Examination of Conscience – How To Raise Good Catholic Children

Teach Your Child to Pray: Examination of Conscience

How to Raise Good Catholic Children, by Mary Reed Newland

The first thing, after “Dear Blessed Jesus,” or whatever children like to call Him best, is their examination of conscience, because it’s easier to settle down to a really good talk with God after we get our sins out of the way.

This is why the Mass starts with the penitential rite. The important thing about a child’s examination of conscience is that he be assured that his parents will not scold him if he reveals some carefully concealed guilt of the day.

His sins are sins against God, not his parents, and he will not hesitate to drag out the most jealously guarded secrets if he’s certain his parents understand that he’s confessing to God, not to them, and that they will resist the temptation to lecture.

For instance, in the summertime we have a problem called “dirt in the hair.” Every night the children turn up at bedtime with their heads gritty with topsoil. The culprit is conspicuous, if at all, only by his silence — until he examines his conscience.

“I poured dirt on everybody’s head because I felt like it.” The immediate reaction of any normally weary mother facing a lineup of shampoos is at least mild rage, but in the face of such a confession freely made, the only permissible comment is, “Are you really sorry?” to lead the self-accused to a sincere act of contrition.

“I am sorry, and please help me not to do it again.”

Here they learn to guard against presumption. The inclination is to vow solemnly that they will never do it again (O happy day!), but sanctity does not come that easily. Unless they beg for the grace to reform, they are apt to do it again and again.

Some days are quite good, and they will charge into night prayers loudly with, “I was very good today, God!”

With presumption again in mind, it is better to say something like, “I tried to be good today, but if I did anything to offend You, I am sorry. Please help me never to offend You again.”

Not all children are shouters at prayers, but we have had some who were, and their attempts to make themselves heard way off in Heaven certainly robbed their prayers, while not of sincerity, at least of privacy.

Learning that God is near, is here, is everywhere, and can hear even the whispered prayers and secret thoughts, is a wonderful discovery for shouters and non-shouters alike and, incidentally, covers one whole lesson in the catechism: Where is God? If God is everywhere, why don’t we see Him? Does God see us? Does God know all things? Can God do all things? Is God just, holy, and merciful?

The answers to all these questions can be learned in the course of the many interruptions to night prayers. “How can He hear me if I don’t even see Him? When did He come in? Did He come in the door? Can He come through the wall? Could He see a mouse in the wall? A mosquito on the ceiling? If I just think my prayers, can He hear them?”

If the question about God’s being just, holy, and merciful seems a bit difficult, it fits in when we explain that confessing the sins of the day is something entirely between them and God, and is the reason — when correction and punishment are a mother’s and father’s concern elsewhere — they do not belong at night prayers. One sins against God, who can already see the sin, and see the sorrow for it, and will reward a sincere confession with forgiveness and the grace to do better next time.

 

“Religious have no need of particular friendships, but those living in the world need them as a mutual strength and aid in the many difficult passages that have to be crossed.
For those who live in the midst of the world and yet strive for true virtue, it is necessary to ally themselves to one another by a holy and sacred friendship through which they stimulate, assist and encourage each other toward good.Those who walk on level ground do not need to hold hands, but those who climb steep and slippery roads need to hold on to each other in order to progress more securely.” -St. Francis de Sales

Come and visit Meadows of Grace for some good book suggestions…..

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A masterpiece that combines the visions of four great Catholic mystics into one coherent story on the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Based primarily on the famous revelations of Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerich and Ven. Mary of Agreda, it also includes many episodes described in the writings of St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Elizabeth of Schenau. To read this book, therefore, is to share in the magnificent visions granted to four of the most priviledged souls in the history of the Church.

In complete harmony with the Gospel story, this book reads like a masterfully written novel. It includes such fascinating details as the birth and infancy of Mary, her espousal to St. Joseph and her Assumption into Heaven where she was crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth.

For young and old alike, The Life of Mary As Seen by the Mystics will forever impress the reader with an inspiring and truly unforgettable understanding of the otherwise unknown facts concerning Mary and the Holy Family. Imprimatur.

He was called the man of his age, the voice of his century. His influence towered above that of his contemporaries, and his sanctity moved God himself. Men flocked to him–some in wonder, others in curiosity, but all drawn by the magnetism of his spiritual gianthood. Bernard of Clairvaux–who or what fashioned him to be suitable for his role of counseling Popes, healing schisms, battling errors and filling the world with holy religious and profound spiritual doctrine? Undoubtedly, Bernard is the product of God’s grace. But it is hard to say whether this grace is more evident in Bernard himself or in the extraordinary family in which God choose to situate this dynamic personality. This book is the fascinating account of a family that took seriously the challenge to follow Christ… and to overtake Him. With warmth and realism, Venerable Tescelin, Blesseds Alice, Guy, Gerard, Humbeline, Andrew, Bartholomew, Nivard and St. Bernard step off these pages with the engaging naturalness that atttacks imitation. Here is a book that makes centuries disappear, as each member of this unique family becomes an inspiration in our own quest of overtaking Christ.

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Sickness & Christ/Physical Flaws & Perspective – Raising Catholic Children

Artist: George Kilburne

Article from How to Raise Good Catholic Children by Mary Reed Newland

Show your child how to unite sickness with Christ’s sufferings

Chronic illness is a very special threat to a child’s security, not only for its suffering, but also because it’s easy for invalids to feel either totally useless or totally helpless.

Uselessness can breed despair, and helplessness can breed a monster of self-pity. This is particularly tragic when we know that suffering played the most noble part of all in our redemption, and suffering that’s united to Christ’s suffering can be the highest, most mysterious vocation.

Of two families we know whose children suffer the same affliction, one mother comforts her child by reminding him of the afflictions of his friends.

This one has braces on his teeth, that one wears glasses, the other can’t run very well — and she tries to help him find comfort in the sharing of seeming injustices. It’s a little comfort, but not much. It doesn’t answer his question, “Why me?”

The other family has taught their son that suffering is powerful prayer. For some reason that God alone knows, He has chosen this boy to share His own suffering from time to time. The boy may, if he will, unite his suffering with Christ’s and work with Him to save the souls of men.

He can use it for a hundred intentions, for his family, his friends, the missions, the children all over the world who suffer with him.

One time I asked him if he used his suffering, and he said very simply, “Oh yes, I always offer it up.” It’s the magnificent usefulness of those who feel useless.

Help your child see his physical flaws in perspective

Childhood is filled with little problems in security, like being born with a big nose, or too many freckles, like being too fat, or too thin, like being too plain and wishing you were pretty, or having straight hair and wishing it were curly.

A thousand things can prey on the confidence of a child and expose him to terrible torments of embarrassment and secret suffering.

Being cheerful is the best cure of all for sensitivity, and when children come to us for comfort in their secret unhappiness, we can help with our own cheerfulness.

