Celebrating Mother's Day

Dear Friends, 

Happy Mother’s Day to all who nurture: those who, in unity with the Holy Spirit, nudge, inspire, heal, encourage and return our cherished ones to God. Mothers and others who nurture are worthy of being celebrated for all they are, do and represent. We are forever connected with our mothers, though our relationships with them are psychologically complex and spiritually challenging. Some have pushed us hard or perhaps left us to fend for ourselves. But the connection remains. Not all mothers are perfect, though some are nearly so. One child, when asked what would make her mother perfect, replied “I would like her to get rid of those invisible eyes at the back of her head.” 

In many ways, Mother’s Day stops at being a sentimental day of giving flowers, cards, and gifts. Then it is Monday, and all is back to normal. But anyone who says negative things about Mother’s Day, itself, risks the annoyance of people for whom this day is an important gesture of reverence for the one who bore them. Writers about Mother’s Day, walk a fine line between praise of the day and the woman and saying hard things about the need to reclaim and indeed, find new depths in the meaning of mothers in our fast paced “I’ll think about that later” world. 

The word “Mother “is not always used in respectful terms.  

Mothers move between heartache and joy in their lives. 

With today’s news reporting people frantic over the availability of abortion in many US states, Mother’s Day takes on layers of sadness, pain, despair, relief, guilt, emptiness, emptying, and more. Still, the nation celebrates Mother’s Day. 

Today’s mothers of infants through teens juggle work and home. Changing cultural values make it important, indeed necessary, for women to rethink, reinterpret, articulate, and reclaim the meaning of motherhood. Women who have strong roots in their religious traditions are called to understand, uphold and live by the richness of their faith, as they live public/civic and domestic lives. 

Catholic Christians have long had a devotion to Mary, the God-Bearer and our Mother. My friend’s Italian grandmother prayed to Mary as an “earth mother” who knew birth, human work, human delight and death. Mary is mother, sister, icon, friend to all who welcome her strong but gentle presence. We celebrate her today as well. 

The mothering qualities we treasure – steadfast love, generosity, openheartedness, tenderness – are first found in God. 

And then there is Jesus, described by St. Anselm in the late 11th century. And, you, Jesus, are you not also a mother? Are you not the mother, who like a hen, gathers her chicks under her wings? Truly Lord, You are our mother…”                                      

Thank God we are never done with mothers. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala