughts, the aims, the sentiments, the humility and the self-sacrificing charity of her divine Son.

Thus her life was invested from this most privileged intimacy, with such a light of supernatural holiness, that it vividly pictured the life of Jesus. She had been closest, nearest, and dearest to Him, had studied Him most attentively and lovingly, had followed faithfully in His footsteps from the manger to the cross, and was, when He ascended to heaven, the living image of her crucified love to all who believed in His Name.

We are all the children of these great parents, and are therefore bound to become like to them in mind and heart and conduct. None can attain to the eternal glory of the children of God in the life to come, but such as will have acquired this living likeness by generosity in imitating God’s incarnate Son.

“Always act patiently and answer graciously. That it takes the ‘patience of an angel’ to rule vigilantly over the little world of the family is beyond question.
Affability is essential.
By good will you will gain hearts and souls without exception. Loving much is the key to gain all.”
-Christ in the Home, Fr. Raoul Plus, S.J., 1950’s https://amzn.to/2D7CSvt (afflink)

💖💙This Maglet is for you, lovely wives, who have dedicated your life to your faith and to your husband.

 

If it is in God’s providence you bring children into the world, your goal is to raise a wholesome, dedicated Catholic family…in an ungodly world. This is a seemingly insurmountable task considering the obstacles before us.

 

Our first line of defense is the bond we must have with our husband. Besides our spiritual life, which gives us the grace to do so, we must put our relationship with our husband first. It is something we work on each day.

 

How do we do this? Many times it is just by a tweaking of the attitude, seeing things from a different perspective. It is by practicing the virtues….self-sacrifice, submission, thankfulness, kindness, graciousness, etc.

 

The articles in this maglet will help you with these things. They are written by authors that are solid Catholics, as well as authors with old-fashioned values.

 

Take this information to heart and your life will be filled with many blessings!

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The Excellence of Motherhood

 

From Plain Talks on Marriage by Rev. Fulgence Meyer, 1927

Nature’s Great Mystery

The labor of childbirth for the mother remains one of the deepest mysteries of nature. Why something that is so necessary for the preservation of the human race should be coupled with so much difficulty, pain and danger baffles our understanding.

The fall in paradise and the consequent curse inflicted by the Lord upon woman hardly accounts for what we call the natural mystery; for human nature, whilst it dropped from its preternatural and supernatural elevation through the fall, is not worse or otherwise than it would have been, had it never been elevated.

Why then is childbirth naturally so arduous and perilous?

The Excellence of Motherhood

The best explanation seems to be given by the high dignity and sublime prerogative of motherhood. Nature demands a corresponding payment for whatever distinctions and privileges she bestows.

She confers no higher excellence and gives no loftier station than that of motherhood: hence the big price she demands in return in the way of maternal suffering, anxiety and dread.

Her reward for their endurance, however, is also in proportion to their size and intensity.

Our Lord expresses it thus: “A woman, when she is in labor, hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world” (John, 16, 21).

By common consent mankind gives more consideration, appreciation and gratitude to the mother than to the father. We have a fine historical illustration of this in the rapturous exclamation of the woman in regard to our Savior: “Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the breasts that nursed Thee” (Luke, 11, 27).

She centered all her admiration and gave all the credit to the mother. Jesus had no father according to the flesh, of course; yet the woman was not aware of this when she declared her sentiments.

The mother naturally seems also to get greater joy out of parenthood than does the father. She feels a sweeter transport and a higher pride in being able to point to her children and say with the ancient Roman matron: “Behold my jewels.”

In view of all this a sensible woman willingly resigns herself to the ordeal of motherhood when she feels called to it by God.

What Mankind Owes to Motherhood

It was in and through motherhood that one of our kin was elevated to the highest dignity, and endowed with the sublimest sanctity any actual or possible created being is capable of :— at the incarnation of the Son of God.

Through becoming His Mother, Mary at once and forever rose above all the angels and archangels of heaven. Through her divine motherhood she more than repaired the loss inflicted upon mankind by the first woman.

For the paradise Eve deprived us of Mary gave us heaven: a prettier, a more blessed and a more glorious heaven than we should have had, had Eve never seduced Adam to sin.

So much we owe to motherhood. What a grand privilege, then, accrues to every woman who becomes and is a mother after God’s own heart!