“Why, you silly little boy! Here you are, wishing you looked like someone else, and all the time God went to the trouble to make a special one like you. With a nose so, and eyes so, and nice, nice freckles (which, of course, He has counted), and red hair that isn’t the color of carrots at all, but the color of gold. Have you forgotten who you are? You are you! Very lovely in God’s sight, and very, very lovable. And if you keep your soul shining and bright, very, very beautiful.”

Of course, there are things we can do to help. We can help a stout child to control her eating, which, in the unhappily stout, often becomes the only comfort and gradually grows into gluttony.

We can help an unattractive child (but are there really any?) to develop all his other gifts, and remind a boy who is, say, self-conscious about his changing, squeaky voice that even Jesus put up with a changing, squeaky voice.

We can help them a great deal if we know the stories of the saints, who were all shapes and sizes, funny and lovely to look at, attractive to men and unattractive, and give them these special companions to help them find happiness by learning how to love others and forget themselves.

A boy we know broke off his front tooth and died a thousand deaths wondering how to face his friends. His mother went straight to the heart of suffering and helped him unite his disfigurement with Christ’s in the Passion, and in a week’s time, he was over his fear and had forgotten his tooth.

A woman we know of worried all her life about a mole above her lip, and finally had it removed. When she did, her friends said among themselves, “But she isn’t the same. The mole was part of her.”

I wonder if it wouldn’t have saved her those years of embarrassment if someone had told her how the great Teresa’s biographer described her: “On the left side of her face there were three small moles which added to her attractiveness.”

A little girl who was always plump offered her suffering lovingly each time she said the Hail Holy Queen, the prayer where we “send up our size.” She discovered only when she had read the prayer for the first time (after knowing it by heart for years) what mistake she had innocently made.

Today she is a blissfully happy novice, and I wonder if the patiently offered size didn’t help as well as all the other prayers she said for the grace to know her vocation.

“Lord, You know my weakness; every morning I make a resolution to practice humility, and every evening I acknowledge that I still have many failures. I am tempted to be discouraged by this, but I know that discouragement also has its source in pride. That is why I prefer to put my trust in You alone, O my God. Since You are all-powerful, deign to create in my soul the virtue for which I long”. – St. Therese of the Child Jesus

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When God Is Silent shows you how to trust God even when He seems unresponsive and remote – even when, as in the famous incident in the Gospels, He seems to sleep while you are buffeted by the storms of life.

Reverend Irala here addresses ways to promote mental and emotional well-being to help increase one’s health, efficiency and happiness. He speaks on topics such as how to rest, think, use the will, control feelings, train the sexual instinct, be happy, and choose an ideal. Included are also many practical instructions on dealing with mental struggles of all kinds. This book is most useful in our present times of worldly confusion.

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

Education and Your Child – Rev. George A Kelly

by Rev. Fr. George A. Kelly, The Catholic Family Handbook

The most important assignment husbands and wives have from God is to see that their children are properly educated. This is a prime and basic purpose of marriage itself. And while the process of education goes on for a lifetime, it does require today a certain amount of schooling, particularly during the formative years.

When parents, therefore, choose a school for their children, they delegate to the teachers a large part of their responsibilities and a significant portion of their child’s education. It is important that they realize the implications of that choice.

If you choose, you send your child to a public school, to a private school, to a parochial school. You hire a private tutor, even keep him home and tutor him yourself, since the State merely establishes minimum standards of achievement.

As a practical matter your choice usually lies between the parochial school and the public nonsectarian school. Before making such a choice you should first determine what purpose you intend his schooling to serve.

In a general way, persons holding all shades of religious belief agree that the school should help prepare a child for life as a responsible adult. But since all men do not agree on the purpose and meaning of life, they obviously cannot agree on the type of school which can best prepare the child for it.

As a Catholic, of course, you take the position outlined in one of the first questions in the catechism–that your child was born to know, love, and serve God in this world in order to be happy with Him in the next. You either believe this or you don’t. If you do, his schooling must help him achieve this goal.

This existence and eternal presence of God is the most important fact of our lives. On this truth all other knowledge is built. The work of the school, like the work of parental education itself, is to make the child see this truth and all other truths which flow from it–truths about the world, himself and other people.

All of his experiences–intellectual, social, moral–must be so guided that nothing is wanting to his training as an intellectual, a man and a Christian. The child must be taught religion, not merely for information but to strengthen his ties with the Heavenly Father, Redeemer and Sanctifier.

He must be taught social studies to give him that understanding which will tie him more closely to other human beings. He must be taught science to help him appreciate and use with care the creatures of the material world.

While bringing ideas and facts to the child, the teacher must relate these to basic Christian principles and our American heritage. The child should be educated to hold sound convictions about the dependence of all men upon God, the rights and duties that belong to every man because of his human dignity and his social nature, the sacredness of the family, the great worth of human work, the obligation of men and nations to share material and spiritual goods with others.

By its very nature, then, knowledge of God and His divine plan cannot be a thing apart. Rather it must be the guiding light which illuminates every other subject that we learn.

Justice Robert H. Jackson of the United States Supreme Court in 1948 said this about religion and education: “It would not seem practical to teach either practice or appreciation of the arts if we are to forbid exposure of youth to any religious influences.

Music without sacred music, architecture minus the cathedral, or painting without the scriptural themes would be eccentric and incomplete…. Certainly a course in English literature that omitted the Bible and other powerful uses of our mother tongue for religious ends would be pretty barren….

The fact is that, for good or ill, nearly everything which gives meaning to life, is saturated with religious influences…. One can hardly respect a system of education which would leave the student wholly ignorant of the currents of religious thought that move the world today…for a part in which he is being prepared.”

When your child attends elementary school, his teacher probably influences him for more hours each day than you do. What he learns from her will have a powerful effect upon his character.

Simple prudence dictates, therefore, that the influence to which he is exposed at school should intensify and reinforce your own teachings.

This is possible only in a school which recognizes God, because your child will learn to be truthful, honest and just in his dealings with his fellow man and to respect authority only as he understands God. The only true motive for these and all other virtues is the knowledge that we are dependent on God for everything and that He requires obedience to His law as a test of our love for Him.

Supporters of nonsectarian education often object when Catholics characterize public schools as “Godless.” But the cold fact is that they are Godless in the literal sense of that word.

Inasmuch as our society consists of citizens with every conceivable gradation of belief and those who profess no faith at all, it has been deemed necessary to eliminate such a controversial subject as God from the public school curriculum.

One need not look far for graphic illustrations of this fact. In some areas, even attempts to start the school day with a prayer to the “Supreme Author of Life” have met with rebuffs from those who advocate “separation of Church and State.”

Some schools prohibit the observance of Christmas as a religious feast. The children may sing harmless jingles, but they may not learn that this great feast celebrates the birthday of Jesus Christ.

Ironically, attempts to teach even the simplest facts about religion are hemmed in by so many restrictions in most public school systems that such education becomes tailored to the wishes of the tiny minority of citizens who oppose every religion and even God Himself.

As Monsignor Carl J. Ryan, superintendent of schools of the Cincinnati archdiocese, has pointed out, these persons are truly a privileged class.

