Come and see! Our Confraternity meets on the first Tuesday of each month, and inquiring hearts are always welcome! More details can be found on the homepage of this website, on the parish calendar.
Why join the Confraternity? Members are endowed with all the spiritual benefits of the Confraternity of Christian Mothers, which includes a share in all the prayers and Masses offered for the members and access to special plenary and partial indulgences available to Christian Mothers. Who can join the Confraternity of Christian Mothers? Any Catholic woman in good standing, married or unmarried, with or without children, can be admitted, provided she seriously intends to promote the aims of the Confraternity, especially that of the Christian education of children, and to comply with the rules of the Confraternity. What are the duties of members? In order to participate fully in the benefits of being a Christian Mother, members are bound in charity, but not under pain of sin, to perform the following duties:
• Take seriously your vocation to educate and raise your children in the Catholic faith, and support other women in their motherly vocations. • Pray the Daily Prayer for the Children each day for your children and those of other members. • Once each month offer your personal Mass intention for Confraternity members. • Participate in meetings (First Tuesdays at 6:30pm), Masses (Usually first Tuesdays, Navilleton), Holy Hours, and other events as often as possible without compromising other responsibilities. • Use the Mother Love prayer book as part of your personal spiritual formation. • Pray for the other members (including deceased members), your local Director, officers and our National Executive Director. • Pay the annual dues ($25)
What indulgences are available to members? A Christian Mother duly admitted into the Confraternity of Christian Mothers may obtain numerous plenary and partial indulgences: Plenary Indulgencesare available under the usual conditions, with the additional condition of making or renewing (at least privately) her promises to observe faithfully the rules of the Confraternity: • On the day of her reception. • On the feasts of the Holy Family, the Annunciation, the Queenship of Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Gerard Majella, St. Elizabeth and Christ the King. Partial Indulgences are available: • Four times a year, on days established by her local Confraternity, or on the next Sunday, after having visited the church of the Confraternity and there prayed for the intention of the Pope. • As often as she attends a Confraternity conference or lecture. • Each time she recites, with a contrite heart, the Christian Mother’s Daily Prayer for the Children. • For every good work performed according to the intention and rules of the Confraternity or on its behalf. This last indulgence is, on account of its greatness, worthy of special attention. Every good work performed by a Member of the Confraternity, for the Confraternity in general, or for its Members, for the education and the benefit of her own children, or for the children of one of the Members, obtains for herself, if she performs it in the state of grace and with a pious intention, a remission of part of the temporal punishment due to sin. While the former custom of assigning a time value to partial indulgences is no longer in effect, it may be helpful to Christian Mothers to know that in ages past, the Church assigned these good works the equivalence of sixty days of severe penance!
Excerpt from the devotional “Mother Love” So many and so great are the spiritual benefits which a woman may obtain upon joining a Confraternity of Christian Mothers! As a zealous Member, she will lead a life full of merits; and, consoled and encouraged by the thought of having so many prayers offered up for her, and by the merits of the other Members of the Confraternity, she will at last leave this world having obtained the plenary indulgences granted to the Members of the Confraternity. In heaven she will find the Members of the Confraternity, who preceded her, who, with the love of sisters, will welcome her; she will there find also her children, for whom she has secured eternal happiness by her common sacrifices, sufferings, and prayers, and all, united intimately in love and friendship, will enjoy together for eternity the exceeding great reward of so many good actions.