How to Be Good Parents (Part Two)

Painting by Alfredo Rodriguez

By Father Donald Miller, C.SS.R (1950’s)

Part one is here.

PRINCIPLE V.

The authority of father and mother must be mutually exercised, each contributing what is most natural to their particular role.

The mutual exercise of parental authority means that neither one will abdicate authority, nor delegate to the other the making of all decisions concerning the direction, correction and punishment of the children.

Fathers, in particular, do great harm to their children (and, incidentally, to their wives) who, in all problems and questions that arise concerning the children, say to them: “Let your mother decide.”

Each parent has something to contribute toward the proper development of a child.

By the design of nature, a father leans toward justice and severity; the mother toward mercy and leniency. Both these shadings of authority are needed for the rounded development of the child. Children need to see the father and mother working together, complementing each other, in bringing them up. Above all, it is important that they never be given grounds for “playing” their father and mother against each other.

Therefore the father must permit his masculine sense of justice to be tempered at times by the mother’s leaning toward mercy; the mother must want her feminine leniency to be bolstered by the father’s instinct toward strictness.

Yet decisions must appear to the children as coming from both parents, the one always supporting and upholding the other when the decision has been mutually made.

PRINCIPLE VI

The authority of Christian parents must be exercised with full recognition of the fact that false, dangerous and bad standards of conduct are approved or tolerated by many parents in the world today, and that Christian parents must band together to reject and resist all such standards.

The grave mistake of many Christian parents is to let themselves be swayed by customs, practices and permissions that are indulged by children who have parents “who don’t care,” or who are guided by wrong principles.

They cannot resist the plaintive appeal of children: “Other parents allow these things; why shouldn’t they be allowed to me?”

Children, even in their teens, cannot be expected to make the distinction between the good and the bad, the dangerous and the harmless, in the customs that are prevalent around them.

Indeed, they of all human beings are most apt to call upon the false principle that what is widely done is rightly done.

At the same time, widespread experience proves that children want to be guided; they want to be told by their parents what they should do and not do.

Therefore parents are bound to use their own knowledge and experience, their own faith and principle, to guide and direct their children toward what is good and away from what is bad, no matter what the popular modes of juvenile conduct may be.

And because the weight of false principle and bad example is so great, they need to get together with other parents like themselves, and to establish norms and rules that all will observe together. The effect will be that no child of Catholic parents will be able to say:

“You are the only parents in the world who ask or demand such-and-such of me.”

A number of clear examples of the contradiction between what is popular or widely permitted and what is right can be set down.

Under each heading below the wrong principle or practice will be set down followed by the right.

1.Recreation outside the home

Wrong:

Parents need not be concerned about the circumstances in which their children seek recreation outside the home.

Right:

Parents are bound to know and pass judgment on

1) where their children (including teenagers) go for recreation;

2) with whom they go;

3) how long they will be away from home.

In a rightly run home, definite rules regarding these three points will be laid down and enforced for the children from their earliest years to their late teens.

2. Recreation in the home

Wrong:

Parents are justified in discouraging gatherings or parties of their children with their friends in their own home. If on occasion such parties are permitted, the parents need not be bothered with supervising or chaperoning them in any way.

Right:

Parents have an obligation to welcome the friends of their children into their home for informal or formal gatherings, because this is the only adequate way in which they can get to know the kind of company their children keep. Further, they are obliged (this word should be unnecessary: it were better said, “they should desire”) to chaperone and take part in such gatherings, and enforce definite rules concerning modesty, decency and propriety at all times. “Crashing” should be prohibited, and break-up times agreed upon and observed.

3.Company-keeping

Wrong:

There is no harm, and perhaps some good, in permitting a youngster in the eighth grade or in the three early years of high school, to keep steady company, that is regularly to have “dates” exclusively with a certain individual.

Right:

Steady company-keeping is lawful only when marriage is considered possible and desirable within a reasonable period of time, which may be estimated at about a year.

There are two reasons for this. The first and most important is that steady company-keeping without prospect of marriage within a reasonable time practically always leads in due course to sins of impurity.

The second reason is that no child can acquire a worthwhile high school education if it is distracted from its studies by an immature love-affair.

On this principle parents are bound to prohibit steady company-keeping to their children at least until the latter part of their senior year in high school. Even then it may be permitted only if the teenager is willing, with the seriously considered advice of parents, to face the prospect of marriage shortly after the completion of high school.

If a high school senior seriously plans on going to college or university, the parents should inform him (or her) that steady

company-keeping in high school represents a decision to give up all thought of college or university, and that they (the parents) will enforce that decision.

4. Sex-instruction (This post may be helpful in this area)
   

Wrong:

Parents may trust that their children will learn all they need to know about sex from their teachers, their companions, and from books and magazines.

Right:

Parents have the primary responsibility for seeing to it that their children are not only properly informed on matters of sex, but prepared to meet the problems that will arise in this matter.

On no point in the upbringing of children, is it more important today that Christian and Catholic parents inform and train their children properly than in the matter of sex.

On no point should they be more aware of the false principles their children may learn from companions and bad reading than here. For the task involved they should prepare themselves by well-directed Catholic reading and study, and by discussions with other responsible Catholic parents.

There are many other topics on which a false or dangerous principle for parents might be set down, and true norms succinctly stated.

Some such topics are:

1) the use of the family car;

2) money and allowances for children;

3) the use of alcohol;

4) the taking of jobs by children and the disposition of the income from such jobs;

5)proper attitudes toward school authorities, and toward the pastor and the parish church.

Serious thinking about these matters, and discussions from other parents, against the background of the principles set down above, will reveal to them what sort of program will be to the best eternal and temporal interests of their children.

Imprimi Potest:

John N. McCormick, C.SS.R.

Provincial, St. Louis Province,

Redemptorist Fathers

May 18, 1959

Imprimatur:

St. Louis, May 22, 1959

Joseph E. Ritter

Archbishop of St. Louis

When children are taught that their chores can be prayer….that the drudgery can be applied to the sufferings of some other child somewhere, who has no bed to make, who must spend his nights curled up in a hole, shivering, starved, unhappy, and with no one to care for him…those same chores can be changed into great spiritual joy! -Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children http://amzn.to/2op5ZSs (afflink)

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How to Be Good Parents – Fr. Donald F. Miller, C.SS.R. (Part One)

FR. DONALD F. MILLER, C.SS.R., 1950’s

Here are the principles, with some of the practical applications that all parents must know and observe if they are to rejoice in the children whom God entrusts to their care.

It is not easy to be good parents today. One may go farther and say that it is never “easy” to be such, because parenthood begets very serious obligations, and fallen human nature rather instinctively rebels against being obliged to anything.

Today it is especially difficult to be good parents because so many persons who have brought children into the world have taken the easy way out and evaded the obligations that parenthood imposed upon them.

It is good, therefore, to review the principles that underlie the obligations of parents toward their children, and to point out some of the practical applications that must be made of the principles by fathers and mothers.

The fourth commandment of God reads: “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Implicit in this command, which is directed primarily to children, is the law that parents must rightly fulfill their obligations toward their children. To fulfill those obligations, parents must know them and ponder on them often.

Since there is so much abdication of parental responsibility today, with the result that patterns of wrong conduct are widely followed in the world, it is important that individual parents not only read the following principles and explanations for themselves, but that they get together with other Christian and Catholic parents and set up patterns of conduct that will oppose the fashions and standards followed by parents who don’t know or don’t care to know how rightly to exercise their parental authority.

Groups of parents, therefore, should study and talk about these principles together, and encourage one another to put them into practice.

PRINCIPLE I

The authority of parents is a delegation of the authority of God, transmitted to them by the very fact of their becoming parents, through which they are to direct their children first, toward heaven, and second, toward a useful and happy life in this world.

God cooperates with parents in bringing children into the world, but God does the major part. He creates an immortal human soul for every child and has supreme authority over that soul. This authority He delegates to the parents for the proper upbringing of the child.

Therefore the authority of parents over their children must be exercised with definite ends in view, and with a clear knowledge of the proper means to those ends.

The first end is always the salvation of the child’s soul. The secondary end is the living of a good and useful and happy life on earth.

The means are threefold:

1) a knowledge of God, attained through faith and reason, and of all that God has revealed to man;

2) observance of God’s laws, as made known through the teachings of Christ and His Church;

3) the use of prayer and the sacramental system Christ established as the means of growing in positive grace.

Leading a child toward its proper goals, through the right means, will require personal instruction, correction of faults, discipline of the will, and, at times, reasonable punishment.

PRINCIPLE II

The authority of parents will never be effective in directing a child properly unless it be exercised against the background of manifest love.

God never commands human beings without at the same time showing His love for them. Indeed, all the commands of God are in some way expressions of His love. It was this love that inspired Him to go so far as to die for mankind.

Since the authority of parents is a delegation of the authority of God, its exercise must be accompanied by the same kind of love that God has shown to all His children.

This love must be manifest so that the children will see that the same parents who command them love them wholeheartedly.

The love of parents is made manifest only through sacrifice, respect for the human nature of their children, companionship and a deep interest in the studies, the work, the play and the progress of their children. It does not injure the children by coddling them; it does not stunt them by unreasonable severity in its demands and punishments.

