On Sunday May 12, many people will celebrate Mother’s Day, which gives us an opportune time to think about the gift of motherhood.
Blessed John Paul II in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem reflects upon the various gifts of women throughout salvation history and in the present hour of history. Reflecting on the value of motherhood, John Paul writes:
This mutual gift of the person in marriage opens to the gift of a new life, a new human being, who is also a person in the likeness of his parents. Motherhood implies from the beginning a special openness to the new person: and this is precisely the woman’s “part.” In this openness, in conceiving and giving birth to a child, the woman “discovers herself through a sincere gift of self.” The gift of interior readiness to accept the child and bring it into the world is linked to the marriage union, which – as mentioned earlier – should constitute a special moment in the mutual self-giving both by the woman and the man (no. 18).
Every conception of human life is a precious gift. Both man and woman give of themselves completely to form a new life with God’s help. The recognition of this gift from above is expressed by Eve from the beginning, “I have brought a man into being with the help of the Lord” (Genesis 4:1). Although both man and woman share in the love that comes to fruition in the gift of child, mothers have a unique “gift of interior readiness” that welcomes the blessing of a child.
The statement, “Yo mama was Pro-life,” is one of the few succinct and accurate bumper stickers. Mothers are for life. They have given the gift of human life at birth. Further, they continue to nourish and to tend to the precious life they have received. Beyond the gift of physical life, mothers are called to form the minds and hearts of their children in the Word of God.
In the Gospels, a woman in a crowd addresses our Lord with these words, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!” (Luke 11:27). In response, Jesus says, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (v. 28). Jesus is not showing ingratitude to the gift the Blessed Virgin Mary’s motherhood. Instead, He is simply highlighting the greater type of motherhood that strives to contemplate the Word of God interiorly. The faithful mother, modeled above all by the Blessed Virgin Mary, carefully caries out the will of the Father.
Now more than ever, there is a need of the witness of faithful mothers like Saint Monica (the mother of Saint Augustine), Saint Macrina the Elder (the mother of Saint Basil the Elder and the grandmother of Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Peter of Sabaste, and Macrina the Younger) or Saint Gianna Beretta Molla (the mother, who freely gave up her life for her child). Saintly mothers and grandmothers have formed and continue to form saintly families.
The culture of our times, which is hostile to life and love, needs the witness of faithful mothers to form future generations in the life of Christ. Further, there is crisis of fatherhood. Many men shirk their duties and responsibilities of raising their children physically and spiritually. Even when there is a father in the home, there are often times when the mother is left alone to bring the children to church and to raise them in the practice of the faith.
The gift of parenthood is natural for mothers. This is why John Paul asserts that a father has “to learn his own ‘fatherhood’ from the mother” (Mulieris Dignitatem, no. 18). The heart of motherhood is a generosity that fathers must learn to embrace as their own. Unfortunately, many men do not seem to pick up on this lesson from faithful mothers.
Although my father loved me, he was absent in many ways. He was a walking “causality” of the Vietnam War and struggled with various addictions. Thankfully, my mother Perla heard and kept the Word of God. As a nurse for twenty years, generosity was my mother’s occupation and vocation at all times.
In June of 2000, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. With five tumors in her brain and metastasis in her lungs, she was not given more than six months to live. Perla faced this poor prognosis with great faith and strength. She embraced this cross as an opportunity to offer it up for my father’s conversion (re-conversion) to the faith, which my mother seemed to embrace naturally.
My sister and I were blessed to receive a Catholic education because of the huge sacrifices of my mother. Our mother took us to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day, while my father joined us only for Christmas and Easter. She modeled for us a life of daily piety and devotion through visits to the Blessed Sacrament, her recitation to the Rosary, and her incessant novenas to the Infant of Prague or Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Thankfully, with the help of chemo and radiation, and above all the hand of Divine Providence, my mother easily surpassed the six months that the doctors claimed that she had. In 2002, my sister Michelle was murdered. This tragedy broke my mother’s heart and she simply could not fight her cancer and bear the grief at the same time. The cancer began to metastasize throughout her body.
My mother began to use a cane, which was soon replaced by a walker, and eventually, she had to use a wheelchair. Life came full circle when I had to clothe, bathe, and feed my mother. Instead of showing resentment or anger towards the Lord, she continued to embrace her cross with perfect joy. She even laughed and smiled during her final months and weeks.
In her last days, she welcomed death as a bride prepared to meet her bridegroom having received the Lord’s mercy and love in the Sacraments. Through the gift of her generous motherhood, I learned how to love the Lord even under the weight of immense suffering. God willing, if I am blessed with the gift of fatherhood, I will have learned to be a faithful and loving father through her example.
Faithful mothers will be the unsung heroes of the New Evangelization. The Church faces a difficult task as she tries to engage a different type of society. For hundreds of years, missionaries evangelized people who have never heard of Christ. Now, Western society is filled with people who think they know what Jesus has to offer, and they freely reject Him. Generous motherhood will be the key to form future generations of believers among children and fathers.
On Mother’s Day, we should thank our grandmothers and mothers for the gift of life. Above all, we should pray that all mothers answer the call to listen to God’s Word and pass it on to their children, who will impact the direction of our culture as we stand at crossroads between a culture of life and culture of death.
Roland Millare is a Fellow of Human Life International (HLI) and the chair of the Theology Department at Pope John XXIII High School in Katy, TX. He has also served as the Director of Middle School CCE at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Sugar Land, TX. He has a BA in Theology from Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH and a MA in Theological Studies from the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College in Alexandria, VA. Roland is a member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, and an advisory board member to the Pope John Paul II Forum (www.jp2forum.org). Currently, he lives with his wife in Mundelein, Illinois while he pursues his Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL) at the Liturgical Institute of the University of St. Mary of the Lake.