“When the out-and-out secularist pays his tax money, he gets exactly the kind of school his ideology calls for–one from which God and mention of God is entirely excluded.”

No less an authority than Thomas Jefferson, speaking on the teaching of religious truth, said, “The relations which exist between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being and the most incumbent on his study and investigation.”

How can your child recognize the pre-eminence of God and the necessity of religious faith for his salvation if these facts are completely ignored by one of the most important influences in his life?

Even a young child will tend to question the religious beliefs and moral lessons taught to him at home when they are considered of such little importance that they go unmentioned at school.

No Christian parent could maintain that a knowledge of geography–or music or dancing–is more important to a child’s development than his religious training; yet public schools, by their very ignoring of God, can subtly create this impression.

“How many young people hesitate to give their lives entirely to God because they do not have confidence that God is capable of making them completely happy. And they seek to assure their own happiness by themselves, and they make themselves sad and unhappy in the process. All our spiritual life consists precisely in a long process of reeducation, with a view to regaining that lost confidence, by the grace of the Holy Spirit Who makes us say anew to God: Abba, Father!” -Fr. Jacques Philippe

A wonderful way to spend time with your children….learning fun, faith-filled Catholic poems!
These books give us some lovely rhymes that can, and should, be committed to heart by your children. Not only will they provide all the benefits of reading and memorizing, but they will supply some simple reflections that will turn those little minds to what is most important in their life….their Catholic Faith….

 

 

To the modern mind, the concept of poverty is often confused with destitution. But destitution emphatically is not the Gospel ideal. A love-filled sharing frugality is the message, and Happy Are You Poor explains the meaning of this beatitude lived and taught by Jesus himself. But isn’t simplicity in lifestyle meant only for nuns and priests? Are not all of us to enjoy the goodness and beauties of our magnificent creation? Are parents to be frugal with the children they love so much?

For over half a century, Catholic families have treasured the practical piety and homespun wisdom of Mary Reed Newland’s classic of domestic spirituality, The Year and Our Children. With this new edition, no longer will you have to search for worn, dusty copies to enjoy Newland’s faithful insights, gentle lessons, and delightful stories. They’re all here, and ready to be shared with your family or homeschooling group. Here, too, you’ll find all the prayers, crafts, family activities, litanies, and recipes that will help make your children ever-mindful of the beautiful rhythm of the Church calendar.

Teach Your Child to Pray

How to Raise Good Catholic Children, by Mary Reed Newland

Praying is pretty personal. After all, it’s conversation with God, and conversation with someone you love ought to be entirely personal — warm and intimate, full of secrets and praises and declarations of love.

Praying ought to be fun, too, most of the time, because it’s our one chance to talk as much as we like and know that we don’t bore, that we will be heard, and that everything we say draws us closer to God — which is what He wants and the reason for praying in the first place.

The trouble is that many people think of prayer more as a recitation than as a conversation, and all their lives they speak to God with words that other people have put together for them. They’re beautiful words, beautifully put together, and they give great praise.

But it’s a big mistake to think that only formal prayers are proper when we speak to the Father who made us, who knows us better than we know ourselves and would like us to come simply, like children, and say what we want to say in our own words.

Once there was a girl who told her confessor, “Father, I try to say the Rosary every night when I’m in bed, but get so involved talking to God that, before I know it, I’ve fallen asleep. Do you think I’m deliberately allowing myself to be distracted?”

Her confessor laughed. “If you were God,” he said, “would you rather have someone talk to you in his own words, or in someone else’s? By all means, say your Rosary some other time, but continue your conversations with God, and do stop confusing distraction with mental prayer.”

This is the understanding of prayer we can give our children in their earliest years, long before they learn recited prayers, and in this way we give them a pattern of approach to God in prayer that will suit not only their childhood, but all the years of their lives.

Even when they begin to learn formal prayers, in the beginning they have no real understanding of them, and it’s a rather bleak start to one’s life of prayer to think it must consist of a lot of phrases learned by heart but not understood, which one repeats at certain times because Mother says you must.

The Our Father is the perfect pattern for prayer because when the Apostles asked our Lord how they should pray, He gave this prayer to them.

The Mass contains the same pattern, and both make clear the four aspects of our relation to God: penitent, seeker, beloved, and gratefully blessed.

If our children learn to pray each of these roles, they will have learned the rudiments of all prayer, without which the saints say no progress is possible in the spiritual life.

It would be presumptuous for me to tell someone else how he should pray or what words he should use, because the words one person would choose are rarely the words another would choose, and each person’s way is shaped and colored by his tastes, personality, and all the many small differences that make him who he is and not someone else.

“Think of the Queen of Heaven as a humble housewife at the same time that she is mother and caretaker of God’s Son. It makes me sigh with tenderness, fills me with goodwill and love for the small and great chores of the home. How fragrant would be the robes that this pure lily washed. How tasty would be the food her delicate hands prepared. From her holy lips, not a whisper, no complaint or claim, only praise and sweet words. A life of worship and continuous obedience, in the freedom of those who choose to love – were she to kneel in prayer or clean the floor.” -Veronica Mendes, A Mulher Forte

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Author Mary Reed Newland here draws on her own experiences as the mother of seven to show how the classic Christian principles of sanctity can be translated into terms easily applied to children even to the very young.

Because it’s rooted in experience, not in theory, nothing that Mrs. Newland suggests is impossible or extraordinary. In fact, as you reflect on your experiences with your own children, you’ll quickly agree that hers is an excellent commonsense approach to raising good Catholic children.

Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, the renowned author of The Hidden Power of Kindness, gives faithful Catholics all the essential ingredients of a stable and loving Catholic marriage and family — ingredients that are in danger of being lost in our turbulent age.

Using Scripture and Church teachings in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, Fr. Lovasik helps you understand the proper role of the Catholic father and mother and the blessings of family. He shows you how you can secure happiness in marriage, develop the virtues necessary for a successful marriage, raise children in a truly Catholic way, and much more.

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Question Parents Ask About Their Children – Facts of Life, Nagging, etc.

Painting by John Arthur Elsley

From Questions Parents Ask About Their Children, Fr. Donald Miller, C.SS.R., 1950’s

At what age should a child be taught the facts of life?  

The boy or girl should be taught the facts of life from the dawn of reason on. Not all at once of course, but gradually, as interest awakens, questions are asked, and the child’s physical development calls for preparation through knowledge and information.

The trouble with most parental explanations of sex — if such explanation is given at all — is that it is usually given all at one time; and it is given either too early (this is rarely the case) or too late (this is too frequently the case).

The correct procedure is to allow the instruction to grow with and out of the child’s development. When he is approaching a physical crisis in his life, the crisis should be explained in advance. When he comes up with a question about these facts, the question should be answered in a way suited to his age.

The big developments in his life should be explained as they arise and in a casual and informal manner.

Sex instruction should be in other words matter of fact, gradual, suited to the development of the child, designed to meet and satisfy and allay his curiosities, and be presented as naturally and as simply as God intended all life to be.

