A feature in Martha Stewart Living magazine for December 2010 was “A Holiday Brunch At Bedford” where Martha hosted her editors and their families for a morning of food, festivities, and snowball fights in celebration of the magazine’s 20 year-anniversary. In that event, Martha went all out with her decorating and preparation of Christmas foods with all the special things that made the event very memorable. She loved to share her visions with as many friends as possible.
I have admired Martha Stewart in making more attractive and accessible the art and science of homekeeping thus giving the deserved dignity to the work in the home. Two years ago, the family received as a gift Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook (The Essential Guide to Caring for Everything in Your Home). The book was dedicated to all mothers and daughters, fathers and sons who have a room, an apartment, or a home to care for. A livable and lovely home is always consequence of teamwork. And this is true even if one lives alone because we need the support of many other people to make our space clean and beautiful, warm and cheerful. Yet the task of making a house a home corresponds in a special way to women.
A Chinese proverb says “A hundred men can build a house, but only a woman can make a home.” The aptness of women for the work in the home is natural talent. Pope John Paul II had called this the feminine genius. One of my favorite accolade said on women came from Saint Josemaria when he said that “Women are called to bring to the family, to society and to the Church, characteristics which are their own and which they alone can give: their gentle warmth and untiring generosity, their love for detail, their quick-wittedness and intuition, their simple and deep piety, their constancy...A woman’s feminity is genuine only if she is aware of the beauty of this contribution for which there is no substitute—and if she incorporates it into her own life.”
The other Martha whom I have also thought of was Mary's sister. Martha and Mary are two sisters known in Christian spirituality as icons specifically dedicated to action and contemplation. When Jesus was received in their home, Martha was taken up in housework while Mary sat by Jesus’ feet to listen to him. Martha was remembered in that famous refrain of Jesus “Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.” Action or work goes well with contemplation or prayer.
A woman who has good knowledge of the art and science of home and genuine piety is a great fortune and blessing for many—family and society. If there is so much work, there must certainly be much physical energy needed with regular good boost coming from one's sturdy spiritual life. The demands of house chores can surely be made compatible with some time—even a quarter on an hour—of solitude so as to be able to gaze at God and pray. This fusion is the secret of happy homes where smiles are generated and shared with each other.
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| An egg artistically painted in Russia with the image of Mary and the Child Jesus. |
Today is the first of January in the year 2011 and is also celebrated by Catholics as a day of Solemnity for Mary, Mother of God. But I have known her too to be my Mother. It would be a lovely day to thank Her and our own mothers even in simple ways. When I was a child, I greatly looked forward to the blooming of gumamelas in our backyard. I eagerly picked the flower when all its petals had blossomed fully and offer it to Lola Acion, a very old lady and our landlady who lived just at the second floor of the house we rented in Manila for years. She hardly could see because of her eye cataract but without fail, she would smile at me and would thank me. Without fail, she would give the gumamela to an image of Mary in her room, would light a candle, and then would tell me stories of favors granted by Mother Mary. Deep in my heart, I knew my Mother smiled at us.
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