True Motherhood

True Motherhood

To be a Mother is one of the most sublime vocations that any human being can aspire to: the calling to represent and be an image of the Divine Mother as giving birth to “Man” from the intimacy of Her Divine Womb.

To give birth is to give of yourself – your very bones and flesh – in order to share yourself with a new creature, who is “bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh”.  A Mother learns that the mystery of all life is “self-giving.” She gives herself away in order to find herself again in another – another who is “another herself” – her very self and yet another person whom she can love. She participates in the greatest adventure for a human being – the adventure of love: to lose your “self” in order to find your true self in another “yourself.”

But the true Mother knows well that self-giving is not easy – it is costly; it requires that suffering and death-to-self so that new life may emerge and be born. She suffers the most intense “natural suffering” of childbearing, which she embraces with love, and then immediately forgets her suffering because of the overwhelming joy of the birth of a New Life. She knows that life comes through dying – dying to self in order that Love may give birth in her to a new life.

       But the Mother knows that this “primal” suffering is only a preparation, a beginning, a foretaste, a prophecy of “what lies ahead” of her. She is launched into a career, a vocation, a commitment of a life-time of suffering for her child, but she embraces this projected suffering in advance. She willing accepts her vocation of suffering because she knows that God will bring forth wonderful fruits of happiness and fulfillment. She becomes a more open and empty instrument of the transmission of God’s Love through her for the evolution and unfoldment of the God-given potentialities of her child. She teaches him through her example what faith in God and faith in His Will are, and that love and sacrifice are inseparable companions. But she lives the present moment confident in her faith that God is with her and will assist her in every sacrifice that Life will call on her to make for her child.

   But she is not alone. She has her life-companion at her side, her husband, who also must learn the same spiritual lessons from her. He must be “there” for her and their child, her human helpmate who participates vicariously in the birth-pangs of his human beloved: he tries to become one with her in her suffering.

To be mother is a hard vocation; it goes against our egoism, our selfishness. This is why motherhood today is so depreciated, even in some spiritual circles, in our hedonistic culture of self-satisfaction and pleasure-seeking. The true Mother must go against the pressure of this contemporary current in order to be a witness to the fact that Life and Love are only born through self-sacrifice. She keeps her tiny “torch” enkindled, shedding its “light” in the darkness of the world of self-interest and selfishness. She tries to protect herself, in her faith in Jesus, from the cultural propaganda and brain-washing that is inculcating hedonism, selfishness and licentiousness. She knows that her difficult task ahead is to give her child a spiritual formation – a formation of good example and wise guidance – knowing that she must respect the child’s liberty and that there is a possibility that her child may go astray, taking, not the path of conscience, but the easy path of convenience, which will make it harder to learn the essential lesson of life: that Life comes through self-death. Jesus taught us: “If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.”

The true Mother knows how to try to love unconditionally but also how to be firm in her corrections she must give her child. She tries to be patient and understanding in all the ego manifestations of our common fallen nature as they emerge in her child – the gentle, loving scoldings instead of the angry outbursts of a frustrated mother’s ego-reactions to her child’s misbehavior. What a noble art that can’t be learned in school or in books; it comes about as a gift only by letting God act in us, guiding us with His wisdom and infusing us with His Love. She knows not to expect gratitude for her efforts, for many times her love is taken for granted. She is not attached to being appreciated by her child, for she knows that there is “Another” who appreciates and rewards all her efforts. She keeps her sights elevated on High.

The true Mother knows that there is no perfect mother, but she does her best in cooperating with God’s grace, having the faith that in the end God’s love will win out over all our egoisms. That God “writes straight with crooked lines”, that He “brings good out of evil,” that every wayward child, every “stray sheep” will be found by the Good Shepherd, that the prodigal son will return home to receive His Father’s love, who is patiently awaiting him.  "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him." And so in the end – after the necessary purifying suffering – we all hope to hear the words of our Divine Spouse who will say to us: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And then “God will be all in all.”

Francis Elmo

1/9/2014