Mary: A Role Model for Mothers

I imagine Mary holding Jesus like I did my babies, and bouncing him on her hip to keep him quiet as she's having a conversation. I imagine her doing everything I do with my kids--everything except for plugging her ears with her iPod to drown out the noise. I visualize her as the mom next door. Because in so many ways, that's what she was? In other words, Mary did the job of motherhood about as well as could anyone and she has much to teach us. Now I studied theology, but I still have a hard time comprehending the miracle of the Incarnation. However, Mary helps me to understand it better. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote in his meditation: "Mary, who was empty of all egotism, free from all sin, was as pure as the glass of a very clean window that has no other function than to admit the light of the sun. If we rejoice in that light, we implicitly praise the cleanness of the window." I suspect therein is the hardest part of motherhood: to stay pure, to not get caught up in ego and self, so that we can hear the true desires of our children but also those of God. So I add Mary, the mother of Jesus to the list of great moms like Erma Bombeck, Marian Wright Edelman, and Jacqueline Onassis?

Adapted from an article by Therese J. Borchard See: www.beliefnet.com/beyondblue.


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Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death.