Mother’s Day

This Sunday we celebrate Mother’s Day!

We remember and honor all mothers — living and deceased. Their motherhood is a gift to us and to the whole world. St. Thérèse of Lisieux was not exaggerating when she said that “the loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.”

However, this day can be difficult for a lot of people: those who didn’t have perfect relationships with their mothers, those struggling and hoping to be mothers, and those who maybe didn’t know their mother at all. As a Church, we’re called to embrace these people, love them, and help carry their crosses.

A consolation for this Mother’s Day is this: no matter how our earthly mother treated us, we also have a mother in Heaven who is constantly interceding for us and praying for our deliverance — Mary. Not only can she support those who need a motherly figure in their lives, she can also embrace and cling to those women longing to have children of their own.

In our joys and sorrows, the Lord gives someone to rejoice with us and to weep with us. She may not be our blood mother, but through the waters of Baptism, we become entrusted to her as her children.

This Mother’s Day, if possible, thank your own mother for the gift of your life. Thank the mothers around you. Thank those mothers who are currently expecting. And be sure to be a pillar of support for those who have suffered the loss of their own children.

I’ll leave you with these words from St. John Paul II to mothers:

“Thank you, women who are mothers! You have sheltered human beings within yourselves in a unique experience of joy and travail. This experience makes you become God’s own smile upon the newborn child, the one who guides your child’s first steps, who helps it to grow, and who is the anchor as the child makes its way along the journey of life.”