I intend to instruct and train my boy, but I don’t want to nag him.  

Instructing is an art. Nagging is an abuse. Instructing is crisp, brief, pointed, personal, effective. Nagging is slow, iterated, querulous, dull, ineffective.

Correction should be given all at once — and then dropped quickly.   Nagging goes on and on.

Right correction distinguishes between things that are important and that need amending. Nagging is constantly to dog the child, to make little distinction between what is really important and what merely annoys the parent.

Correction should make a sharp impact upon the guilty.   Nagging is like the slow madness of the Chinese water torture — drip, drip, drip, until the victim thinks he is going mad.

Instruction, training, correction are blessed arts.   Nagging is a nasty nuisance.

If a sixteen-year-old daughter has never brought up the subject of sex, never asked questions about it, is it advisable for a parent to bring the subject up first?

Not answering the question right now . . . . I am reminded of the mother whose little girl, five, came to her and said: “Mommy, where did I come from?” The mother sighed. Now was the time, she felt, to answer honestly the question she had been asked.

So she said, solemnly, “Since you want to know, sit down and mummy will tell you.” And she did, in considerable detail.

At the end the child looked very bored and said, “Well I just wanted to know. The little girl next door said she came from Pittsburgh.”

As for the question . . . . . I’m afraid once more that sixteen is too, too late for the start of much intelligent instruction.

It may be that the girl is totally incurious. That is rare.   It may be that she had got instructions from other sources. These may have been very bad . . . . imperfect and incomplete . . . . . totally misleading . . . . , or correct.

Even if the last eventuality is true, the parents come with their explanations very tardily. If the other eventualities are true, the situation is worse.

A wise mother seeing a situation like this and realizing that up to the present she has not been wise at all might frankly ask the girl if she had any questions about birth and children that she wanted answered. If the mother is careful and observant, the daughter’s answer may be the mother’s lead.

She will know from the child’s apathy, embarrassment, quick flight, or frank interest what her assignment is.

It seems to me totally unnatural for children to discuss marriage with their parents.

A prolonged and detailed discussion of the sex relation by parents and adolescent children . . . . , that would be difficult.

A careful preparation by the parents of the children for the children’s physical development and future sex experiences . . . . . what could be more right and natural?

A discussion of the joys and obligations, the possibilities, the difficulties and delights of parenthood and home management, the happy associations of a good man and a virtuous wife . . . . these seem to me charming and gracious and wonderfully helpful.

To Mothers: “Instead of setting yourself up as a model of wisdom, it is much wiser for you to act the role of guide and confidante. This gives your child a much better feeling of security and fulfills your destiny of mother as well, because your children then find you a real individual in your own right. Personal success and happiness in life come only in the knowledge of our usefulness to others; as a mother, you have this opportunity in your own home at all times. You need not look elsewhere where for it.” – Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook http://amzn.to/2ChxzZA (afflink)

Be humble and your home will be a happier place! 🏡Wonderful sermon!

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To the modern mind, the concept of poverty is often confused with destitution. But destitution emphatically is not the Gospel ideal. A love-filled sharing frugality is the message, and Happy Are You Poor explains the meaning of this beatitude lived and taught by Jesus himself. But isn’t simplicity in lifestyle meant only for nuns and priests? Are not all of us to enjoy the goodness and beauties of our magnificent creation? Are parents to be frugal with the children they love so much?

For over half a century, Catholic families have treasured the practical piety and homespun wisdom of Mary Reed Newland’s classic of domestic spirituality, The Year and Our Children. With this new edition, no longer will you have to search for worn, dusty copies to enjoy Newland’s faithful insights, gentle lessons, and delightful stories. They’re all here, and ready to be shared with your family or homeschooling group. Here, too, you’ll find all the prayers, crafts, family activities, litanies, and recipes that will help make your children ever-mindful of the beautiful rhythm of the Church calendar.

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

Help Your Child to See Design in the Tempo of Daily Life

Painting by Alfredo Rodriguez

by Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children

Working in many art forms, using talent easily and spontaneously, finding that their creations are respected and useful, slowly children cross the bridge that connects art and work, and bring their sense of creating to bear on the more subtle arts of daily life.

They discover that setting a table — or hanging the wash, folding the sheets, planting the garden — can be a design.

They discover the rhythm for kneading dough, milking a goat, hammering a nail, rocking the baby. There’s a pace for raking, another for sweeping. There’s a pattern for scrubbing the floor, another for ironing a dress.

Kneeling to comfort a child is a reverence, as genuflecting. Praying out loud together is a harmony, just whispering together while the baby sleeps.

Walking with pails of water for the goats is measured and careful; walking back from Holy Communion has another measure.

These things children learn instinctively, but with more alacrity and with willingness to discover the beauty and satisfaction in ordinary acts if they have had many experiences exploring with their own creativeness.

No one is really “all thumbs.” Everyone has special gifts that set him apart from his fellows and make him a special person. But many times they’re never discovered.

It’s not work that’s ugly, nor working that’s unendurable, but the wrong work with the wrong person attempting it that can make it seem ugly and unendurable.

Creative artists we must have, and God provides them abundantly in every generation, but the others are no less creative for the practicality of their arts. And the gifts given to these are no less special; they must be sought just as carefully.

Creativity can be found in all types of work. We’ve committed many sins against man’s creativeness with our modern snobbery about work. We’ve accepted a norm for work that’s based on reward, approval, and selfish gain rather than on motive, integrity, and creative service.

We’ve become confused; we esteem work that’s respected rather than work that’s respectable. Horror is the reaction of most parents to whom it’s suggested that domestic service is appropriate work and training for a young girl looking forward to marriage.

It does not occur to such parents that the creative arts she would practice in so-called menial employment are the same arts she’ll practice (with greater grace for her training) when she’s a wife and mother.

How does sending her to work in a factory, to file papers and stack cards in an office, train her in the art of homemaking? This is how far we have strayed from the recognition and understanding of creativeness.

We respect people for the creativeness of their hobbies, not their lives, and admire the successful fellows who work creatively in wood or paint or whatever on their weekends, more than carpenters, plumbers, and farmers, who work creatively all week along.

For Christian parents who want to help their children find their whole usefulness, how to use their whole lives — not just certain departments— creatively in the service of God, these points need thinking out.

People are not haphazardly created with a dash of this and that added for interest by a Creator who dabbles in variations on the same old theme. Each one was made to serve Him in a special way.

The discovery of how begins when they’re very little and learn to make visible and tangible their own ideas, formed by the knowledge of God, His love for them, and the truths Christ teaches.

In your living room and bedrooms, you should have at least one symbol of your faith–a statue of the Savior and the Blessed Mother, a crucifix, pictures which bring to mind events in the life of Our Lord. -Rev. George Kelly, 1950’s https://amzn.to/2BjwE9x (afflink)

The Catholic Boy’s and Girl’s Traditional 30-Day Journals! Let’s keep our youth engaged in the Faith! Let’s teach them how to be organized, how to prioritize, how to keep on top of, first, the Spiritual things in their lives, and then the other daily duties that God requires of them… Available here.