It makes the children constantly aware that the parents want their happiness, both eternal and temporal, even when discipline and correction and punishment are required.

PRINCIPLE III

The authority of parents will rarely be effectively exercised unless it is backed up by their good example.

In all moral and spiritual matters, the example of parents should be the first teacher of their children; explanations, commands, prohibitions, corrections are of little lasting value unless the good example is there.

Thus parents who rarely receive the sacraments, who are guilty of frequent profanity and even obscenity in speech, who often quarrel with each other, will accomplish little or nothing by commanding their children to do otherwise than they do.

The children may obey for a while, at least when they are very young; but almost inevitably and eventually the children will follow the example of their parents and not their commands.

PRINCIPLE IV

The authority of parents must be exercised with full recognition of the differences of treatment required by the differences of temperament, sex and age in their children.

Every child born into the world is a distinct human personality, with its own particular disposition and temperament, with the special characteristics of its sex, and with a need for different kinds of treatment as it advances more and more toward maturity.

Basic to the needs of all children, however, is that they be trained to respect the authority of their parents from their earliest years.

Parents who let their children have their own way throughout childhood will never win them to obedience in later years.

It is hopeless to try to direct a child toward good and to rescue it from evil by beginning to exercise authority only when the child is advancing into its teens.

At the same time each child must be looked upon as an individual boy or girl, and is subject to growth and development requiring changes of approach on the part of parents as the child advances toward greater and greater maturity.

Thus the father will be on guard against trying to deal with his daughter in the same manner as he directs his sons; and the mother will beware of trying to mold a son’s character according to the same pattern as that of a daughter.

Thus both parents will study to learn the individual temperaments of their children and to direct them accordingly.

They will come to realize that a moody child needs encouragement and the building up of self-confidence; an extrovert child needs discipline, order and frequent correction; a child with a tendency to want to dominate others needs praise and at the same time humility; a lazy or phlegmatic child needs frequent prods administered with patience and understanding.

Despite all this no child can get along without respect for parental authority instilled at the earliest age.

As the child grows into its teens, the authority of parents gradually expresses itself more often in suggestions, directives and even wishes rather than in sharp commands. This will work out only if the children have always been trained to respect the authority of their parents and to recognize their love. Too many parents make the mistake of commanding a fifteen year old to do things in the same manner as they would a five year old child.

“In truth, the family circle is the nursery of saints as of sane human beings. There the child finds the love, security and guidance which are his greatest needs. It is by loving and being loved that persons grow as persons. It is in the family that relationships are essentially personal and each person is valued as a person.” -Dominican Sister, Australia, 1955

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Rainy Afternoon – What a Baby Does

From Mind the Baby by Mary Perkins, 1950’s

Poor Thomas Edmund is almost as damp with tears as is the world outside with rain. He is just getting over his rage at not going to the park, and his further rage at seeing his brother depart to play with the children next door. Big drops roll down his cheeks as he stretches on tiptoe to look out the window.

Look, old man, life is difficult, but not quite so bad as all that. Here is a cookie, and if you turn around you will see that the toy-box is open. Thomas Edmund looks at me reproachfully. After all, it was Mummy who not ten minutes ago dragged him upstairs kicking and screaming after he had got himself all the way down, sliding so carefully backwards over the slippery descent and thinking he was so clever to be all ready to go out-doors.

But he isn’t one to hold a grudge for long. He sees the cooky and snatches it. At the sight of the open toybox (kept shut except on rainy days), his eyes brighten. “Aii!” he says and trots over to it.

Now we should have peace for a minute and Mummy should have a chance to sit down. If I only had my son’s energy…Look at him now, throwing things out of the box as if his life depended on it, blocks, trucks, pieces of a wooden train, two tin pieplates (so that’s where they have been!), all flying out in a wild shower. Oh dear, what has happened? The shower has stopped, and Thomas Edmund is crying. I’ll have to get up and see what the trouble is.

My gracious, what a mess! He is trying to pull out of the box a horrible tangle of extra ropes for the swing, baby-harness, a peg-block, a dump-truck, and two coat-hangers firmly entwined in the middle. Nothing will budge, however hard Thomas Edmund pulls; he is red in the face with effort and frustration. All right, Mummy will fix it. I pull everything out, disentangle it, remove the pie-plates and the coat-hangers, and again leave Thomas Edmund to his explorations.

Now what? This time the yells are authentic yells of pain. Oh, poor little boy! He has fallen head-first into the big box. His fat legs wave wildly in the air; his arms thrash helplessly. Here we go. Now you’re all right. I stand him on his feet, but that doesn’t seem to be what he wants. He is trying to climb in the box again. Oh, I see, you want to sit in it.

I shove the remaining toys out of his way, lift him inside and sit him down. Is that right? Oh, the cookie…it would never do to lose that. I find it in a far corner, give it to him and retire again to my chair.

He has the cookie between his teeth, rather like a cigar, and both hands are busy with toys; he looks absurdly like a satisfied business man getting at the morning’s mail. To misquote St. Augustine: “How happy is the rich man in the midst of his possessions!”

What a number of desires has a small boy–and, except when Daddy is home, it is Mummy who has to try to satisfy them, or, which is even more wearing, to teach him how to begin to control them or to endure their remaining unsatisfied.

If Thomas Edmund’s desires were only physical–for food and sleep and exercise–I should certainly not be so exhausted at the end of the day. What wear Mummy out are his complex human needs: needs to find out about things and to master them; to find out about his own growing powers and to master them; needs to do things for himself and yet to be protected and helped and loved the same time.

And these needs express themselves so violently and unexpectedly and alarmingly. For they have been made immensely more complicated and difficult to handle by the effects of original sin in the “little angel” (and in his mother, for that matter), making the job of “minding the baby” rather like exercising a team of wild horses while teaching somebody else to drive it.

And, at the same time, the task of helping Thomas Edmund develop and coordinate and integrate his powers is made infinitely more necessary and more important by the fact that he is not just a human baby, but a member of Christ, possessing not only the faculties and weaknesses of a child of Adam, but also the powers and destiny of a child of God.

Yet, of course, I am proud of all his violent desires and impulses and actions. I tell people about them ad nauseam, because, though they exhaust me, they show me that Thomas Edmund has a full complement of human powers, that he is growing up, as a little boy should, towards normal human maturity.

No parents really want their child to stay a baby: a mother rejoices “because a man has been born into the world.” And all parents realize in some fashion that their job is not so much taking care of babies as helping in the development of future men and women.

A Christian mother, then, certainly ought not to complain at having so little time to sit down in a chair, for her job is even more glorious–to help in the development of a Christian, a member of Christ, a co-worker with God, who is called to grow up not simply to human maturity, but to the “measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.”

If my Thomas Edmund were only a kitten, taking care of him would be certainly much simpler, but how much less interesting or valuable than it is. He would need food and sleep and exercise and cleanliness; he would need to investigate things and try out his powers in play. But the kitten would only need my supervision and training if he were being brought up here, in a human environment. To a wild-cat kitten, his own instincts and those of his parents, innate patterns of action and re-action laid down for them by God, are quite sufficient guides to the fullness of wild-cat maturity, to the perfect achievement of God’s purposes for wild-cats.

Thomas Edmund here, sitting so solemnly in his box, has all a kitten’s powers, but none of the kitten’s instinctive skill in using them rightly. He has the same senses as the kitten; he has muscles and nerves; he has a sense for coordinating all his impressions and referring them to himself or to something outside himself; he has a memory for sights and sounds and smells and tastes and feelings and actions, and an imagination to bring pictures of all these sensations into his head. He can move around (he certainly can!) and absorb nourishment and grow; and in time he will be able to help to produce new members of his species.

But in Thomas Edmund all these powers are human, not merely animal. And therefore while he has such strong unformed tendencies towards using his powers for human kinds of actions, he was born with no fixed nature-made patterns as to how to use them for his own good or the good of mankind.

For the beauty of animal actions is that they follow God’s plan and God’s Will instinctively; but the glory of human actions is to follow God’s plan and to obey God’s Will consciously and lovingly and freely. Even though it would make life so much easier for me just now, Thomas Edmund could not have a kitten’s instincts and still be capable of his future manhood, of free and wise and skillful action for the love of God….

But more than this, the kitten’s powers at each stage of his development are always perfectly under the control of his cat-nature, are always used rightly for the purposes of cat-hood. But Thomas Edmund’s powers are developing unevenly and unexpectedly and are by no means under the control of his human nature, for he inherits the dis-integration and perversity which are the effects of original sin.

A kitten inevitably grows into a cat, if it grows into anything. But a little boy does not develop by any means inevitably into a true human being, with all his powers subject to reason and will, and his whole self subject to God; with all his actions truly human actions, wise and skillful and purposeful actions, done for the good of himself and mankind.

