Tidbits from True Womanhood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Virtues of a Mother

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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Keep Your Family Troubles to Yourself

Disclaimer: We do not have to keep real and difficult problems (alcoholism, mental illness, and other major addictions..and abuse) to ourselves. Just make sure and go through the right channels to get help…with discretion and prayer. We mustn’t isolate ourselves…at the same time, we carry our cross and don’t talk to just anyone about it.

I have seen this scenario, that Father talks about here, myself. A woman was disgruntled with her husband and talked to her pastor about him….several times. An intimate friendship was sparked and eventually she left her husband and married the pastor (who had also been married).

So this is a fine line to walk, be careful to protect your heart….

by Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, True Womanhood, 1894

Keep Your Family Troubles to Yourself

A cardinal principle in home-life is, never to allow one’s self to suspect or to distrust one’s dear ones, save only when the evidence of guilt or unworthiness is irresistible. Even then, only when absolutely necessary and in an extremity that a wife should mention it, — though never so guardedly, — to an experienced and holy guide.

From one’s relatives on both sides, — from father or mother, brother or sister, — the secret should be strictly and sacredly kept, so long as the reformation and salvation of the guilty one or the protection of one’s children, or some such weighty consideration, does not compel one to speak so much of the truth as is needful.

Where conscience is concerned extreme care should be taken both in choosing the person to be consulted and in the manner in which the communication is to be made.

Even a father, if he be a man of wisdom, experience, and high principle, will rarely encourage a married daughter to make him her confidant in her secret troubles. If he has been a good husband, blessed with a good wife, his own heart will have taught him how jealous a husband is of seeing any man made his wife’s confidant.

There must be extreme necessity, then, to justify a wife in revealing her troubles to priest or to father, — even with all the reservations made above.

To go with one’s troubles to a stranger, be he what he may, is to court danger, and to go more than halfway to meet ruin.

If confidence given to persons of the opposite sex is fraught with such certain peril, how much more so is friendship?

Lady friends and lady confidantes unwisely chosen, and kept in spite of a husband’s remonstrances, have destroyed the peace of many a home where there was, otherwise, every element of happiness,—sincere mutual affection, companionship, and faith in each other’s virtue.

But gentlemen friends—where a wife is so bereft of sense, of discernment, of womanly tact, as to permit such a monstrosity to come into her life—gentlemen friends are the worst enemies of her honor, her home, and the happiness of all belonging to her.

If a wife be already happy in possessing a husband who fulfills her ideal of manliness, who is all in all to her, she does him the foulest wrong and her own honor irreparable injury in transferring to any man living any part of her affections.

If, as we suppose, she loves her husband with her whole heart, how jealous would she feel of any woman on whom her husband would bestow anything like friendship! Would she not resent it—and most justly—as a grievous wrong done to herself?

The Christian Woman is Bound to be Supernatural

This lesson addresses itself to Christian wives,—to women bound to be Supernatural, —who are supposed to have entered on their matrimonial engagements with supernatural motives (and the not doing so is the source of untold and inconceivable miseries), who profess to lead a supernatural life amid all the joys, the cares, the trials, and disappointments of their subsequent condition.

Woe to them, if they are not supernatural and lovers of the cross and the Crucified, when the fair and fond visions of earthly love requited vanish from their early path like the golden clouds of morning!

There is one book out of which every young wife, from her bridal day, would do well to read a daily chapter to her companion—”The Imitation of Christ:” it is brimful of the Spirit of God.

Would that the wife on whose life the shadow of the dreadful heart-trials hinted at here falls for the first time, would take up this almost divine book, and read such passages as the following: “O Lord God, holy Father, be thou now and forever blessed! For, as Thou wilt, even so hath it been done to me; and what Thou dost is good.”

Let thy servant take joy in Thee, not in herself nor in any other being. For, Thou alone art true joy,—Thou art my hope and my crown,—Thou, O Lord, art my bliss and my honor!

O Father, just, holy, and ever to be praised, the hour of trial is come for thy servant.”

What soul will not rise from the foot of the crucifix, after such a prayer as this, with the consciousness, the deep-seated conviction, that God with her and in her will enable her to face and overcome the trials before her?

It is time that in every Christian household mothers should inculcate the lesson—morning, noon, and night—that their children—both sons and daughters—never will be or can be anything, unless they study before and above all things else to be Supernatural men and women. They must be that, or they will become worse than pagans.

Love Tried in the Flame

But if glowing words from the well-tried heart of the sweetest of Catholic singers in our tongue have virtue to warm and comfort, then read:

“Let thy gold be cast in the furnace,

Thy red gold, precious and bright,

Do not fear the hungry fire,

With its caverns of burning light:

And thy gold shall return more precious,

Free from every spot and stain;

For gold must be tried by fire,

As a heart must be tried by pain!

