The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 7, 18 February 1925, Page 61

The Family Circle

SISTER THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS, PRAYING FOR SOLDIERS. LITTLE FLOWER OF JESUS. Little Flower of Jesus, Thou are pledged to shower Roses of rare beauty From thy heavenly bower. Roses white and fragrant, Roses red — aglow— From the Heart of Jesus, Whence all blessings flow. Little Flower of Jesus, * c Blooming at His Throne, W For our imperfections /•' May thy love atone, While thy soul, all perfect, Dwells in ecstasy Through the endless ages Of eternity. Little Flower of Jesus, Blossom set apart, Whisper our petition To His Sacred Heart From thy shining petals, Wrought of heaven’s gold, Gifts divine, eternal, May the years unfold ! Mary B. Marr. CONSTANT MEDITATION FOR MEN. Why is it that men rush the front seats at the cricket match or the pictures, but hang around the door during Mass? Are they ashamed to be seen in church? Why is it that many single men pay big prices for seats at the theatre and other entertainments but pay nothing towards church collections, whether for the upkeep x ' of the church, for the priest, for the schools, or for the orphanage? Must everything be given to self, and nothing to God? ' Why is it that weekly or monthly Com's* munion is considered an excellent thing for JT— women and children, but not for men? Are • they better than the women? Do they need the grace of God less? *

Why is it that men consider it proper to be consistent Laborities, Nationalists, and so on, and to defend their position in these matters, but at the same time consider it a bit too much to be consistent Catholics and to be defenders of their Faith against abuse and misrepresentation? Have politics a greater claim on them than religion? Is it the right thing to be true to their fellowmen, but to be false to God? CHUMS.

In response to an appeal from a boy whose pet dog had been run over and killed by a careless automobile, the News, Falls River, Massachusetts, comments editorially; “A boy and his dog! A combination unequalled anywhere on the face of the green, earth. A happy, care-free boy and a happy, alert, tail-wagging dog, expectant of a good romp to come! There is a kinship between the two too deep for mere grown-ups to get or to explain.- A boy and his dog understand each other. They run and laugh and yell and bark, each feeling, the urge to express his exuberance, his joy in life, in his own way. A boy who never owned a dog has an incomplete boyhood. A dog who doesn’t know some boy intimately misses half his life. No wonder the dogs owned exclusively by grown-ups so soon get a grown-up grouch.”

THERE IS NO SUCCESS FOR THE MAN Who vacillates. Who is faint-hearted. Who shirks responsibility. Who never dares to take risks. Who thinks fate is against him. Who is discouraged by reverses. 'AY ho does not believe in himself. Who expects nothing but failure. Who is always belittling himself. Who is always anticipating trouble. AY ho waits for something to turn up. Who complains that he never had a chance. ho is constantly grumbling about his work. Who never puts his heart into anything ho does. Who blames circumstances or other people for his failures. Who can do a poor day’s work without a protest from his conscience. Who assumes the attitudes of a victim whom everybody is bent on “doing.” Who expects to eliminate from his work everything that is disagreeable or distasteful. AAho is forever wishing that he were doing something else instead of the thing he is doing. Who clings tenaciously to old ideas and old ways of doing and is a slave of precedent. Who shuts himself within his own little life so completely that he cannot take interest in anything outside of it. Who thinks the times are always out of joint, and that he was not born at the right moment, or in the right place.— Success.

PRESERVE A OALM SPIRIT. Never worry; no good can come of it. Your troubles will be aggravated and . in- • teiisified the more you worry about them. Under all circumstances, however unpropitious, try to preserve that peace of mind which is the chief source of the little chastened happiness this changeful life affords. Convert all trials and crosses into means of spiritual progress and supernatural merit, by accepting them cheerfully as occasions for practising mortification, resignation, and humility, and for enlarging your capacity for entering sympathetically into the sorrows of your neighbor. If you ponder upon the sufferings which your sins have caused Our Divine Lord, your troubles, however great, will pale away into contemptible insignificance. Provided you were sincerely sorry for them, do not be uneasy about sins mentioned in your past Confessions. Confide in the prophet Jonas, /T know that Thou art a gracious and merciful God, patient and of much compassion, and easy to forgive evil. Think of the pas’t history of your soul only as a remedy for conquering pride. Unhealthy brooding over what is irreparable and irrecoverable is utter waste of time. Let the past be a spur and an incentive not to useless mental worry, but to greater humility and fidelity in the future. A contrite heart should ever remain tranquil and at rest, like the depths of the sea, which are always calm, no matter how fierce the storms and gales which agitate and disturb its surface. At the same time, a noble Christian soul is not like a stone, bereft of feeling, cold and hard; on the contrary, often enough such a soul, so far from being stubbornly stoical, is more likely to be supersensitive and unable, perhaps, entirely to suppress some stifled and subdued outward expression of pain. Rut such a soul will suffer quietly, patiently, and heroically. Others when they see in that soul the victory of grace over the natural impulse to give unrestrained vent to intense grief, will be edified, and pray that they, too, in their hour of anguish may lie able to repeat in themselves the same triumph of supernatural virtue over natural inclination.

THE POTTER. Watch the potter at his wheel, Busy working day by day, In your heart do you not feel ’Tis his mind that moulds the clay? r ; Watch yourself the whole day through, Working where your work is wrought, ! Is this idea to you new, That you’re moulded by your thought ? ' Thought, the worker; self, the clay 1 God -the Potter is alway. ’ Tie a perfect Thought outlined, Hold this model in your mind. —Harriet H. D’Autremont.