Much less does a little member of Christ inevitably develop into a perfect Christian man in time and eternity. The terrible danger of human life is that he can choose not to do so, as its glory is that with God’s help he can choose and achieve God’s high purposes. No wonder that it takes a whole life-time of God’s grace and one’s own efforts and those of one’s parents and teachers and friends and unknown benefactors to grow up to the fullness of Christian living. No wonder…

What is he up to now? Everything is suspiciously quiet in the living room. Wouldn’t you know it? He has a box of matches, the most fascinating kind of forbidden fruit in the whole house. He is sitting solemnly on the couch pushing the box in and out of the case. There they go–he pushed it too far that time, and the matches are all over the couch and the floor. “Oh, oh!” he says in comic imitation of my own tones on such occasions.

He picks up one match and tries to put it back in the wrong part of the match-box. Now one in the other. That doesn’t seem to be going so well; he stands up and starts shoving the matches one by one back of the couch. He hears me coming, looks up at me and says “Oh, oh!” again. He pretends that he has no connection at all with this sad state of the matches…What can we do about it, Mummy?

“Thomas Edmund, you know you shouldn’t have taken those matches, that’s bad!” He looks away, his bright little face puckers up, he is almost on the verge of tears. “Come on, fellow, help me put them in the box.” He brightens up and offers me matches from all sides. “No, of course you can’t have the box again. How about a swing?”

He scrambles down from the couch, goes over to the swing expectantly, tries to get on it by himself, finds himself on the floor, looks up at me and laughs. “Here we go, now.” I get the swing behind him, help his two small hands to grab the ropes, put the board under his rear. A gentle push and he is off. He hangs on for dear life, smiling a determined smile of effortful pleasure, and sings a tuneless song…back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…

He may not have the full use of his reason or freewill, but he certainly has the rudiments of a conscience. He knows he should not grab match-boxes. He feels guilty even before I find him with one, and even guiltier when I do. He is sorry and hurt when I scold him, and he wants to make everything all right with me right away…

So I should not complain about all the getting up and the interruptions and the endless minor complexities of minding the baby, since every waking hour of his day is thus evidently a practice session for human living.

In all his funny and infuriating and pathetic activities he is discovering and exercising and beginning to coordinate his powers of body and mind and soul toward the time when he will be capable of a fully human action, of choosing to do something or not to do it according to right reason, and of acting on that choice–his senses and muscles and emotions and tendencies all subordinate in act to his mind and his will.

And, thank God, while he is discovering the strength of the disintegration and perversity in himself caused by original sin– “the evil that I will not, that I do”–at the same time, he will be discovering the power of grace to help him overcome it.

Now he is sorry for having offended Mummy, but in time he will be sorry for having offended God. Now he wants Mummy to love him and be pleased with him, but in time, with God’s help, he will seek only God’s good pleasure…

For there are further powers wrapped up in that small human person swinging so sedately over there on the swing, supernatural powers which are waiting for the ordinary human development of his mind and will to be ready for exercise and growth.

Because of his Baptism, this little boy will be capable not only of human action, but of Christian action. He will be able to make choices not only in the light of right reason, but in the light of faith. He will be able to act on his choices not only by the power of his own will, but with the power of God’s Own Love, Charity. He will be able not only to know himself and his capabilities and weaknesses, but to know himself in the light of God’s mercy and to hope in it.

And, with God’s help, the grace given him at Baptism and its wonderful powers will prove the fruitful seed of life everlasting, of sharing God’s Own Happiness, of seeing and loving God Himself for all eternity.

All this present existence of playing with toys, getting in and out of boxes, falling down and swinging, learning not to do what Mummy says not to do and to do what she says to do–all the unimportant attempts and achievements and tragedies which make up a small boy’s life–are the first steps towards future actions which can affect the whole world, the actions of a Christian, a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, whose every work and deed and suffering and joy can be intelligently and lovingly and willingly united to Christ’s and so help to save his own soul and those of his fellow-men for the glorious life of eternity.

And Mummy, who feels so sorry for herself so often, is really in the amazing position of assistant coach, helping the future athlete of Christ in his first exercises–assistant to the Holy Spirit, the Trainer and Sanctifier of Christians!

Mummy has the job of helping little Thomas to develop human habits of right and loving action which the Holy Spirit will transform with those supernatural habits of faith, hope and charity, of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, already rooted in little Thomas’ faculties by Baptism, flowing forth from the divine life then given to his soul.

By helping little Thomas to find out how to eat with a spoon, how to swing on a swing, how to climb up and down stairs, how to take a tumble with a smile, Mummy is helping to make him ready to cooperate to his fullest human capacity with the Gifts which the Holy Spirit will give him in fullness at his Confirmation, which will make him easy and skillful in the super-human actions of the Christian life.

Surely, then, even in the seemingly endless and wearing and humble job of helping a little boy to gain the simple physical habits and skills of ordinary human living, the light and grace of the Holy Spirit will not be lacking to his imperfect and unskilled assistants, Thomas Edmund’s parents.

Thomas Edmund is tired of his swing. He slips off it without a bump and looks at me expectantly. “Heavens, yes, Thomas Edmund, look at the time! Come on, we have to pick up your toys first. Throw them all in, that’s the spirit.”

The future co-worker with Christ is perfectly willing, for the moment, to be a co-worker with Mummy. “Look, there’s that woolly lamb over there, get him too. All right, shut the lid. Now let’s get to work on your bath!”

“You will never have this day with your children again – tomorrow they’ll be a little older than they are today. Today is a gift, breathe and notice, smile and hold them, study their faces and pay attention. Enjoy today, Mama- it will be over before you know it. Relish the charms of the present.” – Anne Joachim

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Here is a complete guide to mature, responsible, even noble behavior in our complex modern society. Written in the 1930s by a wise Jesuit priest and steeped in the wisdom of the ages, these pages teach the timeless principles that have led countless souls to true success and lasting happiness….

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

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

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Show Your Child How Nature Reveals God

What a beautiful time of the year to teach our children about Mother Nature and its workings in relationship to the Supernatural….

Illustration by Marcel Marlier (1930, Belgian)

by Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children

Sky, trees, sun, all of nature was created by God and serves Him perfectly, giving Him great glory. But nature study by itself teaches only an assortment of interesting facts. It can teach much more, if we would use it to teach as our Lord did and help our children to see the world as proof of God and His greatness and generosity.

For instance, one time our Lord said: Consider the ravens, for they sow not, neither do they reap, neither have they storehouse nor barn, and God feedeth them. How much are you more valuable than they!

He was talking to grown-ups at the time, telling them to be so detached that the sight of a flock of crows would remind them to trust their Father in Heaven.

We have crows all over our pasture and woods in the summertime, and the children love to think of Christ watching just such flights, hearing the same sounds of cawing when He told his listeners to think of crows like this.

If you live in the city and complain, “But we have only sparrows in the city,” well, He said the same thing about sparrows.

Weren’t two sparrows sold for only a penny? He asked. And yet not one fell to the ground without God’s first giving permission. “Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

We do not have to tax our ingenuity in our use of nature to teach our children these first steps toward detachment. We need only to imitate Christ. That is one of the ways He taught most often.

Encouraged to look at the world this way and to wonder at all its beauty and mystery, they begin to see these truths by themselves.

Then the ants around an anthill tell them wonderful things, not just about ants, but about the power of God, who could give such tiny insects instincts of order and industry that they follow faithfully and thereby give glory to Him.

A child will come in to report tearfully that kitty has caught a mouse and is eating it on the porch, and it’s the beginning of learning the incredible obedience in nature: that it’s the nature of kitty to do just that.

A mouse will eat the grain (or nibble the bread in the pantry), a cat will eat the mouse, a dog will chase the cat, and on up the scale. It’s a fallen world since the first sin in the Garden, and we are all the victims of fallen nature.

Animals have no soul like ours, no reason, no gifts of grace. So they are obedient to their nature by doing the things their instincts tell them to do. And in their obedience, they praise God.

During deer season in our part of the country, the children are horror-stricken at the thought of killing deer; even seeing hunters cross our land to go into the hills makes for much excitement.

So every season, we have to reread the passage in Genesis where God gave man all the beasts of the earth for his food. Then, explaining that by hunting, for the purpose of food, the deer population is kept in check and the orchards that bear our native apples and peaches are protected from damage by too many deer, they begin to learn something of the divine economy in nature, the pattern of victim to prey, and the great dignity of man, to whom God made all other things subject.

These things may seem trivial, far afield of detachment, but for children, they’re the beginning. But often we miss the opportunity, in our haste to correct them for some attitude we think cruel or disrespectful, to use such situations to anchor them just a bit more firmly in their knowledge of God.

For instance, some children discovered a turtle and started pelting him with stones. When they ran back to report the fun to the grown-ups, some admonished them not to throw stones at turtles: “It isn’t nice.”

Others said, “You mustn’t throw stones at turtles. God made the turtle, and he is obeying God perfectly, according to his turtle way. You are far above a turtle. You have a mind and a soul, many things he has not. When you see a turtle, see him as something quite wonderful coming from the hand of God, with a funny little head that goes in and out, and a little house he carries on his back. And remember that both you and he were put here by God to do His will and praise Him — the one by acting like a turtle, the other by acting like a boy.”

This sounds like the kind of thing that might go in one ear and out the other, especially coming in the middle of an afternoon of noisy play. But days later, one of the boys at the turtle episode ran to his brothers after discovering a baby rabbit in its nest.

“Did you catch it?”

