Fulfilling Our Daily Duties Comes Before All Other Work

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Holy Mother Church has in her wisdom favored the idea that those who are called to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony enter into it at an early age. There are many solid reasons for this.

First, a young women is able in most instances, barring some physical incapacity, to conceive and to give birth to many children so as to have them regenerated in the baptismal font and made members of the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation. She also has the vigor and the stamina of youth to recover from the pangs of childbirth and to cooperate with sanctifying and actual grace to fulfill the innumerable duties of being a wife and a mother, many of which are unseen and/or unappreciated by her husband and children, winning for her much merit if she surrenders herself as a consecrated slave to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Second, a young man has the physical strength, barring some chronic illness or an sudden and unexpected injury, to do all that needs to be done to attend to his family’s needs, which will involve getting up at odd hours during the night to care for a newborn infant and/or look in and coddle another one of his children who might be ill or having difficulty sleeping. He must be the provider of his household, keeping in mind first and foremost his responsibility as the Saint Joseph figure of the family to bring himself and his family members out of the “Egypt” of this passing vale of tears to an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise. He must deny himself the rest his body might crave after days of work, offering himself up (along with his wife) as a consecrated slave of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Third, a young man and a young woman who have not been out in the world on their own for too long will not have developed habits of independence and stubbornness that are harder, although not impossible with the graces won for us on Calvary, to change after one has spent years and years and years on his or her own. One cannot miss what one never had. A single person has the freedom to plan his own schedule, which should be founded in a great deal of time before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer. A married person has to understand that the very salvation of his soul depends in large part in the surrender of his time freely to the prompt and joyful fulfillment of the duties imposed by his freely chosen state-in-life. Even time before the Blessed Sacrament, as important as this is to make as a priority in the planning of one’s day, might not be possible on certain days given the call of duty in one’s family life. Our morning offering, which gives everything we do to God through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, makes the fulfillment of our duties an act of prayer.

Mind you, the sanctifying grace available to a husband and a wife in a sacramentally valid, ratified and consummated marriage (ratum et consummatum) is there no matter what their age and the conditions in which they find themselves. I have been struck, however, by the adjustment that I have had to make in the past three years from being my own boss at all times to subordinating everything about my time, including my writing, to the needs, both supernatural and temporal, of my family that God has blessed me with so generously (and so undeservedly).

For example, there were days in my single state when I could bang out six to nine articles in a eight or ten hour sitting at the computer. I could go out to visit Our Lord in His Real Presence at any time I pleased. I could just get up and go out to a nearby track and get in some exercise on a regular basis. My time was my own. My time belongs now to my family, which means that everything else, including my writing, is secondary. My first obligation is to provide for my family, which my dear wife knew would be a difficult thing for me to fulfill given the fact that my work does not generate much income, and to get them home to Heaven by getting them in this life to daily Mass and assisting my wife as she fosters the love and the mercy of Our Lord and Our Lady in our own domestic cell of the Church.

Being a flesh and blood victim of Adam’s sin, replete with a darkened intellect and a weakened will, there are times when, at least for a moment, I might rue the fact that I have “lost” time that had been allotted to my work. I am then reminded, however, by this simple fact: whatever time we think is “lost” in this world is never lost or wasted if we simply offer it up to the Blessed Trinity through Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. As a married man with a young daughter, who is over fifty years younger than I am, I have assumed obligations that make it incumbent upon me to find the right balance between the work that I believe God wants me to do before I die, including the ongoing work of preparing for the opening of Christ the King College next month, and the fulfillment of my duties as a Catholic husband and father. That which is not essential to my duties has got be of secondary importance.

This is by way of writing that the number of articles on this website will decrease in the months ahead. Our daughter is at an age now, twenty-eight and one-half months, where she needs more attention. She needs instruction in the Faith and lessons in reading. She needs to spend time with her parents as she plays, something that we are mindful of as we travel the nation in our motor home. These responsibilities will grow when we are blessed with siblings for Lucy. Although my writing for this site and for The Remnant will continue, there will have to be a necessary diminution of my output. The days of producing twelve, twenty-four page issues (or four seventy-two pages issues) of Christ or Chaos each and every year are gone. I will try to produce four or five articles every month for this site (along with the two a month for The Remnant). If time permits, though, we will try to put on this site some more of the older articles that had appeared in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos.

Apart from the College, on which most of my time has been spent these last eight months, we will have my G.I.R.M. Warfare book out in print sometime this month. A book of essays on political commentaries, things that cannot be run on this particular website, will be put out in short order after that. Getting Lucy home to Heaven and trying to provide for my family, though, must take priority. And by Our Lady’s graces I have come to see that far from being “time lost” insofar as the work I would like to do, the work I must do, founded in daily Traditional Latin Mass and total consecration to Our Lady, to save my soul and to help my wife and daughter must come first and foremost. Everything else is second. We must be detached from anything and everything that could impede the fulfillment of the duties that we have assumed in the state-in-life in which we find ourselves. Nothing I write is as important as helping my family grow in sanctity so as to be ready at all times for the moment of our Particular Judgments.

There will be a few more articles this week before a gap caused by travel, speaking and the preparation for the opening of Christ the King College. We do need your financial support. I can only hope that those of you who profit in some way from this site might find it possible, if your means permit, to assist us. Some people have been extraordinarily generous, making it possible to survive for two months at a time. However, every little bit does help. As I note on the home page, I can’t and won’t promise you anything other than a tax-deduction and a remembrance in our daily prayers.

Our Lady of Good Success, pray for us.