In the Orbit of Mother

I'm under the weather today. Nothing serious, just a bad cold. Unfortunately I am still improving my immune system so a cold sort of really knocks me off my feet. While I know what I need to do to get over this nuisance of the nose, throat, and chest variety, whether or not I can do it seems to depend a lot on my children.

Inevitably, when I need rest, quiet and immobility, I am reminded that my children orbit around me.

Mothers are like the suns of their little domestic universes. Everything revolves around them. Husband, children, even pets, they all find harmony in a synchronous orbit around mother.

Yesterday I needed to put myself to bed and try to sleep this thing off. So when husband came home I finished making dinner and then tried to turn over the household to him and put myself in bed. Within ten minutes the first of my little orbiters came in to tell me absolutely nothing important. A few minutes later another skipped in to simply "see if I was asleep" and was relieved that I was not. Not long after that I was treated to another visit from my youngest. He thought that perhaps I needed to be entertained and snuggled so he moved into "close orbit" and splayed himself across my chest while talking nonstop about origami. Soon after this, my husband came in. He couldn't find something. I told him where it was. Then he came in again wondering how to store the left-overs. Then he decided to do the bills sitting next to me on the bed. At this point I gave up the idea of sleeping - which was good because next came the parade of children giving me origami tulips and cat faces.

I could have gotten mad. I was admittedly a bit frustrated. But I am mom. I am wife. I am, quite literally, the center of their universe.  This is something for which I am both eternally grateful and constantly terrified of messing up; but it is as it should be.

One day my children will be grown. It is happening too fast as it is with two of them on the cusp of the teenage years. They will outgrow this small domestic universe of ours. My boys will seek out their own lives. They will find a new "star" to become the center of their orbit. As they should.

My daughter will grow and learn and mature into a woman I hope will understand the important role she will play in a family of her own. A role no one else can fill. The role of wife. The role of mother.

Mother.
This exhausting, beautiful, real, raw, self-emptying calling that makes you alike to the sun, and as full of love as the moon.

And I will one day be able to put myself to bed without interruption, without small feet running to check on me, and I will miss these times. I will miss their need to simply be near me. The security they feel in knowing mother is there. She is awake. She is watching. She is present. And they are in my orbit.

So I turn to Our Blessed Mother.
Mary, Star of the Sea. Mary, Morning Star.

We have a beautiful statue of Mary in our home right now. It is by far my favorite depiction of Mary. The statue belongs to my grandmother but she loans her out to our family members. Whenever she comes to visit I find myself doing the same thing that my children do. I place myself in her orbit. It is enough to be near. To be able to glance at her as I go about my day. To feel her presence and the security that comes with it.  I actually contemplated placing her on a table in my kitchen because that is where I spend so much of my day!

More than the presence of a statue though, there is a comfort and a peace that comes from being near Our Lady. She is Mother. The most perfect of Mothers. She offers us all the comfort, the protection, the encouragement, and the help we could possibly need; and she does this because she constantly directs us to THE Son. Her Son. I love the quote from St. Louis de Montfort, "If you put all the love of all the mothers of the world into one heart it still would not equal the love of the heart of Mary for her children."

She understands the unique sacrifices and the gift that is Motherhood. She can distribute to us the Graces we need to accept our role in our families, to be the "sun" in whose orbit our family finds peace. If we place ourselves near her, much as our children do with us, we will find all the help, all the perseverance, all the love we need to be mother.

Mother.
Mary.
Mother for mothers.

Some Thoughts About Mary

"May is the month of our mothers."  I remember reading this when I was in First Grade, right before our First Friday Mass for the month of May began.  I had been practicing for weeks.  I was the student who was chosen to read the before-Mass meditation.  Every year it was the same, "May is the Month of our Mothers."   Every May this same sentence runs through my head.  So I figure its an appropriate time to write a bit about Mary.

I've had two rather profound (if I do say so myself) thoughts about the Blessed Mother that I shall share for your own discernment and prayer.