“No, it’s God’s. I just kneeled down and looked at it.”

Every mouse, every bird, every ant and grub can be an occasion for a small reflection, and these poured together like grains of sand slowly, surely, help to anchor a child in God. Sin, not God, causes nature’s harshness

Someone posed this problem, however. If you go too far with all this, wouldn’t a child conclude that he must stand still and let a wild beast devour him because the beast is God’s?

But we’re always permitted to defend ourselves. God gave Adam the animals and told him to “rule over them.” So we’re their masters, and they were made to serve us.

If some of the saints, in perfect detachment, could walk with serenity into the jaws of wild beasts, we can only wonder at their abandonment and pray that we, too, may one day trust as they did.

Lacking such trust (and it’s a rare and wonderful gift), it’s never a sin to kill a mad dog, or a poisonous snake, or even — and children will bring it up — swat a fly or kill a mosquito.

“Well, I wish they’d never committed Original Sin, and these darned mosquitoes wouldn’t bite.” And Jamie, scratching madly, begins to understand something of the nature of a fallen world when he applies it to mosquito bites.

St. Paul’s letter to the Romans helps a great deal to explain to children about the world and its longing to be restored to harmony (although it has to be retold in words they understand).

In it he wrote: Creation was made subject to vanity, not by its own will, but by reason of Him that made it subject, in hope, because creation itself also shall be delivered from its slavery to corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. For we know that all creation groans and travails in pain until now.

Even the storms and tornadoes and earthquakes that seem so cruel and mysterious are the result of the Fall. And St. Paul says that this would not have happened if God hadn’t made nature share in the punishment for man’s sin.

But in its way, nature, too, hopes for the day when harmony will be restored and it will be perfect again. This is very comforting to a child who listens to hurricane warnings on the radio and asks, “Will there be a hurricane because God wants to show us His power?”

He is not a cruel God. He is perfect and just. But He warned Adam not to disobey. It was Adam’s sin that set in motion the cruelty in nature, and if Jesus had not consented to become man and share these misfortunes with us, we would never know what to do with them.

He turned punishment inside out for us, and gave us a way to use the sufferings we endure, from mosquito bites all the way up to hurricanes. We can pour them into the well of His own suffering and help Him redeem the world.

And of course this is the only answer to natural disorders and afflictions that makes any sense. Many children learn it, while many “wise” men do not.

 

“Let me encourage you to find room for a garden in your life, for a garden has secrets that can teach you so much. In it we have the privilege of witnessing firsthand a part of God’s character: Creation. We are so much richer because of our love for plants, flowers, and trees and our involvement in their growth.”
–Emilie Barnes. Simple Secrets to a Beautiful Home  (afflink) Illustration by http://www.genevievegodboutillustration.com/

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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.

How does one develop a space for one’s children free from the worst aspects of the surrounding culture? How to foster a spiritual life where children can develop a vision of God, themselves, and the world, and an approach to Him through prayer and the habits of daily life? Mary Reed Newland, in We and Our Children, here offers wise counsel on making the home a domestic church for the raising of Catholic children in holiness, truth, and the Christian virtues. All things central to a child’s life–play, work, school, creative activity, family responsibilities, prayer, the sacraments, and the Mass–are shown to be occasions for encouraging a spiritual outlook and the formation of sound Catholic habits.

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The good news is that a beautiful home doesn’t require too much money, too much energy, or too much time. Bestselling author and home-management expert Emilie Barnes shows readers how they can easily weave beauty and happiness into the fabric of their daily lives. With just a touch of inspiration, readers can

• turn their homes into havens of welcome and blessing
• build a lifestyle that beautifully reflects their unique personalities
• enrich their spirits with growing things (even if their thumbs are several shades shy of green)
• make mealtimes feasts of thanksgiving and kitchen duty fun
• establish traditions of celebration that allow joy to filter through to everyday life

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Character Training in Early Adolescence

Painting by Harold N. Anderson

This is an excerpt taken from a treasure of a book published in 1924 called The Catholic Teacher’s Companion – A Book of Inspiration and Self-Help.

It was originally written for teaching Sisters….

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How beautiful is youth! how bright if gleams

With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!

Book of Beginnings, Story without End,

Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

-LONGFELLOW.

No phase of character training is more interesting or more important than the education of the adolescent. Adolescence has always appealed to the heart of the true teacher. At least one biographer of Our Lord is of the opinion that many, if not most, of the disciples chosen by Christ were adolescents.

Socrates knew that there was no more fertile source for inspiration than the companionship of adolescents. Plato is at his best in those dialogues in which adolescents play the chief role. G. Stanley Hall confesses of himself: “As for years an almost passionate lover of childhood and a teacher of youth, the adolescent stage of life has long seemed to me one of the most fascinating of all themes, more worthy, perhaps, than anything else in the world of reverence, most inviting study, and in most crying need of a service we do not yet understand how to render aright.”

Adolescence is, indeed, a fascinating period in life; it is the second birth of the child, and the morning hour of life when the whole world turns to gold.

THE YEARS OF ADOLESCENCE

The years of adolescence are also the best decade in life. “No age is so responsible to all the best and wisest adult endeavor. In no psychic soil, too, does seed, bad as well as good, strike such deep root, grow so rankly, or bear fruit so quickly or so surely.”

Adolescence is likewise the most critical period in life. It is the time when the child discovers the other sex, and passes through the fire and water of temptation. The years between fourteen and sixteen are the most dangerous in a boy’s life, and most boys that go wrong do so between nine and sixteen.

Every step of  the upward way is strewn with wreckage of body, mind, and morals. “There is not only arrest, but perversion, at every stage, and hoodlumism, juvenile crime, and secret vice seem not only increasing, but develop in earlier years in every civilized land.”

The angels of heaven and the devils of hell wage a fierce war for the possession of the soul during these all-important years. Defeat or victory may eventually mean hell or heaven for the soul.

Alas, that the enemy gains the victory so often! The scandals in some public high schools are a sad story. But in our own high schools devoted Brothers and Sisters often fight a losing battle, and the moral lapses, mixed marriages, and apostasies among the graduates of Catholic secondary schools raise the heart-searching question: Have we done all in our power for the boys and girls during the most critical period of their lives?

Not only the soul but the body, too, passes through a crisis during this period. Adolescence is the time of rapid physical growth. The features begin to reveal the mental development; there is more expression in the face; the eye is more eloquent; and the forehead begins to shape what Byron calls “the dome of thought, the palace of the soul.”

There is deep thought in Riickert’s lines on the forehead of the adolescent:

But now I saw above the eyes

The columns, bows and towers rise;

And ‘neath a roof of golden locks

The structure slowly vaults and rocks;

High swings the arch, far-flung and free—

God’s blessing on this building be!—

A mind of man thus rears a dome

To make therein its lifelong home.

Many mistakes are made by teachers because of their ignorance of the changes occurring both in the body and the mind of the adolescent. Honest teachers will admit that the period of adolescence is the most mysterious in life.

If childhood is a riddle, then adolescence is a Chinese puzzle and invites every new generation of educationists to attempt a solution.

There is a wall around Boyville and Girldom, and the gate is closed to all adults. Novelists and play-wrights, philosophers and psychologists have tried to break through the wall, but the sincere investigator must confess that the period remains full of mysteries.

Catholic scholars in this country have kept strangely aloof from the subject. We hope the day is not far distant when some Catholic educator will have the courage to record for what he and his brothers and sisters in the profession have gathered from intimate contact with the boy and girl.

But until that day arrives we must rely upon our limited experience or go to foreign Catholic writers or to Protestants and pagans (ancient and modern) to get a glimpse into the mysterious country.

GLIMPSE INTO A MYSTERIOUS COUNTRY

Horace’s characterization of the adolescent is brief but to the point: the beardless youth delights in horses and dogs and the verdure of the Campus Martius; he is pliable as wax to the bent of vice, rude to advisers, a slow provider of useful things, wasteful of his money, high-spirited, amorous, and hasty in deserting the objects of his passion.

Aristotle has given the best ancient characterization of adolescence. He speaks of the strong sex instinct of adolescents., their fickleness, love of honor, sympathy, charity, hope, bashfulness, valor, high aspiration, omniscience, cocksureness, fondness for extremes, and  love of laughter.

G. Stanley Hall says of adolescence and its modern environment:

“Modern life is hard, and in many respects increasingly so, on youth. Home, school, church, fail to recognize its nature and its needs and, perhaps, most of all, its perils . . . There are new repulsions felt toward home and school, and truancy and runaways abound.

The social instincts undergo sudden unfoldment and the new life of love awakens. It is the age of sentiment and of religion, of rapid fluctuations of mood, and the world seems strange and new.

Interest in adult life and in vocations develops. Youth awakens to a new world and understands neither it nor himself. The whole future of life depends on how the new powers now given suddenly and in profusion are husbanded and directed. Character and personality are taking form, but everything is plastic.

Self-feeling and ambition are increased, and every trait and faculty is liable to exaggeration and excess. It is all a marvelous new birth, and those who believe that nothing is so worthy of love, reverence, and service as the body and soul of youth, and who hold that the best test of every human institution is how much it contributes to bring youth to the ever fullest possible development,  may well review themselves and the civilization in which we live, to see how far it satisfies this supreme test.”