Beautiful items at Meadows of Grace!

The Catholic Girl’s Traditional 30-Day Journal

Let’s keep our young girls engaged in the Faith! Let’s teach them how to be organized, how to prioritize, how to keep on top of, first, the Spiritual things in their life, and then the other daily duties that God requires of them!

Nothing is more valuable than this type of education…an education for life! That is where this journal comes in! It will give your girls a feel for keeping a To-Do List, with spiritual things at the forefront! What more could you want for them?

Let this journal help you along the way, Mothers! The girls will have 30 days of checklists, beautiful thoughts to inspire them for the day, some fun things…like drawing their day and other things to keep them focused.

This next 30 days will be invaluable to them…to learn life skills, to have the satisfaction of checking off the activities they finish, to learn to be thankful for the good things God has given us, to offer up their day for someone in need, etc.

This journal is for girls 8 (with the help of Mom) to 16 years of age.

It is a beautiful journal, full of color and loveliness! Your girls will treasure it and be able to look back on it for inspiration and encouragement!

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

Enthusiasm for Teaching!

This article is meant, not just for teachers, not just for Religious, but for all of us who touch and teach the hearts of children. We women have an awesome responsibility…as mothers, as teachers, as single women, as Religious…to carry out the forming of those little minds and hearts to serve Our Lord in His Church to the utmost of our ability! Enthusiasm?? We must!

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.

ENTHUSIASM FOR TEACHING

I ever held it sweet either to learn, to teach or to write.—SAINT BEDE.

Enthusiasm is the thing which makes the world go round. Without its driving power nothing worth doing has ever been done. Love, friendship, altruism, devotion to career or hobby—all these, and most of the other good things in life, are forms of enthusiasm.

THE DRIVING POWER

Real teaching is ninety-percent enthusiasm. Amid the numberless duties of her profession the teacher must be animated with the spirit that made Theodore Roosevelt spurn the sympathy of the visitor who pitied the President toiling, on a sultry afternoon in July, at his desk piled high with work.

Though the beads of perspiration stood on his brow, Roosevelt smiled his brightest and broadest smile: “Keep your sympathy; I am happy because I like my job.”

I like my job may well be the watchword of the teacher. A model teacher, like a model physician, will think her profession the finest in the world. She will possess for her noble calling the enthusiasm of the idealist and the firm faith that moves mountains, without either of which no good work was ever accomplished.

To succeed, the teacher must, day after day, enter the schoolroom live and fresh and active-minded. As soon as she discovers that her interest in her work is flagging, that she is growing weary of certain phases of her task, she must be alarmed over her fitness for her vocation, and she is in duty bound to use all means available to re-create in her soul the spirit that animated her on that first morning of her teaching career when her heart was singing a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Bridegroom of her soul for having called her to the most sublime work open to woman.

Nor should it be difficult for a religious teacher to glow with enthusiasm for her exalted mission. It might be difficult for her to grow enthusiastic about dress or other vanities. But it should be easy for her to glow with the idea of having committed to her care the mind and the will—the immortal souls—of boys and girls destined one day to constitute the main body of the Church Militant in the greatest country on earth.

Where is the Sister who could remain cold at the idea of having placed into her hand this clay plastic of Catholic manhood and womanhood, and to be told:

“Here is your material to work with. Each and every one of these children is a prospective citizen of heaven, and it is for you to make them all worthy of that high destiny.

This boy has talents that should enable him to do great things for God and America. His talents are entrusted to your keeping, and must be developed by you.

That other boy is less gifted intellectually, but has in him the making of a real man, and the material to inspire thousands with the example of his struggle against odds . . .

This girl has all the marks of a religious vocation, and it is for you to develop, by example and precept, her character, into one worthy of her sublime calling.

Those other girls may someday be nurses, teachers, or mothers of families; and one and all should be trained by you for the best that they are capable of.”

WORKING FOR ETERNITY

To the Catholic teacher the eloquent words of Daniel Webster may mean more than the orator ever dreamed of: “If we work upon marble, it will perish; upon brass, time will efface it; but if we work upon immortal souls, if we imbue them with principles, with the just fear of God and love of our fellowmen, we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten to all eternity.”

She may in a similar way attach a deeper meaning to Frank W. Simonds’ appreciation of the teacher’s profession:

“If an Agassiz finds pleasure among fossils in order that he may interpret the great story of pre-historic life; if a Thoreau by Walden Pond is delighted with his studies of bugs and beetles; if a John Burroughs on his little patch of ground in the valley of the Mohawk gloried in his life among the birds and bees; if a Burbank is enraptured with his work of transforming a worthless desert cactus into an edible fruit, or in producing sweeter rose or fairer lily;

if these and other workers, whose names are legion, revel in the love of their work—then by what term shall we designate the joy that should be the teacher’s, who works not with mere fossils, nor with bugs or beetles, nor with birds, bees or flowers, but with the child; who is at once the most complex, the most plastic, the most beautiful, the most wonderful of all God’s creation?

Yes, it is a wonderful thing to be a teacher; it is a great thing to teach school.”

Responsibility is the trait of getting a job done that has been entrusted to you, and doing the job right, to the best of your ability, and having it done on time. This trait is especially needed when you have no one looking over your shoulder to make sure the job gets done.

This is what so many wives of today are lacking – a sense of responsibility for the work they do in their homes and for their families. You don’t have a time clock to punch or a manager coming by to check on you to make sure the job is getting done. Without this outside pressure, many of us just don’t do as good of a job at home as we would do somewhere else. What’s missing? That trait of responsibility. -Fascinating Womanhood, Helen Andelin

Coloring pages for your children…

E-book now available! 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!

E-book is here.

Paperback is here.

S

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

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

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

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

Teach Your Daughters the Art of Homemaking, Annie S. Swan, 1894

From Courtship and Marriage and the Gentle Art of Homemaking  by Annie S. Swan, 1894

Even a very young daughter can be of use to her mother, and her influence felt in the house, if she is taught how. Of course, the first concern, when our little maid gets out of the nursery, is that she should be educated, and her mental powers have the best possible chance of being brought to their full power.

The education of our girls is one of the great questions of the day—engrossing the interest of those in the highest places; and a healthy sign of the times it is. For since it is upon the women of to-day that the future of the race depends, what could be of greater importance than that all her powers, physical, mental, and moral, should be brought as near perfection as possible?

Do I of a set purpose mention the physical first? Yes; because the older I grow the more it comes home to me that unless we have sound and healthy bodies we can but poorly serve our day and generation.

Therefore the food the children eat should be one of our chief studies and concerns; because if we can send them out into the world with constitutions built upon a sure and common-sense foundation, it is the best possible service we can render them; and one for which they and theirs will be grateful always.

This question of education is rather a perplexing one, which gives parents a great deal of anxious thought.