I shall know by the gleam and glitter

Of the golden chain you wear,

By your heart’s calm strength in loving,

Of the fire they have had to bear.

Beat on, true heart, forever;

Shine bright, strong golden chain,

And bless the cleansing fire,

And the furnace of living pain!

“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

First Communion!

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

Here is a marriage blueprint that every woman can follow. Happy marriages do not just happen, they are made. It takes three parties to make a good marriage; the husband, the wife, and Our Lord.

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A Holy House

Two wonderful articles on the atmosphere of a Catholic Home……

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

The parents of the family will at once take it upon themselves to give their home the air of a house of God.

In other words, they will supply it with those emblems that ought to have a place in every Catholic home.

Of these emblems the first and foremost is the crucifix of which mention was made before.

Besides it there ought to be other representations of our Lord, his mother, and the Saints, discreetly placed about the home.

Whilst the house needs not to be turned into a holy picture gallery, yet a prudent selection of holy pictures will become a Catholic home. They are indicative of faith, and of a certain gratitude for, and pride in, the faith.

In the meantime they are a continuous reminder of God and his saints, the heroes and heroines of virtue, to the family, and thus provide it with a potent stimulant to piety and goodness.

Examples of Fidelity…

painting by Michael Deas 1995

from True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

In What the Wife’s Fidelity Consists

We have insisted much on the qualities which enable a wife to be, in the fullest sense, the most delightful companion, the most efficient helpmate, the most trusted friend and confidante of her husband.

All this she cannot be, without being at the same time most truly devoted to him in thought and affection,—so that he alone, after God, fills her mind and her heart.

We have touching examples of this inviolable fidelity,— springing, in the first instance, from that single-hearted and absorbing love of a good husband which leaves no thought of any other love being possible; and, in the second, from a wife’s own high principle and fear of God, which keeps her true to the love she pledged, even when its object has become most unworthy, or, possibly, most hateful.

Fidelity Illustrated

In the patriarchal ages before Abraham,—in the age of Noe and those preceding the flood,—there was no question among the families of the blessed line of Seth of admitting a second wife into the family.

That was characteristic of the evil brood of Cain,—his son, Lamech, being mentioned as the first who had departed from the unity of the institution of marriage as it came from the hands of the Creator.

But Seth himself, and every one of the blessed descendants who kept alive on earth the primitive faith in Jehovah and the belief in the promised Redeemer, also maintained in their households the faith they had pledged to the wife of their youth.

Though these men lived five hundred, six hundred, or even nine hundred years and more, their hearts were content with the love, and their lives filled with the fidelity, of that one woman: it was a sacred fire in these august patriarchal homes, burning undimmed century after century on the hearth-stone,—an example, even at this distance of time, deserving of the wonder and veneration of their degenerate descendants.

Rebecca’s Fidelity Prefigures that of the Church

The violation of that unity by Abraham, even at the solicitation of his faithful Sara, was a manifest imperfection in him, who should have known better, and a want of faith and error of judgment in her, who had been brought up among the licentiousness of the Mesopotamian idolatry.

But Abraham’s son and successor, Isaac, and his bride, Rebecca, departed not from the great primitive law. For Isaac, who bore the wood of his sacrifice up the mountainside was the figure of Christ; just like Isaac’s early and only love, Rebecca, brought to him so wondrously from afar,— was the type of the Church.

It is the love of both Rebecca and the Church that forms a model and a rule for every Christian wife.

Judith’s Example

We have nearer to us in the Old Testament history other touching examples of fidelity in wives to the husband of their youth.

Judith the Deliverer, “the Joy of Israel,” the glory and honor of her people, was widowed young, and, though surpassingly beautiful, and most wealthy, she remained true to the memory of her husband, inviolably faithful to the love she had plighted to him.

The sudden inspiration which came to her to offer herself to the admiring eyes of the Assyrian general, was no deviation from the law of fidelity which she had so scrupulously followed till then.

She trusted to God’s angel to keep her honor safe in the Assyrian camp, and, as she afterward declared, he had watched over her coming and going till she had struck the blow which freed her country.

The victory once won, and the national thanksgiving over, she put off her rich robes, resumed her sober widow’s weeds, buried herself once more in the solitude of her own house, and gave up the half-century of life which remained to her to prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, and the cherished worship of her husband’s memory.

Anna the Prophetess

So is it with that remarkable woman whom we meet with in the temple at our Lord’s presentation therein,—Anna the Prophetess. She, too, had been left a widow after seven years of companionship with her husband; and “she was a widow till fourscore and four years; who departed not from the temple, by fasting and prayers, serving night and day.”

She was rewarded by beholding in the flesh the Redeemer promised to Adam and Eve in the garden, and whose glory, like the first fires of sunrise above the eastern hills, patriarchs and prophets had only looked on “from afar.”