From the plays of Shakespeare we may select some thirty characters as typical adolescents. Booth Tarkington has given us an amusing picture of adolescence in Seventeen. His hero finds it unendurable not to seem perfect in all externals. Yet while William Sylvanus Baxter would strut about as a full-grown man, the child that he still is betrays him while he would play the other role.

He is still fond of green apples, and his steps often wander to the candy store, the soda water fountain, and the ice cream parlor. Yet he resents it when his elders would treat him as a little boy.

This trait is reminiscent of the complaint lodged by A. C. Benson in The Schoolmaster against the children’s hymns he was compelled to sing in his boyhood days:

“I did not like to sing ‘We are but children weak,’ because I did not feel weak, and I did not wish to be reminded that I was; still more offensive was being made to sing about ‘my little hands.’

I did not think them little, and did not see why they should be made the subject of oral remarks. Such hymns are more force pleasure of elder people, who are alarmed by the sight of innocence and weakness asserting their own claims.

But the boy delights to feel himself a pilgrim, a soldier, a hero; and he should be made to feel that his part in the battle is as important as that of his elders.”

MANHOOD AND LIBERTY

The consciousness of incipient manhood and womanhood is the outstanding feature of adolescence. The adolescent feels that his childhood days are past. He feels himself at home among adults, and resents being treated as a child.

He worships the teacher who recognizes his manhood. He approves heartily of the principle that baby-methods must give way to man-methods.

Feeling himself a man, the adolescent is bent on asserting his manhood. He is according to the expressive phrase of Vives, like an unbroken horse that would get rid of both rider and bridle.

His idol is personal liberty, But he has an erroneous conception of liberty. What he craves is license: but it would be disastrous to indulge his wishes:

Give a boy an inch and he’ll take an ell;

Give him a horse and he’ll ride him to hell.

One of the principal duties of the teacher of adolescents is to bring home to his pupils the idea of true liberty. The adolescent must learn that liberty consists in freeing ourselves from the tyranny of our passions and the influence of bad environment and evil companions.

The teacher may appropriately quote to his adolescent boys the lines from Shakespeare:

Brave conquers-for so you are

That war against your own affections

And the huge army of the worlds desires.

The adolescent must learn to appreciate the liberty of the children of God. Hence he must be taught to stand on his own feet, to recognize no authority except out of his own conscience and the representatives of God.

He must be trained to brave the cheers of the crowd, to be not only a man in the world but a man against the world. Let him remember the story of the father and son and their mule. Do what they would, the people had something to criticize.

True respect comes only to those who stand on their own feet, heedless of the jibes of the rabble. If the adolescent is afraid to act on principle, if he must always do as the rest do, he may as well wear a button with the text, “Smith and Company,“ for he is not an individual person, but merely a member of the gang.

No matter how lowly the duty let him perform it proudly. When carrying a basket for his mother or sister, he should carry it proudly because it is an honor to do one’s duty well. If we make our boys think right about liberty, we shall make it hard for them to do wrong.

Still, it is not enough to make the boys think right. They must be given an opportunity to do right, i.e., to submit to legitimate authority.

The teacher will find that she need but assert her authority in the proper way to obtain cheerful obedience from all who have gotten right ideas about authority in liberty.

There is much lamenting about the lack of obedience in American homes and schools. There is, however, just as much obedience as ever in America, only now the parents and teachers obey the children.

Too many teachers coquet with the likes and dislikes of their pupils, and naturally such teachers cannot teach duty or the spirit of obedience.

Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails.

There are a thousand books on the duty of obedience, but very few that teach the fine art of how to enjoin the obedience properly.

Let the teacher appeal to the manhood of the adolescent, his sense of duty and honor; let her demand obedience in no uncertain terms; let her make it plain to her pupils that she will insist on submission; and her pupils will comply with her every demand. Let the teachers first lesson be obedience, and the second maybe whatever she will.

The teacher’s personality plays an important role in this respect. The adolescent boy and girl are hero worshipers and hungry for ideals. If the teacher represents their ideal of what a teacher ought to be, they will respond to the teacher’s efforts. But the teacher must herself have confidence in her own willpower if she would hope to control the wills of her pupils.

She must be conscious that the will is our highest and most perfect faculty; the best thing we have, our royal faculty, and the most effective weapon that we wield.

If the teacher has confidence in the untold possibilities of the will, she may hope to arouse in her pupils a deep interest in the training of their will.

For herself she will find helpful information in Father Barrett’s Strength of Will, and her pupils will find inspiration in the same writer’s The Will to Win.

Undoubtedly youth is a most beautiful thing of itself. But, if you have in this tender flower, the shining whiteness of Christian purity, then you have human beauty displayed as something noble and exalted, attracting the admiration and imitation of those who see it. – Pope Pius XII

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Two Titles mentioned in the article by Father Barrett:

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Catholic Education in the Home (Part Three – Conclusion)

This is Part Three of an excellent article! It was given the Nihil Obstat in Australia in 1955. The name of the Dominican sister was not included.

The article has many things to ponder and take to heart!

Part One

Part Two

ON EARTH THE BROKEN ARC. . . . . . .

I know some may be tempted to think that all this talk of beauty and art is too impractical, too much far away from the business of everyday life – or that the country home cannot do much about it. But a Catholic should never let himself think like that. He should know that to be a complete person, means to be able to see and to feel, to imagine and even to create what is beautiful.

I cannot go into this any further, much as I would like to. I shall say just this:- the home can do more in this matter than the school. Like love for our Holy Faith, appreciation of the fine and lovely things of life comes from constant association with beautiful things themselves and with people who have a genuine love and understanding of them.

So it is for parents to help their children in this vital matter. Simplicity, neatness, color, brightness, and good taste can make the house and garden lovely without great expense. A few really good pictures by great artists can help to form the children’s taste.

There are, for example, so many of Our Lady by artists such as Fra Angelico, Botticelli and Raphael, that it seems a shame to have instead, ones that are unworthy of Our Lady’s beauty and dignity.

A good book for helping children to understand art has a significant title, Pictures to Grow Up With.

Children take great notice of pictures in the home and I know I can recall vividly all the pictures in our home. Hence the importance of having lovely ones and of encouraging the children really to look at them – and to make their own, to draw and paint and make things.

Much of a child’s future happiness and goodness depends on what the home and the school have done to help him to discover and develop his special creative powers, his capacity for making something beautiful

RESPONSE TO POETRY

It seems harder to discover what can be done at home to foster a love of poetry. There are collections of works by genuine poets (i.e. not just writers of verse for children) which are produced in such a way as to captivate the attention – such as the Adventures in Poetry series by Mary Daunt, or The Blackbird in the Lilac, by James Reeves or an Australian Adventures in Poetry, edited by Donald McLean, and Gospel Rhymes, published by Sheed and Ward.

If these could be read aloud and talked over, it would be a good beginning. The attitude of the adults to poetry has a great deal to do with the child’s response to it.

MUSIC -TO UPLIFT OR DEGRADE?

To develop appreciation of good music is both easier and harder – easier because modern people will listen more readily to music than to poetry; harder because so much music is heard that is utterly worthless, if not vulgar and degrading.

Positive efforts are always best in this as in all education. You can find ways of knowing what is good; and by wise choice of radio programs and the playing of records of good music the home can set up right standards for the children before their taste has been spoilt.

If it is at all possible, some members of the family who have the gift should learn to play the piano or other musical instruments. They can then give great joy to the others.

I could say much more, but I daresay you are thinking that I have said enough. Still I think you will see from the above, that one of the defects of the education of girls, especially of those who are going to be home-makers in the country, is that it is too similar to a boy’s education.

Training in art and music, in subjects such as history and great literature, in all that would make for good taste in dress, speech and home decoration and management would do more to fit a girl to be a Christian mother and the mistress of a Christian home.

EDUCATION FOR RURAL LIVING

And so I come to my final point – what the country home can do to educate the child for rural living.

An American writer on the “Forward to the Land movement”, expressed the value of rural living thus:-To live a decent, human life a man needs space for family living, a good environment for bringing up children, one where children are welcome, the possession of property so that the family can have both independence and responsibility, and a chance for genuine community living, for true neighbourliness.

Only the country can give all this. A nation can be no stronger than its families are, and they can be at their best in the country. And when to this natural strength we add the crowning glory of the Catholic Faith, when we strive to bring Christ to the countryside, and the land to Christ, we are certainly exercising a great apostolate.

This is the ideal and the vocation we wish to hand on to our children. They will learn it best by living it, by being given an active share in it, while still young. If the chance to be truly responsible for what one does is one of the values of rural living, then the rural home must give each child jobs to do which he must do with faithfulness and responsibility.

It is not enough that he sees, what is easily seen on a farm, that the feeding of animals, the watering of plants, the milking of cows, the gathering of eggs, the preparing of meals cannot be put aside for another day. He must share that responsibility if he is to experience the joy of a job well done.

The jobs should not be burdensome to the child, but they should be really necessary jobs, and the child should be really responsible for doing them.

