Belated Mother's Day

Mother’s Day 2012

Blessed Mother’s day!  Contrary to what some would have us believe, all women are designed by God to find their truest expression and glory in the grace of motherhood.  It is a fact that many women will never know the joy of physical maternity, but every feminine heart is meant to be an abundant source of life and a font of nurturing love.  Actually, maternal love transcends biology.  Although a man, and Perfect Man at that, Jesus once expressed the depth of His suffering love by using an image of maternity.  On His way to Jerusalem to undergo His passion, he gazed at the city that would reject Him and said that He had longed to gather its children like a mother hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings, and He could not.  Then, near the end of His life, while hanging on the Cross, he gave us His Blessed Mother, through the agency of St. John, to be our own spiritual mother.

By our vow of celibate chastity, we renounce all hope of physical motherhood, a profound sacrifice which cuts to the heart of feminine nature.  But that very wound opens us up to the spiritual espousals with Christ.  Through our bridal surrender to Him, we bear His life-giving love to every soul.  Some of us bear the title of “Mother”, such as our Abbess and her first councilor, since their exercise of authority is a maternal function in community.  But all of us become mothers through the daily sacrificial services we render to each other and the prayers we offer for all our benefactors and every one in need.

Right now, our community is experiencing the gift of maternity in the expecting of new life.  Two young women have made application to join us and are officially “received”.  Now they are like unborn infants being carried in our collective spiritual womb, waiting to be born into our monastic home.  However, they are not twins.  Sarah who graduated from college this weekend, has a student loan to pay, and so, with God’s help, the aid of the Laboure Society and the generosity of friends, she is due to enter at the end of the year.  (By the way, anyone interested in contributing to this worthy cause, let me know!)  But Walta is due exactly 2 weeks from today!  On Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the Church, God willing, we will have a newborn aspirant in our midst.  Pray for her as she makes her final preparations to enter the birth canal of the enclosure doors.  We, like good expectant mothers, are preparing as well.  Here is her monastic cell, open and waiting as are our hearts to welcome her.