My Mother

'Pieta', c.1450, National Museum, Warsaw

‘“Woman, behold thy son.” “Behold thy mother.” Can’t you  see it all down the years since, till it drew near to you and me, until at last now she is your mother and mine? At Jerusalem, when they brought in the newly won Christians, and showed them to her, and her to them, and said: “This was His mother”. And then, as they went about His business, I see them telling her before they went out, and coming to her with their story when they returned, and her praying for their work, and loving it, because it was His work. And at Ephesus I do not see that it was different. And now that she is in Heaven when JESUS I cannot believe that it is different. What sort of Heaven would it be to a Mother to know nothing of how her Son’s dearest friends were prospering, and to be cut off from praying for them? So I believe that she is my Mother, and that I am her son, as much as any of the earthly Christians who lived during her earthly life, and I believe that she loves me, because JESUS loves me; and I believe that she prays for me, because she wills that I should become what JESUS would have me be. And in these days when I in London can hear a broadcasting announcer clearing his throat in Madrid, I do not find it difficult to believe that Our Lady hears me in Heaven when I ask her in my sore need to pray for me. I beg you, don’t set the resources of the spiritual kingdom below the present achievements of radio-telephony.

...She is our Mother. He gave her to us. So when we pray with Gabriel, God’s archangel: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women,” and with Elizabeth: “And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, JESUS,” we add from ourselves as her children: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death”. And in Heaven “A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars,” will turn to her beloved Son, and an angel will come to help us and them to conquer in the fight’.

from Dom Bernard Clements OSB, 1880-1942