She was also privileged to see in the temple the Mother most blessed who was prefigured by Eve as well as by Judith.

These are only landmarks on the glorious pathway of true womanhood, pointing out in the inspired writings the honor paid to fidelity and the reward bestowed on it even in this life.

“It is amazing how, with time, the soul comes to dominate the body. Selfish people get the hard, selfish look. Generous people grow more physically attractive each day. People with the peace of God’s friendship develop expressions that instantly attract and constantly charm. A mouth that speaks kindly becomes a beautiful mouth. Hands that serve generously become characterful hands. Eyes that look out for affection on mankind are eyes that radiate an inner beauty not difficult to find.” -Fr. Daniel A. Lord http://amzn.to/2iCGqfN

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True Hearted Children – True Womanhood

This is a beautiful meditation on the kind of love we should have for our parents…and that our children should have for us.

The author transfers that meditation to the type of devoted love we need to have for God our Father.

It is beautiful….it is comforting.

from True Womanhood – Rev. Bernard O’Reilly

St. Clement  praises in the Corinthians a “piety full of sweetness and modesty.”

Piety is a word of Latin origin, and, among the old Romans who first used it, meant that spirit of dutiful and generous love with which children do the will and seek the interests of their parents.

This sense of free, generous, disinterested, and unselfish devotion to the happiness, honor, and interests of one’s parents, is always contrasted with the selfish, mercenary, or compulsory service of a slave or a servant in a family.

True-hearted children make their happiness to consist in seeking how they can best please and honor father and mother: what they do is not dictated by the fear of punishment or the hope of reward or the prospect of gain or self-gratification.

The hope or certainty of delighting or pleasing or helping the dear authors of their being, such is the thought which prompts the labors or obedience of a loving child.

Not so the mercenary: his motive is to gain his wages. He bargains to do so muchin return for such a wage.

The happiness of the family, the interest or honor of his employers, their satisfaction or the praise which they may bestow, do not, most likely, enter into the thoughts or calculations of venal souls.

You have known, perhaps, in many families, daughters so noble-minded, that they were content to labor untiringly for their parents, placing their whole delight in doing all they could to lighten the burden of father and mother, or to make the home bright and pleasant for brothers and sisters, without seeking or expecting one word of praise and acknowledgment.

This is the best description of filial piety.

Only transfer to God’s service that same unselfish and generous disposition, asking yourself only how much you can do to please Him, to glorify Him, to make yourself worthy of Him, to make Him known and have Him loved and served by others, andyou have an idea of what piety toward God is.

Thus faith gives to the soul that “purity of intention,” which not only makes the thought of God habitual, but enables one to lift one’s eye toward the Divine Majesty in every thing that one does, in labor as well as in repose, in suffering as well as in enjoyment, at home and abroad, in company and conversation, as well as in solitude and silence.

It kindles in the heart that flame of love which makes one burn with the absorbing desire of pleasing Him supremely.

It is thus the foundation of piety, the motive power of every good work, just as fire is the generating force of steam, and steam itself is the mighty force which annihilates distance on sea and land and transforms all the industries of the modern world.

The soul accustomed to keep God before her eyes in all her ways, cannot help being pious in the truest sense: nothing can prevent her from seeking in all that she does the Divine pleasure, and of esteeming all that she can do and suffer too little for so great a majesty and such incomparable goodness.

This piety working ever beneath that all-seeing Eye must be both sweet and modest: sweet, in the calmness and gentleness with which every thing is undertaken and accomplished; modest, in that no seeking of self and no consciousness of evil can disturb or overcast the limpid purity of a soul which reflects only the light and serenity of Heaven, and is divinely sheltered from every blast of earthly passion.

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The Wife’s Crowning Duty – Fidelity

From True Womanhood by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

The home is the nursery of the nation, and the deep and sacred love that binds into one existence the hearts and lives of husband and wife, is the soul of the home life. Everything which tends to lessen, to divide, to sully that sacred union of hearts, strikes at the very life of the family and aims at upsetting the foundations of the moral world.

The sacred virtue, the immaculate honor of every family, is inseparable from the purity and perpetuity of the love pledged to each other by both parents; more especially, in universal estimation, is the family honor dependent on the inviolable fidelity of the mother toward him to whom she gave her early love.

Hence the deep significance of the prayer of the church in the solemn ceremony of marriage. She who had proposed to the imitation of all wives the undivided and unalterable love which she ever bears to Christ, her Spouse,—who gives them in her inviolable and eternal fidelity to him, to his honor and interests, the model of the true woman’s unwavering, sustained, and devoted fidelity to her husband,—makes of this notion the central point in her magnificent marriage ritual.

