Welcome to Thomistic womanhood. In today’s video, we’re going to do part two of spiritual motherhood. And this is kind of some concrete way to put it into practice.

7 Ways to Practice Spiritual Motherhood

Help Out at A Soup Kitchen

In the first video, I kind of talked a bit about spiritual motherhood, what it is, how you want to discern between true and false suffering so you don’t get like, you know, walked on and manipulated. But in this video, I’m going to talk about some kind of concrete ways you can do that. So, probably one of the first ones would be, do something like help out at a soup kitchen, you know, especially around the holidays. There’s a lot of only people that are hard up on their luck, and they need food. There’s a lot of homeless people out there. They need food. So you know, especially around the holidays, that’s like a really hard time. So if you can, that’s a great thing to do. We have an example of this in Little Women, if you’ve read the book, you’ll remember on Christmas, their mother was like, Okay, here’s what we’re going to do girls, we’re going to take our food, and we’re going to go give it to what they call, we didn’t call them back then that the homeless, I think they had a home, but they were just these poverty-stricken neighbors. And they were like, we’re gonna give them our Christmas dinner. And so that was an example in a way of spiritual motherhood, the mother saw the need, and was like, you know what, we’re pretty good. You know, we can get more food, but they can’t. So let’s do that. And helping out at a soup kitchen is kind of similar. You know, this is not like Charles Dickens time, we’re not going to have like, people living down the street. I mean, maybe you will, that you could knock on their door and like, give them food. Maybe if you have a family in your neighborhood like that, and they’re open to it because I think nowadays, it’s a little more delicate, nobody wants to be on the receiving end of charity,  even when they need that, and oftentimes, if somebody who has fallen on hard times, and they normally are good at taking care of themselves and you know, they’re a normal person, a normal person doesn’t want to have to rely on others for basic things like food and shelter. So that is something to be sensitive to, and why it’s a little different nowadays, you can’t just knock on someone’s door and like, be like, here, here’s a bunch of food, like you can, but you have to be a little sensitive, you kind of have to know them, there has to be like maybe a little rapport there. And that’s why helping out at a soup kitchen is great because it’s kind of like it’s an established thing. You’re helping out and it’s an established thing, so that’s a good possibility.

Volunteer at Any Kind of Orphanage

The next one, this is a little harder, but volunteer at any kind of orphanage or like a group home with children, maybe do something like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, this one is difficult, you have to have your life kind of in order before you attempt to touch the life of a child. Because if that child gets to know you and gets attached to you, you don’t want to necessarily walk out of their life. If you have a busy quarter at work or something, you can’t do it. So this is something you kind of has to be prudent about. And you have to be a stable person yourself. But if you’ve pretty much got your career established or maybe you work like lower stress, low-pressure career and you have free time in the evenings and weekends, volunteering at something with children, we don’t have at least here in America, we don’t have strictly speaking orphanages. So it’s kind of difficult like you can’t just walk into an orphanage and be like, hey, I want to volunteer here, but maybe you can go on a missionary trip. I had a friend. She went to go help out in India, she volunteered in India for a while at a school and she taught the girls. there’s an orphanage. And they needed teachers in the orphanage. So she went there, and she stayed out there for, I want to say, I think it was like one school year, she was out there, and she taught the girls. And that was a great way because it was an orphanage, and the teachers lived on-site with the girls. And so my friend was able to get involved in their life on a closer level than maybe just a normal teacher would. And so that’s a great opportunity. If your church or your college or something has some kind of volunteer program where you can help children in any way that’s a great way to do it. But if it’s not like that, here in America, if you don’t want to, like travel overseas, you want to help someone locally. Then I would say something like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, that’s something you could do.

