"The Sweetness and Suffering of Motherhood" May 6, 2022

Dear Moms, 

The blogger Elizabeth Duffy once wrote: “If motherhood is hard at times, it’s probably because it allows us, without going terribly far out of our way, to mimic Christ.” It is a great benefit in acknowledging that we can unite motherhood―whatever it looks like, physical or spiritual―with Jesus’ sacrifice for us. Motherhood is, in fact, a Cross, and not just a Cross, but for those who are women, the sweetest Cross, the sweetest suffering.

Those two words are usually not put together: sweetness and suffering. Here’s what I mean by the sweetest Cross: the Cross is chosen perfectly for you. It is your cross, not anyone else’s cross. Christ chooses the particular Cross that He wants you to bear in motherhood. He promises that His yoke will be easy and His burden light. But that promise is true only if you take up the yoke that He has fitted perfectly to your shoulders. It only works if you don’t try to take on someone else’s yoke, someone else’s idea of perfect motherhood. And sometimes that even means your own idea of perfect motherhood, if it conflicts with the motherhood that God has in mind for you.

Motherhood is a path for mothers to sanctify their families, and for mothers, in turn, to be sanctified by and through their families. In order to do this, God gives you the family that you need. I want to reemphasize that. He gives you the family that you need. He doesn’t give you your neighbor’s family, or your best friend’s, or your frenemy’s.

He may not even give you the family you want, the family you hoped and prayed for, the family you dreamed of since you were a young girl. For many, it means a family bigger or smaller than imagined. But He gives you the family that will sanctify you.

Now the next logical question is, how does that sanctification happen? How do you cooperate with it in your roles as mothers? It starts in your being faithful in the mundane, repetitive tasks of your daily lives. As mothers, you are uniquely suited to the work of receiving and bearing Christ’s love to the world. You are designed to receive grace, in your souls and bodies, and to bear it forth to others.

That is why the work of your bodies matters so much, why so much of mothering is about the care and feeding of bodies. The wiping of sticky hands. The making of casseroles. The baths, the dressing, the undressing, the tucking in. You sweep the kitchen floor, and you sweep it again, and when you turned around 10 minutes later it was dirty, so you sweep it again to keep your baby from choking to death on a raisin. You work with your feet firmly planted on the ground and your hands at the service of your families.

But at the same time, your minds and hearts must be constantly turned toward Heaven. Just as you are called to be faithful in the ongoing tasks of your daily lives, you are called to offer all of it to God. You know, by faith and by practice, that there is more to your work than what is happening with your bodies. You know that as your bodies move, your souls are moved too. It matters! And what matters is not how perfectly your days are going according to plan, but how perfectly you are surrendering your plans to Him.

While writing this, I asked some of our school children what mothers do. And the answers I got were really telling. See if you can spot the pattern:
•    They protect their children.
•    They lead their children to Heaven.
•    They hold life.
•    They keep the houses clean.
•    They give baths.
•    They purchase presents for Christmas, Easter, and birthdays.

It was a perfect summary. Motherhood is a blend of the particular and the universal.
You can think of those two levels—the ordinary everyday actions of your bodies, and the great offering of those actions to God—as the vertical axis of the Cross. It stretches from earth, at your feet, to Heaven. As mothers, you are to be a conduit, in both directions, to bring heaven down to your families and to offer your families back up to God.

The horizontal axis reaches from the past to the future, and here, too, you are called to surrender. You ache over yesterday’s mistakes. You worry about what the future holds for your children. But Christ calls you to live here, now, in the moment you hold in your hands this second. It is only here, at the exact center of the Cross, between Heaven and earth, between yesterday and tomorrow, that you get those occasional, exquisite glimpses of heavenly joy in your mothering, when time seems to stop.

When you reread your favorite book to the third child who is now old enough to hear it, and they delight in it as much as you did. When your son brings you a fistful of grubby weeds, beaming with pride (or, as happened to my mom once, a dead rat swinging by the tail). When you watch your baby sleep. Or receive First Communion. Or graduate. Or get married. Or ordained. When you know, with every fiber of your being, that you are exactly where God wants you and that you are doing His work. Sometimes, yes, the repetition, the worry, the heartache—they are all enough to break your heart. And in truth, God is trying to break your heart. But not for sorrow.

He uses motherhood to break your heart so that it breaks open enough for Him to come inside and reign there. All of those cracks are to empty you of yourselves so that God can fill in the spaces. Motherhood is designed to bring you to the very end of our own ability so that you recognize your powerlessness before Him. You are to recognize His mercy pouring out and filling every minute of your lives.

The results are not up to you. But the everyday effort, the work and the offering, the receiving and bearing forth of grace, living in the present moment … that is up to you. Rest at the center of the Cross and enjoy the work!

On behalf of the clergy and staff of Divine Mercy Parish and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School, may you have a happy and blessed Mother’s Day! May you see your motherhood, in the sweetness and suffering, as a blessing from the Lord!  

Fr. Robert T. Cooper, Pastor
Divine Mercy Parish and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School