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.

 

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.

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

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Vanity, Vanity, All is Vanity….. True Womanhood, 1894

Tags

bad marriage, fading beauty, selfishness, vanity

This article is a good reminder that, although we may not have the wealth that is talked about, we still must protect our hearts from the vanity of the world, and anything else that wants to eke its way into our hearts and be a stumbling block to being a gracious, loving and lovely Catholic woman! Put down the romance novels, the secular magazines and turn a deaf ear to the vain and worldly television shows. The devil uses these things to get a foothold into our lives and cause havoc wherever he can. We must fight for what is pure and good and holy….and it starts with our minds and what we are putting into it!

It is also a reminder that we must pray and ask God for guidance when choosing a spouse, as this unfortunate man must not have been taught!

How the selfishness and folly of a fashionable woman can make the most magnificent home intolerable.

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

We wish the reader to understand the term “fashionable woman” in the odious or objectionable sense in which it is taken by the sound judgment of people of the world.

With “fashions” in so far as they are unobjectionable and mark the changes in dress to which even the best and least worldly persons in society—men as well as women—have to conform, we do not mean to find fault; this would be foreign to our present purpose and serve only to distract the reader unprofitably.

It will be seen by a glance at what we have to say, that our censure addresses itself to an exceptional class of wealthy women, whose number, unhappily, is increasing daily. The home of the wealthiest, we take it, no matter how splendid outwardly or how magnificent and luxurious within, can be at best but splendid misery, where unselfish and devoted love does not preside over the household, provide for the comfort of every person there, and minister to their happiness by the bright cheerfulness without which the most gorgeous furniture has no luster, and the electric warmth of affection, without which courtly manners are but a lifeless show.

Here is a man who has fought a hard battle with fortune, but has won it at last. Like true soldiers on every field, he has not cared during his long struggle for many comforts, —luxury was beyond his reach. But now that fortune lavishes her favors on him, he wishes to enjoy life in a home that shall be, he hopes, a paradise.

Would that many of our most thrifty and fortunate men, though never so upright and honorable, would remember the old pagan superstition about exposing one’s bliss to the eyes of the gods or flaunting one’s prosperity in the sunlight! The “loudest” wealth is never likely to yield unmixed or lasting felicity; this is better secured by quiet tastes, and the repose enjoyed in the shade and with the select few.

But our fortunate man has built and furnished a home so comfortable that only a companion who can be devoted to him is wanting to complete it. He has been attracted by a handsome face and a name without reproach.

Perhaps, on his part, there has been none of that romantic feeling to which the superficial world gives the name of love; but there is in his choice the hearty purpose of finding one who will love him truly, and to whose happiness he wishes to devote his fortune and himself.

She is a woman, young, indeed, and stainless, but selfish and vain; fond of dress, of admiration, of display, and who is anxious to wed a fortune large enough to permit her to gratify all her frivolous tastes.

Her husband had the ambition to succeed in business,—that ambition is now gratified; but he had other and nobler aims which he had to forego in the hard striving after wealth, and which now possess his soul.

He would fain cultivate his mind; he would indulge his taste for such of the fine arts as make home beautiful and home enjoyments more delightful.

In the wife’s family were several persons noted for their culture and scientific attainments; indeed, an accidental acquaintance with one of these had led to a first introduction to the woman whom he had made his bride, and in whom he hoped to find a perfect sympathy for the intellectual aspirations which served to brighten the future before him.

But the literary tastes and scientific pursuits of her relatives had been this woman’s aversion from girlhood; and her husband was not slow in discovering that there was not one particle of intellectualism in her composition.

Her honeymoon, instead of being spent in traveling, was taken up with an unbroken round of receptions and parties. Her powers of endurance, when the ball-room or the theater were concerned, seemed to be unlimited; but, once in her privacy, she seemed never to think that her husband wished to enjoy her companionship, or that she was expected to converse with him, to play or sing for him, or to make a single effort at being his companion for a single hour.

The afternoons were spent in the park, when her equipage had to outshine the richest, and her toilet was made to eclipse the most fashionable. The evenings, for the most part, were consumed in interminable sittings with her French maid, who decked her mistress out with incomparable art for the ball or the theater.

The bridegroom had hoped that this thirst for display and dissipation would be quenched by the unlimited indulgence of the first year of married life, and that after this necessary infliction he should have the quiet of his home and the sweet company of his young wife. Besides, his health could not stand the serious disturbance caused in his regular habits by late hours and this unnatural changing of day into night and night into day.

The second and third years of his matrimonial life found him disappointed, dispirited, and utterly miserable, with the certainty, moreover, of having bound himself for life to a woman who never could be a companion to him, who had neither head nor heart, nothing, in fine, to recommend her but a pretty face, like a painted mask covering an empty skull.

His beautiful home became intolerable to him; and there is no knowing what desperate or downward course the heart-broken man might have pursued, if he had not been asked by one of his wife’s relatives to accompany him on a scientific expedition to our Western territories.

This offer kindled once more his purest ambition; and, after limiting to a very generous amount the monthly expenditure of his young wife, he was glad to escape from his home and to seek knowledge and fame in the field of science.

She, meanwhile, had but one purpose in life, to dress. At the death of a distinguished fellow-citizen she literally spent three whole days and nights visiting the most fashionable warehouses and closeted with the most reputed milliners, to find out what style of hat and what dress she might wear at the funeral, so as to throw the whole of “Vanity Fair” into the shade.

When the springtide of that heartless beauty had passed away, it was already autumn for her. The complexion which was her only charm had been early ruined by the reckless and needless use of cosmetics, much more even than by her feverish life of enjoyment.

No splendor of dress could conceal the fatal decay, and no depth of paint could mask it. And with the consciousness of this premature decline, her fretfulness and peevishness made her intercourse intolerable, unrelieved as its dullness was by a single mental accomplishment, or a solitary conversational grace.

There are showy trees in our American forests whose brilliant flowers attract the eye in spring; but the flowers themselves are of an offensive odor, and they bear no wholesome fruit, while the wood itself is unfit for any useful purpose.

