Cultivating Order in Our Lives

Amelia Bentrup shares how a recent change in her family brought about an increased level of order and how her family strives to practice the virtue of order.

This year brought a lot of changes for our family. We moved to a new city and our previously homeschooled children began attending a classical Catholic school. I went back to school myself and am attending classes to start a new career. One of the things my children’s school does is work on teaching different virtues. The virtue they are currently working on is order.   

Attending school has been quite the change from our previously more relaxed homeschooling lifestyle. My children are learning about the importance of making sure all their pencils are sharpened at the beginning of the day and their homework is copied down. They are learning how to organize their time and complete homework before playing. They must keep track of assignments and deadlines and uniform pieces and school supplies.  

And while they are learning order, I too, have been working on living a well-ordered life. A well-ordered life is one in which my use of time reflects my priorities, and I take up habits and actions that help bring about productivity and peace and decrease stress and chaos in our family’s life. Some of the areas in which I have been working on becoming more orderly are in prayer, punctuality, and preparedness.  

Order in Prayer 

My children’s school starts with Mass each morning. This is teaching them to put worship of God first before all else. Sometimes I am able to attend Mass with them and this daily routine provides a beautiful structure to our days. On days when I am unable to attend Mass with them, I have gotten into the habit of praying first thing in the morning. Before checking email or social media, I open my laptop to my prayers folder and go through a routine and order of prayers, the Morning Offering, and reading the daily Mass readings.

When my own classes are finished, I come home and take my dog for a walk or run and have gotten into the habit of praying the Rosary during this time. The rhythm and movement of walking or running lends itself well to the rhythm of the Rosary. Praying the Rosary in the car during a daily commute is also an easy and beautiful way to form the habit of a daily Rosary. 

Order in Punctuality 

As a homeschooling family, we rarely had to be someplace right on time, and so we weren’t. Most everywhere we had to be, there were no real consequences to being one, two, five, sometimes even 10 minutes late. Punctuality was just not a huge priority for me. Sure, I would strive to be on time for Mass and showing up 10 minutes late to a 45-minute ballet class is rather embarrassing and bad, but overall, being a minute or two late was no big deal.

School is different, however. Punctuality is enforced and I have found that we really need to strive to be there 10 minutes early or so. Being on time for school has led to being more punctual for other things as well. I have gotten into the habit of allowing extra time to get places and striving to be prepared ahead of time with knowing where all needed items are, so we avoid last-minute tie-ups that lead to lateness. 

Order in Preparedness 

Preparedness and punctuality go hand in hand. In order to be at school on time in the morning, we make sure lunches are prepared and packed the night before. In order to wake up on time, we make sure we go to bed at a reasonable hour. My children have learned to do their homework before playing and make sure their assignments are organized in folders and deadlines are met. They are learning how to study for tests and quizzes and write papers before they are due. They are discovering that keeping their backpacks neat and their desks organized makes the day go more smoothly and work gets done more quickly when you aren’t spending time searching for a pencil or finding your math paper. 

Our family is still definitely not perfectly orderly. There are times when we are still late for something. There are occasions where I forget that I needed to do something ahead of time. We’ve had the occasional lost folder or missing work. But overall, learning these habits of order have really benefited us and provided a sense of peace and calm in our family.  

He is not the God of disorder but of peace. As in all the churches of the holy ones. (1 Corinthians 14:33) 

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Copyright 2025 Amelia Bentrup
Images: Canva