Throughout all ages known to history, the most refined peoples have looked upon the ring as the symbol of eternity —as the proper emblem, therefore, of the union of souls underlying the matrimonial contract.

The Ring: Symbolic of Eternal Fidelity

When the Church has witnessed and sanctioned by her blessing the mutual and solemn pledge given by bride and bridegroom, she proceeds to bless a ring, which is given to the bride as a symbol and seal of the union into which she has entered, and of the enduring fidelity with which she is to feed the sacred fire of mutual affection and to watch over the honor of her hearth-stone.

“Bless, O Lord, this ring,” such is the prayer, “which we bless in thy name, in order that she who wears it, by preserving unbroken fidelity to her husband, may continue in peace and the accomplishment of thy will, and also ever live in mutual charity.”

Where the beautiful ceremonial is carried out in its intended fullness, the nuptial benediction is followed by the offering of the adorable sacrifice. Christ comes down on the altar, who so loved the Church, his Bride, that he ” delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

There, at that altar and in that presence, kneel the two for whom the Savior God comes down, his hands filled with blessing for these his children beginning life together, and his heart overflowing with untold treasures of grace,— so needful to them on their pathway of pain and labor.

But there is more than this; the Church breaks in on the most solemn portion of the liturgy,—that between the consecration and communion,—to pronounce a further blessing on the bride.

Turning toward the newly-married, the priest, as if his hands were laden with the blessings brought from on high, and his lips touched with the hallowed fire to prophesy good things to the suppliants prostrate there, thus prays:

“0 God, who by thy might didst create all things out of nothingness; who, having ordered the first stages of this universe, and made man to the image of God, didst make man’s substance the principle of woman’s being, that she should thus be his inseparable companion, teaching us thereby that a union originating in such unity may never be broken without crime;

O God, who didst hallow this conjugal union by so surpassing a grace as to make the primitive nuptial alliance the prophetic figure of the mysterious union of Christ with the Church;

God, by whom woman is thus united to man, and the primordial society thus formed is endowed with a blessing which alone survived the punishment of original sin and the judgment executed through the deluge;

look down propitiously on this thy handmaiden, who, about to begin her companionship with her husband, beseeches Thee to grant her Thy protection: in her may the yoke of love and peace ever abide;

faithful and chaste, may she wed in Christ, and be evermore the imitator of holy women: may she prove lovely to her husband, like Rachel; wise, like Rebecca; long-lived and faithful, like Sara;

may the fell Author of (Eve’s) prevarication find no trace in her of the actions which he counsels; may she be immovably attached to thy faith and law: the spouse of one man, may no other love ever touch her;

may she school and shield her own weakness by home-discipline: may she be modest and dignified, chaste and venerable, enlightened by wisdom from on high; . . . may she win approval by her stainless life, and thus attain to the rest of the blessed and the heavenly kingdom.” * * The Roman Missal in the ” Nuptial Mass.”

 

“It is amazing how, with time, the soul comes to dominate the body. Selfish people get the hard, selfish look. Generous people grow more physically attractive each day. People with the peace of God’s friendship develop expressions that instantly attract and constantly charm. A mouth that speaks kindly becomes a beautiful mouth. Hands that serve generously become characterful hands. Eyes that look out for affection on mankind are eyes that radiate an inner beauty not difficult to find.” -Fr. Daniel A. Lord http://amzn.to/2iCGqfN

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A True Woman Has Charity – The Leprous Infant

From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

Is not this the significance of a most beautiful legend from the life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary?

Her mother-in-law, Sophia, was, at the time of the occurrence about to be related, bitterly prejudiced against the saintly wife. “She neither shared nor approved Elizabeth’s charities and merciful ministrations. In her son, however, she found no sympathy. Yet one account shows how even his kind heart was overtasked.

One day a child afflicted with leprosy was brought to the hospital in the Wartburg; but his state was in the institution would neither touch him nor admit him.

Elizabeth, coming at her usual hour, no sooner beheld the little sufferer lying helpless and forsaken at the gate, than she took him up in her arms, carried him to the castle, and placed him in her own bed.

Sophia, indignant, flew to the landgrave. ‘My son,’ she burst forth, ‘come with me instantly, and see with whom your wife shares your bed;’ and she led him to his chamber, relating in exaggerated language the extraordinary occurrence that seemed to crown all the mad acts of his wife’s charity.

The landgrave, though he said not one word, could scarcely conceal his irritation and loathing. He snatched the coverlet from the bed, and lo! instead of the leper, there lay an infant, surrounded with a halo of light, and bearing the features of the new-born lobe of Bethlehem!

This example is, however, more admirable than imitable. It is a rare thing to have to perform heroic acts of any virtue,—even that of charity. Where a miracle occurs, as here, Providence means to inculcate a lesson.