The husband, on his return from the West, sought relief from the dreariness of his home-life in the speculations of the stock-exchange, heeding little, if at all, the remonstrances of a wife he heartily despised.

When last heard of, his name was mentioned as one of many ruined by some sudden fall in railroad stocks. His house and furniture passed out of his possession, and he was left alone with poverty, obscurity, and a wife without head or heart or even beauty.

“I have seen on earth angelic and heavenly manners, admirable beauties in this world, insomuch that the remembrance charms and afflicts me; for all that I now behold seem but dreams, shadows, and smoke. Love, wisdom, merit, sensibility, and grief, formed, in weeping, a sweeter concert than any other ever heard on earth, and the hearers were so attentive to this harmony, that not a leaf trembled on the branches, such was the sweetness which pervaded all the air around.— Henelm Digby, 1848

“It is strange and amazing that those very women who are so delicate that the mere humming of a bee is sufficient to chase them from the most delightful garden of the world, should have the courage to introduce discord into their houses.”— La Moin, La Devotion Aisee.

“The first duty of the wife is to study to be in every way she can the companion, the help, and the friend of her husband. Indeed on her capacity to be all this, and her earnest fulfillment of this threefold function depends all the happiness of both their lives, as well as the well-being of the whole family.” -Fr. Bernard O’Reilly, The Mirror of True Womanhood, 1893

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

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The Sweet Mistress of Home

HOW THE POOR MAN’S HOME CAN BE MADE RICH AND BRIGHT AND DELIGHTFUL BY A TRUE WOMAN’S INDUSTRY.

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

Lest persons who are not of princely station or noble birth should fancy that the lessons of St. Margaret’s life (see post on St. Margaret, True and Noble Woman) do not concern them, we shall devote this section to showing how easy and necessary it is for the mistress of a poor and lowly home to imitate the sainted Scottish queen.

As it was to a poor and lowly home that the Son of God came, when he began the work of our redemption, as it was in the home of a poor mother that he lived so contentedly during thirty years, so, ever since, his followers have looked upon the dwellings of the poor with inexpressible love and tenderness.

Ah! he is no true lover of Christ who is not drawn to the home of poverty and labor; and the spirit of Christ dwells not in the heart whose sympathies do not go forth to the trials and distresses of those who are, above all others, the friends of Jesus Christ.

But our concern is now with the wife, the daughter, the sister of the laboring man and the poor man; we wish them to understand what royalty of spirit can and ought to be theirs, in order to be the true imitators and true children of that great Mother, who knew how to make the poor home of Joseph so rich, so bright, so blissful, so lovely in the eyes of men and angels.

She, too, was of right royal blood who was the mistress of that little home where Joseph toiled and the Divine Child grew up in all grace and sweetness, like the lily of the valley on its humble stem beneath the shadow of the sheltering oak.

It was the lessons of Mary’s life at Nazareth that Margaret had learned from her royal kinsfolk at the court of Buda, and had practiced so industriously through girlhood and early womanhood, till she became mistress of a court and a kingdom.

One lesson above all others she was trained to practice from childhood— to be forgetful of self, and mindful only of making everyone around her happy.

Woman’s entire existence, in order to be a source of happiness to others as well as to herself, must be one of self-sacrifice.

The first step in this royal pathway to all goodness and greatness is to forget self. Self with its miserable little cares and affections is the root of all the wretchedness we cause to others, and all the misery we endure ourselves.

Every effort we make to forget self, to leave self behind us, and to devote ourselves to the labor of making every person with whom we are bound to live, happy, is rewarded by interior satisfaction and joy.

The supreme effort of goodness is,—not alone to do good to others; that is its first and lower effect,—but to make others good. So with unselfishness: the first step is to forget one’s own comfort in order to seek that of others; the next is to forget one’s own pains and suffering, in order to alleviate those of others, or even to discharge toward others the duties of sisterly or neighborly kindness.

 

“If you accept a man at face value, is there any hope he will change? He may not, and you need to accept this fact. But in a miraculous way, when you accept him at face value, he is more likely to change. The only hope that a man will change is for you to not try to change him. Others may try to teach him and offer suggestions, but the woman he loves must accept him for the man he is, and look to his better side.” – Helen Andelin

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“I have tried to show you , that you cannot become good and strong men and women, that is, men and women of character, unless you have Will-power, and further that you will be of little or no use to your country if you are weak-willed. It has been well said that ‘the only way to be a patriotic American is to do your best to become a perfect man.’ and a perfect man you will not be unless your Will is strong.” (This video was supposed to be on yesterday’s post but I goofed…so don’t think you’re seeing double!)    🙂

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St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland – True and Noble Woman

How Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland, made her home lovely and her kingdom a paradise – how every true woman can imitate Margaret, and make her little home-kingdom sweet and attractive.

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

Malcolm (IV.), King of Scotland . . . shone like a star in the heavens; for, being prevented [supplied beforehand] by God in the benediction of sweetness from his tender years, he had a fervent love for God, and was of such pure conscience and gentleness of manners, that when amongst persons of the world he seemed like a monk, and, indeed, an earthly angel.

This Malcolm was the grandson of St. David, and the great-grandson of St. Margaret, the blessed scion of a line of heroic kings. Let us see how the gentle Margaret transformed, by the irresistible ascendancy of her womanly virtues, her rude, worldly-minded, and warlike husband into a saint, and all Scotland into a school of gentleness and piety. Her example will teach most eloquently how every true-hearted woman can make all hearts yield to the influence of her goodness, and her own life be like a reservoir of living waters in a thirsty land for many a generation after her day.

Margaret, born in exile, reared in Buda in Hungary beneath the eyes of its apostolic king, St. Stephen (997-1038), returned to England in her early girlhood only to become an orphan, and to have to fly for dear life with her sister and brother across the seas.

