Mothers and Sons

It wasn't a hard teaching for me. As a convert, I had so much more difficulty with the Immaculate Conception and Mary being Queen of the Universe. Mary, Mother of God, was easy in comparison.

After all, Elizabeth said it herself. As the infant John leaps in her womb, Elizabeth turns toward Mary and says, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Elizabeth knows this is no ordinary mother and no ordinary baby. God has chosen his mother, and Elizabeth seems to know it intuitively.

Maybe it's something every mother understands intuitively.

My son didn't inherit very many traits from me. He's tall, like his father. He has some of his father's mannerisms. Certainly, there's some of me in there somewhere. I like to think he got his love for faith matters from me. And yet, I do not say that I am only the mother of those things that he inherited from me. I am the mother of the whole man.. Jesus' mother is also the mother of Our Lord, mother of his humanity and divinity, though he received his humanity from Mary and his divinity from God the Father. If Jesus is divine, if He is God, then Mary is the Mother of God. Elizabeth pronounced it first. And today, we celebrate the mystery of Mary's motherhood. She is not divine, but she IS the mother of the One who is divine. Indeed, every generation should rise up and call her blessed.

Mothers and Sons