"Why Homeschool?" and God's Divine Providence

I came across a short 12-minute homily entitled "Why Homeschool?" which I heartily recommend as listening for nearly every God-believing parent (click here to listen). Yes, it is written for Catholics specifically but I think Protestants with some understanding of God's divine providence would appreciate it. Without saying so, it is speaking mostly to mothers because we are the ones in the home and around the children nearly all their waking hours, so we get much more opportunity to practice patience (which comes from the Latin for "suffering"), but perhaps that lack of hours for practice is all the more reason fathers should listen to this homily too. Lastly, while the homily is describing divine providence within the context of the homeschooling family's lifestyle, the priest points out that the listener can easily extrapolate to a non-homeschooling situation. (For example, if God is asking this degree of acceptance of his permissive will from parents who are around their children for all their waking hours, why any less so for parents who are around their children for morning and evening only?)

I think this homily is such a pearl of wisdom contained in such a small container (only 12 minutes!), I listened to it again and took notes, which I will share in hopes of whetting your appetite.

Excerpts from "Why Homeschool?"

This is the task that God has given you in there here and now to grow in holiness. It does not matter what the task is!

So why would you want any other task than what God gave you?

St. Maximilian Kolbe retained a spirit of recollection in Auschwitz. Your home may be chaotic, but it is not Auschwitz!

Homeschooling is making of a given situation what God wills of it.

The peanut butter Joey mashed into Suzy's hair is a gift from God meant to give Him glory and to get us to Heaven. You see, the only evil in the universe is to not be at one with the will of God.

How can that be? If we accept that God is all-powerful, nothing occurs without his causing it or permitting it. Everything save sin is God's will.

Anger needs to be a choice that needs to be made with self-control when you know it is in God's will that you become angry to save your child from harm. Anger itself is just a passion, neither good nor bad.

Why would I choose a different reality than here and now? See the pride in willing anything different than what God gave you? Is He capable of giving an imperfect gift? God is all-powerful and He loves you. Can He ever harm you?

God does not will any sinfulness in your child's will, but he does will the actions that he performs. [Note from Katherine: This is permissive will, which is defined beautifully in Trustful Surrender, below. E.g., God does not will the sin in the will of the man who punches you out, but he does permissively will the movement of his arm swinging which made contact with your face.)

Uniting your will to God's is the single most important thing in the universe and it does not matter if it comes through things pleasant or unpleasant. [Note from Katherine: Wow. If we do nothing else, let's read that sentence ten times and meditate on it throughout the day.]

Peace in your heart is always possible by recognizing whatever is God's will for you in the moment. Some things may call you to actions, others not, but all is to be accepted as what is. It is all from God.

Then though there be chaos in the house, peace will reign.

So you do this great thing: you homeschool. It is a noble and a beautiful thing. It has many times become a necessary thing in our world which slides further and further into that darkness prepared for Satan and his angels. Never doubt that you are doing the best thing for your children: not because they will become rocket scientists or even because they will know the commandments and avoid drugs and bad music. But rather the reason why homeschooling is so valuable is because your children will get to see you do difficult things for others and persevere at it day after day after day. And so they will learn what love is. You conquer yourself. You sacrifice for another and they learn what love is. Love is about willing the good of another, even at the cost of your own life, which price you pay every day when you have children.

You do your children the greatest service: you teach them what love is and with that you will save their souls for God is love. And once your children know what love is, they will always seek it, and, always seeking it, they will one day find God. And they will unite their will to his.

Success in homeschooling is not about reaching some goal or end, but in the doing of it.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Back to Katherine's thoughts . . .  Please don't think that I think that I have achieved what I am recounting with admiration above. I feel blessed to already be familiar with the above concepts from reading them over and over again, but that probably makes it even more pathetic that I continue to stumble and fail, day after day. I read stories of martyr-saints and think that I would be able to stand up to tortures, I would be able to do heroic things. I watched "For Greater Glory" and saw the Mexican Catholics attending Mass, knowing that at any occasion the federales might burst in and murder them. I read in the paper just this morning about the Catholics in Syria attending Mass to the sound of machine gun fire outside. I let my mind wander about how I would be so true to my faith.

Then I turn around and lose control and scream at my children because they weren't paying perfect attention, John left his clothes on the floor for the zillionth time, Mary was sassy, and I burned the food I was cooking because I was cleaning up food Margaret threw across the room. I lose control of self amidst the chaos of perfectly healthy children behaving in perfectly normal ways, not even egregiously. Yes, some Auschwitz my home is, right? Quite a few times, the best I am managing is gritting my teeth and white-knuckling it to retain calm amidst it all, which is certainly not a true Christian spirit of recollection. And then some days, for short stretches, I think I get it close to right.

The concept of God's permissive will is both difficult to accept and extremely enlightening. And it's one thing to try to be heroic enough to retain a recollected spirit when Joey smashes peanut butter in Suzy's hair, but quite another when one is diagnosed with cancer or one's child is suffering dreadfully. My mind almost can't even go there and form the words, so clearly God knows how weak I am.

I can't recommend highly enough for every Christian to read Fr. Jean Baptist Saint-Jure's "Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence: The Secret of Peace and Happiness." This tiny treasure will take a person all of two hours to read through. It is available from TAN Publishers or online for free. (If you seek it online, be sure to find an original version, such as found here, because I have discovered at least one source online in which someone has inserted many entirely non-Christian paragraphs, which I think is very deceitful, to say the least.)