A storm providentially cast them on the shore of Scotland, where they found a refuge in the court of Malcolm III., or Malcolm Canmore (Greathead). Malcolm had himself tasted the bitterness of exile, having seven years before been obliged to fly to England after the murder of his father by Macbeth.

St. Edward the Confessor, Margaret’s grand-uncle, had warmly befriended the fugitive and enabled him to recover his own. So the generous Malcolm was but too happy to repay to the helpless descendants of Alfred the Great the debt of gratitude thus contracted.

Margaret was then in her twenty-fourth year, and had been during their long orphanhood a second mother to her sister, Christina, and her brother, the chivalrous Edgar Atheling. Her wonderful beauty and her angelic modesty, much more than her royal birth and the accomplishments due to the careful education she had received, drew on her the admiration of the untutored Scottish nobles and their warlike king. He was attracted by the manifold graces of the royal maiden; for hers were the supernatural virtues which he had learned to worship in Edward the Confessor, and which shone with a softened and gentler charm in the lovely exile.

She became, a few months after her arrival in the court of Dunfermline, its mistress and the queen of all Scotland, to the unbounded delight of every class in the community.

It was a rude age, in a country which a long series of invasions by the Northmen, frequent wars with England, and perpetual feuds between the native clans, had kept half-uncivilized in spite of its Christianity.

Providence had reserved for a woman, for this young queen, whose soul had been so chastened and tempered by a whole life of trial, to complete the work begun by St. Columba and his brethren five centuries before that.

Let a woman’s hand trace the first outlines of the glorious picture of piety, charity, and patriotism offered in this queenly life of twenty-three years on the throne.

“Margaret was a true daughter of Alfred, and the traditions of the Alfred of Hungary (St. Stephen) were fresh upon her, and, instead of sitting down to cower alarmed amid the turmoils round her, she set herself to conquer the evils in her own feminine way, by the performance of her queenly duties.

She was happy in her husband: Malcolm revered her saintly purity even more than he loved her sweet, sunny, cheerful manner, or admired her surpassing loveliness of person. “He looked on her as something too precious and tender for his wild, rugged court, and attended to her slightest bidding with reverence, kissing her holy books, which he could not read, and interpreting her Saxon-spoken advice to his rude Celts.”

She even made him help her to wash the feet of the poor, and aid her in disgusting offices to the diseased, and his royal treasury was open to her to take all that she desired for alms.

Sometimes she would pretend to take it by stealth, and Malcolm would catch her by her wrists and carry her to her confessor to ask if she was not a little thief who deserved to be well punished. In his turn he would steal away her books, and bring them back after a time gilt and adorned with beautiful illuminations.

We have not, in order to form an estimate of the incredible amount of good done by this extraordinary woman, to depend upon legends or disjointed historical fragments. Her confessor himself, a monk of Durham called Theodoric or Thierry, composed a history of this most admirable and most imitable life.

The Scottish chieftains who were least inclined to reform their lives or refine their manners in emulation of Malcolm Canmore, could not resist the influence which drew them to Dunfermline, were it only to enjoy the privilege of looking upon a beauty which appeared to them unearthly, of being addressed by their royal mistress with a grace that borrowed more of its charm from piety than from courtesy, and of bearing with them to their homes some trifling present, which borrowed infinite value in their eyes from the angelic goodness of the giver.” – Charlotte Mary Yonge, “Cameos from English History,” vol. i., p. 98.

She effected in the thoughts, the sentiments, the manners, and the morals of these hitherto untamed and unruly nobles, not a little of the same change which had taken place in the mind and heart and conduct of the king; and thus the blessed influence of her virtue and gentleness spread from above downward, through every class, till the lowliest peasants and the remotest Highland glens were made to feel the refining and elevating effects of Margaret’s rule and motherly solicitude.

The court of Malcolm—from the boisterous meeting-place of turbulent and intemperate warriors that it had been for centuries—became the image of the court of Buda, where St. Stephen made Grecian culture and Magyar magnificence to reign side by side, blended and sanctified by the cross.

Not one of them (her nobles) ventured to use a profane word or make an unseemly jest before her. They had a rude, ungodly practice of starting away from table without waiting for grace, and this the gentle queen reformed by sending, as an especial gift from herself, a cup of wine to all who remained.

In after times, the last cup was called, after her, St. Margaret’s cup, or the grace-cup.

To improve the manners of the ladies, she gathered round her a number of young girls, whom she brought up under her own eye, and she used to sit in the midst of them, embroidering rich vestments for the service of the Church, and permitting cheerful talk with the nobles whom she admitted, all men of whose character she had a good opinion.

From these young ladies she exacted that their homes should, in turn, become so many centers of zeal for the good of others; and thus every home in Scotland was benefited by the examples and teachings of the queen.

But above all her other qualities shone her tender love for the poor and the sick. She founded hospitals and asylums for them; and among her nobles, her most especial friends and favorites were such as distinguished themselves by their active charities.

Fully aware that true religion is the parent and nurse of that great chief virtue, she bent herself, from the first year of her reign, to the task of making it flourish wherever the misfortunes of the times had caused it to languish, and to plant it by serious missionary labors wherever the missionaries had not penetrated or had only had an imperfect success.

She caused councils to be convened, encouraged the bishops and abbots to enact the most salutary decrees, supporting them with the whole force of the royal authority; obtained the erection of new episcopal sees, did away with every abuse condemned by the Supreme Pontiff, insisted on cordial and unqualified submission to his teaching; repaired churches and monasteries in decay, and built new ones in every place where they were most needed or promised to be most useful, and, above all, spared no effort and no expense to give to Scotland a thoroughly educated, exemplary, and devoted clergy.

While thus proving herself to be a true mother to her adopted people, she was not unmindful of her English origin or of the sufferings and needs of her countrymen. The wars between the two kingdoms which she was powerless to prevent, left many English captives in Scottish prisons. But her generosity and her influence found means to alleviate their condition and to hasten their ransom.

