1. The knights of Our Lady will
hold in high esteem Christian marriage instituted by God himself, and raised up
by Him to the dignity of a symbol of the union between Christ and his Holy
Church; Let them love their wives as
Christ loved the Church and sacrificed Himself for her … so that when He took her to Himself she
would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and
faultless[1] (151);
in the same way, let wives love their husbands and submit to them as to the
Lord; for the husband is the head of his wife just as Christ is the head of the Church[2] (152)
Thus their love, carried to God, will reach the fullness of its significance,
and will draw down blessings upon their home from on high.
2. Knights who are heads of families should try to recover
for the family its true aspect and traditional value, playing their full role
as Father whose authority has been established by God. Reflecting as it does
the divine paternity, the family is in fact the basic cell of society, and
within the family the father is in a way both Priest and King[3].
(153)
3. They will consecrate their homes to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that peace and love may reign there.
They will honour Saint Joseph, son of David[4]
(154) and head of the Holy Family, the first knight to serve the Queen of
Heaven. They will impart to their families a deep spiritual life by means of
traditional practices. They will have prayers in common, at least in the
evening. These might begin with a passage of the Bible read aloud, followed by
a short period of silent meditation, then the Lord’s Prayer and the Angelic
Salutation, recited carefully and religiously, unless Compline be said, then
special intentions and finally the Collect for the day. One might pray kneeling
during the week and standing on Saturdays and Sundays and during Paschal tide
in honour of Our Lord’s Resurrection.
The brothers will say grace
before meals, will bless wife and children before going to bed, and generally
observe the time-honoured customs of our forefathers within their households.
Each will take care to protect
his home from intrusion from the profane world, for it is a sanctuary which
must not be soiled[5] (155).
4 Any event of importance in the life of the Knight’s
family shall be accompanied by prayer and thanksgiving, and his fellow knights
should be associated, because all are brothers and members one of another[6] (156).
5. They will make, wherever
possible, a corner of the house into an oratory. They shall try to teach their
children the first rudiments of the Faith, following the words of the psalmist:
what we have heard and known for ourselves
and what our ancestors have told us must not be withheld from their descendants,
but be handed on by us to the next
generation; that is: the titles of
the Lord, his power and the miracles he has done. [7](157)
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