Mother’s Day
There is probably no more unsung a hero than a true mother.
Tomorrow our nation takes an opportunity to celebrate our mothers. We put aside a day for Mother's Day. Mother's Day actually did not begin in America, but it began almost a couple of millennia ago. It began by people coming back to the church where they were baptized. They recognized that the Church was their mother at the baptismal font. So the idea was that they would celebrate a day when they would all go back to their mother church. All the converts would be there together, the ones from over the years, and they would all be together in the place where they were baptized. They would celebrate their faith and life that they had learned and received in that church.
There would be no putting love into practice if we did not have a means to be able to learn it in the first place, and that comes from our mothers. That is the commandment that Jesus gave us: We are to love one another as He had loved us. Where do we learn that except from our mothers? More than any place, for most people, they learn love from a mom. All of us, every single one of us, learned love at its beginning by dwelling for nine months listening to the beautiful sound of a heartbeat, the beating heart of our own mother. That was the sound that permeated our life more than any other for nine full months. Every single second of our existence for nine months, we heard constantly that rhythmic beat.
If a mom brings all of her babies to the doctor and they all put the stethoscope on, they hear the baby's heart and they can hear the mom's heart. When doctors would say a mother's heart sounds like lub-dub, lub-dub, but from a child's point of view they would say it sounds like love-you, love-you. That is what we grow up with. That is how we begin our life: with that constant reminder of love that a mother gives to her children. She conceives that child in love. She bears the child in love. She raises the child in love.
Just step back and consider again what a mother does, pouring herself out entirely for that baby. She has to do things for a child that normally none of us would like to do. Yet, how a mother rejoices even in that. We know that we don't always rejoice in some of those things even as moms, but for the most part, a mom accepts with peace and with joy in her heart even some of those things which are so unpleasant. She is full of love even when a child is sick and makes a mess all over. On a natural level, we would walk away from that. But out of love for a child, a mother enters right into that, not only to clean up the mess, but more than anything to be able to care for her child.
This weekend as we meditate upon this mystery of life we consider our first mother, Eve. We consider our spiritual mother, the Blessed Mother Mary. We consider the Church, Mater and Magister (Mother and Teacher). And we consider the most beautiful woman in our lives, our own mother, the one who gave us life, the one who taught us to love. She is the one who gave us to love GOD, so that even in the newness of life all things would be new once again. Our mothers, out of love for us, wanted to give us not only natural life but they wanted to share with us eternal life. They have taught us to love so that we would be saints. They have brought us to the baptismal font so that we can get to Heaven. They teach us by word and by example what it means to follow the commandment of love. Thanks be to God for moms. They are the ones who teach us the love of God in human form.
If we consider what she has done for us, what she is doing for us, what she will do for us... and compare this to what little thanks she receives in turn …Please…Let us not make the same mistake. The book of Ecclesiaticus (17:24-30) states, “Honor thy father and mother and forget not the groaning of thy mother. Remember that thou hast not been born but through them: and make a return to them as they have done for thee.” Let our Mothers know dear brothers and sisters, that we love them in whatever way it is possible now. Happy Mothers Day.