She founded a hospital for sick and infirm prisoners, where they were tenderly cared for till they obtained their freedom; and for this purpose, she spared not her own purse, nor warm appeals to the generosity of the Scottish captors and the affection of the prisoners’ English relatives.

Thus the veneration and love felt for Margaret in Scotland spread beyond its borders to every part of England; and from the nearest counties emigrants flocked across the boundary to settle in the Lowlands, and enjoy there the security and other manifold blessings bestowed on their subjects by Malcolm Canmore and his angelic queen.

There are other inestimable benefits for which Scotland has always acknowledged herself indebted to St. Margaret: the foundation of her great schools of learning, the establishment of a large and flourishing commerce with continental Europe, the encouragement of the liberal and the industrial arts, and the enactment of wise and enlightened laws protecting the liberties and fostering the best interests of the people.

Of the nine children with whom her union was blessed, one, Ethelred, died in infancy, the eldest, Edward, was slain with his father before Alnwick Castle in 1093; of the others, three sons, Edmund, Edgar, and David, reigned successively on the throne of Scotland, continuing the Golden Age inaugurated by their parents: of her two daughters, Matilda or Maud became the wife of Henry I of England, and was her mother’s living image, and Edith was married to Eustace, Count of Boulogne, becoming in her turn the mother of her people.

Surely it was a beautiful life, this of the tempest-tossed royal child, born in exile far away from the land of her fathers, and then cast by the storm on the Scottish coast, like a treasure beyond all price to be cherished by king and people, and to live in the hearts of all succeeding generations.

With the mirror of this most admirable life before us, let us contemplate how every woman can in like manner make of her home a paradise, and be the loved and worshiped queen of the little kingdom which no one can take from her.

“You must have the courage and farsightedness to face all of your problems and must ask help from Him who is the source of all wisdom in the greatest and most worthy career a woman can espouse: being a real mother. The greatest joy you can find is in one day discovering that your daughters are as good as they are beautiful and your sons as pure as they are stalwart.”
Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook

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SaveA must-read for the married and those considering marriage! This guidebook to finding a happy marriage, keeping a happy marriage, and raising happy children has been out of print for over 50 years…until now! From the master of the spiritual life, Raoul Plus, S.J., it contains loads of practical and spiritual advice on family life. Have you been looking for a handbook on marriage and raising children that is based on truth? You’ve found it!

The saints assure us that simplicity is the virtue most likely to draw us closer to God and make us more like Him.

No wonder Jesus praised the little children and the pure of heart! In them, He recognized the goodness that arises from an untroubled simplicity of life, a simplicity which in the saints is completely focused on its true center, God.

That’s easy to know, simple to say, but hard to achieve.

For our lives are complicated and our personalities too. (We even make our prayers and devotions more complicated than they need be!)

In these pages, Fr. Raoul Plus provides a remedy for the even the most tangled lives.

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Our Mother Will Teach Us

1899 — by Helen Allingham

From True Womanhood, Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, 1897

It has been the constant belief and teaching of Christian ages that the lives of Joseph and Mary consumed in the voluntary poverty, lowliness, and toil of their condition, were ennobled, elevated, sanctified, and made most precious before God by being after the example of the Divine Model before them devoted to God alone, and animated by the one sole thought and purpose of pleasing and glorifying Him by perfect conformity to His holy will.

The Mother who ruled in this most blessed home, beheld in the Divine Babe confided to her, the Incarnate Son of God walking before her in the true way of holiness, and, like him, she applied herself to set the Eternal Father constantly before her eyes, studying to make every thought and aim and word and action most pleasing to that Infinite Perfection.

When Christ had begun his public life, when the home at Nazareth was broken up, and Mary had taken up her abode with her kinsfolk at Capharnaum, the light of the Father’s countenance, in which she had learned to live, accompanied her, and the grace of her Son’s example continued to surround her like a living atmosphere.

After the terrible scenes of Calvary and the glories of the ascension, she brought with her to the home which St. John and his mother, Mary Salome, so lovingly offered her, the image of her Crucified Love, as the one great mirror in which she could behold the new heights of sanctity and self-sacrifice which she was called on to tread with him.

Since her day who was Mother of our Head, Mother of the Church which she labored to beget and to form, and Mother of us all since she quitted her home on earth for heaven the image of the Crucified God has ever been the chief ornament, the principal light, and the great Book of Life in every true Christian home.

Not one saintly mother among the millions who have trained sons and daughters, ay, and husbands and dependents, to be the true followers of Christ, his apostles and his martyrs, when need was but always his faithful servants and imitators; who did not read in the ever open page of her crucifix, how she might best lead a life of self-sacrifice, and best induce her dear ones to be ” crucified to the world.”

But let no one fancy that, in placing before her this holy model-home of the ever-blessed Mother of God, it is the intention of the writer to urge any one who chances to read these pages to expect to equal in self-sacrifice either herself or her Divine Son.

No: the aim of the instruction here given is to encourage all who look into this mirror to adorn their homes with some of the heavenly flowers which bloomed in Nazareth, to bring to the performance of their daily duties in their own appointed sphere, that lofty spirit of unselfish devotion to God which will make every thing they do most precious in his sight, transform the poorest, narrowest, most cheerless home into a bright temple filled with the light of God’s presence, blessed and protected by God’s visiting angels, and fragrant with the odor of paradise.

It is merely sought to open to the darkened eyes visions of a world which will enable the burdened soul to bear patiently and joyously the load of present ills; to fire the spirit of the careworn and the despairing with an energy which will enable them to take up the inevitable cross and follow Mary and her Son up to heights where rest is certain and the promised glory unfading.

No, you shall not be asked to quit your home, or exchange your occupations, or add one single particle to the burden of your toil, your care, or your suffering; but she who is the dear Mother of us all will teach you by the silent voice of her example, how to bring the light of heaven down into your home, the generosity of the children of God into the discharge of your every occupation, and the sweet spirit of Christ to ennoble your toil, to brighten your care and your suffering.

Here’s to hoping all First Holy Communions will be taking place this spring…with much celebration!