Anyone who has had much to do with modern children, would realize their need for a sense of responsibility, and for acquiring a spirit of work and a respect for its dignity. At the same time the children will learn from sharing the family work to care for things with reverence and detachment, to use them properly – a very valuable lesson that is so hard to teach to the child who has to spend his growing years in a flat or in a few rented rooms.

COMMUNITY LIFE

True neighborliness or the spirit of genuine community living is really an extension of a sense of responsibility. It is living a truth that, as members of the Body of Christ we are almost as responsible for the goodness and happiness of others as we are for our own. We are all one in Christ. Someone has put it thus: ‘The countryman retains in his very fiber the knowledge that God’s answer to “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is an emphatic “Yes.”

Children should not only see the genuine concern which their parents have for the troubles of others and their readiness to give help; they should have their share in helping.

Picnics and parties and games together are the joyful side of neighborliness; children need this, and the more serious side as well. As they grow up in the more spacious country environment, they can learn the meaning and value of quietness, serenity and solitude; but they should realize that they are never isolated, no matter how far away the nearest homestead.

From their parents, too, children learn to take an active part in parish functions and entertainments, to give time and energy to supporting movements such as the Rural Movement, or any movement or club that is working to help the Catholic boy or girl to be, in time, an intelligent and contented member of a country community.

SENSE OF VALUES

A parent’s surest means of developing in their children this intelligent appreciation of a rural way of life, is by giving them a happy home life with parents and children sharing their interests and fun. Nothing can replace the value of that in any child’s life, but it is particularly true of the country child’s life, who at some time or other will be tempted by the seeming enchantment of city life.

It can be a very strong temptation, but parents who have realized that their vocation in life is to educate their children in God’s way, will not be found wanting. Their own love for each other and for God, is the strongest foundation of happiness in the home, and that is one reason why they will keep to themselves any differences or disagreements that may arise between them.

They will realize that the special home virtues of unselfishness, bearing with one another, gentleness, generosity and modesty will not come without prayer and personal effort.

Each of these would be worthy of a talk on its own, but unselfish courtesy and modesty are needed by the child of today to a degree that is almost frightening-courtesy because it means a real concern for the feelings of others, a deep respect, a reverence for the person of others-and reverence, we are told, is fast disappearing from our world.

Good manners is the outward showing of courtesy and good-mannered children have good-mannered parents; that is the only certain way.

This is true also of modesty – a person’s sense of reverence for himself, his own person. Here, the father has a tremendous responsibility for the modest manliness of his sons and their respect for women; and the mother must know that her girl’s womanly modesty and purity depend largely on hers.

A girl nowadays, at least in the city, needs this virtue to an heroic degree, so great are the temptations to unbecoming dress and behavior.

Yet Catholic women, who knew how to dress smartly and modestly, and had the courage of their convictions, could start a revolution in this matter.

THE HOME OF A SAINT

To end my talk, I want to quote the words of our Holy Father, the Pope, spoken when he was canonizing St. Maria Goretti, the twelve year-old martyr of purity. She was, he said, “the fruit of a Christian home with its old simple method of education, a home where one prays, where the children are brought up in fear of God, in obedience to parents, in the love of truth and self-respect, accustomed to be satisfied with little, and to give a helping hand.”

It was a country home, and Maria was a country child, who learnt early the meaning of sharing fully in the joys and sufferings of a family – the give and take of a family life.

I have always loved the ideals of country life, and have loved teaching children from country homes. That is why I am glad and honored to speak to you today, to get to know a little of those who make it possible for children to be truly childlike.

City children have their own lovableness and perhaps a greater need of our work, but I often find myself longing to give them the tremendous benefits of growing up in the country – and that is why I think every effort should be made to establish in the country, colleges and schools that are fully Catholic and truly rural in ideals.

Our Lady was the mistress of a little village home in Nazareth; Jesus was a little village child. I know their loving spirit will guide every step the country child takes on his way to heaven.

“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.” -Fr. Rolheiser, OMI

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As no sensible person would make a long road trip without first consulting a map, so the person intent upon gaining Heaven should first resort to a competent guide to reach that Goal of all goals. And no better guide to Heaven exists than An Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Doctor of the Church. It is at once easy to read, being laid out in short chapters, yet thorough, authoritative, reliable, kind and gentle a mirror of its author. It is a book, moreover, for all, because all are called to the devout life. True devotion to God, the author points out, adorns every vocation. The devout life, moreover, is a lovely, a pleasant, and a happy life.

If your life seems to make no sense, or if you don’t know which path to take, St. Francis de Sales will console and inform you. In this warm little book, he explains to you what God’s will is and how He reveals it yes, even to you, and even in the seemingly random events of your life.

No matter what you’re going through now (or may have gone through), you’ll see why you should love and trust in God’s will and long for its fulfillment. Best of all, you’ll learn a sure method for discovering God’s will in any situation today!

As you begin to discern God’s loving hand even in seemingly chaotic events, St. Francis de Sales will lead your mind and your heart to the still waters of God’s gentle consolation.

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

Catholic Education in the Home (Part Two)

This is Part Two of an excellent article! It was given the Nihil Obstat in Australia in 1955. The name of the Dominican sister was not included.

The article has many things to ponder and take to heart!

Part One is here.

Part Two is here.

NURSERY OF SAINTS

In truth, the family circle is the nursery of saints as of sane, human beings. There the child finds the love, security and guidance which are his greatest needs.

It is by loving and being loved that persons grow as persons. It is in the family that relationships are essentially personal and each person is valued as a person.

So we look to the family to preserve that form of society, that way of life which respects the personality, the unique value in God’s eyes, of every human being.

The mothers who humbly strive to open the eyes of the children to the truths of the first chapters of the catechism are doing a work of incalculable, irreplaceable value.

Maybe that is the vocation of the country family – to keep alive a sane view of life by educating their children to be, as Fr. Gerald Vann expresses it,’creative personalities who will share the redemptive work of Jesus Christ through their lives, their work, their homes and their love.

If ever you get the chance read the stories of Saints Pius X and John Bosco, Saints Therese and Maria Goretti, you will realize how close is the connection between good homes, nobility of character and sanctity.

VOCATIONS

You will understand too, why vocations to the priesthood and the religious life come usually in the good home; and with grateful love you will encourage the children who want to serve God in this great way.

I am afraid I have too little time to deal adequately with the three other aspects of educative work in the home. But, as a Dominican, I must speak at least briefly, on the parent’s share in developing in each child a deep respect for the things of the mind, for the work of the human intellect.

The work of the intellect is to grasp truth, to grasp the meaning of things as they are in the reality of their own being, to come always nearer to seeing things as they must be in God’s sight.

It may be the Divine Knowledge of God as He has revealed it to us, or the natural knowledge of the universe He has created, or the world of ideas by which the human mind strives to understand the purpose of existence-why the world is, what we are, what are our real powers, what are the relationships between things and men and the unseen world.

Whatever it be, the unspoilt human intellect seeks this knowledge and yearns for it, because even when it does not know it, it is always seeking the greatest reality, God, the source of all Truth.

The modern world has little taste for this thirst for truth. Too often, insensitive and blind to the inner meaning of things, it asks only Of what use are they to us? Is there any money in it for us?

It degrades everything by commercializing it. It scorns those who have no material gain to show for all their study. There is nothing wrong with putting our knowledge to practical use.

The Holy Family at Nazareth had to do so daily. The grave mistake is to forget the higher value of knowledge, to let our minds be tainted by the materialistic outlook around us; even sometimes to encourage our children to adopt this attitude. That is why I am dwelling on a point that may at first, seem to have little to do with education in the home.

THE COUNTRY HOME

I can see in country life and the country home great possibilities for keeping alive a right love for knowledge. I can sense a danger too in the fact that parents are often dependent on non-Catholic schools for the outside education of their children.

There is bound to be confusion and conflict in the child’s mind, if the ideals and standards of value differ, especially if one held that man, not God, was the measure of Truth.

The home must therefore deliberately set itself to correct this, to give the child the right meaning of truth and knowledge.

For this the country child has the great advantage of living from his earliest days in close contact with natural things, with things that have come straight from the hand of God.

Everything that is, is more than it is, and the child can gain real knowledge from the company of living and growing things.

Natural things exert an almost incredibly strong influence on the child mind, which can surrender its whole being so fully to what it sees and loves- a fleet of ducklings on a pond, a calf on its rickety legs, a moonlight walk to turn off the windmill, the tall trees always in their place, the ride round the thirty-acre on the Massey-Harris pulled by eight strong horses.

GOD’S PURPOSE IN ALL THINGS

Experiences such as these things can hardly fail to give real knowledge and at the same time to guard and guide the spirit of the child, giving it a sense of true peace and true grandeur which it need never lose.

In your own minds, now perhaps you are seeing again what used to give you a special joy or comfort, reassurance or inspiration. The meaning and purpose of these natural things is something a child can understand, and at the same time he is led, almost, unawares, to see God through them. Thus is developed a sense of wonder at the mystery of being that could be a most precious possession for life.

This power to see the creatures of God as the symbols of His goodness and beauty, if rightly developed, is a means of enabling the child to enter more fully into the spirit of the liturgy, that is, the Church’s public worship of God.