Your job is to help them reach this state of full and complete independence in a gradual fashion. And your success as a mother will depend to a great extent upon the amount of emancipation you permit them as they step progressively toward adulthood. Therefore you should try to judge realistically when your children truly need your help and when they do not. -Fr. George Kelly, 1950’s https://amzn.to/2NXlMld

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Hands Free Mama is the digital society’s answer to finding balance in a media-saturated, perfection-obsessed world. It doesn’t mean giving up all technology forever. It doesn’t mean forgoing our jobs and responsibilities. What it does mean is seizing the little moments that life offers us to engage in real and meaningful interaction. It means looking our loved ones in the eye and giving them the gift of our undivided attention, living a present, authentic, and intentional life despite a world full of distractions.

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. https://amzn.to/2T06u28 (afflink)

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

Tags

domestic happiness, domineering mother, good mother, martyr mom, overindulgent mother, raising children

Close to Mother’s Day is a good time to think about motherhood.

Timeless advice from a very smart priest!

The Catholic Family Handbook – Father George Kelly

In view of the many social evils resulting from the decline in the father’s influence, one of the most important functions the modern mother should perform is to help maintain or restore the father’s position of authority in the family. In doing so, you will fulfill your own role as a wife and mother to a greater extent than is possible when you permit your husband to be the lesser figure.

This was the secret of the success of olden fathers. Even though they worked twelve hours a day, their dominant role in the home was guaranteed and protected by the mother.

You can make your greatest contribution to your family as the heart of your home–not its head. From you, your children should learn to love others and to give of themselves unstintingly in the spirit of sacrifice. Never underestimate the importance of your role. For upon you depends the emotional growth of your children, and such growth will better prepare them to live happy and holy lives than any amount of intellectual training they may receive.

Most of us know persons who have received the finest educations which universities can bestow, who yet lead miserable lives because they have never achieved a capacity to love.

On the other hand, we also know of men and women whose intellectual achievements are below normal but whose lives are filled with happiness because their mothers showed them how to love other human beings.

It follows that in helping your child to satisfy his basic emotional needs to love and be loved, you give something as necessary as food for his full development. So do not be beguiled by aspirations for a worldly career or by the desire to prove yourself as intelligent as men or as capable in affairs of the world as they.

The father must always remain a public figure. The mother is the domestic figure par excellence. In teaching your child the meaning of unselfish love you will achieve a greater good than almost any other accomplishment of which human beings are capable.

You are the most important person your child will ever know. Your relationship with him will transcend, in depth of feeling, any other relationship he probably will ever have–even the one with his marriage partner.

As noted above, from you he will learn what true love really is. From the tenderness you show and the security you give, you will develop his attitudes toward other human beings which will always remain with him.

However, his dependence on you begins to wane soon after birth–and continues to wane for the rest of your life. In his first years, naturally, he will rely upon you almost entirely–not only for food, but also to help him perform his most elementary acts.

But soon he learns to walk and to do other things for himself; when he goes to school he can dress himself; when he reaches adolescence and strives for the freedom that adults know, he will try to throw off his dependence so violently that you may fear that you have lost all hold upon him.

Your job is to help him reach this state of full and complete independence in a gradual fashion. And your success as a mother will depend to a great extent upon the amount of emancipation you permit him as he steps progressively toward adulthood. Therefore you should try to judge realistically when your child truly needs your help and when he does not.

If you can reach the happy medium wherein you do for your child only what he cannot do for himself, you will avoid dominating him or overindulging him.

The dominant mother makes all decisions for Johnny and treats him as though he had no mind of his own; the overindulgent mother will never permit her Mary to be frustrated in any wish, or to be forbidden any pleasure her little heart desires.

The overindulgent mother may do without the shoes she needs to buy a doll for her Annie; she may stop what she is doing to help Johnny find the comic book he has misplaced; she may eat the leftovers in the refrigerator while she gives the freshly prepared food to her children.

The overindulgent mother is a common character in literature. Probably every American woman has seen movies and television programs, and has read stories in magazines and newspapers, in which these defects were pointed out.

Yet every new generation of mothers seems to practice the same extreme of behavior. Some excuse themselves by saying that they want to give their children every advantage in life.

