The Psalm of Young Mothers

“O my God Like our sisters in the cloister, We have left all for you; We have not imprisoned the youth of our faces in a guimpe and under a veil, And though we have cut our hair, it is not in any spirit of penance…. Deign nevertheless, O Lord, to cast a look of complaisance On the humble little sacrifices, which we offer You all day long, Since the day our groaning flesh gave life to all these little Christians We are rearing for You. Our liberty, O God, is in the hands of these little tyrants who claim it every minute. The house has become our cloister, our life has its unchanging Rule, And each day its Office, always the same; The Hours for dressing and for walks, the Hours for feeding and for school, We are bound by the thousand little demands of life. Detached by necessity every moment from our own will, We live in obedience. Even our nights do not belong to us; We too have our nocturnal Office, When we must rise quickly for a sick child, Or when between midnight and two o’clock, When we are in the full sleep we need so badly A little untimely chanter Begins to sing his Matins. We practically live retired from the world: There is so much to be done in the house. There is no possibility of going out anyway without a faithful sitter for the little ones. We measure out the time for visits parsimoniously. We have no sisters to relieve us on another shift. And when the calls for service reach high pitch for us, We have to sweep, to wash the dishes, scrape the carrots for the stew, prepare a smooth puree for baby and keep on going without stopping From the children’s room to the kitchen and to and fro. We do big washings we rub and we rinse Aprons and shirts, underclothes and socks And all the baby’s special things. In this life of sacrifice, come to our help, O Jesus!”