May is one of the months in which we, as Catholics, give special veneration to Mary. There are the special recitations of the rosary, the May crownings, and the attention to Mary as our mother, given to us by Jesus as part of His dying words from the cross.

 

How appropriate it is that May is also the month when we celebrate our own mothers. 

 

This Sunday is Mother’s Day in the United States. While this is a secular and not a religious celebration, it is still one that we can well use to deepen our spiritual understanding of motherhood, both Mary’s and that of our earthly mom.

 

To begin with, we honor and venerate motherhood because it is about a relationship. And that relationship has many levels. 

 

First, it is a relationship that is completely unequal humanly speaking. The child that is conceived, even hidden for a time within the mother, has for nine months a total dependence on his or her mother. The mother is increasingly aware that the child’s very life depends on her actions, even her sacrifices.

 

In that relationship, every aspect of nourishment passes first through the mother to foster the baby’s new life. Knowing this, mothers typically abstain from consuming what they might in other circumstances because it might harm the child.

 

In a special way, the honor given to the mother in the months before birth is its own natural human recognition of the elements our society has begun now to question or even deny. That is, the unborn child is a treasure that already has its own dignity that is being protected and nourished by the mother’s love and sacrifices. In short, the child is a gift, not simply a choice.

 

In honoring Mary this month, we celebrate with her these moments before the birth of Jesus. We are moved by Mary’s visit from the Archangel Gabriel. We are motivated to charity by Mary’s visit to Elizabeth when she already bore the child Jesus. And we can imagine the difficult ride to Bethlehem in the last days of her pregnancy.

 

Mary’s motherhood as recorded in the Gospels gives us more images to honor our earthly mothers in a corresponding way. For instance, in the stable, tending to the child Jesus during the visits of the shepherds and the Wise Men, we think of the early days of sacrifice and adjustment that our own mothers experienced at the time of our own birth.

 

When Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt ahead of Herod’s searching soldiers, their one concern was, like every parent, for the safety of their child. When Mary and Joseph brought the child to the temple for the circumcision, we reflect upon the mother’s profound role in practicing and passing on the faith to her children.

 

When, at age 12, Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem to engage the religious scholars, we feel the pain of His mother searching for three days in anguish. But is that not in some way the experience of every mother, encountering the growing up of her child and seeking to discern that hidden plan that God has for him or her?

 

And at the foot of the cross, we sympathize and grieve with every mother who has ever suffered with her child. We wonder at the strength and spiritual resignation of mothers who give birth and are there present for the last breath of their baby.

 

The life of Mary gives so many examples of the sacrifices and joys of motherhood and illustrates that being a mother is not always easy. But it is the fulfillment of God’s plan and a gift from the mother for the benefit of others.

 

Moms, thank you for all that you are for us. Happy Mother’s Day!