Call this a prelude to Mothers Day. Since Easter Sunday, my mom has been staying with us here in CT. This gives me a great privilege to have her visit here and also it gives my sister Janice and her husband whom Mom lives with year round, a bit of a break. Yesterday, Mom and I drove to the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge MA. Of the many spiritual benefits and reflections one can have at this beautiful and holy place, are the consolations and revelations received here from God in silence and in meditation. One such reflection was of Mary, the Mother of God, and the relationship of a son to their mother.
In my case, my love for my mother stems from her giving of herself to give me life, of sharing with me her flesh and that of my father and nurturing me in her womb for lo those many months, coupled with a lifetime of mothering, nurturing and love. One can say, I am who I am today, because of my mother. One can look to me and say, that is the son of Edna Rice and rightly or not, I will receive a benefit merely by being the son of such a wonderful, caring, loving and respected woman.
Consider the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary. In her the world saw nothing extraordinary, yet in the eyes of God, Mary was beheld by God and hailed as Full of Grace. Unlike myself, who garners favor simply because of who my mother is, Mary's favor is entirely attributed to her by God and her Divine Son and by the Holy Spirit her heavenly Spouse. People may say of me, there goes the son of Edna Rice. If I am to have any good quality attributed to me, surely people would say, what a wonderful mother he must have had. Mary on the other hand is privileged and esteemed simply from the great honor bestowed on her by God. She is held in esteem by the virtue of being the Mother of Jesus Christ! This is why we dearly revere her, for she is the Virgin Mother of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Savior of all Mankind.
Where I receive favor because of my mother, Mary receives her favor from her Son. Where the world will look at a great man and say, he must have had a great mother, we can look at such a great Savior, and we must say, what a privilege it must be to be the Mother of so Great a Savior as the Son of God. Where my honor comes from my mother, Mary's honor and her Glory are directly attributed to her by her beloved Son.
Now it is with loving eyes, that I look upon my mother and say, God, thank you, for you picked for me such a wonderful mother as Edna. Can I even wonder at this? Should I be in the least surprised at God's ability to pick such a wonderful mother for me? For truly God not only picks the mother for each of us, He also has fashioned for Himself, the perfect mother, a mother who is Full of Grace, who was Immaculately Conceived in the womb of her mother St. Anne, and surely, Mary the Mother of God, was conceived way before that, perfectly conceived of in the mind of God, even before the foundation of the World. Who else but God the Father could give His only Son, such a perfect Mother. And so Mary has in turn given to the only begotten Son of God what he never had before, a Mother!
