Being a homemaker is not a simple task, but none values it. Every woman is a talented one for making their family more beautiful. Have you ever thought of spirituality in homemaking?
“We want our homes to be a sanctuary, but also a foreshadowing of heaven. We want to get home with the Father in heaven,” said Carrie Gress, creator of the Theology of Home website with Noelle Mering.
Home – A Place of Evangelization
“If you look at the history of the Church, women have been this stealth evangelical force that we don’t pay enough attention to,” Gress said. “We think of evangelization as apologetics, but we don’t think enough about what happens when women open their hearts to others.”
This kind of evangelization is not a formal one. This may have been done in many ways. “We can’t always get someone to church, but we can get them over for a party or for dinner,” Gress said. “That can be a meaningful witness, seeing the faith lived in a family. That speaks to people much more deeply than fine china or the perfect floral arrangement.”
Inviting someone into a Catholic home is something like inviting them to church- a domestic church, that the Church calls all Catholic families to be.
Despite how important it is to make a lovely, welcoming home—both as a gift to ourselves and our families and as a way to welcome others into the domestic church—too often this role has been written off as unimportant. The denigration of homemaking isn’t just a problem in the secular world, but even in Catholic circles. Decorating, meal planning, cleaning, and all the myriad connecting parts that go into making a home sometimes are considered unworthy of attention from serious minds.
“I would love to see more women be inspired to create books, articles, magazines, and other initiatives like this,” Gress said. “Catholics have just dipped our toes into pop culture. We can be too intellectual in Catholic culture; we have these great intellectual arguments but not a popular way to disseminate them.”
Gress has spent time researching how ideas spread through the culture and when you look at that, she said, “it wasn’t done by women reading Karl Marx or Margaret Sanger, but through magazines, pop culture, daytime TV, the media. We as a Church haven’t found a great way to combat that.”
Reclaiming the Word “homemaker”
Gress encourages women to reclaim the word “homemaker.” This is a term that can apply to any woman who cares about decorating her space beautifully. It doesn’t matter that whether she has a full-time career, or not she is married, or she has children or not.
“The word homemaker isn’t a dirty word. It’s an incredible opportunity that we have to give to others, not just on a material level but on a spiritual level,” Gress said.
Every Catholic woman can be proud of themselves because they are doing incredible work They work for the Church and the world. It has to be celebrated as being themselves.
The act of hospitality, however simple, may demand a great deal of us. The seasons of life are varied forms of evangelization. Being the mother of toddlers, the homemakers have many extra responsibilities and sleepless nights. The illness of family members gives struggle for them. Entertaining guests in a better way is also not an easy thing.“We went through a long phase where I didn’t entertain. I felt like I had to move heaven and earth to get the house ready for company,” she said. Yet when she did find small ways to open up her home to others, in spite of the imperfections she perceived, it was always worth it.
Hospitality really is a gift to others. If you may not have a perfect house. But it is amazing to know that the guests who come to your house are happy and satisfied when they are back. Ultimately homemaking is a meaningful role for women to embrace. Taking time to arrange flowers or to plan a dinner party on a budget may seem trivial, yet these acts can have eternal consequences. Each guest we invite to our home offers the chance to serve another person as we would serve Christ.
“Every day acts like having someone over and just listening to them, taking a family a meal after a new baby, teaching our children throughout the day—this is powerful evangelization,” Gress said. “Our culture is hungry for this ability women have to make others feel heard and cared for. I think we’ve forgotten the power a woman has in her home to reach the hearts of others.”