A Mother's Rule of Life: How to bring order to your home and peace to your soul.

A Mother's Rule of Life How to bring order to your home and peace to your soul By Holly Pierlot Published by Sophia Institute Press, 2002, ISBN: 1-928832-41-5, Softcover, pp. 224, $14.95 us

Big Box bookstores, quaint bookshops and even grocery stores have devoted entire sections on books that feature advice on attaining order in one's own life. While all of these books may give a few pointers on how to balance family, work, and the stresses of everyday life, no other book will help Christian mothers more than Holly Pierlot's book, A mother's rule of life: How to bring order to your home and peace to your soul.

Holly's approach to bringing order to your home and peace to your soul is based on establishing a Rule of Life. It was likened to St. Benedict's famous Rule composed in the 5th century, whereby every moment of the day was regulated in the most minute detail.

Now scheduling every aspect of our lives may at first appear to be a daunting, restrictive. But every mother has experienced first hand those sporadic attempts to establish order in her home only to find herself more weakened by the demands of daily duties, and, despite the best of intentions, finding no time for prayer.

Holly talks candidly about feeling overwhelmed with her responsibilities. She says, "Nothing worked for me until the day I got so desperate that I decided to grab my vocation by the horns and tackle it to the ground, and conquer it." Holly knew that a schedule was needed. She discovered that a Rule of Life was not restricted to religious orders; lay people could also use it. "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." Holly is quick to point out that a Rule is not just another set of schedules; it is a way for mothers to answer God's call to holiness.

Holly explains that complete and proper order can be realized by prioritizing essential responsibilities unique to married life. She began following a system of the Five P's of Married Life.

The First P is Prayer. Instead of failing to find time to spend with God, Holly explains that everything else has to be worked around him. Scheduling in time for prayers, mass, adoration, confession, study, family prayer and so on fosters an awareness of God's presence in the midst of daily duties.

The Second P is Person. Holly points out that in order to be holy, happy and healthy, we must ensure that we are caring for our basic physical needs. Are we getting enough sleep, eating properly, exercising, and so on? The Third P is Partner. A solid, loving relationship is the foundation of a healthy family; therefore, our time and energy must be directed toward our husband.

"The third P also clearly encourages us to adopt our special assignment as a wife--actively decide to love and to become a conscious channel of grace for our spouse."

The Fourth P is Parent. While she stayed home with her growing family for years, Holly often felt bored and restless, regarding her role as little more than a housekeeper and babysitter. She had given up a teaching career in order to be home with her children, but she was not completely satisfied. She took time to study, pray and research her role as wife and mother and she came to learn that "Loving God, living a holy marriage and raising happy balanced, holy children--was in the grand scheme of God's plan more important than the many projects and ambitions I had in other areas. I had to learn, over the course of years, that relationships were more important than task, that being was more important that doing." Moreover, Holly discovered her 'Mission of Motherhood.' "Raising my own children with a Christian worldview was the biggest contribution to society that I could possibly make; giving to the world healthy, holy citizens who would spread their influence in an exponential way that I couldn't accomplish with my paltry efforts alone. My work. with my children was the very core of societal change."

The Fifth P is Provider. Both the husband and wife are called to provide for the family. It is easy for the responsibilities in this area of our lives to overtake the priorities of family life due to the financial and immediate concerns of running a home. Whether we go to work and earn a paycheck or get the house in order by working out routines that will take care of the basic daily, weekly and monthly needs, all of our work is ordained by God. Fine-tuning our duties in these areas ensures us time to attend to our relationship with God, our husband and our children.

It is easy to see the practical benefits of a Rule of

Life but there is a much more profound and fundamental purpose to a Rule of Life that distinguishes it from a mere schedule. "A Rule of Life must be lived as a response to the call of God. In a Mother's Rule, all that we do is done because God asks it of us. It is to accept and embrace my vocation because God wants me to, whether out of an initial sense of obedience to him, or later, simply because I love Him, and to suffer the possibly ongoing struggle to adjust my attitudes and outlook toward His vision for my life is the very heart of the Rule."

A Mother's Rule of Life is truly a "life changing" book. I felt in so many instances that Holly was writing my life story and that she was speaking personally to me. This book review can never capture the depth of wisdom Holly conveys. Her book challenged me to examine my understanding of my vocation as wife and mother, and through it, I have come to understand that the goal of holiness can indeed be achieved within married life. Living a Mother's Rule of Life will develop and preserve virtue in me, all the while drawing me to the One who created me for this very purpose.