Join a Suicide Prevention Hotline as a Counselor

And then another one, this is one you probably want. I get some kind of background training or maybe unless you’re already like a psychology major or something and you kind of have some training in this already. But you can join a suicide prevention hotline as a counselor. There’s a lot of people that are very lonely and desperate, and they just need someone to talk to before they end up making a huge drastic choice that can’t be reversed. And so these hotlines, it can be draining because you’re hearing all day every day really sad stories. A lot of people that are suicidal, have a reason for it. Like you hear their life, you hear the kind of background they come from, and you’re like, wow, I’m surprised you didn’t do something like that sooner. Like people go through a lot. It’s amazing how resilient (I hate to sound cheesy) but it’s amazing how resilient the human spirit is, and how much we can go through and I don’t want to say put up with it because a lot of people are not putting up with it. They’re kind of just barely making it through life. But yeah, joining one of these hotlines, and just working as a counselor and just working the phones can be something to do, you could do. And like I said, it can be draining. If you’re very empathetic, you’ll do great. But the drawback is that you may kind of take on some of the sufferings, you may internalize some of their pain, and it can stress you out. So it’s one of those things where you kind of have to pace yourself a little bit, you know, look at your life, look at your sensitivity, maybe talk to your family and ask them like, do you think I’m the kind of like, emotionally sensitive person to be able to handle this? Or, you know, maybe they’re like, yeah, you know, or just do it one day a week or something, you know, maybe don’t do it like every night after work, but it’s something to look into. Also, you want to make sure that you have some kind of background in this. If you have never experienced trauma or abuse from families or your family and you don’t want to get on a call and kind of like, judge the person and be like, Oh, it’s not that bad. I don’t understand why, so if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, I don’t understand why people could get suicidal, like, I just don’t get it, because not everybody, not everybody understands that, maybe you came from a really good family and you would do great at one of these other options, maybe this one just isn’t for you. So you need to have some sort of background and knowledge of like trauma and abuse, because most people that are thinking about suicide, are going through it because of some kind of trauma. Something that happened to them was horrible. And it just killed their desire to live. I mean, really. so that’s something you need to kind of understand, maybe not through experience, but you need to kind of get it on some kind of level before you can try to bring comfort to someone like that. So that’s why I say like, you want to kind of have maybe some kind of a background in it, whether that’s through studying psychology or personal experience.

Provide Abortion Counseling

So the next one provides abortion counseling. There are a lot of women that you know they have abortions because they don’t think they have a better option. They’re not always like terrible people but because a lot of times people are like, Oh, that’s so horrible. Like, how could you do that to your child? And it is. There is something shocking and horrible about it. But a lot of times if you talk to these women, they usually have no idea what else to do. Maybe the father abandoned them when you found out they were pregnant, maybe their parents kicked them out of their home or just something like that, you know, some women just didn’t see any way out. And that’s why they’re considering this. And there are hotlines and things like that. There are centers, abortion counseling centers that women and girls can go to in person. Or there’s also like hotlines that you can kind of like be on the call on the hotline. And so In either of those cases, again, you need to be sensitive and not be like judgmental about it and just remember, like there but for the grace of God go I, you know, I think somebody once said that we are all one traumatic circumstance away or one traumatic event away from being a completely different person than who we are today. And I think there’s a lot of truth in that we often think like, oh, I’m, this kind of person, and I make these kinds of choices, and I would never do that. It’s like, we don’t know if we got put in that situation. Who knows, you know, maybe we would find ourselves considering that too. I hope not. But you never know. And so that’s why if you want to do this, it’s a great thing to do.  there is something particularly beautiful about helping another woman kind of rediscover her maternal instincts in a way, you’re maternal instinct of helping someone less fortunate and having care and concern for someone who’s suffering because considering an abortion is a sign of suffering, that girl is usually suffering somehow that she’s even having to consider that usually, there are girls that come in there and it’s a selfish choice. And they just don’t want to deal with a baby and okay, but other women are not necessarily that far gone. And you can help them and so it’s a beautiful thing to help another woman rediscover her maternal instincts and that part of her nature because it is they’ve done I think these abortion centers have kind of collated data. I don’t think they’ve liked doing studies on it, because this is not the kind of thing it’s too politically charged. I don’t think people are actually like conducting full-scale studies on this, but I have heard a lot of women after they have abortions. It messes with them psychologically. If this woman has any kind of maternal instinct and most women do. There was a girl… I don’t know if you guys have heard of the group TLC. They were like an r&b girl group back in like, a long time ago. I’m kind of dating myself, but they were I think it was back in the 90s. They were kind of like Destiny’s Child before there was a Destiny’s Child, it was three women. And they sang like these, like hip hop songs. Well, one girl in the group, there’s three of them. And one of them, she ended up having an abortion and she’s gone on record like you can search for her on YouTube and hear her talk about it. She had an abortion and it hurt her on like a psychological and emotional level. And she said it took her a long time to get over that. And so this is a great thing to do to be counted. counseling women and girls that are in that situation and try to help them see, just you know that there are options. There are better ways, I don’t want to say better ways to handle it, but there’s a way through it, you know, 20 ways, that’s one of them.

