Icon: Mary of the Magnificat, Mother of the Poor by Fr. W. McNichols
Today is May 13, Mother's Day; and also the 90th anniversary of the first appearance of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. I was thinking today that I am so glad to be able to put that Mother's Day emotion somewhere beyond me.
Mother's Day still reminds me of my grandma's rose water perfume: I suddenly feel like a child again, find myself thinking about my mother. It is still slightly surreal to be the Mom. I loved the little cards, especially my older daughter's which read: "Dear Momy, do'nt be depressed.". It is telling that she knew how to spell 'depressed'. I realized then the mixture of love and pain I was for her and I felt ashamed, I have to admit.
I was glad to get to Mass where the focus was not just on us rabidly imperfect moms, but was also on a Mother who was given the grace to be what we all imagine a mother to be: a soul who magnified the Lord. I think of her, a mother so young, who with the ardor and freshness of that youth-and also a soul full of grace- laid down her soul and her life before God as she said her "Fiat". I think of her sitting outside Bethlehem under a tree waiting for Joseph to return with news, any news, of a place to stay, her anxiety quelled by the closeness of God inside her. I think of her standing at the entrance to the temple, listening to Simon and imagining swords piercing her heart, knowing the untameable nature of Him who chose her. And I cannot imagine her at the cross, I cannot fathom what she would have looked like at that moment; perhaps Michelangelo's Pieta comes closest, with the carved face exuding a mysterious mixture of love and regal suffering, empty of revenge or anger.
In all of these vignettes, she remains for me a soul who magnifies the Lord. We are defined by what we chose to magnify, or to give praise. If it is ourselves, we are selfish, thin tornados darkening the skyline in our search for the gratification of the self. If we praise and give glory to Mother Nature above all else, we become mere cogs in a system and devalue the soul of ourselves and others. If we praise a nice house and a comfortable life, we become either eaten slowly by fruitless envy or the powerful silver-sleek lord of the freeway and byway. Whoopie- that's a low bar to shoot for in the real scheme of things (but it is sure tempting).
Whether or not we praise or give glory to something or someone does not change the real value of that thing or person. A classic car remains that whether or not we praise it. It might sell for more, but the metal and wheels are the same (whalah- the secret of the advertising industry revealed for the banal thing it is). The praise and glory we give changes us, not the object or the person. The higher or more noble the value of what or who we praise, the more noble we are. Therefore, those who praise material wealth are, in a sense, making themselves less noble than the person who praises world peace or charity work.
However, only One is really worth our praise, our highest praise: only One takes our praise of Him and makes us a child of the Divine. All else, even the work for the poor done without His glory in mind, falls far short of Him. God does not need our praise to be glorious. He is, and was, and ever shall be, perfect and full of every good thing. He is Love, He is Glory. He does not need us. But love, by nature, is creative and empties itself out for the good of the lesser. He is due our praise because of His very Being and because all things were and are made because of Him: and we can only be truly human and truly ourselves when we praise Him and give Him glory. When our souls do nothing less than magnify the Lord, we are full of His grace.
This, in every aspect of her life, was Mary's privilege- not because of her own intrinsic worth, but because of the role God called her to and His love for her. She was the new Ark of the Covenant, carrying God within her; and just as the Ark of the Israelites was carefully constructed by God's instructions, just as it was to be kept sacred, so was Mary. In that fullness of grace, her soul magnified God- like the light in a room increases as it is reflected, so did the light of God in the world increase by Mary's choices and by the beauty of a human soul as it was meant to be.
So on Mother's Day, I was glad to look away from my own imperfections as a mother and a person, and see once again what I am trying to become. It gives me hope that a simple girl from the backwater of Judea was given the grace to magnify God, becoming by this a glorious soul in the garden of God. I know that God loves us and being Love, wishes us all to become Magnifiers of His Glory. Our Lord Himself deigns to be placed upon our altars to mingle as a lover does, with our very physical and spiritual nature. He desires nothing more that our greatest good, which is contained in this simple phrase: "My soul magnifies the Lord".
Our destiny is certainly lofty, and I almost feel that perhaps a tiny corner of my heart is beginning to reflect although I am slowed in my ardor and hope by the amount of grime I still see He must scrub off the rest. I think of all the spiritual Brillo pads coming and cringe. But it is that tiny corner that responds in hope and love as we sing the Ave Maria around the garden outside the Shrine of St. Joseph on a sunny May day.
