A Holy House – True Womanhood

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

Tags

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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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.

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“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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The Wife, The Dispenser of Hospitality

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

To the wife’s stewardship belongs also the discharge of a most important, not to say most sacred duty—that of hospitality. It is one of the chief functions of the divine virtue of charity.

Of its nature, its necessity, and its importance we do not wish to discourse here. Few are the homes and the hearts to which hospitality is a stranger. Those to which this book may reach will easily understand what the word means without either definition or description. We can, therefore, convey our instruction by the simplest method. Whoever is received into your home as a guest—precisely because he is your guest—forget everything else to make his stay delightful.

It matters little whether persons thus hospitably received may or may not appreciate your generosity, your cordiality, and that true warmth of a welcome like yours, inspired by Christian motives much more than by worldly reasons; it matters much for you that none should ever enter your home without finding it a true Christian home, or should leave it without taking away with them the pleasant memory of their stay and a grateful recollection of you and yours.

Doubtless some will be found whom no courtesy, no kindness, no warmth of hospitality can change from what they are,—little-minded, narrow-hearted, selfish, cold, and unable to judge the conduct of others by any other standard than their own low thoughts and sentiments.

They are only like bats entering a banquet-hall by one window and passing out at the opposite, after having fluttered blindly about the lights, or clung for a few instants to the walls or the ceiling. Let them come and let them go. The social and spiritual atmosphere of the place is not for them.

Nor must you complain of the number. It is wonderful how much place a large-hearted woman can find for her company, even in a very small house!

A hospitable spirit can do wonders in its way: it can make the water on the board more delicious than the wines of Portugal, Spain, or France or Italy; it can make the bread which it places before stranger or friend as sweet as the food of the gods; it can multiply its own scanty stores—as the Master did with the loaves in the wilderness.

For God’s blessing is with the hospitable soul to increase, to multiply, and to sweeten; to fill all who sit at her board with plenty, with joy, with thanksgiving.

“There is,” says Digby, “a castle on the Loire held by a lady of ascetic piety and of noble fame, in the latest pages of French heroic annals. There one of my friends, received to hospitality, finding many guests, supposed himself surrounded by men of illustrious condition, till he was informed that they were all persons reduced to poverty, whose title to familiarity under that roof was founded precisely on their indigence and misfortunes.”

Ah, noble France, how many other homes along the Loire, the Mayenne, the Sarthe, and the Somme do we not know which are always open to the stranger and the pilgrim from other lands, while their generous masters and mistresses deem every sacrifice a blessing, because performed for Christ present in the guest of one day, or one week, or one month!

A man does not expect his wife to neglect important duty in his behalf. He is aware of the demands of her life and wants her to give each responsibility the attention it requires. He does not want his children to suffer neglect. And he knows she is entitled to other interests and diversions. But, he doesn’t want to be less important. And he doesn’t want to be regarded as a convenience, a paycheck, an escort, a social asset, a ticket to security. He would like to feel that she married him for him, and not as a means of filling her needs or reaching her objectives. -Helen Andelin, Fascinating Womanhood

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