By Fr. Glenn Jones:
Anyone who has been stationed on a Navy ship knows that the call that goes over the ship’s loudspeakers that gets everyone’s immediate attention, and adrenaline boost, is:
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
…because there’s nowhere to run should fire get out of control. Should the worst happen, you’re facing ditching into the drink, uncertain safety in a lifeboat, or even a very unexpected and proximate termination of your mortality. Thus, ALL ship’s company are required to be trained in shipboard firefighting, because if necessary, it’s “all hands on deck” to save the ship. She is their very lives.
This, I think is why we tend to refer to a ship as “she”; she is, in a way, a surrogate mother. The crew is fed by her, they sleep within her “womb”, she rocks them to sleep; she becomes refuge and comfort. Home. Many old Navy and Marine vets display proudly ball caps and their ship’s profile and name embroidered thereupon. And a picture of their old ship unfailingly elicits bittersweet reminiscence. Even after over thirty years of having last trod her decks, I still look wistfully at pictures of my old ship, now pier-bound, a racehorse past her prime … young “colts” straining at their leads to sail those seas where she had so recently and proudly reigned.
More largely, we who live within the “womb” of New Mexico grieve as we watch almost helpless as wildfire consumes the beauty of “our mother”—wide swaths marred and blackened with no immediate relief in sight. The land’s own devouring “pandemic”. But, despite her pain, like all mothers, she would rejoice at witnessing her children come together in love and mutual aid in this time of difficulty and trial, supporting one another with time and talents and material treasure to assist their suffering siblings. What mother could not rejoice in such; indeed, we priests and ministers often witness that family staying together and supporting one another in love is so often the last wish of dying matriarchs.
But, then, these examples pale in comparison to our actual human mothers—the source of our human lives. As scripture reminds us: “… do not forget the birth pangs of your mother. Remember that through your parents] you were born; and what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?” (Sirach 7:27-28) Who can repay the gift of life itself and the generous commitment to nurture that life? Perhaps primarily for this reason comes the commandment: “Honor your father and your mother…” (Exodus 20:12). As St. Paul reminds us, this is the first commandment with a promise: “… that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you…”—indicating its importance and the obligation (privilege) of repaying a small portion of our debt.
Now we Catholics and many other Christians reverence the memory of Jesus’ own mother: Mary. Many outside of this circle mistake this as “worship”, though it is no such thing; she is only human, albeit we believe imbued with exceptional and special graces in preparation for her being the Mother of God
(An aside: “Mother of God” meaning the source of Jesus’ humanity, NOT of His divinity, just as from the mother comes the flesh of any other person while the soul is created by God.)
But, being the mother of Jesus, she becomes our mother as well, for St. Paul writes: “[Jesus] is the head of the body, the church…” (Colossians 1:18) and, “… we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” (Romans 12:5) Jesus Himself prays to the Father just prior to His Passion: “The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one.” (John 17:22-23)
So, the head and the body being one, the mother of the head is therefore mother of the body in a divinely mysterious way—something Jesus Himself affirms as He hangs near death upon the cross: “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:26-27)
Well, the “beloved disciple” is not only the apostle John as commonly believed, but all who are faithful to Jesus. The home that we give to Mary, the mother given to us with Jesus dying breath, is our love, honor and reverence. After all, how can we not love and honor this “blessed among women” (Luke 1:42) whom Jesus Himself would have so loved and honored as her Son? We might remember King Solomon—a faint foreshadowing “type” of Jesus—honoring his own mother Bathsheba: “…the king rose to meet her, and bowed down to her; then he sat on his throne, and had a seat brought for [her]; and she sat on his right. Then she said, ‘I have one small request to make of you; do not refuse me.’ And the king said to her, ‘Make your request, my mother; for I will not refuse you.’” (1 Kings 2:19-20) Certainly Jesus in His divinity would not be outdone by one who is merely human! And thus also our trust in our Mother’s prayerful intercession for us with her divine Son. After all, what mother does not pray for her children?
As Jesus honored His mother, so we ought to honor our own…overlooking and forgiving faults, for each of us have enough faults of our own. If you want(ed) your mother to be perfect, strive to be perfect yourself through fidelity, kindness and charity. That’s what she would have hoped for. And a blessed Mother’s Day to all.
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“How much do I owe you?” to the mother said the son.
“For all that you have taught me in the days that I was young.
“Shall I bring expensive blankets to cast upon your bed?
“And a pillow for to rest your weary head.”
And the mother said: “I won’t take less than your love, sweet love.
“No, I won’t take less than your love.
“All the comforts of the world could never be enough,
“And I won’t take less than your love.”
(Donald Schlitz and Paul Overstreet; sung by Tanya Tucker)
Editor’s note: Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.
