An article at the URL https://bbn1.bbnradio.org/english/tools-home/a-christian-home/christian-home-wife-heart-home/ talks about the role and glory of a wife in a Christian marriage. It talks about her role in being tolerant of her husband’s foibles and a teacher to her children so that they at least grow into the Christian faith. Another article from the Catholic Mom website https://www.catholicmom.com/articles/2012/11/21/woman-the-heart-of-the-home points to the fact that the mother of a Catholic home is its heart. Her loving kindness, as Jesus’ mother the blessed virgin shows us at the wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1-11), should extend everywhere, not only in the home.
Almost all the few times the blessed virgin is mentioned in scripture, it is in her role as wife and mother. In Luke 2:48, when Jesus is lost and is eventually found in the temple, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother, did not ask for Joseph to go back alone and search for him, she went with him and searched for Jesus, and found him teaching and “learning” about how the Jewish elders taught. This I think was to emphasize how a wife should always work with her husband when it comes to the matter of children. I think it also emphasizes how a mother needs to be closely involved with all things dealing with her children learning the faith, even if it from others, like at Sunday/Catholic Parochial School to insure they are being taught sound doctrine/dogma. The care needed to ensure the salvation of the souls of the family’s children show why both parents need to be Catholic or one wishes to be a true believer if a Catholic were to marry them. In the first few centuries of the church Catholic wives, like St. Monica, sometimes had the 2-fold responsibility of saving their husband’s soul and their children’s soul (in her case she produced a saint, St. Augustine). In addition, to these things Catholic mothers of this era were in danger of martyrdom. These days Catholic mothers have only to worry about being “cancelled” or ridiculed. What a long way we have come since the days of Jesus Christ and the first Catholics.
The hardest part of being Catholic is keeping in focus that being a Catholic mother is a vocation, just like being a nun/sister. It is a lifetime calling to serve, as is also true of a Catholic husband, their spouse until death and to form a constant good example for their children, even after the death of a spouse.
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 