The CMP Review — Week of April 14

April 14, 2025

“Give the children time to grow. Give them time to think. Remember the words of the poet, ‘The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’ Obedience must be taught; discipline must be wrought; learning must be instilled. Nevertheless find time, make time, if needs be take time from other things, that the child, or better still the children, may have their seasons free from grown-up restraint. Their happiness will be securer, their natures sweeter, their development surer, for the times of unconscious being. Their moral standpoint will be insensibly raised by the unrecognized yet appreciated confidence placed in them; and above all they will keep for a longer period—perhaps in a measure all their lives—the child-spirit which, precious as it is, stands in so great a risk of being lost for ever in the modern rush of life, the eagerness to excel, the struggle for the front rank.” (Reynolds, The Parents’ Review, Vol. 10, p. 158)

@tessakeath

April 15, 2025

Years ago I heard Pastor Shane Idleman say that crises reveal who we really are. Those words stuck with me.

Charlotte Mason developed her philosophy of education during relatively peaceful times. The five-volume Home Education Series and a portion of An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education had already been published before a world-wide crisis came to England. That crisis was the Great War.

This crisis would reveal who Miss Mason really was. Would she continue to hold to the principles that she had so consistently presented for so many years? Or would she find that some had failed the test in the light of a world at war?

In 1915 Mason wrote a letter to The Times as the doyen, or senior representative, of teachers. The letter was then published in tine April 1915 Parents’ Review with the title “The War and the Children.” Its message is applicable to anyone in any kind of trial — as it asks what place a living education has in the darkest of times. We’ve transcribed and recorded it for you here.

@artmiddlekauff

April 16, 2025

Ten years ago I wrote this in my journal and rediscovered it the other day:

The boys and I were playing “paper world” when Luca exclaimed, “I feel like everything I ever wanted in life I have at this very moment!”

I asked what he meant, eager to know how his desires had been fulfilled.

“I’ve got it all. A big glass of water, my markers and paper, but, most of all, my mom is playing with me!”

As parents, we want to give our children the best of everything. All they really want is the best of ourselves.

“We talk of lost ideals, but perhaps they are not lost, only changed; when our ideal for ourselves and for our children becomes limited to prosperity and comfort, we get these, very likely, for ourselves and for them, but we get no more.” CM, Vol. 3, p. 83.

@rbaburina

April 17, 2025

Today is Maundy Thursday and every year we celebrate this special day. Tonight I’ve been assigned to do the Scripture reading for the congregation. It’s not the first time.

I remember like it was yesterday another Maundy Thursday when I was assigned to do the reading. But something went dreadfully wrong. I thought I was disqualified.

It was such a memorable day. It was a day when I learned not so much how to be a guide, philosopher, and friend, but to recognize the one who was in my midst.

I told all about it in a recording from last year. If you never gave it a listen, this would be the perfect day to hear it. You can find it here.

@artmiddlekauff

April 18, 2025

“Will you try and keep this day as quietly as you can? Don’t look upon it as a holiday, a day for enjoyment and pleasure. We cannot be so hard and unloving as to spend the day of which our Saviour died as a day of pleasure; we must try and take part in His pleasure; we must try and take part in His sufferings, and be with Him on the Cross.”

~ Daily Talks with Children

(from the Good Friday entry in Lilian Street’s The Golden Key)

@antonella.f.greco

April 19, 2025

“Weeping, as they go their way
Their dear Lord in earth to lay,
Late at even—who are they?

These are they who watched to see
Where He hung in agony,
Dying on the accursèd tree.

Weeping, as they go their way
Their dear Lord in earth to lay,
Late at even—who are they?

These are they who watched to see
Where He hung in agony,
Dying on the accursèd tree.

All is over—in the tomb
Sleeps He, as in death’s dark womb,
Till the dawn of Easter come.

All is over—fought the fight;
Heaviness is for the night,
Joy comes with the morning light.

Leave me in the grave with Him
Sins that shame and doubts that dim,
If our souls would rise with Him.

Glory to the Lord, Who gave
His pure Body to the grave,
Us from sin and death to save.”

— W. S. Raymond
(The Golden Key)

@tessakeath

The Book of Common Prayer provides this Collect, or prayer of invocation, for Easter Sunday:

Almighty God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end.

In 1921 Charlotte Mason commented on this prayer:

What a grand opening to the Collect for Easter Day!—“opened the gate of everlasting life.” We rather expect after going through all the hopes of Easter to pass on to something large and great and wonderful, and we find a prayer that any one can use at any time—“Put into our minds good desires.”

This is indeed a prayer that anyone can use at any time — a prayer that God would enable us to desire the good and shun the evil. It is a prayer involved with repentance, which is the theme of the poem we share today from her sixth volume of poetry. Read or hear it here.

@artmiddlekauff

🖼️: Pilate Washing His Hands by Mattia Preti