Motheringlyness

Does every country make its people stop to remember mothers? I don’t know, probably not all of them because there are so many and they are so different from each other, these hundreds of countries on our planet.

Countries like mine which do want its people to remember mama are being like good mothers.

My good friend Cole and I like trains a lot. We like the way the wheels fit right on the tracks and make going so sure of itself and so secure. That train knows just where it’s going. All it has to do is regulate its speed. Trains hardly ever care about cross traffic to stop for, or wrong turns, or pushy intruders butting into their paths. Trains and train tracks make good examples of mothers and their children. Mothers make us feel secure when they form the tracks under our little feet that guide us to adulthood and through it for as long as we live and as much as we want them to.

The Church, even though some people only think of it as a building to go to on certain days of obligation, is actually the mother of aspiring immortals. She forms the tracks under our feet to the path of nothing-but-life, and goodness and peace-undisturbed, and God-light that will replace our dependence on sunlight some day and forever.

Not everyone has a mother to bless today and to thank here and now for all of the self sacrifice and love and the goodies she brings into our lives. Not every woman is a mother who plays out the role in her unique way. But every aspiring immortal has the Bride of Christ to guide him or her, to strengthen and feed and form the tracks under our feet to Kingdom Come.

Today on our path through life, this little train of me sees a great big red STOP sign. It is time to stop and see the beauty of mothering and be grateful and show gratefulness and any way our hearts lead us. I think that makes our Father who art in heaven very happy. 

Goodbye

Goodbye world, I have to go to Lent now. Well, I admit I don’t have to go but I want to, I really want to go. It’s not that I don’t love you; perhaps I love you too much, the way you sit right smack in front of my face day and night so I can barely see God or sometimes even our Mother [the Church]. I have gotten used to that. I don’t like it, but I must say you have grown on me, like a tree that grows wrapped around a rock.

I won’t miss your brashness though. I must say good bye and I want you to respect that. I may have to fight you to get you out of my line of sight, so that’s why I want to have this talk right here and now; why I want to say good bye and I want you to leave me be.

My Mother needs me so I can’t play with you. It is our family holiday. All of Her children come together and we focus, we really focus on our Father and our own family. We will visit with our invisible brothers and sisters; we will sit at the feet of the sages and listen to their words of wisdom. It’s so wonderful! Maybe if we are lucky, really lucky God’s light will shine on us and in us. Some of my brothers and sisters light up like flood lights, it’s so cool to see! Our Father makes us feel so warm and loved. He plants us in His garden and waters us and shines on us and watches us grow up high towards Him. We become like a field of tulips, but we are still people, His very own people, His children and no one else’s.

No! You can’t come with me. That would wreck the whole thing! Don’t you see? It’s you that we need to separate from. You have no idea whatsoever of what I am really talking about. You are blind and ignorant and mean and busy and arrogant and stupid and selfish and shortsighted and I am really and truly sick of you. I can’t tell you in strong enough words how happy I am that my family goes on this vacation together every year…away from you!

I suppose being angry is not a good way to start this trip. I am sorry. I know you can’t help being what you are.

Okay, I’ll try again. Goodbye world. I must leave, but whether I like it or not, I will return and you can have me back. Before I go I want to thank you for all that you have done for me. Thank you for money because it has taught me so much and helped me to mature when I had none of it and when I had enough for anything I wanted to buy from you. It has helped me to be generous and if it wasn’t for you I couldn’t have used money to love people with.  I also want to thank you for the entertainment, books, movies, music, natural catastrophes, politics -- all those things you do so well to mesmerize us. You have very successfully enticed me, as I said before, probably too much. Oh, the food and drink, anything I want whenever I want it! Good job. The flavors and textures and the intoxication—all terrific. I can’t hate you for that—just for sucking me in so much with them. Not your fault, my fault.

That’s why I need to leave and I am so glad for the family reunion.

Listen body, I know you probably don’t want to go because you and world are so tight, but just cooperate for fifty short days and I’ll send you back. I need you to help me to get to the reunion. You are so much like money you should be considered twins of the world the way you help and hurt with equal enthusiasm, and how equally you can help me reach either the heights or the depths of life on this planet.  But it’s only with your cooperation that we can find our way to the reunion. You can be a real hero! Please don’t put up a fight, say good bye and let’s go.

Oh, two last things I want to say to the world before I leave. First, I want to tell you how cool it is that you are celebrating Valentine’s Day today, this day before I start my trip away from you. It shows me that you can see a glimpse of where my family and I are going and what we will do there. How sweet. I wish you could celebrate Love more often. But I gotta tell you, it’s much more than chocolate, roses, and body stuff. And lastly, I need to say, you will see me during Lent but please DON’T EVEN SAY HELLO.

Good bye!

Mary

No sooner had I emerged from my mother’s womb than I instinctively knew something was very wrong. It wasn’t just that I was cold; I had no way of knowing what was going on in my mother’s mind any more. Gone was her blood flow, her heartbeat, the gurgling sound that so often lulled me to sleep. I can’t tell you how I knew what she was thinking, but I did. A tingling sensation told me when she was nervous or afraid. I heard the arguments with my father as the loud shouts penetrated through the walls of my womb. I heard her cry.

Suddenly all of that was over. The space between us grew and grew and grew until I neither saw her nor heard any sign of her, not even a pinprick was left.

They told me that months went by before my mother, Mary, and I reunited. Of course I was happy to smell her again, but I was more than a little confused too.

Oh Mary, my Maria. Mother of my flesh. Why do you cry?

I marveled when I read that Christ’s mother Mary, whose birth was the answer to her elderly parent’s prayers, was sent away to be raised by others. Did she cry too? Was Gabriel the first angel she met?

Holy Mary, Mother of God, how gracefully you accepted the shame of your pregnancy, the bumpy trek down dusty roads to Bethlehem! How you shamed Eve when you resisted temptations presented to you over and over again to eat the forbidden fruit of knowing good and evil. Not once did you doubt that God was trustworthy, even when your eyes and your circumstances lied to you.

Mary brave and faithful, receive me in your vast heart, holy vessel of light. Let me hear you breathe around me, your heart beat in rhythm with my own. Please give new birth to my soul with your motherly guidance. Evervirgin mother awaken me if I fall asleep clutching my oil lamp. Tell me when the Father would be displeased and shield me from His hot displeasure when I fail. Teach me how to be as true to life as you.

Mother of my soul, don’t abandon me. Mothers Mary unite in more than name, give new birth to my Mary, my Maria too. You who knew not death, live on as our mother.  Marias, mammas of flesh and soul how we will rejoice in the day of fleshly immortality! Alleluia and Amen.