“The objection that a child should wait until he can understand what he’s doing when he receives Holy Communion is no objection at all. He understands as well at seven as at seventy. The Holy Eucharist is a mystery as profound and unfathomable as the Trinity. One does not understand how Christ can assume the form of bread and wine. One believes.” -Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children http://amzn.to/2qKqcTO (afflink)

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Martinez shows how you can make better sense of your life once you realize that God has actually been closest to you when He seemed farthest away; and once you learn why He often speaks to you only in silence. Best of all, Martinez teaches you the secret of true happiness, which you can achieve even amid the troubles that are inescapable elements of every human life. With sober realism and simple faith, this book will show you how to discover — and then to take refuge in — the comfort our Lord offers you, even when He seems to sleep.

Drawing on the wealth of the Church’s living tradition, Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC, calls on all of us to turn to St. Joseph, entrust ourselves, our Church, and our world to our spiritual father’s loving care, and then watch for wonders when the Universal Patron of the Church opens the floodgates of Heaven to pour out graces into our lives today. Definitely a book for our time, Consecration to St. Joseph is dedicated to meeting the challenges of the present moment and restoring order to our Church and our world, all through the potent paternal intercession and care of St. Joseph. This book has everything you need to take your love and devotion to St. Joseph to a whole different level: a thorough program of consecration to St. Joseph; information on the 10 wonders of St. Joseph; and prayers and devotions to St. Joseph. Accessible, motivating, this book will kick off a great movement of consecration to our spiritual father and change the world.

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The Home-Pleasures Which are a Safeguard – True Womanhood

Painting by Gregory Frank Harris

THE VANITY WHICH LEADS TO DISHONOR

Would it not be a most ungracious act to darken these pages with a description, though never so brief and lightly shaded, of the home, whether of rich or poor, ruined or made desolate by infidelity?

Better far, so our readers will think with us, to paint the heroic constancy and preternatural joys of the faithful wife—faithful even while “the hungry fire with its caverns of burning light” was trying and searching every corner of her heart.

Only let a priestly hand add a brief warning and as brief an exhortation.

If it be most true, and the voice of experience attests that it is, that the danger for the womanly heart tried to its utmost by marital unworthiness, lies in the need of sympathy; so, in happy homes, where there exists perfect love and neither unsuitability nor disappointment, ruin comes from vanity and from the appetite for display and enjoyment.

SAFEGUARD TO HONOR

Against this vanity there is no remedy, apart always from the grace of the sacraments and these aids which God may vouchsafe to some souls; there is no remedy, we say, but in a wife’s never seeking to please any other eye than that of her husband, or valuing any praise on dress, personal appearance, and accomplishment of any kind, but what falls from his dear lips, or caring for any amusement that is not shared by him, or in wishing to have any theater for the display of any gift natural or acquired, how transcendent soever, save the bosom of one’s own family.

We have heard of women, most gifted and most accomplished, who, blessed with a large family, and burdened with the care of a numerous household, made it a point of conscience to dress every day of their lives, even in extreme old age, with the greatest care, in order to please their husbands, and give them thereby an outward proof of undiminished love; and to please their children, by ever setting them an example worthy of imitation. With these admirable wives and mothers it had been a life-long study how to make their own gifts and accomplishments contribute daily to the delight of the family circle.

Intellectual and artistic culture, music and song, and the charming illusions of private dramatic entertainments, all was made to serve the one great purpose of rendering home the sweetest, brightest, dearest spot of earth.

THE LOVE OF DISPLAY WHICH KNOWS NOT PERIL

One need not fear to display to the utmost within the home sanctuary and for the delights of one’s own dearest, every best gift of God; the praise which comes from these dear lips is not that which intoxicates dangerously; the vanity which such praise may create is not that which is to be dreaded by mother or by daughter; and the delicious satisfaction enjoyed both by the delight a wife and mother gives, and by that which she receives in return, is not one which the good angels may look on with displeasure.

On the contrary, the love of praise and display, which is so common and so natural in a certain measure, will find its lawful and most healthful satisfaction in these home-pleasures and celebrations; in these lie the antidote or preservative against the vanity fraught with peril.

Home-life, home-pleasures, home-virtues, in this respect, as in so many others, are the great means Providence employs, and religion counsels, to prevent or to counteract the tendencies toward finding one’s only or chief distractions and enjoyments outside of home and the family circle.

There are men who only sleep at home, and spend the remainder of their time outside of it. They cannot be said to have a home, or to have any conception of what a home is or could be.

If they are blessed with wives able and anxious to make their homes a paradise for them, what shall we say of their folly or their guilt?

And who will pity them, if the home thus forsaken and absolutely neglected by its appointed guardian should become a prey to the Tempter?

But of the women who only make their homes a brief breathing or resting-place in their unbroken and eternal round of vanity and dissipation, we need only say what everybody sees,—that the curse is upon them, and that shame is ever flitting round their homes,—like these legendary evil spirits that haunt the precincts of families doomed to perdition.

To the nobility of true womanly natures we need not recommend to be watchful over the sanctity of the homes in which they are the priestesses of the family religion, the jealous guardians and loving teachers of the Ancestral Faith, and the custodians of that treasure,—dearer and more precious to every home where God is feared and men’s good opinion is valued than royal power or fabulous wealth,—the peerless jewel, Honor.

Penal rosaries and crucifixes have a wonderful story behind them. They were used during the times when religious objects were forbidden and it was illegal to be Catholic. Being caught with a rosary could mean imprisonment or worse. A penal rosary is a single decade with the crucifix on one end and, oftentimes, a ring on the other. When praying the penal rosary you would start with the ring on your thumb and the beads and crucifix of the rosary in your sleeve, as you moved on to the next decade you moved the ring to your next finger and so on and so forth. This allowed people to pray the rosary without the fear of being detected. Available here.

A very valuable book for the guys plucked out of the past and reprinted. It was written in 1894 by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly and the words on the pages will stir the hearts of the men to rise to virtue and chivalry…. Beautifully and eloquently written!

