A Mother’s Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soul is a book that has completely changed my outlook on life as an individual and a mother.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I borrowed this book from my mom. I read it a little, but I didn’t follow any of the recommendations inside. A few months after having my second son, however, I felt like life was just so crazy and disordered that I couldn’t handle it anymore and something needed to be done. A Mother’s Rule of Life came to mind, and my husband and I agreed that we should read the book together. We tackled it while we were on a road trip to Chicago to visit my oldest sister. Life hasn’t been the same since!
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What is this book and what is it about?
A Mother’s Rule of Life is about one mother’s journey finding peace in her vocation and in her home. Holly Pierlot was a young wife and mother who felt stuck in the chaos of her home life. Something needed to change. Through prayer and reflection, she wrote a rule of life for herself. By implementing this rule, she was able to bring order to her entire life and thrive with God’s grace!
Although this book was published in 2004, Holly presents a timeless way of living. It is essentially a how-to book, but it is the best how-to book I have found to date on becoming a better child of God, person, spouse, parent, friend, and coworker.
Christian Perfection
At the beginning, Holly explains that at one point in her life she thought Christian perfection was about perfect behavior. Holy people follow all the rules and go through the motions like they’re supposed to, right? But then she realized that the Pharisees did that and they clearly had some problems. At another point, Holly thought perfection was the ecstasies and levitating of the saints. But then she learned that such experiences are not meant for everyone. Christian perfection can include these things, but they are only extras.
Holly finally came upon a definition of Christian perfection in A Catholic Dictionary that really made sense:
“Perfection is ‘union with God, which is possible in this world, consisting in and proportional to the degree of charity possessed and exercised. . . . When a [person] loves God with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and his neighbor as himself for God’s sake, then he is perfect.’ To seek perfection in this life is really to seek union with God through love.”
Holly realized that Christian perfection is attainable for every Christian who chooses it. It is not just for the saints, or priests or religious, or a miracle worker, or someone out in public. And one doesn’t have to wait until Heaven to be united with Christ. We can be united to Him here and now in the everyday! Christian perfection is for mothers too: “Since our lives as wives and mothers are a true vocation—a calling from God to us—God must want us to find him within our family life.”
Holly explains that the purpose of a Mother’s Rule of Life is to “make ourselves available to God as best we can—to find ways to foster and dispose ourselves to God’s presence in our lives, right now, amid the diapers, the bills, and the stomach flu.”
What is a Rule of Life?
Holly reminds the reader that those in religious life have a rule that helps them on their journey to sanctification. This rule is their path to holiness: “It consists primarily in the examination of one’s vocation and the duties it entails, and the development of a schedule for fulfilling these responsibilities in a consistent and orderly way.”
In a rule of life for religious, there are set times for things like prayer, self care, meals, cleaning, serving others, etc. The rule of life brings order, but also “a happy disposition of things . . . a multitude reduced in some wise to unity” (A Catholic Dictionary). Holly saw that a rule of life could apply to a family community just as well as a religious community. And she was excited because not only would it create order in her family, but it would also lead her to holiness!
As Holly explains, however, a rule of life is not just a routine or schedule. “A Rule is an organization of everything that has to do with your vocation, based on a hierarchy of the priorities that define the vocation and done with the intent to please God.” It deals with the essential responsibilities of one’s vocation. Each person’s rule is going to be different from the next because of each person’s specific calling, temperament, charisms, and apostolates.
The Five “Ps” of the Married Life
Along with the variables of a Rule come invariables. These are the 5 Ps of the married vocation:
- Prayer
- Person
- Partner
- Parent
- Provider
A wise old priest had told Holly about this list of priorities. He said that these duties are real obligations of the married life that cannot be neglected.
Prayer: A Relationship with God
One has to put first things first and God is surely the most important priority. We can’t leave Him the leftovers of our time, never making the effort to form an intentional relationship with Him. We need to put Him first by actually choosing to give Him the “firstfruits” of our time, attention, money—everything!
Holly determined what she felt were the necessary Catholic practices to have in her rule. This included how she wanted to spend her prayer time, and when that time would be. Holly left room for study, reading, Mass, Adoration, Confession, retreats, and meetings with a spiritual director. She also drew up a family prayer routine as a part of helping her children draw closer to God.
Person: Proper Love and Care of Self
If you don’t care for yourself, it is so much harder to care for others (speaking from real life experience). Holly wrote down her own physical needs and determined what she herself needed in the areas of sleep, exercise, food, vitamins, etc. And she didn’t leave out her mental and emotional health!
Partner: Loving One’s Spouse
A solid marriage is the bedrock for happy and holy families. Therefore, Holly knew that she needed to prioritize time with her husband, even above her children or her household affairs. So she made all her evenings available to him.
Parent: Being With One’s Children
Holly considered how she might love her children “in a conscious, consistent way.” She realized that her children needed more than just her physically presence: they needed her mental presence too, to be fully attentive to them when she was with them. She had to leave aside thoughts of all other projects and just be with them.
In homeschooling her children, Holly realized that teaching them about God and how to know Him was more important than their other lessons. So she tried to emphasize discussion of the faith, stories from the Bible and the saints, as well as leaving ample time for her children to receive the sacraments more frequently.
Provider: Producing in and for the Home
Both wives and husbands provide for the home, just in different ways. Each has an essential role to play. Holly’s took on her part as a provider by creating housework routines, so that all of the necessary cleaning was accomplished monthly, weekly, and daily. She was able to keep the house maintained through routine cleaning done by the whole family.
Effects of Establishing a Rule of Life
By writing all these elements down and allotting times to them, Holly Pierlot was able to create a Rule of Life for her and her family! It changed a bit over time as needed, but choosing to live by a Rule brought order and peace into their home.
(Check out her book to find more details and tips on how she lives out her Rule! Find it here!)
What did We Learn From A Mother’s Rule of Life?
This book is excellent for mothers! It is easy to read and understand (as well as quite humorous!). And, it gives very practical advice on how to make your own Rule of Life for you and your family!
My husband and I, after reading this book together, made our own Rule according to the instructions Holly gives in A Mother’s Rule of Life. Having that Rule has helped us immensely. We have learned how to put God first by actually spending consistent time with Him. Each of us takes the time to care for our physical, mental, and emotional needs. We spend intentional time being with and loving each other as spouses. It is easier to spend quality time being present to our children physically and mentally. And we are learning to love our work in the household by creating routines that everyone can partake in.
We definitely don’t have everything totally figured out and our Rule of Life is still in progress, but this book has been a life changer for us. We want to recommend it to all our readers as an exceptional book that is totally worth your while!
RATING: 5 STARS
Are you tired of a chaotic home? Aching to find some peace? Don’t know where to turn? Take the plunge, read this book, and begin a Rule of Life for your family! When you do, leave us a comment and tell us about your experience!
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