It would help him to see the significant way in which flowers and candles, oil and wine and bread and water are used in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacraments.

And though I cannot dwell on the thought now, it would be worth your while to think deeply about the educative value of the Church’s liturgy, all Her ways of giving worship to God, and bringing man to God. This seems a long way from so-simple-seeming a subject as the study of nature; but all real knowing has such far-reaching effects.

READING

By encouraging children to read and to reflect on what they read, parents can also strongly influence a child’s attitude to learning. But the books must be worth reading, for you cannot develop a taste for what is good, nor the power to seek and find the beauty or truth of what is written if the book is of poor quality.

There is now a great wealth of good books for children and young people. It would be difficult to over-estimate the value of helping your children to love reading.

Some great educators do not hesitate to state that the test of the well-educated person is the quality of his reading. Can he really read a great book? If you could bring back to your home the custom of reading aloud to your children (or their reading to you) and of letting them try out their powers of thinking and discussing with you, you might help to make Australia a land of genuine culture.

But the right book is the important thing and it is your responsibility to do all you can to get them, plenty of them-Saints’ books, Nature books, stories, fairy and folk tales, stories of real life. But remember there is a world of difference between a genuine fairy story as found in Hans Andersen’s Tales or Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books and some pixie story by Enid Blyton.

Before I leave this problem of developing a deep respect for the things of the mind perhaps I could mention the right attitude to take towards the children’s progress in their studies.

A Catholic parent should never be tempted to ask-What is the good of all this study of poetry or history or Latin-it won’t help you to get a job-nor is it wise to use, as a spur to urge children to work, the argument that they will not get on in the world.

Again, keep always in mind the truth that children differ very greatly in natural gifts and aptitudes. One of the greatest lessons we have to learn in life is to accept ourselves as we are and our children have to learn it too. What is needed is to find what one can really do and do it as perfectly as we can.

SUCCESS IS NOT ENOUGH

How much more sane and balanced is the personality of the child who is not for ever being harried by unfair comparisons with what other children can do. Often we are so anxious for the success of our children that we forget the harm we may be thus doing to their characters their attitude to life. Rather should we train our children to rejoice sincerely in the gifts and success of others.

When I come to consider what it means to have given a child a love and appreciation of what is beautiful in life, in art, in music, in literature, I could wish I had a poet’s power to convey in a few words, a whole world of meaning.

It is indeed fatally easy to think we have educated a child when we have trained him to think, to acquire masses of useful information, to do many useful things. We could do all this and leave his inner spirit untouched or dulled.

Someone has written that modern education has produced a world, completely out of tune with beauty, unaware of it, and incapable of seeing it, reverencing it or producing it.

The ugliness of much that we see in big cities – advertisements on hoardings, factory buildings, radio programmes, comic strips and popular songs and dance music, that are utterly empty of all loveliness and graciousness – These are evidence of wide-spread disregard for beauty, and, to quote a great Catholic writer, Jacques Maritain, “The dismissal of beauty is a dangerous thing for humanity.”

It would scarcely be too much to say that in dismissing or belittling what is beautiful we are dismissing God. For God is Beauty as well as Truth and Goodness, and ‘all the beauty we can see is but an addition to the store through which we become aware of God.

(To be continued…)

We are called to be great Apostles of Love in our ordinary, daily life. We are Christ’s Hands and Feet as we wipe noses, feed hungry little ones and change diapers with an attitude of service and love. When we are cheerful to those we rub shoulders with each day, when we kindly open our door to those who enter into our home, we are taking part in Christ’s Apostolic Work. “Jesus was an Apostle in the stable of Bethlehem, in the shop of St. Joseph, in His anguish in Gethsemane and on Calvary no less than when He was going through Palestine, teaching the multitudes or disputing with the doctors of the law.” – Divine Intimacy, Painting by Morgan Weistling http://amzn.to/2p0dxg8 (afflink)

Lovely reviews from Amazon on my book, Cheerful Chats for Catholic Children:  Thank you, Dear Ladies!

“Love it! Love it! Love it! A grace filled book that gives young children a faith perspective, more of a God’s eye view if you will, of daily events.All the ups and downs of life are considered in relation to Christ and His Blessed Mother. My own grandchildren love hearing these tales every night. The stories give them hope, security and understanding.”

“I’ve long been wanting a book on various virtues to help my children become better Catholics. But most books focused on the virtues make being bad seem funny or attractive in order to teach the child a lesson. I’ve always found them to be detrimental to the younger ones who’s logic hasn’t formed. This book does an awesome job in showing a GOOD example in each of the children with all the various struggles children commonly struggle with (lying, hiding things, being grumpy, you name it.) But this book isn’t JUST virtue training… it’s also just sweet little chats about our love for God, God’s greatness, etc…

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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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Catholic Education in the Home (Part One)

 This is an excellent article! It was given the Nihil Obstat in Australia in 1955. The name of the Dominican sister was not included.

The article has many things to ponder and take to heart!

Part Two is here.

Part Three is here.

Artist: Richard Sohn (1834 – 1912, German)

(A talk given to the 1954 South Australian State Conference of the National Catholic Rural Movement, by a Dominican Nun, Cabra Convent, Adelaide).

The purpose of my talk today, is to think over with you, some of the ways in which Catholic parents may play their part in the Christian education of their children. It would hardly be possible for anyone to choose a topic more important than this, and that for two reasons.

MATERIALISM

Firstly, it seems no exaggeration to say that our civilization, our way of life is on the verge of destroying itself. Materialism, that theory which denies all spiritual realities-God, the soul, the life hereafter, which makes the human being a mere object, has gained a terrifying hold on the minds of men.

Almost every day we hear something which forces us to realize that the Catholic Church is one of the few institutions that still respect every human being as a person, of priceless value in the sight of God.

I cannot develop this point any further, but it leads to the second of my reasons. It is obvious that our children will have to bear the brunt of this struggle against anti-human, anti-Christian forces.

The fate of the world lies in our children’s hands.

As a nun writing in America states, ‘Even a quick look around will assure us that the influences set against our children today amount almost to a diabolical plot. But the ‘child is still the strongest bridge between God and man. And when we realize that no educational influence on earth is as powerful nor as permanent in its results as that of the family and home, you will see why I think this topic is so vital.

The enemies of religion know that their most effective weapon is the attack against family life. You, too, must realize as fully as possible, the power that is yours.

IN THE HOME

‘Education, it is said, ‘is the help that is given to the growing personality of the child to recognize itself and to become all that God intends it to be,-a truly human person, with all its powers and gifts fully developed and used for the glory of God and the service of others.

It is the home that makes possible the growth of the child’s personality. With every waking moment the child becomes more conscious of itself, more ready to absorb the influence of those nearest to it.

Its soul is, as it were, untouched soil which places no obstacles in the way of anything planted in it.

In later years, many interests compete for its attention. In early childhood, the mother first, and in lesser degree the father and other members of the family absorb the child’s whole attention and so can contribute very deeply to the development of its personality. From them it learns natural independence in walking and talking. From the parents it discovers the meaning of love, security and authority. No one else can love the child in exactly the way a mother loves it as part of her very self-no one can therefore know it nor influence it as she does.

WHAT THIS MEANS

It is not hard to see from this the tremendous importance of a good home. What is there, almost subconsciously imbibed, will never be rooted out of the person’s being though it may be clouded over or twisted for a time by later experiences.

How great then is the parents’ responsibility and their need of the graces of matrimony, to bring up their children in the fear and love of God.

In discussing more in detail the parents share in the education of their children, I shall consider four main aspects of the way in which the child is prepared, as Pope Pius XI expressed it ‘for what he must be and what he must do here below in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created.

The home must set the child well on the way to:

. . . a deeply sincere religious life and sense of spiritual values.

. . a deep respect for the things of the mind.

. . . a love and an appreciation of what is beautiful.

. . . a respect for the rural way of life and its special place in God’s plan.

It is in the first of these, the development of the child’s religious life, that the parents must be to the child an authentic revelation of God. He sees God through them. Seeing their love for one another, he more readily grasps the truth of God’s love for all; seeing them pray he senses the holiness of God and the reality of the unseen world of saints and angels.

Their trust in God, despite bad seasons and the like, their kindness to less fortunate neighbors, their unsparing attention to their jobs, all mirror for the child the fatherhood, the very love of God.

THE CHILD IS INFLUENCED

Consider too, the power a mother wields in developing the conscience of her child-the care she should take that it is rightly formed, delicate but not scrupulous and over fearful. Then, as the children grow older, the father’s influence becomes stronger, and his attitude to prayer, to the Sacraments, his way of speaking about priests and the Church, determine, even without his being aware of it, the way his children, especially the boys, will regard these things.

Besides these indirect ways, there are also many ways of directly helping the child to know, love and serve God.

I am sure you all have experienced the power and the joy of family prayers, of Grace before meals and the evening Rosary, of hearing Mass together. You have known perhaps the joyous share the whole family can have in the first Holy Communion of the six-year old or the Baptism of the new baby.