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

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Duties of the Wife as the Dispenser of the Home Treasures

We are not perfect in our dispensing of the home treasures. And we need to allow ourselves the grace to admit that and ask Our Lady to supply for our insufficiency. At the same time, we are to strive, every day, to overcome our difficulties and to never give up.

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

Who shall find a valiant (brave-hearted) woman? The heart of her husband trusteth in her. . . She hath sought wool and flax, and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands. . . She hath tasted and seen that her traffic is good: her lamp shall not be put out in the night. . . She hath opened her hand to the needy, and stretched out her hands to the poor. She shall not fear for her house in the cold of snow. — Proverbs xxxi.

Nothing so animates the head of a family to honorable exertion as the certainty, that his wife bestows her utmost care in providing for the comfort of his home, in dispensing wisely the store which he places at her disposal; making it her rule to be just to him by never exceeding his means when she cannot increase them by her industry, in being just to her children by supplying them with becoming raiment, food, and instruction, just to her servants, whom she treats with a motherly tenderness which never condescends to familiarity; — and just to God’s poor, whose claims she holds to be most sacred.

But let us proceed understandingly. The first care of the wife is to establish discipline and order; — discipline, without which there may be much noise and agitation, but no work done; — and order, because where there is confusion everything is out of place, or done out of its proper time.

To have discipline, — where there are children and servants, — the mistress must have authority, and she must assert and establish her authority by being both firm and calm, and giving everyone to understand that she means what she says, and that what she says must be done.

Order means that every work must be done in its proper time, and everything in the house be put in its proper place.

Order means economy both of time and of labor. For where every occupation has its own appointed time, the household duties are sure to be attended to and to be fulfilled with singular ease and pleasure.

If this order and economy of time are necessary in large households, it is still more so in the home of the poor man, where everything has to be done single-handed by the wife. There are poor households,—those of the daily laborer, the poor tradesman,—where the wife, with a large family of children to care for, will quietly get through an amount of work of different kinds that would seem to require the joint energy of several persons.

Go into these bright and orderly homes, where the housewife rests not from early dawn till long after sunset of the longest day, and see the cleanliness, the tidiness, the calm and the contentment that fill the place like an atmosphere!

Of course there will be comfort for all where there is such order. For there can be comfort with poverty, or at least with little, though never with want.

There will be comfort for the husband when he returns to that bright, warm, pleasant hearth, where the deep love of his companion fills the house with a spiritual fragrance more pleasant than all the flowers of spring; there will be comfort at the simple meal set on the board shining with cleanliness; and there will be comfort in the sweet conversation in which the outside world is forgotten, in the joy of being all in all to each other; and there will be bliss in the night’s rest won by hard and hearty toil, and undisturbed by peevish ambition or by the dreams of a spirit at war with God or the neighbor.

There will be loveliness, too, in the home where true love causes order and comfort to reign. For the poorest room can be made lovely by a woman’s cunning hand.

She can have flowers at her window, and flowers on her mantel and her table. And the curtains of windows and beds may be beautified by some simple ornament devised by a woman’s taste and executed in spare moments by the hand of even the busiest.

There is not one among the readers of this book but has seen such homes—albeit lowly, narrow, and poor in the literal sense—in which this order, comfort, and loveliness gave the beholder the evidence of a womanly spirit that might have graced a palace.

 

“Modern mothers have been relying on psychology books to interpret child behavior for so long now that if all the psychology books were burned to a crisp, few mothers could relax with the conviction that God’s love, the maternal instinct, and divine grace could take their place. What we all — little or big — want is God; if we do not realize it, however, we choose many ignoble things in His place. And if we want to teach children to be good with a goodness that’s lasting, we must teach them to be good for the love of God.”
Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children, 1954 http://amzn.to/2qCq6Md (afflink)

 

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A very valuable book for the guys plucked out of the past and reprinted. It was written in 1894 by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly and the words on the pages will stir the hearts of the men to rise to virtue and chivalry…. Beautifully and eloquently written!

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…

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

 

Nuptial Blessing/Dark and Cheerless Homes – True Womanhood

Mike and Jeanette (daughter)

from True Womanhood – Rev. Bernard O’Reilly

We have just spoken of the Divine assistance, which never fails the soul striving earnestly to fulfill important duties and to do all the good she can.

Think of the contract God entered into with you when you entered into the married state and received at the hands of the Church the nuptial blessing.

You were told that the matrimonial union had its model in the union of Christ with his Church, that his great love for her, which brought Him to the cross, and binds Him to be present on our altars to the end of time, is the type of the great and self-devoted love which husband and wife should ever have for each other.

Did you ever reflect that when you put your hand in your husband’s hand before the Church, giving him your heart and your life thenceforward, that God, who is ever by the side of those who believe and trust in Him, promised you a mighty wealth of grace to be all your own till death!

It enables you to love your husband more and more daily, with a deeper and a holier love, to make your own life like that of the Church towards her Crucified Love, one perpetual act of devotion and self-sacrifice – giving him in his every need your own strong love to sustain, and comfort, and strengthen him, taking up his cross courageously, and cheering him to labor and to suffer, because you both know, or ought to know, that God is ever with you.

Were your lot cast and your home built in a tree-less plain amid a dry and barren country, how you would thank the man who would dig for you at your very door a well so deep and so unfailing that its cool and sweet waters would ever flow forth, winter and summer, for yourself and your dear ones!

Father VanderPutten and Father Lillard

And yet the great graces attached by Christ to the worthy reception of the divine sacrament of matrimony, from within your home, wherever you chance to be, a well of water for the soul’s health and strength so divinely prepared, that no length of time can exhaust it.
Why do you not drink of the waters of your own well?

We have just said how much the true woman has it in her power to do — no matter how poor her home or hard her husband’s lot — if she only knew both the extent of her power to cheer his lot and the sacredness of the obligation which binds her to do it. We now appeal to the experience and generosity of the wife, mother, and sister of the laboring man.
There was a rapid sketch previously of the comforts and delights of the poor hard-working man’s home, when love and devotion were toiling to prepare a sweet rest for him when the day’s work was ended.