It is gratifying to observe that many parents are awaking to the absurdity of insisting that their daughters shall acquire a superficial knowledge of certain accomplishments, whatever the bent of their minds. How much money, to say nothing of precious time, has been sacrificed in the vain pursuit of music, that sweetest of the arts; which is so often desecrated and tortured by unwilling and unsympathetic votaries.

It very soon becomes evident whether the child has an aptitude for music or not; and if she has not, but finds the study of it an imposition and a trial, what is the use of forcing her to such unwilling drudgery, when very likely she possesses some other aptitude, the cultivation of which will be both profitable and pleasant?

How many girls upon whom pounds and pounds have been spent never touch the piano when they are emancipated from schoolroom control; and how much more usefully could both time and money have been employed in the pursuit of something else!

Mothers are beginning to see this, and it is a welcome awakening. So long as our young maiden is occupied with school and lessons, she has not time to learn much else, since it is imperative that she has recreation likewise; it is when she leaves school that the wise mother, having an eye to the future, will at once seek to initiate her into the mysteries of housekeeping.

She ought not to be ignorant of what used to be considered the chief, if not the only occupation for women,—she ought to be fit to keep house on the shortest notice. It is a woman’s heritage.

Whatever she may or may not know, I hold that she ought to acquire a certain amount of domestic knowledge, whether she uses it or not. Most young girls are interested in domestic affairs, and are never happier than when allowed to have their finger in the domestic pie; but in this as in other things a thorough grounding is the most satisfactory.

It is astonishing what undreamed-of qualities a sense of responsibility awakens in a young soul; how the very idea that something depends on her, that she is being trusted, puts our little maid upon her mettle.

Therefore it is a good plan to leave to a young daughter some particular duty or duties for which she is entirely responsible. This may of course be a very slight thing to begin with—the dusting of a room, or the arrangement of flowers or books, or the superintendence of the tea-table; but whatever it is, the mother should insist that it be done regularly and at the appointed time.

Thus will she teach her child punctuality and a primary lesson in a method, which is the key to all perfect housekeeping.

Of course it is a little trouble to the mother to superintend the performance of such little duties, but she will have her reward in the daily increasing helpfulness of the daughter in the home.

Most young girls, if skillfully dealt with, speedily learn to take a special pride in their own little duties, especially if their efforts be met with appreciation.

Never snub a child; the young heart is very sensitive, and takes a long time to forget.

Little changes in the domestic routine will be introduced by the wise mother, in order that the work may not become irksome. Where there are several daughters, it is a good plan for them to exchange their particular duties for a time. Thus, one may assist with the cooking for a week, then change with her sister who has the care and arrangement of the drawing-room or sitting-room, or with the one who helps with the mending.

So the daily round would never become monotonous, and by gradual and pleasant degrees a knowledge of the whole system of housekeeping is acquired, which will be simply invaluable to her, whatever her future may be.

I again insist that it is every woman’s duty to know, or to acquire some practical knowledge of housekeeping. Her fitness for it will be a perpetual source of satisfaction to her, for there is nothing more self-satisfying than to feel that one is capable; it gives confidence, strength, and self-reliance.

One of the very necessary lessons to be taught a young girl is the value of money. The sooner she learns what equivalent in household necessaries money can procure the better. The day may come when the tired mother will be glad to be relieved even of the responsibility of spending, and when, thanks to her own wisdom and foresight, she can place the family purse in younger hands, knowing that the contents will not be recklessly or extravagantly spent.

Let our young maiden feel that she is entirely trusted, and that a great deal is expected of her, then will she display qualities undreamed-of. She will be eager to show what she can do; and when the word of encouragement and appreciation is not lacking she will be proud and happy indeed.

Of course there are perverse natures, of whom one is tempted at times to despair—irresponsible young persons who would make wild havoc in any establishment left to their care; but I am speaking of the average young girl, who may be expected to be thoughtless and forgetful often, as is the way of youth, but who nevertheless has the makings of a fine, gentle-hearted, noble woman in her.

She ought not to be ignorant of what used to be considered the chief, if not the only occupation for women,—she ought to be fit to keep house on the shortest notice. It is a woman’s heritage. -Gentle Art of Homemaking, Annie Swan https://amzn.to/2XhJsGS (afflink)

Many beautiful items at Meadows of Grace!

Country Autumn Apron! Feminine and Beautiful! Available here.

Beautiful Vintaj Blessed Mother Wire Wrapped Rosary! Lovely, Durable… Available here.

Girl’s Lovely and Lacey Crocheted Veil. Available here.

Beginning with the first day of Advent and continuing through the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, these selections from the immortal pen of Fulton J. Sheen encourage readers to explore the essence and promise of the season. Those looking to grow in their prayer life and become more attuned to the joy of Advent and Christmas will find a wonderful guide in this spiritual companion….

You are about to make the season of Advent more meaningful than you ever have! This Advent journal is for busy moms who need a little help making this season special within the home. It will help you stay on track and be consistent with the customs you have decided to incorporate within your four walls. I have broken it down into bite-sized tidbits that, when laid out for you, will be easy to accomplish. As you check each item off you will get a sense of fulfillment knowing you are getting done what is truly important in this expectant season! The other things will get done….but first things first! At midnight, on Christmas Eve, when Baby Jesus arrives, you and your family will look back upon your Advent and sigh with satisfaction, knowing you truly have celebrated with the Church, that you have put your best foot forward in making this a spiritual, enchanting, holy time for all! The first few pages of this book will have a run-down of the special Advent customs and activities that will be on your checklist each day. They are simple, they are doable. I hope this Advent is more special than ever as we walk hand-in-hand making the Liturgy come alive in our homes!

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

Work Can Be Prayer and “Offer it Up”

 How to Raise Good Catholic Children, Mary Reed Newland, Sophia Institute Press

Work can be prayer

And that brings us to work as a form of prayer, and helping children understand that work done for the love of God is as tangible an act of love as if they were to run to Him with an embrace.

In the beginning, learning to make our bed, dry the dishes, and polish shoes is fun and a kind of play at being grown up, but soon the novelty wears off, and the chores that started out being fun can lose their glamour and become unpleasant drudgery.

If they are prayer, however, it can be different. Not that tasks we hate doing are suddenly transformed into occasions of great spiritual joy; but there’s a great difference between doing them because you’re told you must, and doing them because they 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.

Then there’s a good reason to try to make our bed with care instead of pulling up the covers to hide the rumples underneath. Then smoothing the sheets, and squaring the corners, and plumping the pillows can be small ceremonies of love from a small girl who does them because Christ can use them as balm for one of His suffering members.

And one of the loveliest things about teaching children that work is prayer is that mothers can’t help having it rub off on them.

These diapers that are changed daily, these meals that are cooked again and again, these floors that are scrubbed today only to get dirty tomorrow — these are as truly prayer in a mother’s vocation as the watches and prayers of the religious are in theirs.

Encourage your child to offer up his sufferings

There is suffering, too, in the lives of children, and it is eloquent prayer. Mere stoicism has no part in the training of a Christian. Too often it’s the death knell to humility.