The teaching, to the Catholic mind, is a plain one: it is only the repetition, under a different form, of the Master’s doctrine, that he is represented by the persons of the poor and the suffering.

So, with this conviction firmly seated in the soul of the Christian mistress of a household, it will be easy for her to see with what reverence and generosity she must treat the poor. We say “reverence.” For if her womanly heart has schooled itself to behold Christ present in every one of the needy who come to her door, she will not have to be reminded to show to all, without exception, kindness.

Kindness is something far beneath reverence; yet let us insist upon the absolute necessity of  kind looks and kind words. No one better than a woman knows how far kindness goes, or how much and how long a kind word or a look of tender sympathy will be treasured up by those-on whom they are bestowed.

If you have nothing else to give,—if your purse is empty, and your bread has failed,-— open the spring of kindness in your heart and let it pour out on the hearts of the poor sweet words of compassion, often more needed and more rarely bestowed than food on the famishing or cold water on the faint and weary.

Follow the rule of the great St. Francis, therefore: Be invariably and unfailingly kind to the poor. And this precious quality in the temper and bearing of man or woman can only be secured by the habitual practice of that “reverence” just mentioned.

It is more needful than ever that in every Catholic home mothers should cultivate that ancient respect for husband and children which was inspired by a lively faith, and made every member of the Christian community view in his fellow-Christians the children of God, the person of Christ himself.

This feeling inspired the father of the great Origen,—a father found soon afterward worthy to die the death of the martyrs,— with a reverence for his infant son so deep and so sincere, that he was wont as he passed his cradle to uncover the child’s breast and to kiss it, kneeling,—knowing, as he said, that the babe was the living temple of the Holy Ghost.

Surely Catholic fathers and mothers ought to find an exquisite pleasure in such elevating thoughts and sentiments as this; surely they should so consider each other and respect each other as if they too were chosen vessels, vessels of grace, bearing about in their bosoms the Creator Spirit; and most surely ought it to be the mother’s chief delight to reverence in every child of hers a something far more holy, more precious than the chalice used in the Holy Sacrifice, or the sacred vessel shut up in the Tabernacle and inclosing Christ’s divinest gift to our souls.

Can we school and accustom ourselves so to reverence the poor as to see in them the Person of Him who is represented as evermore standing in the night, wet by the dew or the rainstorm, at the door of every one of us, and gently knocking for admission to the light and warmth of our fireside?

This said, it is not our design to say either to the wealthy or to the needy housewife what measure she is to follow in relieving the wants of the poor. Let our spirit be the royal spirit of the ancient Catholic charity of our fathers.

To the rich let this suffice. “A modern author relates that a merchant in Spain once said to him: A rich Spanish tradesman would laugh at you if you talked to him of keeping his carriage; ~but ask him for alms, and he will think nothing of giving you a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand dollars”.

The early verbalizing, the magic and romantic lyricism of love letters, and long, late-night telephone conversations — all of these are left behind. Even the constant repetition of the words of love finds husband and wife admitting to each other that words do not express what they wish them to express. Thus, verbal symbols give way to a thousand variations of concrete symbols: a surprise gift, a note on the refrigerator, an evening planned totally for the other — always designed to unlock in the other that secret closet of joy. In creating their masterpiece, truly “their life’s work”, husband and wife each look to the other’s needs. -Father of the Family, Clayton Barbeau https://amzn.to/2tnTeJO (afflink)

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True Womanhood – Supernatural Atmosphere of the Home

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domestic happiness, mother as beacon of light in home, mutual love necessary for happy home

With inspiring and beautiful words, Rev. O’Reilly compares the role of womanhood in the home to the fire and warmth of the sun, which, were its light to go out, all would wither and die.

He talks about the how the “springs of true joy” will flourish in our homes if we have certain virtues flourishing within its four walls. In this short piece he talks about the first and most important virtue, faith.

From True Womanhood

The most learned men of modern times agree in saying, that the sun’s light and warmth are, in the order established by the Creator, the sources of all vegetable and animal life on the surface of our globe.

They regulate the succession of seasons, the growth of all the wonderful varieties of tree and shrub and flower and grass that make of the surface of the earth an image of Paradise.

They give health and vigor to the myriads of animals of every kind that live in the air or in the waters or on the dry land, and to which, in turn, the vegetable world furnishes food and sustenance.

The very motion given to the rain in falling, to the rivers in their course, to the oceans and their currents, comes from that sun-force, as well as the clouds which sail above our heads in the firmament and the lovely colors which paint them.

Nay, there is not a single beauty in the million-million shades which embellish the flowers of grove or garden or field, or clothe, at dawn or noontide or sunset, the face of earth and heaven, which is not a creation of glorious light, the visible image of His divine countenance in whom is the source of all splendor and life and beauty.

