10,
ELLIOTT ELLIOTT OPTICIANS
00:;:ktot John fllioli mgr. Ex-fliarisl Bros:
Skidoo/
Tel.
B 7988
NO. 3,162.
40,411P'
7 IT 1
ELLIOTT ELLIOTT
F
1)
Piccadilly Arcade
Perth Tel. B 7988 SEVENTY-FIRST TSAR.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
PERTH, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1944.
OPTICIANS
Is it practicable to have Family Retreats? A Provocative Plea for Corporate Holiness in Home Circle to pieces.
They can't even
come
MincultIes we are all aware,
Since
and review the sermon; because when have practical difficulties deterTransferring Obedience and Spiritual home red Catholics from their primary busithey have not heard the same one. ness of keeping and extend* the It seems to me that all this sort thing tends to lessen the authority Faith? Benedictine retreat -master to and responsibility of parents, and to Loyalty From the Parents . . . whom I wrote, mentioning the idea obedience and spiritual of
A
transfer the loyalty of the children from leather of family retreats, replied with a question which obviously vas put with a and Mother to Sister with a capital S. What would I suggest as the smile. I am not speaking critically or cardanger any Solution of the problem when the hardly is There pingly. that Catholic parents will ever forget monks (the lazy monks, I believe it what they owe to the sisterhoods. is fashionable to say), on their way to unanswerable answer to communal Neither do I forget that there are par- prayers at 4.30 o'clock in the mornBy JOSEPH A. BREIG. so careless that somebody must ing, collided with half a dozen harasents A atheism is corporate godliness. sed fathers walking their howling inand mother and children ought to some extent take their place. father talking always are people Earnest But replacing the parents will not fants through the cloister corridors? It is thus to sanctity one another. earnestly about the importance of that any one of them will best sanc- restore them to a sense of their duty, Of course, I retorted that the most the family. It is the backbone of the tify himself. nor re-establish them in the respect of elementary logic would dictate tliat nation, the bulwark of civilisation, the their children. Many a responsible the monks should hold the babies Harassed and Heroic Wives. hearth and the home of the Christian parent can testify that the formula The whole point and purpose of the "Sister says" seems to take on in the while the fathers went into the chapel faith. At this point, everybody dutiand chanted matins; on the theory But the process of family is to train good citizens -for the fully applauds. mind of the parish school-child the that nothing is more edifying for any breaking the family into its compon- kingdoms of dthe world and the king- awful authority and infallibility of all of us than occasionally to heft tne It does this most the Ten Commandments rolled into ent parts, of separating husbands from dom of heaven. weight of the other fellow's cross. I effectively when it trains its members one. wives and children from parents. goes Father may remark that he can imagine nothing more Catholic and pray together. work and play to like Mark is The family on. and on would like the children to go to Mass or more meritorious than just such Twain's weather, about which every- Part of its reason for being-by far with him and Mother; but the chil- an exchange in the spirit of mutual the most important part-is lost if dren reply "Sister says" they are to body talks and nobody does anything. the working and the playing are co- go to the Nine (where there is not charity. The purpose of this piece is to propose I am sure that the fathers (that is, operative, while the praying is indivi- room for the parents )and that is that. that something he done. the physical fathers) after an hour in dual and separate. The something that I would suggest Now what I am concerned to em- the draughty choir, would rise stiffly to pertinent not seem it Then does I am not talking is family retreats. what is the serve in inviting phasise is that to separate the Catho- from their knees thanking God for By family retreats I inquire double-talk. husband the and father to spend three lic family at Mass is to weaken, not to matrimony and children, colic and all; a perI mean mean family retreats. days or a week in a retreat -house tak- strengthen, the dutifulness and pres. and I think it safe conjecture that th renewal physical and spiritual of iod tige of parents and the stability of the spiritual fathers (after handing over his harand ing spiritual inventory, while Father and regeneration for What ought to be the com- the babies and retreating in terrorassed wife, perhaps a bit sullenly, per- home. Mother and brother and sister. I do haps with heroic and heavenly resig- monest sight in the