Make the most of these events, and do all you can to bring your children to a reverent joy in all the feasts of the Church by having special practices for Lent and Advent in preparation for Easter and Christmas, by establishing family customs, e.g. a home Crib, Carols and even a Christmas Play, or welcoming the Christ Child by inviting an orphan child to the home. Let the children save up for Masses for the Holy Souls in November, or to help the Missions.

A CHRISTIAN ATMOSPHERE

The Crucifix on the wall, the pictures of Our Lord and His Mother-the loveliest you can afford-the little shrine with lights and flowers-these unceasingly speak to your little ones of God’s love and His Beauty, preparing them for that friendship with God, that willing, personal submission to Him that is true freedom and happiness.

Growing up from babyhood in a truly Christian atmosphere such as this, children are soon ready for more definite instructions in the truths of our Holy Faith.

In giving these, a mother has no equal as a teacher, if she strives sincerely to do it well, remembering that she is not working alone. The divine life of Grace is in the soul of the child, giving him what St. Thomas calls a kind of divine intelligence, the light of Faith, which helps the light of the intellect.

Anyone who has taught religion to children know how eagerly they take it in; they have a natural religious sense.

There are books, e.g.,Christopher’s Talks to Children, which help parents to develop the Faith of their children, but it would be the most wonderful help of all if the parents would read or tell them the stories of the Bible.

Such stories enthrall the children more than any others, and help them to know Jesus and Mary as real people. Even the young ones will listen to the Gospel stories as given in Monsignor Ronald Knox’s version.

We should never forget that the Bible is a source of Divine Truth and it would be hard to over-estimate the value of a child’s continual and loving contact with God’s own words in the Old and especially in the New Testament.

Even when the religious instruction of the children is given in school or by correspondence courses, the responsibility of the parents does not cease.

They should know what the child is studying, discuss it with him, help him to make the knowledge part of his daily life, a real influence on his actions and thoughts.

This is not to be done by nagging at the child but by keeping the atmosphere of the home such that it is easy and natural for the child to practice virtue and live what he learns.

The whole family should be vitally interested in these Religion lessons, and make it clear that they are regarded as the most important part of the child’s schooling. It is a pity that the text-books used are not more helpful and attractive to both parents and children,

TIME CAN BE FOUND

I hope that not too many of you are wondering, How on earth could we find time to do all that? A mother’s day is always a busy and tiring one, especially when the children are young.

I know there are times in the year when it would be impossible to find even a few spare minutes. But I know too, that you long for all that is best for your children; and love feels no burdens and scarcely knows the meaning of the word impossible. It would be helpful to call to mind two principles – the value of going slowly and the power of incidental teaching.

In a story of Ethel Meynell’s, telling of a father’s rearing of his motherless daughter, I once read a line I have never forgotten. He gave her, it said, the inestimable benefit of leisure for her growing. Nothing is gained by hurrying little children on beyond their powers.

A quiet lesson of from eight to ten minutes, given daily or several times a week is enough for little ones, provided there are other times for reading or listening to holy stories and joining in family devotions.

Even prayers need not be learnt all at once. The little one can say Our Father, who art in Heaven, bless your little child, or Hail Mary, full of grace, help me to love your Child Jesus, and thus gradually learn the prayer, phrase by phrase, as its meaning is given time to sink into his mind.

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

Incidental teaching gains its immense effectiveness from being given at the moment it is needed.

It is the explanation given just when the child asks for it, and so is fully alert to the answer. It is the story told when the child is most receptive, the question asked when the issue really means something and is not just part of a lesson.

Most parents know that daily home life has many such occasions, and mothers especially know that young children are very confidential and responsive when they are being put to bed, or helping them at some little task. Often we teachers envy mothers their chances of cooperating so intimately in the child’s growth to holiness.

“Devote yourself to your labor as well as to the fulfillment of all your duties energetically and with a pure intention to please God and make yourself useful to your neighbor. Raise your heart to God from time to time by means of fervent ejaculations (short, quick prayers to heaven), that it may not be narrowed by earthly occupations.” – Fr. Lasance, My Prayer Book http://amzn.to/2oYAUq3 (afflink)

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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.

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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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Use the Right Words – How to Raise Good Catholic Children

Marcel Marlier (1930, Belgian)

From How to Raise Good Catholic Children, Mary Reed Newland

Children are always amazed to discover that Adam named the animals, and they love reading about it in Genesis.

And the Lord . . . brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, for whatsoever Adam called any living creature, the same is its name. And Adam called all the beasts by their names, and all the fowls of the air, and all the cattle of the field. . . .

It was, I imagine, the world’s first parade (the second one was that great embarkation into the Ark). So, after a trip to the zoo or the circus, or an afternoon with a pile of old National Geographics, it’s fun to ponder Adam sounding out names for the beasts. Hippopotamus is so right for the hippo — because, of course, she is so hippy. Then to discover that Adam’s word for her was nowhere near what it is in our language; it certainly shows the concern of Divine Providence about even names for animals that make sense.

No one who was not inspired could have chosen hyena for the hyena. Then, when you remind them that St. Paul sent greetings in one of his letters to “Phoebe,” there’s nothing to conclude but that the first girl named Phoebe was really named after a bird.

Geology is another means to help children develop a sense of wonder over God’s way with the universe; and it’s as close by as the stones in the backyard, a hammer and chisel, and a book from the library.

The slates in garden paths, or on the roofs of buildings, are dried flakes of what was once mud, baked for thousands of years in the hot sun.

The colored streaks inside stones all have names and stories, and the stones themselves are the shape they are from thousands of tons of water running over them and smoothing them, or being chipped off giant cliffs, or once hot molten fluid, having cooled and hardened.

How marvelous it is to begin to understand that the earth, the mountains, the islands, and the seas are all guardians of His mysteries, and yet we’re more precious to Him than all of these.

Small children can anticipate one whole lesson in the catechism, long before they’re old enough to go to school, by playing a game called “Finding the things God made.”

On a walk, or looking out the window down into the street, they pick out things that come to us straight from His hand, such as sky and trees and clouds and sun, birds and dogs and cats, and contrast them with things man has made with the gifts God has given him, such as cars and baseballs and clotheslines and street lights.

We can help them form their first understanding about the right use of these gifts by considering (when they are a little older) how wrong it is, for instance, to cut down forests of trees to make into paper, then use the paper to print comic books which not only frighten children with their horrors, but teach them how to commit crimes and disobey God.

Considering God as the source of all things, it’s easier to learn how to use words correctly, and reserve the superlatives for the things that are superlative.

I was startled to hear one small boy patiently explaining to a visitor who said she “loved hamburgers,” that “You can’t love hamburgers. You can only love God, and people, animals, too — but not hamburgers.”

Nor should one “adore” movie stars, or think new hats are “divine.” I’ve heard people demur at this sort of thing, because it leaves nothing to be enjoyed for the sake of itself, they say.

Everything has a moral attached to it, they say, and this is dull. This is not dull. And it’s particularly not dull for children. If we have grown world-weary and bored and are beyond the point of wonder, then more’s the pity, because the world is full of wonder, and it all makes sense when you understand that first there is God.

Children are secure and at home, in fact very comfortable, in a world that is furnished by their Father in Heaven. The bad things in it are bad for a reason. The good things are good for a reason, and only people who do not have the right conception of God think that to connect Him with everything is to be utterly boring.

Somewhere (Orthodoxy, perhaps?), Chesterton remarks that only people who believe in God could believe in fairies. Because, of course, God could make fairies.

St. John the Baptist said that He could raise up children of Abraham out of the stones, if He wished.

Perhaps to write all these things down makes them sound dull, but when you communicate them to children, you don’t do it by writing them down. You don’t create artificial situations for the preaching of sermons. You simply live with them, and they present the opportunities to you.

And because they’re so quick to learn and love and wonder, you could also write much more — about the things they say, and these would sound entirely hopeless on paper, because what children say is almost untranslatable on paper.

It’s more than their words. It’s the face on them, and the excitement of them, the great triumph of having discovered for themselves the meaning of things you’ve taught them. Call it what you want — a form of security, gathering knowledge, helping them acquire a diversity of interests — little by little it’s the knitting of the fabric of detachment, seeing all things against a background of God.

 

“In your children you will rediscover your own youth. Their growth process will rekindle your own sense of wonder and enthusiasm. Johnny asks, ‘Dad, why is the sky blue?’ And Dad, who hadn’t cared, takes a new and longer look.” – The Catholic Family Handbook, Rev. George A. Kelly http://amzn.to/2pdfQbF (afflink)

May, the month of Mary is coming to a close. Some coloring pictures for your children….

 

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Review: For the spiritually-conscious couple this book is a must. Written in the 1920’s by a Catholic priest to counsel married couples on sexual morality, daily problems and child rearing.
Among many wonderful lessons, it describes plainly what I needed to know about which birth-control method is moral and which is immoral, from a Traditional Roman Catholic point of view.

A Frank, Yet Reverent Instruction on the Intimate Matters of Personal Life for Young Men. To our dear and noble Catholic youths who have preserved, or want to recover, their purity of heart, and are minded to retain it throughout life. For various reasons many good fathers of themselves are not able to give their sons this enlightenment on the mysteries of life properly and sufficiently. They may find this book helpful in the discharge of their parental responsibilities in so delicate a matter.

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