Dear Saints,

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said that a mother is “nature’s constant challenge to death.”

Think about that for a second. If a baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on, a mother is God’s promise that the world will go on. She is his great collaborator in the cause of life, sustaining within her very self the union of heaven and earth. And that’s not merely a physical reality. To be sure, a mother’s body protects and nurtures a baby for 9 heroic months. But a mother’s loving heart guards, guides, shelters and shields that child for years upon years. In this sense, every mother is, as Bishop Sheen said, a “bearer of cosmic plentitude” and a “herald of eternal realities.”

I think about my friends who are mothers - and above all I think about my own mom - and I am reminded anew why death is rightly terrified of motherhood. A mother’s devotion is indeed relentless as the netherworld. And because it never ends, it can never really fail. It may grow tired, frustrated, confused, or anxious. But it cannot be vanquished. It is, rather, a triumphant force that magnifies the Lord. In that, every mother and mother figure who loves sincerely is a source of irrepressible and death-defying energy, not just for her own family, but for the entire world.

Happy Mother’s Day to all women who love like a mother.

In the peace of the risen Christ,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