But suffering embraced and offered to the suffering Christ, even with howls and tears, is a mighty weapon.

The road to Calvary was one long, unending bruise, and it helps a child to remember when he’s hurt that Jesus was hurt like this, and much more, and this pain in a mysterious way can be poured on His wounds and will help make up for the pain He had to bear. Every mother in the world kisses the bumps and bruises of her young to “make them well.”

We can give them something much more tangible to do with their hurts than merely bring them to be kissed. We can comfort and calm and then direct them in the use of the pain, and it’s surprising how willingly they will learn the lesson of pain and its value.

“Offer it up, dear; give it to Jesus to help comfort Him for the pain of the nails in His poor hands and feet.”

Faced as he is with a lifetime of recurring suffering (in one way or another), we give a child the only wholesome weapon to be used when we teach him to take his own pain in his own two hands and apply it freely, as he does work and play and prayer, to the comforting of Christ and His work in His Church.

Many times, parents will turn to scolding the “naughty chair” or the “bad table” in an effort to ease the pain and insult of a child who comes to grief through his own carelessness.

In the process, they feed little desires for vengeance; they give him no recourse but senseless, continuing rebellion against anything and everything that crosses him.

One time, a man who lives in our town was working on his car with no success, growing more and more angry because the cursed (and I do mean cursed) car would not start.

In a rage, finally, he threw his wrench at it, broke a part, and instead of a tricky repair job, he had added to his woes the problem of thumbing a ride to a service station to buy a new part, thumbing a ride back, and starting from scratch to install the new part.

Perhaps his explosion was only the fault of an ungovernable temper, but perhaps — who knows? — it had its beginning long ago in childhood when the only solace for a barked shin was, “Naughty chair to hurt the baby. Kick it back, sonny, kick it back.”

Living in a fallen world, our children are bound to be hurt, both physically and spiritually. We will save them years of wasted opportunities if we teach them that, along with everything else, pain is part of their prayer.

“It is astonishing what undreamed-of qualities a sense of responsibility awakens in a young soul; how the very idea that something depends on her, that she is being trusted, puts our little maid upon her mettle. Therefore it is a good plan to leave to a young daughter some particular duty or duties for which she is entirely responsible. This may of course be a very slight thing to begin with—the dusting of a room, or the arrangement of flowers or books, or the superintendence of the tea-table; but whatever it is, the mother should insist that it be done regularly and at the appointed time. Thus will she teach her child punctuality and a primary lesson in a method, which is the key to all perfect housekeeping. Of course it is a little trouble to the mother to superintend the performance of such little duties, but she will have her reward in the daily increasing helpfulness of the daughter in the home.” – Annie S. Swan, Courtship and Marriage And the Gentle Art of Home-Making, 1894

♥️UPDATE ON BABY CHARLOTTE:
Charlotte is still in the hospital. She has been taken off of everything, including and very recently, the anti-seizure medication. She still has a feeding tube and is being monitored as to how well she is nursing. Z is making daily trips to the hospital and staying for the day. Colin and Z are looking forward to the time when she can be at home and things settle back to some kind of normalcy. Thank you for your prayers! ♥️

Beautiful Vintaj Wire Wrapped Rosary! Lovely, Durable.. Each link is handmade and wrapped around itself to ensure quality. Available here.

 

This is a unique book of Catholic devotions for young children. There is nothing routine and formal about these stories. They are interesting, full of warmth and dipped right out of life. These anecdotes will help children know about God, as each one unfolds a truth about the saints, the Church, the virtues, etc. These are short faith-filled stories, with a few questions and a prayer following each one, enabling the moral of each story to sink into the minds of your little ones. The stories are only a page long so tired mothers, who still want to give that “tucking in” time a special touch, or pause a brief moment during their busy day to gather her children around her, can feel good about bringing the realities of our faith to the minds of her children in a childlike, (though not childish), way. There is a small poem and a picture at the end of each story. Your children will be straining their necks to see the sweet pictures! Through these small stories, parents will sow seeds of our Holy Catholic Faith that will enrich their families all the years to come!

This revised 1922 classic offers gentle guidance for preteen and teenage girls on how to become a godly woman. Full of charm and sentiment, it will help mother and daughter establish a comfortable rapport for discussions about building character, friendships, obedience, high ideals, a cheerful spirit, modest dress, a pure heart, and a consecrated life.

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

 

My Mother – Fr. Bernard Vaughan, S.J.

Painting by Alfredo Rodriguez

by Father Bernard Vaughab, S.J., early 1900’s

I was only a little boy when we lost our mother. It was a loss I cannot think of even now, after half a century and more, without a shudder. To all of us she was the very ideal of everything that is lovely and holy.

We thought, and were brought up to think, that she was in every sense perfection. Hence her blessing was more to us even than her caress.

Well do I remember how we used to rush at her coming into the nursery to see who should be the first to kiss her hand with reverent devotion.

Then she would sit on the floor with half a dozen of us clinging to her, while she would give us her little crucifix and medals to venerate and fondle, or perhaps take out her watch, and placing it against the ear of one of us, would say, “Life is passing away just like that tiny ticking watch, but when the little heart stops beating here, we shall all know that God didn’t wind it up anymore because He wanted you home with Him for a never-ending holiday.”

Of course we used to kneel round her lap morning and evening to lisp after her our childlike prayers, and then were carried off, two in her arms, and others clinging to her skirts, to the chapel, where on great feasts we were privileged to kiss the altar-cloth, or even the altar itself.

Our mother reminded her children that, there in the Tabernacle, One who loved us more even than she did, was always abiding, ever ready to greet us when we went to see Him.

She loved her garden, but would have been shocked if the fairest flowers had been sent to her boudoir instead of to the chapel. She herself would gather nosegays for her children to place on our nursery altar or before the statue in her bedroom. When I look back it seems to me she could talk only about God, or the poor, or our father.

She made Heaven such a reality to us that we felt that we knew more about it, and liked it in a way far better even than our home, where, until she died, her children were wildly, supremely happy.

Religion under her teaching was made so attractive, and all the treasured items she gathered from the lives of the Saints made them so fascinating to us, that we loved them as our most intimate friends, which she assured us they most certainly were.

Our mother thought that it was her duty to teach her little ones in the nursery all manner of pious childlike practices, while the bigger children would often have to remind them not to forget God and His presence in their midst.

But it was of Our Lord’s Agony in the garden and His sacred Passion and Death that she never tired to remind us: “Look at those dear Five Wounds,” she would say; “fancy all that pain suffered, and all that blood shed, for you. You must never forget, no matter how long you live, to love more than anything on earth those Precious Wounds. If ever you are naughty and hurt God, it will be because you forget how much you have cost Him.”

What tricks and devices did we not resort to in order to be awake in the night nursery when, after dinner, Mother would pass from cot to cot blessing her children, crossing their hands upon their breast, and lulling them to sleep with such words as “Sweet Jesus, I do love Thee, Holy Mother of God, be a tender Mother to me, My good Angel, watch over me and keep me this night from all sin.”

