7 Spiritual and practical books for mothers in the new year

Motherhood is a great gift but also an incredibly demanding vocation. It can help to get words of wisdom and encouragement to strengthen us.

Sometimes we find this encouragement in well-written and thoughtful websites and social media accounts. But nothing beats sitting down with a great book, even if you only have time to read for a minute or two. (And here are our tips to sneak in more reading when you’re really busy!)

Some of these books were written for mothers “in the trenches” of raising young children, while others are for mothers in any stage of life. If you’d like to read a spiritual and practical book to uplift your vocation, check out these great titles.

Do you want to be a better wife and mother? To have more order in your life? To grow in union with God? With your own Mother’s Rule of Life, you’ll transform motherhood and its burdens into the joyful vocation it’s meant to be. Learn from Holly Pierlot how to craft a Rule that’s right for you and your family. Then use that Rule to help God draw you, your husband, and each of your children into Heaven!

Catholic Wisdom for a Mother’s Heart is a creative and practical guide for a wide range of domestic church situations. Catholic women can live out their familial vocation with seasoned, simple suggestions for answering Christ’s universal call to holiness. 

Small Steps for Catholic Moms gives busy mothers a year’s worth of sustenance, in the form of brief daily challenges about which to think, pray, and act.

Theology of Home is a simple guide to help reorient all of us toward our true home, allowing us to think purposefully about how to make our own homes on earth better equipped to get all those living in them to the Father’s house.

Featuring more than 100 beautiful and inspiring photographs from homes around the country, profound words from the saints and other literary figures, and in-depth commentary on the theological and spiritual underpinnings of our love for home, the Theology of Home series offers readers a tour of both the home and the human heart.

This unique spiritual guide will help you grow holier and more prayerful as you perform the most menial household chores — not in spite of those chores, but in the midst of them.

Written especially for women in charge of households, Holiness for Housewives will help you better understand and respect your vocation as a housewife — and discover in it your own God-given path to sanctity.

When Leila Lawler started out as a young wife and then became a mother, she had no idea how to keep a house, manage laundry, or plan and prepare meals, let alone entertain and inspire toddlers and select a curriculum to pass on the Faith. She spent decades learning, then developed and presented her findings on her popular website, Like Mother, Like Daughter. She has now collected them in this comprehensive, three-volume set to help women who desire a proficient and systematic approach to home life. 

The Summa Domestica comprises three volumes: Home Culture, which delves into establishing a home and a vision for raising children; Education, which offers a philosophy for the primary vocation of parents to form their children and give them the means to learn on their own; and Housekeeping, which offers practical details for meals, laundry, and a reasonably clean and organized busy and thriving household.

A monastery is a place set apart—a place to learn the blessings of powerlessness, and that time is not ours but God’s. Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. In the ten brief and powerful chapters of Domestic Monastery, Fr. Ron explores how monastery life can apply to those who don’t live in a cloister.