Even so, O Woman, within that world which is your home and kingdom, your face is to light up and brighten and beautify all things, and your heart is to be the source of that vital fire and strength without which the father can be no true father, the brother no true brother, the sister no true sister, since all have to learn from you how to love, how to labor lovingly, how to be forgetful of self, and mindful only of the welfare of others.

The natural affection by which the Creator of our souls draws to each other husband and wife, and which, in turn, they pour out on their children and receive back from these in filial regard and reverence, is the very source of domestic happiness.

We cannot estimate too highly this holy mutual love which knits together the hearts of parents and children.

It is as necessary to the peace, the comfort, the prosperity, and the bliss of every home, as the dew and the rain and the streams of running water are necessary to the husbandman for the fertility of the land he cultivates and the growth of the harvest on which depend both his subsistence and his wealth.

Let the dew and rain of heaven cease to fall on the fairest valley, let the springs of living water be dried up all over its bosom, and the rivers which brighten and fertilize it cease to flow but for a few seasons, and it will be like the vale of death, forsaken of every living thing.

Do you wish, O reader, to learn how the springs of true life, of true love and joy, may flow, unfailing and eternal, within the little paradise of your home?

Then weigh well the words of the great Martyr-Pope placed at the head of this chapter:
“Who is not struck with beholding your lively faith; your piety full of sweetness and modesty; your generous hospitality; the holiness which reigns within your families; the serenity and innocence of your conversation?” ST. CLEMENT, Pope and Martyr.

These point out the virtues and qualities which should adorn every household in which Christ is worshiped : a lively faith, a piety full of sweetness and modesty, a generous hospitality; holiness of life, serenity and innocence of conversation.

Let us examine together how much there is in every one of these.

We need not send to a great distance for one of those men famed for their skill in discovering hidden and plentiful springs of water beneath the surface of the ground.

Their mysterious knowledge and the use of their magic wand are useless here. For, here we have seven pure and exhaust-less wells of living water, created for our home by the Maker of all things, and placed ready to our hand for every need.

And, first of all, is a lively faith. We Christians are given that eye of the soul which enables us to see the invisible world, as if the veil which hides it were withdrawn. God becomes to us an ever-present, most sweet and most comforting reality.

The great patriarch, Abraham, was bidden, in his long exile, and as a sure means of bearing up against his manifold trials, to walk before God, that is, to have God ever present before the eye of his soul.

This sense of the Divine Majesty as a vision always accompanying us in our every occupation, in labor as well as repose just as the pillar of cloud went with the Israelites in their journeying toward the Promised Land gives wonderful light to us in our darkness and difficulties, cheers us marvelously in distress and adversity, lightens the hardest labor and the most intolerable burden, imparts a divine strength in the hour of temptation; for, what can we not undertake and accomplish, what enemy can we not resist and put to flight, when we feel that His eye is on us, that we have him there face to face, that His arm is ever stretched out to support and to shield us, and that all the love of His fatherly heart sweetens the bitterness of our struggle, and rewards our generosity in overcoming all for his sake?

Joseph and Mary at Nazareth were privileged above all human beings to behold that Wisdom which created the world living and laboring daily beneath their humble roof, and growing up into the successive perfection of holy infancy, boyhood, and manhood, while concealing his quality from the surrounding multitude, and revealing only to a few like themselves his Godhead and his mission.

It is certain, that he practiced all the virtues and fulfilled all the duties of his age and station in the way best fitted to glorify his Father : he was enlightening the world, sanctifying himself, and marking out the path of life as truly for every one of us, during these long and obscure years of his abode in Nazareth, as when his teaching and his miracles drew around him all Galilee and Judea.

And what an eloquent lesson was there, exemplifying that “life of faith,” without which the existence of the Christian man or woman is barren of all supernatural merit!

Christ, in the helpless years of his infancy and boyhood, when his life was one of entire dependence and submission, glorified and pleased his Father by solely seeking his good will and pleasure in obeying those appointed his earthly parents, and in accomplishing the obscure duties of his age.

This lesson Mary and Joseph were not slow to learn and to practice. They read in the rapt charity with which their worshiped Charge offered to the Divine Majesty every day and hour and moment of these golden years of humility and toil, this all-important law of life for the children of God: ‘ That the value of what we do does not depend on the greatness or publicity of the work accomplished ; but on the spirit of love toward the Father with which it is undertaken and carried out ; and that the pure purpose and offering of the heart is what God prizes above all else.

 

 

 

“When we hold that tiny bundle in our arms for the very first time, a flood of hopes and dreams emerges like a great blue whale cresting to spout his spray into the air. But somewhere in the day-to-day busyness of life, encouraging words can get lost among the to-dos and not-to-dos. We need to take a fresh look at motherhood and recapture the commitment to be the great encouragers along a child’s journey toward adulthood.” -Sharon Jaynes, The Power of a Woman’s Words (Painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau)

 

Excellent Sermon! We need to trust God as little children trust their parents….

