One time I was watching a little girl playing with a baby doll. She cuddled the doll, sang it a lullaby, and treated it as tenderly as a real baby. Moments later, something else caught the girl’s attention, and she ran off, dragging the “baby” by its ankles, with its head bouncing off the ground. The doll was no longer a baby but only a toy.
Of course, a real mother quickly learns that caring for her children is a full-time job. Motherhood calls for such love, care and patience (even though patience can at times be in short supply) that a mother’s love teaches us so much about God’s love. As we celebrate Mothers’ Day today, we thank God for the loving example of our mothers. There may have been times when we tried their patience (I know I did), but most of us probably remember more clearly how they put up with us and loved us over and over again.
Perhaps this Mothers Day can be a time for many of us to thank our mothers for all that they have done for us. We can probably all think of some things that we have overlooked or for which we should have been more grateful. Perhaps that is why the phone company once report more calls made on Mothers Day than on any other day of the year. (By contrast, Fathers Day was always the day when the most collect calls were made. I will leave the interpretation of that point up to you.) For many of us, though, we no longer have that opportunity. My own mother, for instance, died twenty-four years ago, though it is hard to believe that it has been that long. Yet as our mothers brought us to life, so they also helped bring us to faith in eternal life. That is one reason why I find it so appropriate that Mothers Day falls during this Easter season. One of the images that I think of with this Mothers Day is of a mother holding her baby over the Baptismal Font while I pour the water over the child’s head. I can even imagine my mother in that position, even though I was born before Vatican II, when it was the godparents who took the baby to church.
As we see the connection between Mothers Day and Easter, we also have a reminder that May is the month dedicated to our Blessed Mother. She, above all others, is a sign and inspiration concerning God’s love for us. Those of us whose mothers are no longer with us can indeed look to Mary as a sign of God’s gift of eternal life.
So I take this opportunity wish all mothers a very happy and a very blessed Mothers Day. Thank you for being an example to us of God’s love.
Father H
