For the Love of Mothers

Everything that we do is an act of love. We declare it so when we decide to act without complaining, to serve others without asking for anything in return, and to do so tirelessly. Choosing to make chores an act of love means making that decision over and over through the monotony of work that makes up a mother's day. Choosing to make the smallest things an act of love makes each dirty sock on the floor, each dirty dish, each dirty diaper, and each spilled cup an opportunity for grace.

Bishop Fulton Sheen says the following about motherhood:

Every birth requires a submission and a disciplining. The earth itself must undergo harrowing before it passively accepts the seed. In woman, the submission is not passive: it is sacrificial, conciously creative, and for this selflessness her whole nature has been formed. It is well known that women are capable of far more sustainedsacrifice than men; a man may be a hero in a crisis, and then slip back into mediocrity. He lacks the moral endurance which enables a woman to be heroic through the years, months, days, and even seconds of her life, when the very repetitive monotony of her tasks wears down the spirit. Not only a woman's days, but her nights--not only her mind, but her body must share in the Calvary of motherhood. That is why women have a surer understanding of the doctrine of redemption than men have: they have come to associate the risk of death with life in childbirth, and to understand the sacrifice of self to another through the many months preceeding it.

In a mother two of the great spritual laws are united into one: love of neighbor and cooperation with God's grace--and both of them are applied in a unique way. For love of neighbor, to anyone except a mother, is love of a non-self; a mother's neighbor during pregnancy is one with herself, yet to be loved differently from the self. The sacrifice sometimes involved in neighborly love now takes place within her flesh: the agent and the object of her sacrifice are both contained within her.

Fathers are amazing. My husband is an amazing, patient, gentle, hard working man. I post this quote not to diminish the importance of men and of fathers (because some might be able to twist it that way) but because, until I read this, I did not realize that mothers--other than me--could be worn down by the monotony of daily tasks. I didn't know that what we're doing is heroic. After all, millions of women care for their families daily; we have since the beginning of time. You don't hear about it on the news.

I'm sometimes worn down to the point of tears at the end of a long day when my (beautiful healthy) children are making messes faster than I can clean them up or when they are quarreling among themselves and I've got three separate time-outs going because I can't seem to stay on top of it. I didn't know that it's okay to wonder if I've got the strength to keep going when I was up every two hours during one night with a nursing, sick, or scared child. Motherhood is a Calvary? I didn't know that I am allowed to feel this way. After all, aren't we supposed to be revelling in the joy of our families and be drunk with maternal bliss?

We do get tired. The blessing of our motherhood is the infinite opportunity to sacrifice comfort and rest for our families and know that it is paving the path to Heaven. Every day, we're given unique opportunities to die to ourselves (sounds dramatic, I know) and be the instrument with which God cares for our spouses and children. God is redeeming us this way!

When we're running a mile, do we slow down or give up when we're 200 yards from the end of the race? Certainly not. That's when you suck it up and start to sprint! (Plus, if you sprint at the end of a race, you're done sooner.)

Think I'll sprint right over to the dishwasher, start it, then sprint down to the laundry room, see how fast I can switch some clothes around, then see how fast I can sprint to bed and fall asleep! See? I've already got two acts of love in for Wednesday...and it's only 1:00 in the morning!