 

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The True Woman’s Kingdom: The Home

A beautiful meditation on the sacredness of our homes.

Painting by Arthur John Elsely

From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, L.D., 1893

Who is not struck with beholding your lively faith; your piety full of sweetness and modesty; your generous hospitality; the holiness which reigns within your families; the serenity and innocence of your conversation? (ST. CLEMENT, Pope and Martyr, First Epistle to the Corinthians).

We are about to describe the sacred sphere within which God has appointed that true women should exercise their sway, that most blessed kingdom which it is in their power to create, and over which the Author of every most perfect gift will enable them to reign with an influence as undisputed as it may be boundless for all good.

The home of the Christian family, such as the Creator wills it to be, and such as every true woman can make it, is not only the home of the wealthy and the powerful, but more especially still that of the poor and the lowly.
For, these constitute the immense majority of mankind, and must ever be the chief object of His care who is Father and Lord over all.

From Him spring the laws which regulate all the sweet duties of family life, and the graces which enable the members of a household to make of their abode a paradise.

Hence it is, that when the Author of our nature deigned to become man and to subject Himself to these same laws and duties, He chose not a palace for his abode, nor a life of wealthy ease, while upon earth, but the poor home of an artisan, and the life of toil and hardship which is the lot of the multitude.

It was a most blissful design, worthy of the infinite wisdom and goodness. The human parents He chose were of royal blood, that the highest on earth might learn from Joseph and Mary how holiness can exalt princes to nearness to God, and how the most spotless purity can be the parent of a regenerated world.

And He made all his human virtues bloom in the carpenter’s home at Nazareth, in order that the poorest laborer might know that there is not one sweet virtue practiced by the God-Man, Jesus, which the last and hardest driven of the sons and daughters of toil may not cultivate in their own homes, though never so poor, so naked, or so narrow.

So, dear reader, standing on the shore of the calm and beautiful Lake of Galilee, near which our Lord was reared, let us see his humble home and his home-life reflected therein, as in a most beautiful mirror; and with that divine image compare our own home, and the life with which we study to adorn it.

There is nothing here below more sacred in the eyes of that good God who governs all things, and will judge all men in due time, than THE FAMILY HOME.

All the institutions and ordinances which God has created in civil society or bestowed upon His Church, have for their main purpose to secure the existence, the honor, and the happiness of every home in the community, from that of the sovereign or supreme magistrate to that of the most obscure individual who labors to rear a family.

There is nothing on earth which the Creator and Lord of all things holds more dear than this home, in which a father’s ever- watchful care, untiring labor, and enlightened love aim at creating for his children a little Eden, in which they may grow up to the true perfection of children of God; in which a mother’s unfailing and all-embracing tenderness will be, like the light and warmth of the sun in the heavens, the source of life and joy and strength and all goodness to her dear ones, as well as to all who come within the reach of her influence.

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The Wife as the Friend of the Poor

From True Womanhood by Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1894

So pass we now to that dear function of home-life in the good old Catholic times. And connecting here hospitality toward the poor with almsgiving, let us see what was in that respect the spirit of the ages of faith.

“Padua,” Digby informs us, “had forty-five houses for the entertainment of poor strangers; in Venice all comers were entertained by many Doges; and, above all, say the old Italians, Vicenza was distinguished for its munificence toward needy strangers.

At Venice, the senators who presided over the public administration were so hospitable that the whole city resembled a hotel for guests and a common home for all strangers coming to it.

At Cesena every one used to dispute for the honor of receiving the stranger, till, to obviate such quarrels, the pillar was erected; having a ring for each noble family, so that to whichever the stranger on arriving fastened his horse, to that family was he to repair.

‘Receive kindly whoever comes says St. Francis in his rule,—the spirit of which ruled many castles as well as cloisters—’ all, whether friend or foe, thief or robber.’

We read, indeed, of one proud castle standing near the road, over the portal of which the knight who built it, through the sole motive of vanity, caused lines to be inscribed . . . intending to signify that no one should be received but knights, philosophers, or clerks, or noble ladies.

But the ancient legend states that by a terrible vision this knight was converted, and so delivered from his former error that he resolved thenceforth to entertain rather the poor, effacing that inscription and substituting for it words which signified that the naked and poor, the sick and infirm, and the exile and the pilgrim, would be thenceforth his guests.”

In Brittany a most beautiful custom still exists, in spite of modern legislation, which tends to forbid almsgiving of every kind, and to prevent the poor, even when they have a hovel of their own, from leaving it and making their dire need known to their neighbors.

The day following marriage is “the day of the poor.” They troop from every side to the door of the happy pair, and find tables spread for them in the vast hall of the nobleman, when the bridegroom is such, or on the greensward when he is of inferior degree.