Such an intention is laudable, perhaps, but the method is impractical. If you want to do the best for your child, let him develop so that he can face life on his own feet. Overindulging him denies him his right to develop his own resources and thus defeats the purpose of your mission as a mother.

Someone once remarked in jest that as part of her education for motherhood, every woman should visit the psychiatric ward of an army hospital. If you could see the countless examples of mental disorders caused largely by the failure of mothers to sever the apron strings to their child, you could easily understand why–for the sake of your child’s emotional self–you must make it a primary aim to help him to develop as an independent person.

Priests and psychiatrists often see problems from different angles, yet they display striking agreement in pinpointing other kinds of maternal conduct which do great harm to the child. Their advice might be summarized as follows:

Don’t be an autocrat who always knows best. Your child may have his own way of doing things, which may seem to be inefficient or time-consuming. Have patience and let him do things his way, thus giving him the opportunity to learn by trial and error.

Don’t be a martyr. Naturally, you must make sacrifices. But do not go to such extremes that your child feels guilty when you deny yourself something which rightfully should be yours, in order to give him what rightfully should not be his.

A typical martyr worked at night in a laundry to pay her son’s way through college. Before his graduation, he asked her not to appear at the ceremony–he said she would be dressed so poorly that he would be embarrassed.

Don’t think you have the perfect child. Some mothers, when their child receives low grades, appear at school to determine, not what is wrong with him, but what is wrong with the teachers.

When such a mother learns that her son has been punished for disobedience, she descends upon the school officials and demands an apology. By her actions she undermines the child’s respect for all authority–including her own.

You will probably be on safe ground, until your child is canonized at St. Peter’s, if you conclude that he has the same human faults and weaknesses that you see in your neighbors’ children.

Don’t use a sickbed as your throne. The “whining” mother feigns illness to attract sympathy and to force her children to do as she wills. Who would deny the last wish of a dying person? In this vein she often gets what she wants–for a while. The usual, final result, however, is that her children lose both sympathy and respect for her.

Don’t be a “glamor girl.” Motherhood is not a task for a woman who thinks that ordinary housework–preparing meals, making beds, washing clothes–is beneath her.

Of course, mothers should strive to maintain a pleasing appearance, but they should also realize that they are most attractive when they are fulfilling the duties of their noble vocation.

You would embarrass your family if you insisted on acting and dressing like a teenager; and, if you adopted a demeaning attitude toward household tasks, you would teach your children that motherhood and its responsibilities are unworthy of respect.

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“In the Catholic home there is that modern rarity–fidelity between husband and wife. There is great reverence for parents by the children, great protection of weaker members by the stronger, and a great awareness of the dignity and rights of every member of the family. The Catholic woman has attained a height of respect and authority which cannot be found anywhere else, and the chief factor in her improvement has been the Church’s teaching on chastity, conjugal equality, the sacredness of motherhood, and the supernatural end of the family, in imitation of the Holy Family of Nazareth.” – Rev. George A. Kelly, The Catholic Family Handbook

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The Mirror of True Womanhood

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

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Tick-Tock: A Mother’s Teachable Moments

The mother of Cardinal Vaughan had fourteen children–eight boys and six girls.

Remarkable educator that she was, she believed that she owed the best part of her time to her little world.

The children’s special room looked like the nave of a Church for each little boy and girl had his statue to care for and they never failed to put flowers before it on special occasions.

With what art this mother settled a quarrelsome boy or a vain or untruthful little girl!

With the littlest ones she was not afraid to become a little one and, like them, to sit on the ground.

Thus, placed on their level, as the biography of her Jesuit son expresses it, she used to put her watch to their ears and explain to them that someday God would stop the tick-tock of their lives and that He would call to Himself in heaven His children whom He had lent to earth.

In the course of the day, Mrs. Vaughan loved to pick out one or other of her band, preferably two, chosen on the basis of their earnest efforts or some particular need for improvement, and make a visit to Church.

Yes, they should pray at home too; they had God in their hearts; but in each village or in each section of town, there is a special house generally of stone where Our Lord lives as He once lived at Nazareth except that now He remains hidden under the appearances of a little Host.

She explained to them that prayer consists not in reciting set words but in conversing with Jesus.

And if they had been very, very good she would let them kiss the altar cloth and sometimes the altar itself, a favor the children regarded as most precious.

