Mary, Model for Mothers

It is no secret that we live in an age of sensationalism. Outlets of communication, which often do so much good, are also constrained by the need to maintain a listening, viewing or reading audience. This can lead to appealing to our natural inclination toward what is spectacular or scandalous. One of the dangers of a constant diet of this type of material is that it eventually allows us to abdicate our precious human faculties of thought and reason. Another aspect of what may be called a shallow view of life and the world is what we might call sentimentalism, which can lead to the manipulation of the mind which our Holy Father alerted us to during his recent visit. Sentiment and emotion are wonderful human characteristics but, as I mentioned last week in another context, they must be the fruit of or the impetus towards deeper thought and awareness and not ends in themselves.

We have just begun the beautiful month of May, which the Church dedicates in a special way to our Blessed Mother Mary. This Sunday, we also honor our earthly mothers in the celebration of Mother’s Day here in the United States. Both of these subjects, our Blessed Mother Mary and earthly motherhood, contain a great deal of material for sentiment, which is good. However, if they are reduced to mere sentimentalism, they will eventually become victims, like so many relationships today which cannot be sustained in the long term because they are based on selfish need and shallow sentiment rather than deep seated conviction and genuine, selfless love. This week and this month, as we honor both our heavenly Mother and our earthly mothers, perhaps one can help the other in making our attachment to each of them genuine and built upon a firm foundation.

Mother of all the living
We know that in the order of nature, motherhood has been with us from the very beginning. In the context of their relationship, our first parents bring forth children, two of whom we know as Cain and Abel (cf. Genesis, chapters 3 and 4). It is interesting to note that Saint Augustine bases his famous distinction between the “city of God” and the “city of man” on the different responses of Cain and Abel: one worships with a sincere and loving heart and is seen as building up the city of God, while the other’s sacrifice is not acceptable because it is not accompanied by a genuine and loving motivation and is seen as building up the city of man without God (cf. The City of God, Saint Augustine, chapter 15). This struggle to have our exterior actions and sentiments express our interior conviction is as old as the fallen human race.

The account of our first parents and of “the mother of all the living” (cf. Genesis 3:20) bringing forth children reminds us that human motherhood is part of the very nature of the woman as created by God. Throughout both Old and New Testaments, a mother bringing forth children has been considered a great blessing of God. Certainly this does not represent an unrealistic picture of human life. There must have been struggles in raising children and supporting them throughout the history of the human race. In fact, we have just mentioned Cain and Abel, and their story in the first book of the Bible. This very account is an illustration of the fact that with the sin of our first parents the harmony among God’s creatures, even the harmony between brothers, is wounded and sometimes leads to heartache both for the parents and the individuals involved. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? However, it was not seen down through the ages as taking away the blessing of fruitfulness in bringing forth children. Unfortunately, it seems to have been reserved for our own age sometimes to view the gift of children, considered a blessing throughout Judaeo-Christian history, as an intrusion at times and even a punishment.

The late Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty (1892-1975), the Hungarian archbishop who suffered so much at the hands of his communist persecutors, wrote a beautiful tribute to the privilege of motherhood, given to women as part of their very nature. He wrote: “The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral — a dwelling for an immortal soul. The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle. Only a human mother can.”

Grace builds upon nature
It is interesting to note that in the very context of original sin and its necessary punishment, which came to us through a woman, God promises to bring us salvation one day through a woman as well. At the very beginning, the figure of a woman is foretold as being the instrument of salvation. The Second Vatican Council teaches: “The earliest documents, as they are read in the Church and are understood in the light of a further and full revelation, bring the figure of a woman, Mother of the Redeemer, into a gradually clearer light. Considered in this light, she is already prophetically foreshadowed in the promise of victory over the serpent which was given to our first parents after their fall into sin” (Lumen Gentium, 55).

The ancient principle that “grace builds upon nature” is magnificently fulfilled in Mary, Mother of God. God does not offend the order of nature which He has created. This order has been placed within us and within the world as what has been called a “law of the heart.” It might even be considered as a “set of directions” which God has given to His creation. If we are rightfully concerned with ecology and the proper care of the environment, how much more should we be concerned with the respect due to the human person and the manner in which he or she has been created? According to His promise, made after the sin of our first parents, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption” (Galatians 4:4-5). At this moment, when the angel hailed Mary as “full of grace” and asked her consent in becoming the mother of God, the orders of nature and grace were wonderfully united. In the order of nature, God chose to be born of a woman, according to His plan of creation. In the order of grace, He chose to send His Son as our Redeemer by being born of the Virgin Mary.

Mary as Model
Mothers can take Mary as an ideal model because they too, according to their own vocation, participate in the union of the orders of nature and grace. In the order of nature, they participate, along with the father of the child, in God’s work of creation. In the order of grace, they have the responsibility to transmit the life of grace to the child, just as they have transmitted human life. Faithful parents do this by bringing the child to be baptized and by bringing him or her up knowing Jesus and the life He came to give us. This is a very serious challenge but also a wonderful privilege. In giving to their child the gift of Jesus, parents give what is more valuable than any physical comfort or merely human knowledge because they are giving to their child the life of God, through the miracle of grace.

During the Mass which our Holy Father celebrated at Yankee Stadium recently, he paid particular tribute to parents who have fulfilled this responsibility to their children. He said: “We think of those countless fathers and mothers who passed on the faith to their children, the steady ministry of the many priests who devoted their lives to the care of souls, and the incalculable contribution made by so many men and women religious, who not only taught generations of children how to read and write, but also inspired in them a lifelong desire to know God, to love him and to serve him” (Homily, 20 April 2008).

In Mary, mothers can see the reflection of so many of their own challenges: going into the unknown future as she did after she gave her consent; being deprived of earthly comforts, even as she was about to give birth; not always understanding why her Son had to do some of the things He did; losing her beloved spouse, Saint Joseph and, perhaps most difficult of all, having to let her Son leave her to go forth to fulfill His mission, which even led to His death. During His suffering and death, Mary had to stand faithfully at the Cross, surely feeling frustration at not being able to help Him physically but joining spiritually in His fulfillment of the work of our salvation.

The vocation Mary was called upon to fulfill and the vocation faithful mothers are called upon to fulfill can never be reduced to mere sentimentalism because they are so profound. As mothers reflect on their role in the work of creation and salvation and as we all reflect upon the debt of gratitude we owe to our own mothers, for giving us life and perhaps for also transmitting their faith to us, we reflect on very serious truths indeed. With Mary as our Model, we recall them with humble gratitude!

May 8, 2008