First, happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there - you are beautiful! May we strive to imitate our Blessed Mother in all that we do so that the virtues and graces that God filled Her soul with will overflow into ours.
Here is my absolute favorite Scripture verse that is used in the liturgy about our Lady when some of her feast days are celebrated....
"I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all the grace of the way and the truth; in me is all hope of life and of virtue..."
[Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 24:24-25]
*By the way, if you use a newer translation of the Catholic Bible (like the New American Bible or St. Joseph Bible), you won't find anything remotely close to this in those verses (Yes - I was disappointed when I compared the translations!). This verse translation is from the Douay Rheims Bible, which is the oldest full Catholic Bible translation in English. This Bible dates back to 1582 and was compiled for two reasons:
1) To give the faithful access to a Bible they could better read and understand and
2) To counter the faulty translations of Scripture that began popping up due to various interpretations of Scripture from the Protestants who broke away from the Church at that time.
The Douay-Rheims is a literal translation of the Latin vulgate which St. Jerome compiled back in the fourth century and became the canon of Scripture. This canon - the books that compose the Old and New Testaments you have today - was finally settled at the Council of Rome in 382 and affirmed many times throughout the centuries at various Church councils and by the popes; prior to that, there was no Bible, as most was orally transmitted. So the Douay Rheims Bible is a most faithful translation to the first Bible translated into a single canonized book back in 382 A.D. The language takes some time to get used to, but I'm grateful to have it and read such beautiful Scripture verses as this! Ok...little history lesson to throw in there! :P
Anyway, I wrote part 1 last year. Today, on this Mother's Day, I share part 2!
Here are a few things I love about staying home with all these little children...
#1 Choosing to stay at home and forgo a career means I get to form them in being disciples of Christ better than I would if I were away from them most of the day. Being home with them provides so many opportunities to point things out about our Lord and Catholic faith. It provides me with plenty of opportunities to teach them things, pray with them, listen to their questions and watch them slowly take these things in as their own and do them on their own. This is no sit-down lesson either; it just naturally happens throughout the day, which makes it even better and I think more how it's meant to be when we form our children, for the most part.
Joseph takes his Mass duties very seriously.
This is pretty typical of these goofballs while Joseph says Mass.
Forming our children as Christ's disciples is our most important task as parents. We can give them all the money, toys, sports and career/work opportunities we want but if we don't inspire in them (by God's grace alone) a love for God, prayer, virtue, and so on, they really have nothing, for...
"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?" [Mark 8:36]
If there's a specific vice they seem to be struggling with lately and because I'm home with them all day, I am able to have the opportunities to "train" that tendency by emphasizing and practicing the opposite virtue and praying through it. If I had to be at work a lot and the kids had to be at school/preschool/daycare, it may very well be that that bad behavior/vice either wouldn't be caught, or it wouldn't be trained in the right way (towards virtue). It is a blessing to be able to stay home with the kids, particularly in this respect! I do hope I'll continue to be able to stay at home and homeschool...but we'll take it year by year and in the end, God's will be done. He knows what's best for our children in each moment better than we do!
Ronan giving me a little lip...
#2 Choosing to stay home and forgo a career to put 100% focus into raising my children and homeschooling is like a refining fire for my selfishness and my faults. Yes, that's a good thing if we want to grow in holiness and union with our Lord! I do think being a parent is more of a "forceful" method of sanctification (haha for lack of a better way of putting it!) because if I were just by myself, or if it were just Bill and I, I'd have a lot more room to "do what I want" a lot of the time. I don't have that option most of the time; most of the time, true motherhood that is a gift of oneself is a constant "dying to self" in order to serve those little hands and feet who are so dependent upon us. This doesn't mean I neglect my needs (aka getting out with friends, doing something I enjoy or just going to adoration), but as St. John Paul II often quoted, it means that one...
"...cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself." [Gaudium et Spes, par. 24]
This is what Christ means when He says that unless one loses his life for His sake, he will not truly find it and live [see John 18:37; Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45].
Bill and I laugh sometimes at just looking back over only these past few years and how much we've been "pulled out of ourselves." You'd probably think this would be a "sour" experience, but it's actually been incredibly fulfilling!
The next few are for your viewing enjoyment...
Not quite fitting on the bike right...
Graceful as a gazelle...
...then this.
#3 While I LOVE my kids, I'm still human and need a little time to refresh and recharge my mommy batteries...but when I do take those breaks, I feel GREAT when I come back and am ready to just love on my children all over again! No one said raising children was supposed to be easy, and I think our culture makes parenting seem like it should be more of a side job that can impede on "what you want to do" rather than something we're called to fully embrace...and that includes those crosses that comes with it...
"And whosoever does not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." [Luke 14:27]
I know, it's not easy. That's why we need the Lord to continue to mother joyfully. I credit nothing but God's amazing grace for the reason I am able to truly enjoy being home with the kids. A prayer life and leaning entirely on the Lord is the reason this can be done joyfully. Almost everywhere I go, people jokingly say to me, "Wow, you have your hands full!" or "I don't know how you do it!" I know they mean well....but having more than the measured 2.1 children per family is something that baffles our culture. Sometimes, I just chuckle back and say, "It's all God's grace," because it most certainly is!
Sure, it's hard. There are certainly crosses, but I know the Lord carries those with me and transforms those hardships and struggles into something beautiful for the overall sanctification of my soul and my family. Jesus, I trust in You!
God is the source of all joy and love, and so it is only by running and going to the source that we can continue to pour out love and joy upon our families. This is why (among other reasons) we need to work on having a strong prayer life! Pray on prayer warrior!
Adoration is the BEST place to refresh and pray!
4. I am 1,000% supported by my wonderful, God-fearing husband. Wow does this make all the difference! How much of a blessing it is to have a husband who encourages me, compliments me, supports me spiritually/emotionally/physically and points out the good things he sees me doing. Bill has this gift of putting things into an overall perspective, which helps me a lot when I get caught up on the details and day-to-day. It really sets me at ease. He often looks for more opportunities for me to take breaks than I even do for myself. He's so very thoughtful and considerate :)
Thank you hubby!
5. Being home with the kids and homeschooling also means we get to chuck the day and be spontaneous...which I love! Beautiful day out? Let's get outside! Let's go on a little hike or to a park! We're having a bad day? Forget everything and let's not do "school" today...let's just snuggle up and read some books or let's just go out to change the scenery and pace of the day. Ah I love the flexibility of it all! Relationships over routine and rigor, always!
Ok, well that wraps up my thoughts, part 2, on staying home with the kids!
I hope you have a blessed and beautiful day!
"Jesus does not ask us to give up living, but to accept a newness and a fullness of life that only He can give."
~ St. John Paul II