When they had beautiful flowers in their greenhouse they brought them to Church; happy and proud were the ones who were entrusted with delivering the bouquets or the vases of flowers!

Besides the visits made to “Jesus, the Head” there were also visits to the “members of Jesus,”

“What you do to the least of My brethren you do to me.”

And Mrs. Vaughan explained to each child according to its capacity to understand the great duty of charity and the reason for this duty.

She did not hesitate to take them into sordid homes.

Sometimes people were horrified to see her take the children to see the sick who suffered from a contagious disease. Wasn’t she afraid her children would contract it?

But kind, firm Mrs. Vaughan did not allow herself to be the least disturbed by such comments.

“Sickness? Well if one of them contracted a sickness while visiting the poor that would still not be too high a price to pay for Christian charity.

Besides God will protect my children much better than mother-love can.

Here was true formation in piety, true formation in charity. Here too was encouragement to follow a high ideal.

Herbert, the eldest of the boys, was once quite concerned over a hunting trip that the weather threatened to spoil. “Pray mamma,” he said, “that we have good weather!“

And Mrs.Vaughan, more concerned to lift her son’s soul than to secure him a pleasurable time, answered smilingly, “I shall pray that you will be a priest!”

How the boy took such an answer at the moment is not recorded. We do know this: Herbert was . . . the future Cardinal!

Vaughan also gave her children an appreciation of the fine arts.

She herself played the harp delightfully. From time to time she gathered her household about her for a gala time playing, singing, and a bit of mimicry; she always used the occasion to remind the children that there are other melodies and other joys more beautiful than those of earth.

“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

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Mother’s Milk – Pope Pius XII

by Pope Pius XII and Cardinal Mindszenty

To the very noble mission of transmitting life, another equally important, primary, integral and complementary mission is added; that is, the rearing of the offspring.

In fact, whereas by generating one gives life, by educating one gives life in a superior, more complete and more perfect degree, because all the faculties which constitute human nature and dignity are perfected in the children.

The first educators are therefore the parents. And as God willed them to be united in the physical generation, so He has destined them to collaborate in the grandiose work of education. Thus when the child is born he already finds himself in the best educational environment, entrusted to his best educators, who possess through the marvelous dispositions of Divine Providence irreplaceable abilities to carry out their beneficent work.

The mother possesses sweetness, patience and delicacy; the father, strength, ardor and frankness.

Although this work of education must be carried out harmoniously by both parents, nevertheless each one has certain specific duties… In the words of Pope Pius XII: “To the woman God has reserved the labor of childbirth, the pains of breast-feeding and of the early upbringing of children, for whom the very best of care at the hands of strangers will never mean as much as the affectionate solicitude of maternal love.”

The first physical development of the child takes place during the delicate period of nursing and leaves indelible traces even in the adult man.

Speaking, therefore, of the very delicate question of maternal milk, Pius XII said to the Women of Catholic Action: “Many of the moral characteristics which you see in the youth or the man owe their origin to the manner and circumstances of his first upbringing in infancy: purely organic habits contracted at that time may later prove a serious obstacle to the spiritual life of the soul.

And so you, (mother,) will make it your special care in the treatment of your child to observe the prescriptions of a perfect hygiene, so that when it comes to the use of reason its bodily organs and faculties will be healthy and robust and free from distorted tendencies.

This is the reason why, except where it is quite impossible, it is most desirable that the mother should feed her child at her own breast.

Who shall say what mysterious influences are exerted upon the growth of that little creature by the mother upon whom it depends entirely for its development! With breast and smile she feeds body and soul of the tiny angel that heaven has sent her!”

Instead of consuming mother’s time, this practice eliminates the need for bottles, sterilizing, and formulas.

In his masterpiece, The Mother, Cardinal Mindszenty writes: “The following proposition is always true and always sound: ‘God Himself has prepared the mother’s milk for the infant. His wisdom has placed in this milk all the nourishing ingredients which are necessary for the child.

Divine Providence fills the mother’s breasts, and she carries this sweet burden and has no relief until she nurses the child. Mother’s milk is truly a masterpiece of the Creator.’ ”

Therefore every mother should feed her child at the breast, if this is at all possible. This is also greatly beneficial to her. By feeding the child she regains her health sooner. Nursing the child will calm her nerves and her entire physical condition will be improved.