Start a Blog

Another one, maybe a lot less dramatic is starting a blog where you answer readers’ letters, and you counsel them through a problem. So this is common. This has been going on for years, decades. Before blogs, we had like Ann Landers or Emily post, you know, people would write into Emily post about etiquette, I believe it was and then Ann Landers, I think was like, housekeeping kind of stuff, or, I don’t know, Ann Landers, She’s more like kind of a social commentary Woman. I remember she had a column in the newspaper when I was a kid. But basically, the gist of it is you receive letters or messages. nowadays, it’s like comments on your blog or even a YouTube channel kind of like this, but you hear your readers’ problem and you give them advice on it. And that can be one, it’s very receptive. I notice a lot of women do this, and they’re good at it. When you hear about someone being good at this, it tends to be a woman, at least in my experience, maybe I’m just biased and I’m only noticing it with women, but I do notice that whenever a letter writer gets famous But anyways, yeah, so people write you a letter or a comment or a message about some kind of social problem or an etiquette thing or housekeeping or whatever area that you have expertise on, you basically kind of become this person’s consultant and you give them advice on it. And then you like to post the answer on your blog or you make a YouTube video about it or whatever. And so that can be a form of spiritual motherhood. one of the spiritual works of mercy is to instruct the ignorant or to counsel the doubtful, so depending on the subject that your blog or whatever is about, you can be doing a lot of good there. Again, that’s something you want to have some kind of a background and a formation in depending on the gravity and the seriousness of the question you’re taking. If it’s something like, homemaking, that’s not a big deal. But like with the ocean example, you could be providing advice on some really serious life decisions. So it’s something you kind of have to weigh a little bit but that’s another good option.

Teach Someone Catechism

You can teach someone catechism. That’s another one that puts the spiritual in spiritual motherhood. Because teaching someone faith is an excellent thing to do because you’re giving them a gift. It is like the gift that keeps on giving, think back. if you’re not Catholic catechism is basically like it’s the doctrines of our faith. It’s you’re teaching somebody about Catholicism, and what everybody believes and why they believe it and how that all works out. And you can teach children catechism or you can teach adults catechism. So depending on your level, like for those of you that are just like Catholic geeks, like I’m kind of a Catholic geek, and I love finding out all the theological reasons behind why we believe what we believe and so on. And so depending on what’s open in your church maybe they need someone to teach the children catechism, after mass on Sunday, or maybe there’s like a women’s Bible study that they want you to lead. Maybe you’re watching this and you’re like, you’ve been married, you’re an older woman, you’ve seen some life. And maybe you’d be a good person to teach the younger women. I think it was St. Paul that said, Let the older women instruct the younger women. I don’t remember the verse But I feel like he said something similar and I think it’s very true. There is something about life As a woman, especially when it comes to dating and relationships, that I do feel like older women have a lot of wisdom about that should be imparted to younger women. So it’s a little slightly different than catechism.

Lend a Sympathetic Ear

And then here’s a really simple one. I’m gonna, I’m gonna close with, like the really easiest one. But if somebody’s suffering, and they need someone to talk to just talk to them, just lend a sympathetic ear, that’s a great way to do it.

If you’re hearing this and you’re like, wow, all of these things are so structured. My life is so random. I don’t know if I could commit to doing one of these things. Then just commit to really like being there for your friends, being there for your family, and just try to make a point to listen and pay attention to people because a lot of times when people are suffering, they’re not just going to come right out and tell you, they’re going to try to like test the waters a little bit, and they’ll give like a very subtle little cry for help,  and you have to be able to pick up on that. a lot of times us women, the world kind of shoves it down our throat that we should have these like education, these high powered careers, yada, yada, and that’s fine. But it does leave us very preoccupied. And it’s hard for us to pick up on when someone around us is suffering and needs someone just to talk to you. And so that’s something to be aware of. That can be a form of spiritual motherhood, you’re being nurturing and you’re being loving and you’re providing that emotional support to someone. Because isn’t that one of the nicest things about a mother. when you’re young? You know, she changes your diaper and she feeds you and she puts food on the table for you to eat and cook but as you get older, we often value our mothers emotional support. just the fact that you know, they’re there when you need them. They just listen and so having someone to listen means a lot. So anyway, those are a bunch of ideas. I hope that was helpful. Hope that was some food for thought. So anyway, like, share, subscribe, whatever. If you have a question, comment. That’ll be that.