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18 Jan 2015 - Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Mothers hear everything. They detect the slightest whisper of change in a baby’s breathing; the tiny whine that will lead to a wail if a toddler’s food or sleep doesn’t come quick; the worry and angst in a teenager’s sullenness; the heartbreak and confusion in a young adult’s short temper. It’s not that moms are endowed with supersonic powers. They have simply mastered the art of good listening, which begins and ends with love. Out of love, they pay attention to the patterns and pulses in their children’s lives. Out of love they respond to spoken and unspoken needs. That type of deep listening is not reserved for moms alone. Any relationship benefits from good listening, and it is absolutely essential to being Christian. Many may hear Jesus’ call, but only those who are listening with loving and open hearts will know to stop what they are doing and follow where Christ leads.

Authors Patrice J. Tuohy

mothers listening moms Love

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Homily stories

01 Jan 2017 - Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord; Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Cycle A

He was the toughest kid on the block. As 10-year-olds, we didn’t admit it, but we were afraid of him. He’d take the ball we were playing with and throw it on a garage roof where we couldn’t get it. He’d knock our bikes over and then slash the tires with a pen knife warning us if we told anyone he did it he’d use it on us. We believed him. So we would sit around frustrated and talk about what we’d like to see happen to him--like his arm getting broken or his accidentally stabbing himself. I said I wished he’d get hit by a bus. A week later running out of the drugstore with candy he had shoplifted, what I had hoped for happened. The police wouldn’t let us onto the street. We watched as his mother came, looked, turned her back on him, and walked away telling the police she wanted nothing to do with him. I ran home crying, thinking that it was my fault. I told my mother what happened. She didn’t say a word. She just held me like Andy needed to be held by his mother and probably never was.

Authors Father Dominic Grassi

mothers moms
Exploring the word

01 Jan 2019 - Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord; Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Cycle C