It is a blessing for the mother to nurse her child. She retains her youthfulness. It ennobles her, gives her a finer and purer disposition.

“Mother’s milk is of great benefit to the child. Not only does it contain nutritive material, but also the best medicine. It builds up resistance against many children’s diseases. It is more valuable than any other food. It is so delicious that the infant sucks its finger, or some other object, expecting the milk to flow from it.

It is particularly helpful to its tiny, frail organs. Moreover, this intimacy of mother and child is a great blessing. Never again will she be so closely united to her child.

Her body, her soul, her desires and longing, her hopes and fears, will never be imparted to the infant so easily and naturally as at the time of feeding.

The suckling child can thrive only on the soil which is the breast of the mother. Be it ever so valuable, no artificial means employed can ever take the place of mother’s milk.

However, in case a mother cannot feed her little one, then artificial feeding becomes necessary.

“The laws of nature, established by God, have a nobility of their own which some supposedly famous people forget. However, Madame Curie, discoverer of radium and twice winner of the Nobel Prize, did not disdain to nurse her children in spite of her work.

The most beautiful example of all is Mary, who fed the infant Jesus at her breast.

“The woman of faith knows that she ‘babysits’ for God. It is a wonderful thing to become a mother. It is far more wonderful and much more difficult to rear and educate one’s children correctly and well. In fact, it is not only a question of feeding the body, but also that of nourishing the soul…”

“Painful trials strengthen our faith and make it purer, more supernatural; the soul believes, not because of the consolation that faith gives it, not because it trusts in its feelings or enthusiasm, not even in the little it does understand of the divine mysteries, but it believes only because God has spoken. When the Lord wishes to lead souls to a more intimate union with Himself, He almost always makes them undergo such trials; then is the moment to give Him testimony of our faith by throwing ourselves, with our eyes closed, into His arms.” – Divine Intimacy

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Guide Your Children and Shape Their Character

From The Catholic Family Handbook by Fr. Lovasik

As the father is the head of the family, the mother is its heart. Just as Pope Pius XI speaks of the father as “strong in faith and manly in virtues,” he speaks of a mother as “pure and devoted.”

Elsewhere he says, “As the father occupies the chief place in ruling, so the mother may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.”

But the Holy Father speaks of supernatural love, not of the tender maternal love-instinct upon which the supernatural is built.

Natural love, which is excellent in itself, and offers the possibility of untold good, may even at times be a hindrance when you are imprudent and cannot keep your children truly obedient, cannot refuse what is harmful, and cannot punish if necessary.

It may be abused if it is made a wedge to separate the children from their father. Supernatural love exercises the strongest appeal. Of it are born piety, modesty, purity, and fear of the learned at the mother’s knee.

Every person has a supernatural destiny, to be worked out in time. He must be educated for what he must be and what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created.

That education is the result of the combined efforts of both parents. But in his youngest years, the child is almost exclusively under the mother’s guidance.

Your efforts are to produce effects that will have their final reckoning in eternity. Although your educational influence is of a nature entirely different from that of the father, your vocation as mother is equal in importance to your husband’s.

Most adults attest that mothers have had far more to do with the shaping of their character than fathers have.

But so necessary are both that if either is lacking for any cause whatever, the education of the children is seriously, and sometimes fatally, handicapped.

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.“We often live with this illusion. With the impression that all would go better, we would like the things around us to change, that the circumstances would change. But this is often an error. It is not the exterior circumstances that must change; it is above all our hearts that must change.” -Fr. Jacques Philippe, Searching For and Maintaining Peace, http://amzn.to/2oqVOv8 (afflink)

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Hectic Days for Helen

by Leane VanderPutten

The July day was sunny, the scent of petunias wafted in the air. The air was cooling off a bit and the breeze softly wafted through the branches of the trees. Summer was at its peak.

But Helen was not enjoying the breeze or the flowers.

Helen was tired. Not for any particular reason. Yes, it was summer, the kids were done with their home school and, instead of life slowing down, things seemed to have sped up.

June and July had been particularly hot, they didn’t have a pool, so the children spent time indoors during the heat of the day. Without the schedule of school, mayhem seemed to reign with more frequency than Helen liked.

