On Mother's Day

On the great Solemnity of Pentecost we also celebrate Mother's Day here in the United States. And how appropriate that the two conincide. To know the love of a mother is to experience the love of the Holy Spirit.

The life-giving Spirit is made manifest in a mother's ability to co-share with the great Spirit in bringing new life into existence. The Spirit, which proceeds from the love of Father and Son is shown in sleepless nights and sacrifices great and small made for the sake of a mother's child.

And as only the Spirit can enable one to acknowledge Jesus as Christ, so does a mother bring her child to knowledge of God in being the first to fold her child's hands in prayer.

On this day, I thank my own mother for her love and care, for her companionship, for her mothering, and most importantly, for the gift of faith-- for folding my hands in prayer each night as a child and teaching me of the great love that God has for me-- but most importantly, for being a tangible and poignant manifestation of that love.

May Mother Mary watch over all mothers,

May she who beheld the Christ child in love and wonder inspire mothers to behold the gift of life as mystery and sacred. May she who pointed others to her son, "Do as he says", inspire mothers to point their children to Him. May she who bore all of her son's mysteries with tender contemplation of the love of God, inspire mothers to behold in patience and understading the many surprises a child's live brings. And may she, who held the body of her Son and trusted in the greater will of the Father, inspire mothers to stand before God and whisper in tenderness the name of their own child.

Happy Mother's Day!