It was not our mother’s practice to bring us any dainty from the dinner-table. We were never allowed to go down to dessert, our father thinking it might encourage greediness or undue fondness of food. We dined at our parents’ lunch and then were allowed to take what we liked.

I remember one day being offered some dish which I rejected with the incautious remark, “Thank you, Father, I don’t fancy it.” Should I live to the age of Methuselah I shall not forget how he turned upon me and in solemn voice said, “I do not wish any of my boys to indulge in fancies about food; fancies are the privilege of your sisters.”

On another occasion, when I had shown overmuch relish for some dish, my father reminded me that it was a poor thing to be a slave to any appetite or practice. Blushing to the roots of my hair, I ventured to retaliate, saying, ‘Well, Father, how is it that the snuffbox is brought to you every day at the end of dinner? — you always take out a big pinch.”

For a moment he was silent, and then made me fetch the box, and while in the act of tossing it into the fire he said, “There goes the box, and that is the end of that bit of slavery.”  His training was somewhat drastic, but it was a fine counterpart to that of the ever tender mother.

There were some fine customs which our father insisted on; for instance, that we should take our places with the village school children when they were catechized on Sunday afternoon in the chapel; and the chaplain was encouraged to be specially severe with us if we did not answer correctly.

Father liked us to give of what we had, and not merely our used-up toys, to the less well-off little ones, and nothing pleased him more than to see his children trudging off with their mother laden with good things for those who most wanted them.

When people expostulated with her for taking her children where they might catch something worse than a cold she would say, “Sickness would be a small price to pay for the exercise of this Christlike privilege — but God will take care of my children where my love fails.”

Her love of the poor was almost a passion, and but for her own children’s sake she would have parted with everything . Washing the bedridden, changing their bedding, sweeping their rooms, was the sort of thing in which she felt a real pride. Not even when she was very seriously ill would she call in any but the parish doctor, protesting that if he was good enough for her poorer sisters he would do very well for her.

As she herself could not seek perfection in the religious state, she strove to attain it in the sphere of life to which God had called her. I am told that she said the Divine Office daily, and when too ill to say it herself had it said for her. She died while Compline was being said in her room.

As a girl she had spent some considerable time in Paris receiving finishing lessons in drawing, painting, singing, and music, and nothing delighted us more than to gather about her in the round drawing-room, wild with joy, to hear her recite, or sing her own songs or hymns about Heaven as she accompanied herself on the harp. When our enthusiasm was thoroughly stirred she would pause to remind us that all this was but discord compared with what the rapturous music of Heaven would be. She was fond of whetting our appetites for Heaven.

In our mother’s time Courtfield was always so cheery, bright, and holy, that it used to be said in the county, “You nearly break your neck going, but more nearly break your heart leaving there.”

When I look back to those young days so crowded with life I cannot remember any quiet games entertaining us. Birds, dogs, other pets, and ponies were our chief delight. I fear we were dreadfully noisy, loving hare and hounds, blindman’s-buff, snapdragon, and above all theatricals, in which movement was a safety valve for what was called “the Vaughan spirits.”

On the Feast of Holy Innocents, when it was our custom to dress up in the habits of different religious orders, we used to hold high religious functions, and preach one another down till the result was a sort of pandemonium, ending in clouds of incense and a blaze of candles round the schoolroom statue, where we made peace.

I think I have sampled our early life fully enough for even an inordinate taste for childhood’s days, but I cannot end without referring to the irreparable loss that came upon us when God called our mother away. It was a catastrophe.

Personally I was too young fully to understand what had happened; what I do most vividly remember is going down to the library, where the blinds were drawn and everybody was in black.

I recollect my father’s grief-stricken countenance as, amid the sobs of his children, he called my eldest sister, Gladys, to his side, and, placing on her wrist my mother’s simple silver bracelet, with crucifix and medal attached, he told us that our mother had gone to Heaven and that the eldest girl must take her place.

I bit my lips, exclaiming internally, “She never shall with me.”

He said much more, but I did not quite understand what it all meant, or why everybody was crying. I felt sure, even if mother had gone to Heaven, she would somehow be back soon, for she was never away from us for long. It did not seem that one could possibly live without her.

Very gradually the reality of the loss came home to one, and then it seemed that nothing much mattered. We rarely spoke of mother because the mere mention of her name awakened feelings that could not be controlled.

Herbert even to the last was shy of speaking to me of her; sometimes when I ventured to plead for some of his reminiscences of her he would get red and hot, and after saying there was no one ever like her, he would turn to some other subject; and till shortly before his death he kept by him a tiny picture of :—

“That countenance in which did meet

Sweet records and promises as sweet.”

“We all carry two bags—each and every one of us—one is packed with virtue, the other our faults. I’m talking marriage here, when I say that somewhere between courtship and the seventh year many women have shifted their focus from one of adoration to fault finder. We start to analyze, dissect, and over analyze the faults that we find, hoping to reshape our husbands according to our version of the perfect man. Living in harmony requires patience on both sides as we work to rebuild our view of one another.” -The Good Wife’s Guide, Darlene Schacht

Painting by Robert Papp

November – The Month of the Holy Souls in Purgatory

The Suffering Souls are very powerful with God. You take care of them and they will be praying for you!
Novena for the Holy Souls in Purgatory

Prayer to Our Suffering Savior for the Holy Souls in Purgatory

O most sweet Jesus, through the bloody sweat which Thou didst suffer in the Garden of Gethsemane, have mercy on these Blessed Souls. Have mercy on them.
R. Have mercy on them, O Lord.

O most sweet Jesus, through the pains which Thou didst suffer during Thy most cruel scourging, have mercy on them.
R. Have mercy on them, O Lord.

O most sweet Jesus, through the pains which Thou didst suffer in Thy most painful crowning with thorns, have mercy on them.
R. Have mercy on them, O Lord.

O most sweet Jesus, through the pains which Thou didst suffer in carrying Thy cross to Calvary, have mercy on them.
R. Have mercy on them, O Lord.

O most sweet Jesus, through the pains which Thou didst suffer during Thy most cruel Crucifixion, have mercy on them.
R. Have mercy on them, O Lord.

O most sweet Jesus, through the pains which Thou didst suffer in Thy most bitter agony on the Cross, have mercy on them.
R. Have mercy on them, O Lord.

O most sweet Jesus, through the immense pain which Thou didst suffer in breathing forth Thy Blessed Soul, have mercy on them.
R. Have mercy on them, O Lord.

(Recommend yourself to the Souls in Purgatory and mention your intentions here)

Blessed Souls, I have prayed for thee; I entreat thee, who are so dear to God, and who are secure of never losing Him, to pray for me a miserable sinner, who is in danger of being damned, and of losing God forever. Amen.

Written by St. Alphonsus Liguori this novena has prayers for each day which are followed by the Prayer to Our Suffering Savior for the Holy Souls in Purgatory

Little Girl’s Lovely and Lacey Crocheted Veils

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

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

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

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