Remembering mothers all over the world

This Sunday, throughout the Albany Diocese and America at large, children of all ages will take their mothers to breakfast, lunch or dinner at fancy (and maybe not-so-fancy) restaurants. Mom will proudly sport a jaunty corsage handed to her by her loving offspring along with a sentimental card.

Mother's Day is a warm, annual tradition that allows for a formal, national celebration of motherhood, a celebration we trust continues throughout the year with other expressions from children, grown and little, of deep devotion and undying love.

But, as the photo alongside these words demonstrates, there are other mothers in the world whose children won't be taking them anywhere. The babies are malnourished; the mothers are war-battered; the families are scattered among fleeing refugees.

The reality of the world is that some moms, teetering on the edge of despair and surrounded by horrors, will weep on Mother's Day while holding their dying infants. And they will also weep the next day and on Father's Day and during the fireworks on the Fourth of July and as we open Christmas gifts and toast the new year.

The mothers we hold in our hearts this Sunday should include those mothers as well as our own. The Blessed Mother, whom we honor during May as a model of parenting, once held her son's corpse and did her own weeping. If we forget that scene, if we erase from our minds images like the woman pictured here, and if we confine ourselves on May 11 to a light brunch and lighter greeting cards, then we have made Mother's Day a superficial and obligatory action divested of any heart-felt meaning.

We do our mothers the best honor when we return to them the love they gave us and then extend it beyond ourselves -- through prayer, acts of charity and social justice -- to embrace the mothers who won't be breakfasting this Sunday.

(05-08-97)

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