Mary, until lately has been difficult for me to relate to.  Until my rather dramatic experience when she truly became my Heavenly Mother I honestly didn't even much try to understand her.  It was losing Claire and then losing Lolek that really brought me into a much deeper relationship with her, and has given me a much greater understanding of her.  I was pondering Mary once again as I was praying last night.  I was recalling how whenever I am pregnant (which if you read this blog you know is actually quite often!) I start to feel distant from Mary.  I began to prayerfully explore this.  Then it was as if a veil was lifted and I was given such a profound understanding - one I had never had before!  I realized that pregnancy always made me feel distant from Mary because, according to St Bridget and to theologians, Mary did not experience your "typical" pregnancy.  Being free from original sin, she therefore did not experience the physical effects of it - such as the pain in childbearing etc.  In fact according to the Revelations of St. Bridget, Mary was basically in prayerful ecstasy when she delivered the Christ-Child.  This is NOT my experience of childbirth!  But Mary DID experience something far more profound.  In my prayer I saw Mary at the cross.  She was in pain. She was uniting her will to God's but she was in profound pain, "And a sword shall pierce your heart."  She was at the foot of the Cross looking up at Her Son.  She had just walked the Way of the Cross with Him and now she was surrendering Him to the Father.  "My child, I have labored and I have given birth to my Son who is now to enter Eternity." She said from the foot of the cross.  Of course!! Mary's life was one long "labor."

Often I have thought how labor and delivery so closely mirror the Paschal Mystery - the suffering, the dying to self, and the birth of a New Life.  Mary's whole life was the Paschal Mystery.  The Word became Flesh within her womb and she delivered the Savior.  She was told at the Temple that a "Sword would pierce her heart" and she carried with her for Jesus' whole life the knowledge that she wold suffer as she watched and loved her Son as He Redeemed the world.  Mary's whole life was about giving birth to our Salvation - not just at Christmas, but at the Cross.  What a profound insight! What a gift!  How incredibly small and insignificant my labors seem in comparison now.  What is a few hours compared to 33 years!?  I am in awe of our Lady.  I am humbled by this new understanding.

This new understanding and deeper regard for Our Lady came on the heels of yet another revelation about our Blessed Mother.

I have been earnestly walking down the prayerful road of Contemplative Prayer.  I have been reading St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa of Avila, and a book by Fr.  Dubay on Contemplative prayer.  It has been amazing and beautiful.  But I was stumped when it came to Mary.  Neither St. John nor St. Theresa really mentioned her.  Yet, Pope John Paul II, who is considered a great modern contemplative had a deep devotion to her, so I knew she had to fit in somewhere.  But how?

So I brought it my Spiritual Papa, Bl. John Paul II, and asked for his wisdom.  "Mary is the exemplary contemplative."  Umm..OK... but how?  "The indwelling of the Trinity was not only Spiritual for her, but physical."  Of course!  **Lightbulb**  That makes sense! Why didn't I think of that!?

Contemplative prayer is all about the union of the soul with the indwelling Trinity, a unity so profound it is as if there is a flow - a conduit open between the two.  It is a connection at once to Heaven, where the soul exists both within the person and yet in Heavenly reality, united with God.  Mary experienced this in the most physically profound way possible. Not only her soul, but her whole being was connected to the Godhead as Christ was growing within her.  Mary needed only to contemplate the baby she carried - as every mother does - and as she did she was at once united with Heaven in a deep and mysterious way.

This was a beautiful new understanding for me to ponder. It also gives me a different way in which to enter into contemplation.  How much practice my babies have given me already! Any mother can tell you that as soon as you see those pink or blue lines on the stick your very reality is changed forever.  You are constantly aware of a person inside you, that your body is not the same, and that you are not alone.  How similar this is to contemplative prayer - to being united with God even as you go about every day life.

 How thankful I am to Our Lady for allowing me to better understand her, and how grateful I am to Papa John Paul II for patiently teaching me about our Heavenly Mother.

I hope that maybe these small, humble insights will bring you closer to our Heavenly Family as well.