Here are my favorite books (and a quote from each) for traditional Catholic mothers, striving to love our vocation and be inspired to become Saints.
The Privilege of Being a Woman by Alice von Hildebrand
Female interests are centered on the human side of their lives: their family life, their relationships to those they love, their concern about their health, their welfare and, if they are Christians, the spiritual welfare of their children’s souls; in other words, about human concerns.
The Eternal Woman: The Timeless Meaning of the Feminine by Gertrud von le Fort
The scales are still trembling. The profound consolation that woman can give to mankind today is her faith in the immeasurable efficacy also of forces that are hidden, the unshakable certainty that not only a visible but also an invisible pillar supports the world.
Man & Woman: A Divine Invention by Alice von Hildebrand
If you want to kill a person, aim at the heart. If you want to destroy marriage, the family, the Church, and society in general, wage war on femininity.
The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life by Leila M. Lawler
The family is where everyone loves everyone else, where the papa is strong and a little fearsome, the mama is soft and a little demanding, and the brothers and sisters can have a wonderful time together if they are worn out enough by chores not to fight too much. Little by little, because of pitching in and relying on each other, everyone in the family grows in virtue.
Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family by Maria Von Trapp
The weeks would pass, and the rhythm of the year of the Church, with all its moods and rich meanings–the happy expectancy of Advent, the fulfillment of Christmas eh sorrow of Lent and Holy Week, the glory of Easter and Pentecost–would become a powerful force in our daily life. In this “school of living,” Holy Mother Church teaches her children how to celebrate.
Ask Your Husband by Stephanie C. Gordon
Make no mistake, the greatest achievement as Catholic–or any–laywoman can attain is being a faithful wife and mother.
The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home by David Clayton and Leila M. Lawler
The little oratory indeed contributes to the building of the culture. It’s hard to imagine, in our society today, a need greater than this, of ways for the family to pray together with others in their parish and to enjoy each other’s company along with their priests. When young people are raised this way, they have an integrated way of looking at life and the choices that are before them.
The Story of a Family: The Home of St. Therese of Lisieux by Fr. Stephaniejoseph Piat
Already, Therese was learning to fold her hands, look at the tabernacle, and lisp a greeting to “the good Jesus.” Mme. Martin lived again with her, in deep emotion, that most sublime of scenes; the mother bending over her child, surrounding it, enveloping it, clasping it to her, in order to carry it to God in one single movement; as though she would make all her own soul to pass into the soul of her little daughter and plunge it into the divine.
The School of the Family: A Renaissance of Catholic Formation by Chantal R. Howard
Fortunately, there are women such as these, even today, who desire holiness to be the heritage of their mothering. We are not alone. Many mothers are turning to each other to find inspiration and encouragement. They are walking away from the stereotypical form of modern mothering, back to Mary, who is the example of complete motherhood. If we look hard enough, we can find others too, who have come to know that it is possible to raise a holy family and be a mother of prayerfulness and sanctity.
Holiness for Housewives by Hubert van Zeller
The first necessity is to find in your soul a respect for your vocation. Once you have this sense of mission, this sense of dedication to a cause more worthwhile than any purely personal claim, the rest can follow.
Woman: Her Influence and Zeal by Fr. James Alberione
A truly Christian mother is she who lives for her children, caring tenderly for them, instructing them in religious and moral principles, watching over them continuously and giving them a living example of virtue.
The Education of Catholic Girls by Janet Erskine Stuart, RSCI
Noble friendships with the Saints in glory are one of the most effectual means of learning heavenly-mindedness, and friendships formed in childhood will last through a lifetime. To find a character like one’s own which has fought the same fight and been crowned, is an encouragement which obtains great victories, and to enter into the thoughts of the Saints is to qualify oneself here below for intercourse with the citizens of Heaven.
Holy Handmaids of the Lord: Women Saints Who Won the Battle for Souls by Julie Onderko
The devil wants us and the souls of our families, our spouses, our children, our grandchildren, and our friends. This is why we need to nurture receptivity in ourselves. The evil one would have us disdain that which serves the Kingdom of God and reject our feminine nature.
Theology of Home: Finding the Eternal in the Everyday by Carrie Gress, Noelle Mering, and Megan Schrieber
A positive family culture has the explicit purpose of forming children now and the implicit purpose of forming who they will be after they have flown the nest and are both dazzled and made weary by the world.
Also see Theology of the Home II, Theology of the Home III, and Theology of the Home IV.
The Valiant Woman by Monseigneur Landroit
Accent then, my children, the position God has ordained for you in this world; accept the sphere in which Divine Providence has placed you; be queens in your own empire; but if you value your happiness, your tranquility, and the success of your affairs, do not seek to be queens elsewhere.
The Wife Desired by Rev. Leo J. Kinsella
Why are they so successful? What qualities of mind and body do they possess? We shall see in the following pages. But just one more reflection before we begin. Lest some timid soul be frightened by the high goal implied in the expression “Wife Desired,” let her remember that every vocation in life has its ideal. Without an ideal, a goal in any phase of life, we flounder about in confusion and misery.
Conchita: A Mother’s Spiritual Diary edited by M.M. Philipon, O.P.
God fashions in her a model for women of today who live in their homes, where they carry on their daily occupations, with evangelical simplicity, faithful to all their duties, generous, devoted, at times heroic without the slightest suspicion of it.
Nazareth Family Spirituality: Celebrating Your Faith at Home with Cathine Doherty
When you do the duty of the moment, you do something for Christ. You make a home for him in the place where your family dwells. You feed him when you feed your family. You wash his clothes when you do their laundry. You help him in a hundred ways as a parent.
Life-Giving Love: Embracing God’s Beautiful Design for Marriage by Kimberly Hahn
One of the beautiful things about having a little one is that you fall in love all over again. You gaze into those tiny eyes for the first time and you meet face to face the one you have held under your heart for so long. Then you glance at your spouse and see resemblances, and you fall more in love with both of them.
The Domestic Church: Room by Room by Donna Cooper O’Boyle
The love that a mother is called to is very challenging. It calls us to put everything else aside and do all in our power – exerting all of our energies to nurture and love the blessings of the souls that have been entrusted to us. … This love calls us to think and feel for someone else, drawing us up out of our own needs and wants.
Motherhood and Family: Reclaiming the Heart of the Home. Faith, Femininity, and Catholic Motherhood
Looking at life in this way, a Christian wife will want to make the home not only orderly and attractive, she will try to create an atmosphere which will draw her husband and children away from the world, toward God. The home itself, kindergarten of heaven, should always reflect clearly its sublime purpose.
Wife, Mother, and Mystic: Blessed Anna-Maria Taigi
On rising in the morning, family prayers; after supper, the Rosary, on our knees, with a reading from the life of the Saint of the day. Sometimes we sang a hymn, then after receiving our parents’ blessing we went to bed.
The Mirror of True Motherhood by Rev. Bernard O’Reilly, L.D.
No woman animated by the spirit of her baptism, filled with humility and generosity which are the soul of that self-sacrificing love indispensable to husband and wife in the performance of their undivided life-labour, ever fancied that she had or could have any other sphere of duty or activity than that home which is her domain, her garden, her paradise, her world.
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