DARK AND CHEERLESS HOMES

But have we seriously thought of the number of homes made dark, and cheerless, and desolate, and hateful to the husband, the brother, the son, and the daughter, too, by the absence of that bright spirit of love, which works at home from dawn till sunset, to have everything warm and pleasant and restful for the weary ones coming back after their eight and ten hours of labor?

If the devoted, God-fearing, sweet-tempered woman is rewarded by seeing her dear ones unhappy when kept away from the bright home she makes for them, and most happy when seated near the warm hearth and charmed with her smile and her voice, it is no less certain that the selfish, untidy, ill-tempered, and bitter-tongued woman succeeds in making home unbearable for everyone who is dependent on her.

Why is it that so many men — thrifty, hard-working, made to be and disposed to be devoted husbands and exemplary fathers — are driven at the end of their day of toil to find — not rest, indeed, nor recreation — in the neighbor’s house — but some distraction from the thought of their own comfortless home, some rest from the din and lash of the ceaseless tongue which is their torment?

Why are so many, at length, driven to the tavern to seek forgetfulness in intoxication? Is it not because woman forgets to be loving and devoted and ingenious in the sweet arts of making her fire burn brighter on the hearth, and her own person more attractive to her dear ones by some little ornament put on to welcome the laborers at evening, and her humble meal made more appetizing by some of the many cheap seasonings that the poorest can buy, and her whole house shining with cleanliness, and filled with the sweet music of her own delighted tones?

Ah! love has stores from which can be borrowed without stint, and at little cost, kind words and warm smiles and a thousand other things which go straight to the heart thirsting for the endearments, the joys, and the repose of home.

Why will you not be a queen in your own little kingdom, wife, mother, sister, and make all hearts subject to you by this ascendancy of your goodness and devotion.
There are worse consequences still — especially in cities and manufacturing towns — which are caused by the want of the wifely and motherly qualities described above.

Young people of both sexes who are forced — perhaps from early boyhood or girlhood — to seek for employment outside of their home, feel an imperative need of the rest and comfort and love of their own fireside, when the end of their long day of toil has come.

Blessed is the mother who knows how to make their home bright and warm for them! But what shall we say of her who cares not to do so? Or who makes her home intolerable to her dear ones?

This much is certain, that in our overcrowded cities, if not elsewhere, thousands upon thousands of hard-working young people are driven into dangerous company and corrupting amusements because they have no home to love, to be proud of, in which to find the repose of heart and body so needful for their age especially.

A mother holds her baby in her arms, looks up to God, and knows that she, by months of suffering and patience, has co-operated with Him in making and bringing into the world a little body housing a priceless soul. A father stands above his new-born son resting in the arms of his wife, and knows as he picks him up and weighs him tenderly that he has shared with God the Father His very fatherhood; for this mite of humanity, immortal in destiny, is truly his son. Mother and father together have co-operated with God in the astonishing creation of a human being. -Fr. Daniel A. Lord, 1950’s

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Called by her people Isabella la Catolica, she was by any standard one of the greatest women of all history. A saint in her own right, she married Ferdinand of Aragon, and they forged modern Spain, cast out the Moslems, discovered the New World by backing Columbus, and established a powerful central government in Spain. This story is so thrilling it reads like a novel. Makes history really come alive. Highly readable and truly great in every respect!
Father weaves a tapestry of the Church’s teaching on the unity of the members of Christ’s Mystical Body using profound and picturesque meditations on the seven sorrows of the Blessed Mother:
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A Companion to Her Husband – True Womanhood, 1877

The more we read this kind of inspiration, the more it sinks in just how much power we have in the home….and how much we must pray to have a right spirit within those four walls.

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

ANGELS GUARD THE CATHOLIC HOME

It is for every father, who is by the divine law of nature, king in his own family, to consider well the truth here presented to him, and to conceive of his own little kingdom the pure and lofty notion, which is that of the divine mind as well as the mind of the Church.

When a father, though never so poor, firmly believes that his little home and his hearth-stone are a thing so precious and so holy that God will have “His angel keep, cherish, protect, visit, and defend it, and all who dwell therein,” he, too, will lift up his eyes and his heart to that Father over all and most loving Master, and exhort himself daily and hourly to walk before Him and be perfect.”

But it is to his companion,—the queen of that little kingdom, the wife,—that it is most necessary to have high and holy thoughts about the sacredness of her charge, the obligations incumbent on her, the incalculable good which she can do, and the many powerful helps toward its accomplishment that the All-Wise and Ever-Present is sure to multiply under her hand.

To every true man and woman now living there is no being on earth looked up to with so pure, so deep, so grateful, so lasting a love, as a mother.

Let us look at our mother, then, in that dear and holy relation of wife which she bears to him who was for us in childhood the representative of the God “of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named.”

WOMAN’S DUTIES AS WIFE

The first duty of the wife is to study to be in every way she can the companion, the help, and the friend of her husband.

Indeed on her capacity to be all this, and her earnest fulfillment of this threefold function depends all the happiness of both .their lives, as well as the well-being of the whole family.

Hence the obligation which is incumbent on parents providing for the establishment of their children, — to see to it, so far as is possible, that the person chosen to be a wife in the new home should be a true companion for their son, a true helpmate in all his toil, and a faithful friend through all the changes of fortune.

SHE OUGHT TO BE A COMPANION TO HER HUSBAND

One half of the unhappiness of married life comes from the fact that the wife is either unfitted or unwilling to be a true companion to her husband. This companionship requires that she should be suited by her qualities of mind and heart and temper to enter into her husband’s thoughts and tastes and amusements, so as to make him find in her company and conversation a perfect contentment and delight.

Persons who are perfectly companionable never weary of each other,—indeed, they are never perfectly happy while away from each other;—they enter into each other’s thoughts, reflect (and increase by the reflection) the light in each other’s mind; cultivate the same tastes, pursue the same ideals, and complete each other in the interchange of original or acquired knowledge.