Is there another word in the English language more loaded than the word mother? Some people melt at the sound of it; others grow rigid at the thought of it. Behind the word for every hearer is a memory, or the absence of one; a woman, or the outline of where that woman ought to have been; a warm, nurturing, irreplaceable emblem of love or an iceberg of unrequited affection and unmet need. We never get over our mothers, in the best and worst sense. Whether they were wonderful or dreadful or gone altogether, we don’t seem to be able to speak of them without hyperbole. After all, our mothers are our place of origin, our first address, the last place we felt truly safe, and the single most important source of our self-understanding and self-acceptance. Nothing can defeat the gift of a good mother, and it takes a lot of psychotherapy to outwit the effects of a deficient one. Maybe because motherhood is such an icon of significance for us, Mary of Nazareth, the mother above all mothers, has been a hot potato down through the centuries. Mark’s gospel downplayed her; Matthew and Luke were at variance about her role, passive or active; and a generation later, John redefined her as Woman, the new Eve, first disciple and mother of the church. Church councils would debate her place for centuries, while the people in the pews embraced her and prayed for her intercession with abandon. Perhaps it was art, in the end, that won the Mary wars. In relentless images of the Madonna and Child, we see Jesus perched securely in his mother’s arms or pressing his small cheek against hers with utmost tenderness. Their intimate communion was defined for all time in those pictures, and they persuade us more than all the unpronounceable words in our theology. Mary, Mother of God Remember the controversy surrounding this phrase that we studied back in seminary? Nestorius claimed that Jesus was two persons, but only one of them divine. Because Mary was clearly the mother of a human son, she could at best be called Christotokos, the mother of Christ. But at the Council of Ephesus in 431, Cyril of Alexandria and others argued that Jesus contained the fullness of divinity and humanity within one person. Therefore it was appropriate to call Mary Theotokos, the Mother of God. What’s important to note here is that neither term is intended to say anything about Mary. The definition of Jesus is in play in both terms. As with the doctrines of Virgin Birth, Immaculate Conception, and even Assumption, the essence of Mary’s unique favor has to do with who Jesus is. As a priest once pointed out to me, “None of us would be talking about Mary at all if her son hadn’t turned out so good.” Marian theology is first and foremost Christology. But we can’t simply collapse the mother of Jesus into her son as if she were a biblical hors d’oeuvre. Given the paramount nature of maternity and our own experience of mothers, we know Mary herself was critical and her role in the divine plan was crucial. If the Word of God was to become flesh, human participation was implicit. If a woman’s womb were to be recruited, God would have it be on a volunteer basis, as all divine-human partnerships in salvation history are. If Mary were to become the Mother of God’s Son, she would have to be a person wholly devoted to the will of God herself. Luke illuminates Mary’s close complicity in the divine plan in the narration of the Annunciation, where Mary gives herself unreservedly to God’s great mystery in her memorable Yes. Mary, Mother of the church Jesus is the unqualified head of the church, but arguably Mary is at its center, perhaps its very heart. As we see in the Acts of the Apostles, she who first had commerce with the Holy Spirit is with the rest of the disciples in the upper room as they await a new and communal “overshadowing” of that indwelling Presence. She alone is aware of what is coming, for whatever divine mystery is contained in wind and flame and inspiration has already taken up residence in her. Her participation in the marathon prayer sessions of the post-Resurrection was no accident, and it is not fanciful to imagine that she guided the prayer that led to the splendid outpouring of grace. Was she not, by an angel’s admission, “full of grace” already? In John’s powerful Crucifixion narration, Jesus offers his beloved disciple to Mary’s care and her to the disciple’s. The church has long understood this scene as a symbol of who Mary is meant to be for the Body of Christ: both cherished and maternally influential. As in the portraits of the Madonna holding her child close, we understand that the mother of Jesus holds the church in her arms in a protective and yet nonpossessive embrace. Rather, just as Mary lifted up her son as an offering to God, Mary lifts up the church to liberate us for service to God’s will. We have to keep in mind, of course, that other presentation of Mary: the Mater Dolorosa of the Pietà. Mary lifts up the suffering world in those same strong, confident arms. Applying the word Another era was content to crawl into Mary’s lap and be her child. More recent generations are apt to squirm away from that position, uncomfortable with the idea of being children as much as with the patronizing idea that they need mothering. Maybe a certain brand of Marian devotion turned mothering into smothering. A 20-something woman I know told me honestly: “Mary is not my friend, and I don’t want her to be my mother.” Have the strides women have taken toward selfhood made friendship with Mary undesirable? Or is it the presentation of Mary as the perfect-woman-on-a-pedestal that has put her beyond the reach of many? I like the tactic our bishops took in The Challenge of Peace back in 1983. They called upon Our Lady of Peace to lead our world in the way of peace. Our Mother has led the way since her Fiat, heading where no man or woman had gone before. On this day dedicated to world peace, we might ask for her guidance on this foggy path and let her lift up our suffering world once more. Related scripture links Infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke: Matt. 1:18-2:23; Luke 1:26-56, 2:1-52 The Woman in John: John 2:1-12, 19:25-27 Mary at Pentecost: Acts 1:13-14, 2:1-4

Authors Alice Camille

mothers moms motherhood

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01 Jan 2019 - Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord; Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Cycle C

In the past few years I’ve been to more funerals than I care to count as my parents’ generation crosses the threshold into all that is unseen. One theme that runs constant at the funerals for mothers is “Mom was a good listener.” Despite problems they may have had with their mothers, when it came right down to it, their mothers were their close confidants. Like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, when mothers hear or observe things about their children, they tend to hold these things in their hearts and reflect on them. As their children grow, a mother draws on this storehouse of knowledge to help her children understand who they are and who they are meant to be. For this reason, mothers have a tremendous influence on their children. Yet wise mothers, following Mary’s lead, know that their job is not to control or constrict their children or deny them their mission. Our children are our offerings to God. The best we can do is love them, teach them of God’s love, and send them on their way with a blessing similar to the one Moses offered the Israelites: The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace! Amen.

Authors Patrice J. Tuohy

mothers moms listening

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