A friend of mine's son was helping out with the youth program at a church in New York City. There were so many young people at the Sunday night Mass that they flowed out into the street. It was standing room only. The priest knew many of these young people were seeking God; there had been 80 or so baptisms at Easter. The priest also noted that many may have also been looking for a mate with whom they could build a life.
Let's hope marriage and motherhood are finally coming back into style. The American poet William Ross Wallace wrote, "For the hand that rocks the cradle/Is the hand that rules the world." Giving your life to Goldman Sachs will never accomplish as much as being a mother. Corporate America's only answer to that trade-off is to offer to freeze the eggs of its female employees while they slave away in their gold-plated sweatshop. Many young people are getting wise to the gag.
Not that motherhood is easy, or that every kid turns out just right. As Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote, "Mothers are the great vacationless class." The Gospel of John has a poignant scene. "And meanwhile his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen, had taken their stand beside the cross of Jesus. And Jesus, seeing his mother there, and the disciple, too, whom he loved, standing by, said to his mother, Woman, this is thy son. Then he said to the disciple, This is thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her into his own keeping."
It is hardly that Jesus forgot until the last minute that someone needed to care for his mother, as if he forgot to lock the front door on his way out of town for a vacation. John is standing in for you and me, guaranteeing that everyone has a mother to care for him or her, and to be cared for by him or her, no matter what. And while the disciples flee, it is the mother, the new Eve, who stands her ground. In a crisis, is not the "weaker sex" stronger?
Rudyard Kipling summed up motherhood in his poem, Mother o’ Mine:
If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
Robert Louis Stevenson, on a more sentimental note, wrote in his poem To My Mother that no matter how old we are, our mothers knew us before we truly knew ourselves.
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
The future belongs to those who show up. In the howling winds of the current demographic winter, it does not take many mothers to turn things around. In the 1660s, King Louis XIV sponsored about 750 young women known as the filles du roi, the king’s daughters, to Canada. Some genealogists claim that about two‑thirds of today’s French‑Canadian population can trace its roots to one or more of these mothers.
RELATED: Civil Liberties Vs. the Information Age: The Never-Ending Saga
So give thanks to our mothers, who took the injunction "go forth and multiply" with courageous seriousness. They are the ones building the future.
As Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty wrote about mothers, "The Most Important Person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral -a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby's body. . . The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God's creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation. .. What on God's good earth is more glorious than this: to be a mother?"
Here is an old sentimental classic.
And for the bad boys who love their mothers:
And before a woman becomes a mother, she has to be courted. In the battle of the sexes, fraternizing with the enemy is what makes the world go round:Join PJ Media VIP today and get 60% off with promo code FIGHT. Join now to support this news site, go ad-free, and comment as you see fit.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member