Mary,
Model for Mothers
By
Cardinal Justin Rigali
It is no secret that we live in an age of sensationalism. Outlets of
communication, which often do so much good, are also constrained by
the need to maintain a listening, viewing or reading audience. This
can lead to appealing to our natural inclination toward what is spectacular
or scandalous. One of the dangers of a constant diet of this type of
material is that it eventually allows us to abdicate our precious human
faculties of thought and reason. Another aspect of what may be called
a shallow view of life and the world is what we might call sentimentalism,
which can lead to the manipulation of the mind which our Holy Father
alerted us to during his recent visit. Sentiment and emotion are wonderful
human characteristics but, as I mentioned last week in another context,
they must be the fruit of or the impetus towards deeper thought and
awareness and not ends in themselves.
We have just begun the beautiful month of May, which the Church dedicates
in a special way to our Blessed Mother Mary. This Sunday, we also honor
our earthly mothers in the celebration of Mother’s Day here in
the United States. Both of these subjects, our Blessed Mother Mary and
earthly motherhood, contain a great deal of material for sentiment,
which is good. However, if they are reduced to mere sentimentalism,
they will eventually become victims, like so many relationships today
which cannot be sustained in the long term because they are based on
selfish need and shallow sentiment rather than deep seated conviction
and genuine, selfless love. This week and this month, as we honor both
our heavenly Mother and our earthly mothers, perhaps one can help the
other in making our attachment to each of them genuine and built upon
a firm foundation.
Mother of all the living
We know that in the order of nature, motherhood has been with us from
the very beginning. In the context of their relationship, our first
parents bring forth children, two of whom we know as Cain and Abel (cf.
Genesis, chapters 3 and 4). It is interesting to note that Saint Augustine
bases his famous distinction between the “city of God” and
the “city of man” on the different responses of Cain and
Abel: one worships with a sincere and loving heart and is seen as building
up the city of God, while the other’s sacrifice is not acceptable
because it is not accompanied by a genuine and loving motivation and
is seen as building up the city of man without God (cf. The City of
God, Saint Augustine, chapter 15). This struggle to have our exterior
actions and sentiments express our interior conviction is as old as
the fallen human race.
The account of our first parents and of “the mother of all the
living” (cf. Genesis 3:20) bringing forth children reminds us
that human motherhood is part of the very nature of the woman as created
by God. Throughout both Old and New Testaments, a mother bringing forth
children has been considered a great blessing of God. Certainly this
does not represent an unrealistic picture of human life. There must
have been struggles in raising children and supporting them throughout
the history of the human race. In fact, we have just mentioned Cain
and Abel, and their story in the first book of the Bible. This very
account is an illustration of the fact that with the sin of our first
parents the harmony among God’s creatures, even the harmony between
brothers, is wounded and sometimes leads to heartache both for the parents
and the individuals involved. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
However, it was not seen down through the ages as taking away the blessing
of fruitfulness in bringing forth children. Unfortunately, it seems
to have been reserved for our own age sometimes to view the gift of
children, considered a blessing throughout Judaeo-Christian history,
as an intrusion at times and even a punishment.
The late Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty (1892-1975), the Hungarian archbishop
who suffered so much at the hands of his communist persecutors, wrote
a beautiful tribute to the privilege of motherhood, given to women as
part of their very nature. He wrote: “The most important person
on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre
Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent
than any cathedral — a dwelling for an immortal soul. The angels
have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s
creative miracle. Only a human mother can.”
Grace builds upon nature
It is interesting to note that in the very context of original sin and
its necessary punishment, which came to us through a woman, God promises
to bring us salvation one day through a woman as well. At the very beginning,
the figure of a woman is foretold as being the instrument of salvation.
The Second Vatican Council teaches: “The earliest documents, as
they are read in the Church and are understood in the light of a further
and full revelation, bring the figure of a woman, Mother of the Redeemer,
into a gradually clearer light. Considered in this light, she is already
prophetically foreshadowed in the promise of victory over the serpent
which was given to our first parents after their fall into sin”
(Lumen Gentium, 55).
The ancient principle that “grace builds upon nature” is
magnificently fulfilled in Mary, Mother of God. God does not offend
the order of nature which He has created. This order has been placed
within us and within the world as what has been called a “law
of the heart.” It might even be considered as a “set of
directions” which God has given to His creation. If we are rightfully
concerned with ecology and the proper care of the environment, how much
more should we be concerned with the respect due to the human person
and the manner in which he or she has been created? According to His
promise, made after the sin of our first parents, “when the fullness
of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the
law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption”
(Galatians 4:4-5). At this moment, when the angel hailed Mary as “full
of grace” and asked her consent in becoming the mother of God,
the orders of nature and grace were wonderfully united. In the order
of nature, God chose to be born of a woman, according to His plan of
creation. In the order of grace, He chose to send His Son as our Redeemer
by being born of the Virgin Mary.
Mary as Model
Mothers can take Mary as an ideal model because they too, according
to their own vocation, participate in the union of the orders of nature
and grace. In the order of nature, they participate, along with the
father of the child, in God’s work of creation. In the order of
grace, they have the responsibility to transmit the life of grace to
the child, just as they have transmitted human life. Faithful parents
do this by bringing the child to be baptized and by bringing him or
her up knowing Jesus and the life He came to give us. This is a very
serious challenge but also a wonderful privilege. In giving to their
child the gift of Jesus, parents give what is more valuable than any
physical comfort or merely human knowledge because they are giving to
their child the life of God, through the miracle of grace.
During the Mass which our Holy Father celebrated at Yankee Stadium recently,
he paid particular tribute to parents who have fulfilled this responsibility
to their children. He said: “We think of those countless fathers
and mothers who passed on the faith to their children, the steady ministry
of the many priests who devoted their lives to the care of souls, and
the incalculable contribution made by so many men and women religious,
who not only taught generations of children how to read and write, but
also inspired in them a lifelong desire to know God, to love him and
to serve him” (Homily, 20 April 2008).
In Mary, mothers can see the reflection of so many of their own challenges:
going into the unknown future as she did after she gave her consent;
being deprived of earthly comforts, even as she was about to give birth;
not always understanding why her Son had to do some of the things He
did; losing her beloved spouse, Saint Joseph and, perhaps most difficult
of all, having to let her Son leave her to go forth to fulfill His mission,
which even led to His death. During His suffering and death, Mary had
to stand faithfully at the Cross, surely feeling frustration at not
being able to help Him physically but joining spiritually in His fulfillment
of the work of our salvation.
The vocation Mary was called upon to fulfill and the vocation faithful
mothers are called upon to fulfill can never be reduced to mere sentimentalism
because they are so profound. As mothers reflect on their role in the
work of creation and salvation and as we all reflect upon the debt of
gratitude we owe to our own mothers, for giving us life and perhaps
for also transmitting their faith to us, we reflect on very serious
truths indeed. With Mary as our Model, we recall them with humble gratitude!
May 8, 2008