MOTHER'S DAY
ARE THESE THE DAYS JESUS FORETOLD?
This is the month of Mother's Day when we honor those women who are "the joyful mother of children." (Ps 113:9) It is right and proper that we have this day and that we set aside a particular day to honor mothers. Yet, our own society also permits abortion and fetal experimentation. Our society has a split personality to honor motherhood and to insult it. What else is abortion, if not an insult to motherhood? How can abortion be anything else when ""children too are a gift from the LORD," (Ps 127:3) and, therefore, motherhood is also a gift. Abortion kills the unborn. It is a deliberate and pointed rejection of a gift from God.
But abortion is worse than a simple rejection of life (i.e. a murder), the Psalms say "you knit me in my mother's womb.." (Ps 139:13). Consider these words, especially the words "my mother's womb." For here, when pregnant, a women does something that no man -however great- can ever do, she participates in God's creation of another human being. Now, God can create a human being without any help. Look at Adam and Eve. But, He has chosen to give a gift to any woman who is with child and the gift is not only the gift of life to the child, but also the gift is Motherhood.
True, sometimes motherhood does not seem so much like a gift rather than a burden -so much to do in so little time. But it is precisely that, a gift. How? No one has a right to motherhood. God does not create new human beings at anyone's behest. Motherhood is a calling for which sufficient grace abounds.
Mary is the mother to the "Son of Man" and so she is the mother to all mankind -the new Eve and the exemplar for all mothers. When a woman becomes a mother, she is not simply a wiper of runny noses, a chauffeur, and a cook amongst other things but more importantly, she stands by Mary. She is to be an individual and special example for her children of Mary's devotion to God. Simply put, as Mary prays for, inspires and exemplifies love for God to all mankind so are all mothers to do so for their own children.
"I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." (Lk 1:38) Mary's words reveal that her attitude towards motherhood is the very opposite attitude of those women who abort their babies. A mother who has an abortion not only rejects her baby's gift of life and betrays her child but she also rejects God's special gift to her, the gift of motherhood. What happens to her? Nothing good, she is idealized for "exercising her constitutional right to choose" while Mary is mocked with elephant dung in the name of "art."
Remember what Jesus said on the road to Calvary "weep not for me but for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and breasts that never nursed.'" (Lk 23:28-29) Those days have come. They are these days, our days, today. Therefore, on Mother's Day, we should stop for a moment, during the festivities, and petition Mary, Mother of God, our mother, to pray for all of us in these days. Amen.
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