church-that of stricken disorder) would be reconfirmnot mean anything long -faced or pietis- nation, stays at home haggling with father, mother and children kneeling ed in their vocations and thenceforth tic. I mean that once a year, in the would apply themselves to their duthe butcher. worrying with the chil- together at the Communion rails-has rollicking Spring or the glorious Sum- dren, and wondering why the man actually become the rarest. And ties with such effervescent happiness Papa mer or the invigorating Autumn, when families do not receive Commu- as to cause their superior's to suppose worse or married for better who her and Mama and all their little prides wouldn't have pleased God as much or nion together, it is hardly matter for that they had all suddenly achieved and joys ought to pile into the family ever more if he had elected to stay at wonder that the institution of the fam- heroic sanctity. flivver and rattle away to a monasily is shaking on its foundations; or saying his prayers and helping tery or some such place for a week of home Even Friars Must Sleep. rather, tottering because its chief with the washings? Actually, of course, no such happy fun, frolic and family edification. foundation has been withdrawn. be illustratcan best Such matters It is at this point in the discussion What is true of the ,Masses is true dilemma as that envisioned by the by turning them upside down. Supthat the retreat -masters generally look ed Benedictine retreat-master could ever When pose that the husbands of the parish of the spiritual life generally. somewhat upset. It is not that they were to struggle home some evening. a parish mission is held, there is a arise, although I think it would do are not interested, but they doubt that late as usual, to find the ladies of week for the men and a week for the no harm if it did. I should be the It can be done, and their houses gone, the children un- women. Of course, everybody knows last to propcise that entire families it can be done. If Christian it had better be done. in a monastery. and unfed, and curt notes on the problems involved here; but they take up residence civilisation is to be saved ,it must be washed There After all, even the most ascetic friars could be solved very easily. that effect the to kitchen tables the saved principally through the family. the wives have departed to think and is endless material for sermon's which must have some sleep. Only fathers Right there and nowhere else is where pray, and the fathers can jolly well are suitable for everybody. and mothers, endowed of necessity So why the evils of divorce and social suicide with preternatural endurance, can exmothers and not a mission for fathers nofurther until themselves for shift and juvenile delinquency-the evils tice. and children, since what we are all ist and even thrive without any reenlsuing scenes I the Across inrace human which are making the All other human talking about is the restoration and pose whatsoever. human-can be attacked and destroy- draw a merciful curtain. being's are merely human. Why we of the home? But after all, what's sauce for the salvation ed. broken homes while enbewail should Seriously, I propose that the experigoose; and I have often ruminated The family, everybody agrees, ought couraging spiritual separations is more ment of family retreats be tried either along these lines when I observed that than I am able to understand. Now the way to make to be stable. in a summer hotel, in a fine tourist The even in the parish churches, which it stable is to make it happy. What is needed is a return to the camp (which could probably be way to make it happy is to make it ought to be the defenders and cemmtas a sanctuary bought for a song) or in a place where And the way to make it holy ers of the family, the father is coaxed old idea of the home holy. a monastery are situto go to the eight o'clock Mass with and of the family as an indivisible a convent and far is to help it to grow in spiritual things I suggest apart. revo- ated not too the Holy Name, the mother to the unit in all things. This is the there as it grows in other things-as a unit. that the men be quartered in the monthat is called for; and if Why should the memlaers of a family Ten with the Altar Society, and the lution better are for men's renow it as they astery, promoting method of is a live the same life physically and men- children to the Nine, where they may Thus from the family retreat, I have not treats. tally and economically, but be separ- be supervised by the sisters. (Continued on Page 4.) That there are practical ated in the affairs of the soul? The the family's spiritual life is chopped heard of it.
Family Life Would Be Strengthened if the Members Worshipped Together
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