Reflections for the Homeschooling Catholic Mother
“It is most laudable in a married woman to be devout, but she must never forget that she is a housewife. And sometimes she must leave God at the altar to find Him in her housekeeping.” —St. Frances of Rome
Many Catholic homeschooling mothers long for union with God. We rise early to pray before the household stirs, we whisper aspirations while folding laundry, and we bring our weariness before the tabernacle in search of strength. We love God—and we want to serve Him well.
But sometimes, in our zeal for spiritual devotion, we may be tempted to see our work at home as a distraction from the “real” work of holiness. We might long to be left alone with our Bible, our Rosary, or our devotions, while children tug at our skirts, the baby cries to be fed, and dinner must be made yet again. It can feel like we are being pulled away from prayer—away from God.
St. Frances of Rome gently reminds us that this is not so. She says a married woman must never forget that she is a housewife. In God’s design, her vocation is not lived in a monastery, but in a home. Her altar is her kitchen table. Her cloister is the daily rhythm of cooking, cleaning, tending, correcting, guiding, and loving. And her sanctity is not found in escaping these duties, but in offering them to God with joy and fidelity.
To “leave God at the altar to find Him in her housekeeping” does not mean abandoning prayer. It means carrying prayer into our work, and recognizing that God is already there, waiting to be loved in the form of a tired child, a pile of dishes, a messy floor. This is the true Catholic spirituality of the home: to see the Incarnate Christ present in the ordinary. To believe that what we do in the kitchen or the laundry room can be a sweet-smelling sacrifice if done in love and obedience.
In Lumen Gentium, the Church teaches that the universal call to holiness extends to every state in life, and that the lay faithful sanctify the world from within, by carrying Christ into family life, work, and community (LG 31–34). Our homes are not distractions from the spiritual life. They are the spiritual life, if we live them as God intends.
We do not become holy by fleeing from housework. We become holy by embracing it. So, when we find ourselves overwhelmed by tasks, let us pause—not to escape them, but to find God in them. That is where St. Frances found Him, and that is where we will too.
