Motherhood

Aug 01, 2011 by Dan Triant

Beyond memory, the first experience that we yearn for at the beginning of life is the embrace of our mother. By divine design we need connection to a mother who embraces, teaches, and unconditionally loves us throughout our lives. God provides us with a mother at our birth, and through multiple stages of life, we may experience the love of a mother in different forms — through adoption, extended family, in-laws, godparents, mentors, etc. Complimenting the love of one another, true love received from our multiple ‘mothers’ builds, strengthens, and supports the people who we are and become.

In this month of August, we commemorate and celebrate the life and role of the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary. The maternal experience the Panagia (All-Holy One) offered to our Savior was pure. Imagine for a moment how her motherhood positively nurtured, strengthened, and supported the ministry of Jesus Christ . . . even to the point of the Cross, and His Three-Day Resurrection!

In as much as the Virgin Mary mothered her Son, Scripture and tradition teach us that she is also willing to serve as a Saintly mother to each of us — may we always ask for her intercessions.

Our Lord has provided each of us with our birth mother, a mother in the Panagia, and multiple other mothers through out our lives. Beyond and supporting each of these maternal experiences is another mother that our Lord provides us — to build us up, to strengthen us, and to support us — teaching us who we are, and what we are worth… Our Father in Heaven has given each of us a perfect mother in His Church!

In the same way that a newborn infant instinctively seeks the embrace of its mother for warmth and nourishment, every one of our souls seeks the warmth and nourishment extended to us by the Church. Through Christ’s Church we are comforted and nourished by the perfect experience of Jesus found in His Church through His Sacraments. Through His Church we receive the ‘mother’s milk’ for our soul.

As an infant is instinctively drawn to its mother, the infant soul is drawn to an experience of God. However, as the adolescent and adult then struggles with multiple maternal relationships, the souls of adolescents and adults also struggle with the experience of God. Not that the experience is made harder or eludes us, but rather provoked by temptation, the mind begins to question and challenge the experience of God. Through discipline and focus, we are able to regain the authenticity of our infancy and youth to once again yearn for the embrace of our mother — our mother in Stockton who patiently waits for us with love and forbearance at 920 West March Lane!

Please come to the Divine Liturgy and thank your loving God for the mothers he has provided you since the beginning of your life — including and especially “the” mother found in His Church!

+ Fr. Luke Palumbis