Rule-of-Life for the Wives

I am thinking of wives who have managed to get a lot of things done in the day by having a rule of life, that is a regular schedule which makes them optimal in their work and happy in their downtime. I know a wife who said that when she wakes up early and prays for a good while,  she ultimately gets more done and stays more at peace the whole day.

I have read from The Life of Mary through the Mystics that Christ Himself gave his mother a rule of life which is midnight to dawn for prayer, morning for family needs, afternoon for work (during this time as the Blessed Mother sews or sells her works with a friend, St. Joseph looks after and plays with Baby Jesus til dusk) then sleep til midnight and it starts again. It is beautiful that it puts God, then family, then work then rest like a perfect order. I wonder if women consciously work on getting their family care sorted out in terms of cooking and cleaning and caring ahead before work and/or out- of-the- home travel.  For the schedule of most families would be a hectic morning and the travel to work, evening fatigue that requires the rest and relaxation and then sleep.

Where can one put prayer in unless it is deliberate? But the wife above knows the power of prioritization, for is not everything derived from grace then our good actions that we asked through prayer?

Ultimately knowing that the foundation of married life is sanctity and spouse, if one doesn't make one's schedule around it wouldn't actually make most sense. It will be a lost life.

I submit this little suggestion that puts the idea of how one's day will be spent if you take into consideration your husband and your God. So you would do your chores and work with haste yet love so you can attend to them. You only do the tasks that will glorify either or both. You do not do the things that they detest nor have prohibited us from doing. And you would pray so the object of the task, its intention and the outcome is ultimately unified in the two.

My husband doesn't want me to do my shopping in between work and home, as it cuts out on time together before the day goes dark. To do this repeatedly is total disrespect. To be a spendthrift on one's thrills or family-of-origin when the spouse already hinted at imprudence is rebellion. And if one were to have an open schedule, think too of how God and spouse would have loved for you to spend it. Where there is peace and joy, there is love and goodness. Loving our spouse delights our God and vice versa.

In closing I share the message of a priest who underscores why we need to pray and not simply act on our own. He shared that he desired to be a priest and felt God also called him to it. But his grades were always so bad he was the last student (35th out of 35 kids) from elementary to mid high school. This would preclude him from even being in college let alone priesthood in his country. His mother seeing his own efforts were in vain told him to go to the adoration chapel and tell God about his situation after school. He explained this to Jesus that he cannot do much beyond the efforts he had tried and He must do something if He wants him to be a priest. Since praying that prayer, he immediately scored the number one academic place and never left it. He is such a great learner now that he learned the full fluency of English in only two years.

He says, "It is God who will perfect our 'five loaves and two fishes'. We give what we can--our place, time and lives as wives--and hope it will bear mighty fruit because we have given our first fruits to God, then our spouses.