Day after day with Father Cestac: MARCH

MARCH: Family

1.  Other than the mother’s heart nobody can understand the heart of an unfortunate girl who is orphan, abandoned on the earth. 

2.  Our mission is great and up to the designs of our Sovereign Mistress: it is the reconstitution of family by the Christian mother.

3.  Let us pray to Saint Leon, patron of Bayonne and of ours; He is very dear to us because daily we have the proof of his protection.

4.  Occasionally Servants of Mary should see themselves under the eyes and in the spirit of love of the divine Mother as the children of the same family. 

5.  We all have but one family in the heart of our good mother. You must love me as your good father and I must love you as my child, always in the Heart and love of our divine Mother

6.  You will always find in me a father full of tenderness and love. I have given you my trust and I continue it with you. 

7.  While directing your Sisters according to the rule, make them happy for having them, a mother's heart.

8.  You Sisters be very soft, very good as a real mother.

9.  Our divine Mother has placed in her family this holy affection which unites us all to her heart and in her Heart.

10.  A sister away from the house has no human consolations other than the news of the community; it is the link which connects her to her true family.

11.  A Christian mother! What a great and holy thing, what a power for the good.

12.  The Christian mother, brings down upon her family the abundance of lights and graces by her fervent prayers.

13.  The Christian mother is the image and the reflection of our heavenly divine Mother on earth.

14.  After your salvation, one of your great solicitude to be the salvation of your father and mother.

15.  After God and His Divine Mother, love your parents and pray for them.

16.  Love these children as Our Lord, as Mary loves them; Love them as good mothers; on earth they have none other than you.

17.  I would easily have forgiven you, and you would have always found a father good and compassionate.

18.  (For these children) of their depraved and corrupted parents, it was necessary for them to create a family substituting by love, a father, a mother who provides all the needs of their souls and their bodies.

19.  What an honor, what a veneration to St. Joseph among us and how much striking and multiplied are the marks of protection and the keen interest which he never ceases to lavish on us.

20.  The Most Holy Virgin wanted the penitents to have a family life and a free and wise person.

21.  Help these children to love as they are, to attach them to the soil by preparing them to become pious and intelligent farmers, and by these means to reconstruct the Christian family.

22.  The administrator of the house is gentle and paternal. They call me Father, and that name goes well in my heart and my whole life.

23.  Of all those bonds that hold young people in need, the strongest and the most powerful, are those of the family.

24.  A father, a mother, brothers and sisters, the whole of a kinship that surrounds you, have a secret but powerful influence that touches the depths of moral existence.

25.  What should be a neglected child’s need? It is necessary to create a family for him, to form in this young soul the bonds which does not exist and who must be surrounded in order to save him from misfortunes.

26.  Oh! That I am touched by your kind heart and the filial affection you have towards your good Father.

27.  The sister of the junior class gathers the children of 3 to 6 years old and begins the teaching with a reading, simple and elementary as an intelligent and good mother would give to her dear little children.

28.  The firmness in the order does not authorize to underestimate the rights of families.

29.  The orphans are guided with gentleness and kindness; it is the family spirit but of a well-regulated family.

30.  In order to from the Christian family in the country side, the religion should seize the childhood with a maternal care but elevated by the saintly religious vocation. 

31.  The religious sister will be the new mother, a mother more than a real mother who naturally loves the young, but be a supernatural mother.