Thoughts on Motherhood from the Saints
This Fourth Sunday of Easter is also Mother’s Day in certain countries, Canada, United States, India, Australia as well as many parts of Europe, including our tiny Island of Malta. Its purpose is to celebrate those mothers who sacrificed their life for their children.
From our Catholic standpoint, Mother’s Day is not only a day where we honour our mothers who gave us life, but also a day where we remember in a special way Mary, Mother of God and Our Mother. With her constant yes to God’s plan Mary is Jesus’ and Our Mother in the truest sense of the word, which comprises words and, above all, deeds. Let us now today, in this beautiful and most caring spirit of this celebration, we bless this very special day, dear to us all, by remembering some reflections put forward by saints and Catholic personalities on the beauty and meaning of motherhood.
For St Thérèse of Lisieux (2 January 1873 ― 30 September 1897), the French Discalced Carmelite who is globally venerated nowadays, the loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother. The Bible helps us appreciate St Thérèse’s contribution wherein the Book of the Prophet Isaiah we find written: Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have graven you on the palms of my hands (Isa 49:15-16).
The famous St Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein) (12 October 1891 ― 9 August 1942), a German philosopher who converted to Catholicism and later became a Discalced Carmelite, and was murdered at the Auschwitz II- Birkenau death camp, canonized as martyr and one of Europe’s six patron saints, said: To be a mother is to nourish and protect true humanity and bring it to development. Who can nourish and protect true humanity and help it reach its fulfilment as much as a mother?
Here I can not not mention that well-known thank you by Pope St John Paul II (18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) in his letter to women written on 29 June 1995, in the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, on the eve of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which was held in Beijing on 4 -15 September 1995: 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 (no. 2).
With Pope Francis (17 December 1936 ― 21 April 2025), we realize that a society where mothers are completely absent is a total dehumanization in that society. Mothers are indispensable for the family, the social fabric, the Church and the world. He told us: A society without mothers would be a dehumanized society, for mothers are always, even in the worst moments, witnesses of tenderness, dedication, and moral strength. … Dearest mothers, thank you, thank you for what you are in your family and for what you give to the Church and the world.
Moreover, the Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen (May 8, 1895 ― December 9, 1979), the notable American Catholic Bishop of Rochester from 1956 to 1969, widely known for his preaching, particularly on television and radio, saw motherhood as God’s most privileged way to cooperate in the universal priesthood of all believers: Motherhood then becomes a kind of priesthood. She brings God to man by preparing the flesh in which the soul will be implanted; she brings man to God in offering the child back again to the Creator … she is nature’s constant challenge to death, the bearer of cosmic plentitude, the herald of eternal realities, God’s great co-operator.
In St Teresa of Calcutta’s (26 August 1910 ― 5 September 1997) perspective, the Albanian-Indian Catholic holy nun and founder of the Missionaries of Charity, motherhood is the most wonderful gift of God to each and every woman. Motherhood brings joy to everyone. She said: That special power of loving that belongs to a woman is seen most clearly when she becomes a mother. Motherhood is the gift of God to women. How grateful we must be to God for this wonderful gift that brings such joy to the whole world, women and men alike!
St Zélie Guérin Martin (23 December 1831 ― 28 August 1877), the mother of St Thérèse of Lisieux, portrays motherhood as the intimate union of the pregnant mother with God who blesses her maternity by giving her the grace to give birth to her child. It is God’s blessing that she already imparts on her child who is living within her womb. She says: Above all, during the months immediately preceding the birth of her child, the mother should keep close to God, of whom the infant she bears within her is the image, the handiwork, the gift and the child. She should be for her offspring, as it were, a temple, a sanctuary, an altar, a tabernacle. In short, her life should be, so to speak, the life of a living sacrament, a sacrament in act, burying herself in the bosom of that God who has so truly instituted it and hallowed it, so that there she may draw that energy, that enlightening, that natural and supernatural beauty which he wills, and wills precisely by her means, to impart to the child she bears and to be born of her.
For St Gianna Beretta Molla (4 October 1922 ― 28 April 1962), the Italian pediatrician suffering from cancer, who refused abortion and hysterectomy during her pregnancy with her fourth child to save the child’s life, motherhood is truly the greatest heroic love that exists on earth. She said: Look at the mothers who truly love their children: how many sacrifices they make for them. They are ready for everything, even to give their own blood so that their babies grow up good, healthy, and strong.
Within this context one can more appreciate what Cardinal József Mindszenty (29 March 1892 ― 6 May 1975), the famous Hungarian cardinal who for five decades opposed fascism and communism in Hungary, had to say about motherhood: The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral — a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body. … The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation … What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this; to be a mother?
Finally, motherhood is the God given gift to each and every woman. Alice von Hildebrand (11 March 1923 ― 14 January 2022), the Belgian-born American Catholic philosopher, wrote: A woman by her very nature is maternal — for every woman, whether married or unmarried, is called upon to be a biological, psychological, or spiritual mother — she knows intuitively that to give, to nurture, to care for others, to suffer with and for them — for maternity implies suffering — is infinitely more valuable in God’s sight than to conquer nations and fly to the moon.
O Mary, Mother of God and Our Mother, we entrust every woman and every mother to your caring maternal protection. Be their help as they journey toward heaven. Help them walk together with the rest of humanity with joy towards our common shared heavenly abode. Amen.
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