The tables for the men are set on one side, those for the women on the other, the bridegroom waiting on the former, and the bride attending to the comfort of those of her own sex.

When they have had their fill, all dance together, and then take their leave, pouring blessings on their kind entertainers.

Surely such blessings and the heartfelt wishes and prayers of the poor must be more profitable to young people entering on the married state and its doubtful fortunes, than the idle congratulations of a fashionable throng, and the selfish modern custom of hastening from the foot of the altar to the railway train or steamboat, in order to escape from the irksome duty of receiving friends or feasting the poor.

If from Brittany you cross in imagination the broad expanse of sea which separates the westernmost shores of France from Spain, you will find among another proud and ancient race, the Basques, with a faith by no means less deep than that of the Bretons, Catholic notions about poverty and almsgiving which are full of eloquent meaning.

Land at any point of that rock-bound shore, in any one of the fishing towns and villages so famous all through Christian history, and you will see how the few native poor, in a country where nobody is ever seen idle, are treated with a sovereign respect and tenderness.

A recent traveler landing at the little town of Elanchove—which clings with its one street to the almost perpendicular face of a mountain two thousand feet high—saw, as he toiled up that ladder-like street, “a poor old woman all bent double with age standing at a door and asking for alms.

A charming young married woman, her mouth all wreathed with smiles, hastened to come out. I saw her take from her pocket a small brass coin, kiss it, and then give it to the old woman.

The latter took the alms, made with it very devoutly the sign of the cross on herself, and then kissed it in her turn.

Such is the custom throughout the Basque country, and does it not add a touching grace to charity?”

Such noble and touching customs as this are not, however, confined to Biscay or to Northern Spain; they are everywhere characteristic of the Spanish Catholic. The lofty spirit of self-respect which is the soul of the Spaniard, is shown in the reverence with which he treats the poor, whom word or look of his will never humble; but as his faith teaches him to consider Christ himself present in the person of the beggar or of the sick man, his respect for them becomes downright and heartfelt veneration.

It will cheer and enlighten us to gather some of these choice pearls of Spanish custom to deck our own crown of merit withal.

“Cheating and extortion seem incompatible with the Spanish character. Even the poorest peasant who has shown us our way, and who has walked a considerable distance to do so, has invariably refused to receive any thing for his services; yet all are most willing and anxious to help strangers.

The same liberal spirit seems to breathe through everything, and was equally shown at our little posada (inn) at Elche, . . . where a number of maimed, blind, and halt collected daily to receive the broken viands from the table-d’hote, which the mistress distributed to them, and in the delicate blacksmith’s wife opposite, who keeps two lamps burning nightly at her own expense before the little shrine of ‘Our Lady of the Unprotected’ in her balcony.

The temporal works of mercy—to give bread to the hungry, and drink to the thirsty, to take care of the sick, to visit prisoners, and to bury the dead, these are the common duties which none shrink from.”

As I write, a handsome, dark-eyed brown boy in rags, who looks as if he had stepped out of one of Murillo’s pictures, is leaning against the opposite wall in the moonlight, watching a shrine of the Virgin.

It is a picture typical of Spain, ruined and superstitious, but still most beautiful— and so is the cry of the watchman which is ringing through the silent air, ‘Ave, Maria Santissima! It is a quarter to twelve o’clock!'”

Ah, give us back this superstition,—this living faith rather, which built up Spain and Portugal till they were the wonder of Christendom.

The ruin of the Peninsula is coeval, step by step, with the decline of that glorious spirit of “superstition.” But we can pardon this perversion of judgment in a Protestant who has the eye to see and the heart to appreciate so much that is beautiful in Catholic customs.

It is well known that from time immemorial the sovereigns of Spain visit the hospitals nearest to the royal residence once at least every year. The rule is to go there with the entire court.

On entering the sick ward royalty at once goes to the nearest bed and humbly kisses the hand of the poor patient. Then sovereigns and courtiers wait on the sick, performing in their behalf the most menial services, and addressing the sufferers with as much reverence as if they beheld the God of Calvary or the Divine Babe of Bethlehem visibly present in every sick-bed.

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Let us make a home that is warm and welcoming, comfortable and freeing – a place where we can express the beauty of our Faith and nurture relationships with people we love. Let us build a home that reflects our personalities and renews our souls. Today, do something special to show your loved ones you care. Put a tablecloth on the table, light a candle, bake a cake, buy some flowers to grace your table….It doesn’t have to be huge…just something to lighten the burdens of the day and to bring a smile to those who cross your threshold.

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A sermon for you today as you fold laundry, wash dishes, crochet that gift….. 🙂

An amazing victory! A recount of the battle of Belgrade & St John Capistrano….

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