Here’s a great article on “Why Mothers Matter”, h/t to the Pulp.it for pointing it out. Totally made my day. (Yes, I am goofing off. Bad mother! Clean house! Make children clean house!)
–> Which explains why St. Thomas More re-married so quickly after the death of his first wife. As Butler’s Lives points out:
More was a man of sense as well as sensibility, and he had four young children on his hands: so he married a widow, seven years older than himself, an experienced housewife, talkative, kindly and full of unimaginative common sense.
Apparently she didn’t appreciate his jokes, though, which the biographer observes was an “undeniable trial of patience” — for which spouse the text does not specify.
A quick saint bleg on that topic: Our VBS-alternative (“Terrific Tuesdays”) will feature St. Thomas More, St. Joan of Arc, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, and St. Martin de Porres. If you happen to be sitting on a linky-link treasure trove of free-to-copy coloring sheets, puzzles, clip art, and the like, I would be most grateful to learn your secrets. Thank you!
–> FYI if you are in a similar boat, I’ve been mining the My Catholic Pray and Play Activity Book for generic worksheets. Nicely done, good little resource for elementary-age catechists to keep in the drawer. The sheets are reproducibles for non-commercial use.
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And this is a random other lives-of-saints observation I stumbled upon last night, and had to share. From Butler’s Lives, further down on July 9th (same as More), concerning the martyrdom of Sts. Nicholas Pieck and Companions, Martyrs of Gorkum in 1572. This was a Calvinist round-up in the Netherlands, and the clergy arrested included not only the saintly types, but also St. James Lacops, who “had been very slack in his religious observance and contumacious under reproof”, as well as St. Andrew Wouters, who “went straight from the irregular life to imprisonment and martydom”.
Here is the bit I found to be a timeless reminder:
. . . when already Father Pieck had been flung off the ladder, speaking words of encouragement, the courage of some failed them; it is a significant warning against judging the character of our neighbour or pretending to read his heart that, while a priest of blameless life recanted in a moment of weakness, the two who had been an occasion of scandle gave their lives without a tremor.
My grandmother, before I met my husband, was always urging me to look for a widower who needed help raising his young children. Because that’s such an ideal situation for a woman: to step in and raise someone else’s kids.
Oh yes, right. Funny I never thought of that before.
On the other hand, I would have totally loved to have a well-trained nine-year-old around when my first was born. So maybe your grandmother knew what she was about.