Motherhood

My favorite book on motherhood is, "Counsels of Perfection for Christian Mothers", by Monsignor P. Lejeune. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Perfection is accomplishing the will of God in a constant and generous fashion. That person, then, is perfect who does at every instant what God wishes. Ask her at any moment what she is doing, and she will always respond: "That which God wishes."

"Mary was accomplishing the will of God at every moment of her life, and the perfect love with which she accomplished that will, constituted the measure of her sanctity."

"It was the will of God realized by them, and accomplished in the, that made these men saints".

"My God, what will happen to me today, I do not know; but I do know that nothing will happen to me which Thou hast not foreseen and ordained for my greater good. I accept, then, Thy thrice holy will; I submit myself to it, and desire to delight in."

"There remains, now, the will. How is your will disposed towards God? Is your will united to the will of God? Do you wish what God wishes, the least important things as well as the most essential? Do you make some reserve, yielding to the divine will on one point, and opposing it on another?"

"Perfection consists in accomplishing the will of God in a constant and generous fashion. Thus it follows that we withdraw from or approach perfection according as we shun the divine will, or adhere more generously to it."

"Let us consider now, my daughters, the various ways in which we are losing time: by remaining inactive, by permitting ourselves to be idle, and by indulging in daydreams. To squander our time in this fashion means to render our lives sterile, and talent unproductive. We become like to the fig-tree cursed by Our Saviour because it bore no fruit."

"Determine clearly the method you will adopt in your struggle against a certain habit of venial sin, and tell Jesus of your weakness. Tell Him the principal evil from which you suffer, and of which you desire to cure yourselves, with the help of His grace."

"A person who is truly humble, instead of feeding on grief, rises at once, and, relying more on the mercy and goodness of God than on her own strength, takes up the march again. To learn to profit by our falls is one of the secrets of perfection."

"Have always before you some good and pious book, and read a little in it each day with devotion, as if you were reading letters which the saints had sent you from Heaven, to show you the way and encourage you to follow it."

"Moreover, what ought we to think of those things which we do--according to the accepted expression--"to kill time"? Are not occupations of this kind equivalent to a loss of time? To deliver ourselves up to useless babbling, to waste an afternoon in visiting without some good purpose, to read dangerous novels, though they be of great literary excellence, to fill our minds with the refuse of newspapers, all this is, I grant, an occupation; but occupations of this kind are, rightly understood, a real loss of time."