Are You My Mother?

*The following post was originally published on 5-28-16 and is posted here in tribute to all mothers who desire to live a life in imitation of Our Blessed Mother.  Happy Mother's Day!

Composed by: Sr. Mary Magdalene
 
There is a Dr. Seuss-style book by children’s author P.D. Eastman called “Are You My Mother?”  In it, a small bird hatches from his egg and leaves the nest while his mother is scavenging for food.  Not knowing what she looks like, he searches near and far for her, asking the kitten, the hen, and the dog if they might be his mother.  But they are not his mother.  Even more desperate, the baby bird calls out to a car, a boat, a plane, and a “big thing” he calls a snort.  But none of them are his mother, either.  In the end, the giant “snort,” which is an excavator in reality, lifts the baby bird high up into the tree and places him back in the nest.  His mother returns and asks her baby, “Do you know who I am?”  “Yes,” he says.  “You are a bird, and you are my mother.”
 
As Catholics, we often get asked why we call the Blessed Virgin Mary and mother of Our Lord, “Mother.”  Perhaps there are even times when we might ask “Are you my mother?”  Like the baby bird in the story, we might find it helpful to know what a mother looks like!  For Jesus, the Blessed Virgin was the source of his very flesh. And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us… (John 1:14).  Mary, having carried her child within her womb, gave birth to the infant savior, clothed in flesh provided by her own body.  She fed him, raised him, taught him, and worried about him when he was out of her eyesight.  She followed as best she could as he walked the Way of the Cross.  She stayed with him at the foot of the cross.  As mothers do, she wanted to take away some of the pain that her child was experiencing, but she also had an awareness that all she had to offer was her presence.  In this way, she shared in Jesus’ suffering in the only way she could, by her willingness to be with him through it all.
 
Just before his death on the cross, Jesus said something that might seem peculiar.  He looked at Mary, standing at the foot of the cross, and said, “Woman, behold, your son.”  Then he said to the disciple (John), “Behold, your mother,” (John 19: 26-27).  Was Jesus simply making sure that his mother had someone to take care of her?  Perhaps, but many theologians believe that John, in his Gospel, deliberately used the word “disciple” to indicate all disciples, and that would include you and I!  In his 1987 encyclical “Redemptoris Mater,” Pope Saint John Paul II seemed to affirm this when he wrote,  “This is true not only of John, who at that hour stood at the foot of the Cross together with the Mother (of Jesus), but it is also true of every disciple of Christ, of every Christian,” (45.3).  What a wonderful gift this is, that the Lord Himself would give His own mother as Spiritual Mother for all God’s people!
 
After Christ’s death and rising, the motherhood of Mary was evident in the upper room as she stayed with the disciples. “When they entered the city they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.  All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers,” (Acts 1:13-14).
 
Down through the centuries, her motherhood has continued to be evident.  In 1208, tradition tells us that St. Dominic de Guzman was praying fervently to Our Lady and was blessed with the following response: “Wonder not that you have obtained so little fruit by your labors, you have spent them on barren soil, not yet watered with the dew of Divine grace. When God willed to renew the face of the earth, He began by sending down on it the fertilizing rain of the Angelic Salutation. Therefore preach my Psalter composed of 150 Angelic Salutations and 15 Our Fathers, and you will obtain an abundant harvest.”  In this, the basic form of the Rosary was given to St. Dominic.  The saint revered the Blessed Mother as loving maternal protector of his Order of Preachers.

 
A soon-to-be saint, Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, was quoted as having said, “If you ever feel distressed during your day — call upon our Lady — just say this simple prayer: ‘Mary, Mother of Jesus, please be a mother to me now.’ I must admit — this prayer has never failed me.”
 
So this is what a mother looks like.  She brings her children into life, she feeds them, she raises them up when they are downtrodden, she has concern for them, she stays with them.  Full of Grace, Mary is holy and deigned worthy to be the Mother of God.  Blessed among women, Mary, though preserved from original sin, is one with us in our humanity.
 
I wonder, if Jesus were to place the Blessed Virgin before us and ask “Do you know who this is?” might we respond in faith, “Yes, Lord, it is You who are our Savior and brother, and Mary, by Your Grace, our fairest Mother.”
 
St. Thomas Aquinas, like his Dominican brothers and sisters before him, had a great love of the Blessed Mother.  An excerpt from a prayer he composed follows:
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Most blessed and sweet Virgin Mary, Mother of God, filled with all tenderness, daughter of the most high King, Lady of the angels, mother of all the faithful: On this day and all the days of my life, I entrust to your merciful heart my body and my soul, all my actions, thoughts, decisions, desires, words, deeds, my entire life and death, so that, with your assistance, everything may be ordered to the good according to the will of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
​To those who might have concern that love and devotion to the Mother of God might somehow detract from our love, worship and adoration of the One true God, I offer the words of St. Maximilian Kolbe. “Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.”

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