Helen’s husband, Mark, was working lots of hours. Summer was the time his work became very demanding because he was in the construction field. So he was not around much to help out. And when he got home he was tired and even cranky at times.

“Such is life,” Helen sighed. Lately, things hadn’t been working out the way she had imagined. Instead of enjoying the so-called “lazy days of summer” she was fighting inner turmoil.  She was struggling through the days, battling thoughts of self-pity and complaining.

“Why can’t the kids be quiet now on again?”

“Dirty diapers, dishes, it’s discouraging,” she thought. “And life is only going to get more and more hectic as the years go by. I just don’t know if I can do this!”

This day had been particularly trying so when rosary time came around, amid the slouching children and wriggling baby, she implored Our Lady to help her.

The next day Helen woke up with a terrific pain in her side that didn’t want to leave. It was debilitating so she had to call in a babysitter to take over.

That night was sleepless. The next day, after a doctor’s appointment, she started an antibiotic for a bladder infection.

The antibiotic didn’t work so another one was tried. That one alleviated some of the symptoms for a short while but they came back with a vengeance.

The next couple of weeks were harder than ever for Helen. The worst part was the worry. She didn’t know what this mysterious pain was and, since they didn’t have insurance, she wasn’t going to run in and have a bunch of tests done. At least not right away.

So she was stuck worrying. What happens if it was something really bad? She’d find herself looking at her kids and imagine leaving them to fend for themselves in a crazy world.

When her husband came home,  her thoughts wandered to whether he would be left alone… If this was something that could actually take her life? She pushed a lot of those thoughts away but with her melancholic nature, they kept creeping back.

After a very bad night, finally, Helen went back to the doctor….this time a different doctor. He heard all the symptoms and told her that it sounded like she was just trying to pass a kidney stone.

This was news to Helen! She didn’t understand why the first doctor didn’t spot that?

Her step was a little lighter as she left the doctor’s office even though she still had pain. She got home and drank lots and lots of lemon water and took hydrangea tincture.

Within a few of days, she passed that kidney stone and was feeling much better!

The pain was gone, but the best part was that the worry was gone! With all the imaginings of her having a dread disease she had been tied up in knots!
Now that she knew things were OK, her heart filled with joy and thanksgiving!

The following days things began to get back to normal – hectic life came back full force.

But Helen’s heart had changed, indeed!

It still wasn’t easy to drag herself out of bed in the morning, but her heart was filled with thanksgiving because she could actually get up and take care of her children. Were the children any quieter? No. But she appreciated the laughter and the noise instead of always fighting against it. Did hubby come home earlier? No. But she was grateful that her husband had the work that he did and was not upset that he wasn’t around to help.

Her heart sang as she did the dishes.

She still got impatient, things weren’t flawless, but Helen was seeing things through different eyes.

She thought back on that evening when she implored Our Lady, during the rosary, to help her. She realized how much she had helped – maybe not in the way she had wanted or expected but it didn’t matter. She knew it was a gift right from her Mother‘s hands!

The summer days passed quickly. There were many joys in between the rough spots. Helen had learned a lesson. She hoped it would stick. She prayed it would stick.

Those weeks when things got rather dark for her taught her something special besides being grateful for the daily grind. She made up her mind that she would thank God for her crosses as she was going through them, knowing that He had the best possible plan in mind for her and that good would come from them.

It also came home to her that each new day was a gift. She would work hard at tuning her mind into that at the beginning of the day so that when the day ramped up she would have a spirit of gratefulness in spite of everything else.

As Helen sat outside in the early autumn breeze of the evening, amidst the floating aroma of the petunias, she thought to herself, “Indeed, it has been a very productive summer!”

Is it all about being right when we are having a disagreement? Do we need to be on the defensive each time we feel he is being unreasonable? That only seems fair, doesn’t it? Well, go ahead. But your relationship will suffer. It is more important, not that you “win” or that you always come out feeling like you gave the last verbal punch. Like Our Lord, we win through kindness and meekness.
What it comes down to is: Do you want to be RIGHT or do you want to be HAPPY? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!” www.finerfem.com

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Father talks about how important our duties of our vocation are, that they are the will of God for us, we need look no further. He touches on the specific duties of each of our different walks of life….

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