HALO FOR A HOUSEWIFE

Within the past decade an increasing number of laymen have begun to set one weekend a year aside as a time for special prayer, meditation and silence in the quiet of a Retreat House under the gudiance of a priest retreat-master in order to achieve a measure of ""spiritual rejuvenation"". In For a Housewife Jean Kelleher Porter, mother of six children offers a solutions to the problem confronting many mothers of small youngsters who would desperately like to get away for a retreat weekend, but who find it virtually impossible to leave their homes for even a short time. She brings a retreat to them. Indeed, her book is a series of meditations and prayers to be used for three consecutive days at home for a ""private"" retreat by women still carrying on their normal duties. The contends at the outset that a Housewife is ""written for women like myself who are busily occupied with trying to live good lives according to the duties of their station in life."" Readers will recognize in her a ""kindred soul"" bogged down just as they are with never-ending routine of housework, and they will respond to her discourses on faith, hope, charity, perseverance, fortitude, temperance, wisdom, prudence, piety and fear of the Lord with the feeling that ""here at last in someone who understands our problems"". Mrs. Porter's common sense, wit and a deep sense of spiritual values are always apparent in this special little book which women will soon discover can be used just as profitably for daily reading and meditation as for a definite retreat time.