But there is more than that in the companionship of the true wife. She studies to make herself agreeable, delightful, and even indispensable to him who is her choice among all men.

If true love be in her heart, it will suggest to her, day by day, a thousand new devices for charming the leisure of her husband.

Woman has been endowed by the Creator with a marvelous fertility of resource in this respect: it is an unlimited power, productive of infinite good when used for a holy purpose and within her own kingdom; but productive of infinite evil when employed in opposition to the design of the Giver, or allowed to lie idle when it should be used to promote the sacred ends of domestic felicity.

There are wives who will study certain languages, sciences, arts, or accomplishments, in order to make themselves the companions of the men they love, and thus be able to converse with them on the things they love most, or to charm the hours of home repose by music and song.

The writer of these lines remembers, that, while a young priest in Quebec, upward of thirty years ago, he was much struck by seeing a young lady of one of the best families there, applying herself assiduously to study the sign-language of the deaf-mutes in order to converse easily with her husband—a wealthy young merchant, thoroughly trained himself in the admirable Deaf and Dumb Institution of his native city.

They were devoted to each other, and the young wife’s earnestness in making herself companionable to her husband, must have brought many a blessing on the home in which the writer beheld them so rapt in each other, so virtuous, and so full of bright hope !

It must not be concluded from this, that a woman who applies herself to acquire knowledge for the purpose of being more of a companion to her husband, should thoroughly master either a language, a science, or an art. . . .

In the case of the young wife just mentioned, a thorough familiarity with the language of signs was indispensable as a means of easy conversation with her husband.

But this is evidently an exceptional case;—and is only mentioned to show what difficulties love will overcome to be helpful or agreeable to its companion.

The word helpful, just used, will furnish to every wife the true measure of the knowledge she may be prompted to acquire.

Her husband has to know perfectly whatever he knows, because his success as a professional man or a business man depends on this thorough knowledge, whereas his wife only acquires to please and to help her companion.

But there are other things beside this scientific, literary, or artistic knowledge, which may be more needful to a wife, if she would make herself of all earthly beings the most delightful and necessary companion to her husband.

She must study him,—his needs, his moods, his weak as well as his strong points,—and know how to make him forget himself when he is moody and selfish, and bring out every joyous side of his nature when he is prone to sadness.

God, who has made the soul both of man and of woman, and who has united them in the duties and burdens of home-life, wills that they should complete each other.

Man has bodily strength, because it is his duty to labor for the home and protect it; he has also certain mental and moral qualities which woman does not need, and which fit him for the battle of life and his continual struggle with the crowd.

But she has, on her part, far more of fortitude, of that power to bear and to forbear, to suffer silently and uncomplainingly herself while ministering with aching heart and head to the comfort, the cheerfulness, the happiness of all around her.

At any rate, she has by nature the power, the art, and the disposition to please, to soothe, to charm, and to captivate.

It is a wonderful power; and we see daily women exerting it in an evil way and for purposes that God cannot bless, and that every right conscience must condemn.

Why will not women who are truly good, or who sincerely strive to be so, not make it the chief study of their lives to find out and acquire the sovereign art of making their influence as healthful, as cheering, as blissful as the sunlight and the warmth are to their homes ?

Let us give an example of what is meant here—and this illustration will suggest, of itself, many other applications.

We all know—a mother more than anyone else—what a potent spell praise is in making children master whatever they are learning, and, what is far more difficult, acquire a mastery over themselves, both in repressing wrong inclinations and in gaining the habits of the noblest virtues.

A word of praise from a mother will stir the heart of every well-born child—and few children are ill-born, that is, with radically bad dispositions—to the most extraordinary exertions, and fill the whole soul with delight, when that word is sweetly spoken of successful efforts made.

We say nothing here of the stimulus which praise from the queen of the home gives to the zeal and conscientious labors of servants. We are concerned with the master of the home. Do you  not know that all men, even old men, even the proudest and coldest men, are only great children, who thirst for praise from a wife, a mother, or a sister’s lips?

There are men —and they are the noblest, the most high-souled—who care but little, if anything, for the praise or censure of the crowd, even of the learned or titled crowd; but their heart is stirred through all its depths by one sweet word from the lips of mother, sister, or wife.

Why, O women, are you so niggard of a money which you can bestow without making yourselves the poorer, and which your dear ones prize above gold and gems?

Give generously, but discerningly, what is held so dear as coming from you, and which will only encourage those you love above all the world to strive to-morrow for still higher excellence, and look forward to still sweeter praise.

“We’re terribly in danger all the time of taking God’s goodness too much for granted; of bouncing up to Communion as if it were the most natural thing in the world, instead of being a supernatural thing belonging to another world.” – Msgr. Ronald Knox, 1948

Oct

The Agony in the Garden

Suffering did not come upon Christ unawares. In a very real sense, it had been on God’s mind from all eternity. The Virgin Mary had conceived a Victim. John held him as the meek Lamb of God, destined for slaughter.

Jesus himself spoke often of His death; invited others to do what He was about to do – “take up the Cross”; then deliberately went up to Jerusalem to his earthly doom.

But when that long-awaited suffering was only a sunrise away, Jesus Christ fell upon His face and bled at the thought of pain and asked that, if it were possible, the chalice be withheld.

To tremble at pain is Christlike. Suffering is not a good thing that merely appears evil. It is an evil, which human nature shrinks from – and Grace can sanctify.

NEW ITEMS at Meadows of Grace!

Handcrafted Graceful Religious Cabochon Pendants!

This graceful necklace can be worn every day as a reminder of your devotion to the Blessed Mother. Get it blessed and you can use it also as a sacramental.

 

A very valuable book for the guys plucked out of the past and reprinted. It was written in 1894 by Fr. Bernard O’Reilly and the words on the pages will stir the hearts of the men to rise to virtue and chivalry…. Beautifully and eloquently written!

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

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