Why Every Woman Should be a Mother and Every Man a Father

Motherhood is one of those indispensable positions.  We really can't do without it.  The same is true of fatherhood.  Catholics hold that every child has a right to a mother and a father.  Although some instances make this impossible, outside of anyone's control, to purposefully deprive a child of either parent is to violate their rights and to act contrary to their dignity.  We each begin life as a child, with a calling to be sons and daughters.  As we grow older we gain a new vocation, to be mothers and fathers.  This is universal to every person who has ever or will ever live.
      A vocation is a calling, it is what you are called to be.  We each have many vocations.  Some people are called to be priests, they have a priestly vocation.  Some people are called to be doctors, having a medical vocation.  Every little boy is called to be a son and every little girls is called to be a daughter.  As we travel through life we discover ever more vocations.  Our very first vocation is to be children and we never grow out of our vocations, for heaven belongs to such as these.
      Vocations are never callings to receive, they are always callings to give, to the gift of self.  As children we gave ourselves in trust and obedience.  We trusted our parents and teachers to guide us and so we obeyed them.  In so doing we gave up our own desires and gave ourselves over to them.  As adults we gained a new calling, to be more than children, to be parents.  Every man is called to be a father and every woman is called to be a mother.  Not necessarily a biological father or mother.  If this were it would make life awkward for Catholic nuns and monks and priests.  It would also be very unfair to those men and women who can't have children.
      Nevertheless, all men and women are called to a type of motherhood or fatherhood.  We are called to give ourselves to those who may find themselves under our authority, to be worthy of the trust they are called to place in us, to guide for their sake and not for our own.  This is the servant leadership Christ taught us. We so often think that having the position of power entitles us to privilege and honor, it makes us better than those we have authority over, but Christ came as one who serves.  You see, the essence of God is love and the essence of love is humility, to place another before ourselves.  This is the essence of being a parent, to wield whatever power you may have for the good of another.
      The president may think he is the ruler of the free world, but the truth is your parish priest has more real power in his pointer fingers and thumbs than the United States President has in the whole of his office.  However, the priest does not seek to force his will on others or enrich himself at their expense.  Rather, he pledges himself to poverty, chastity and obedience.  In his voice is found the greatest power ever bestowed on mortal man, and yet he does not benefit from it in the slightest.  He wields it only for the good of others.  This is why we call him father.
      Within the womb of a woman is found another great power.  The power to bring forth life.  A man is necessary for the first fifteen minutes or so, but after that his involvement is more or less voluntary.  It is within the woman's womb that this new life finds incarnation, where it is nurtured for nine months, where the mother literally gives herself to her child, providing it with her own nutrients and sheltering it within her own body.  The relationship between a mother and child for that first year of life is the purest embodiment of what it means to be a mother.
      Within the Church we find nuns and religious sisters, women who have pledged themselves to be be the mothers of the world.  They give themselves to God in the three vows or solemn promises of poverty, chastity and obedience.  In this way they give themselves not only to God, but to us as well.  Although they will never be biological mothers to anyone they become spiritual mothers to all.
      To give ourselves in love, for the good of others, is to find the meaning of our existence.  For adults, this means to be a parent.  Sometimes to our own biological children, sometimes by adoption and sometimes to some person we have never met before and may never see again.  This willingness to be a parent is more than just something we do on occasion, it is a state of being.  You don't get to be a mom or a dad on a part time basis.  Every moment of every day must contain the willingness to be a parent to whomever may have need of us. 
      This is part of the reason the Church opposes contraception.  When we create physical barriers to pregnancy in the midst of sexual union we close ourselves off from our purpose of self giving love, from being moms and dads.  Even Natural Family Planning can be contrary to God's will for us if it is done from a desire to avoid having kids.  That is, NFP can be done for the sake of being a better parent to those who are already here.  Neither it nor any other form of birth control should be used for the purpose of avoiding our parent vocations. 
      Every woman is called to be a mother and every man is called to be a father.  Sometimes we get to be mothers and fathers to our own kids.  Sometimes God has other plans for us.  Sometimes we only get to embrace this love for an hour.  Sometimes for a lifetime.  Sometimes our openness to parenthood leads to us being parents.  Sometimes it doesn't.  What really matters is the openness.  God is always open to being our Father, but we have to let Him.  We too ought to be ever open; open to being mothers and fathers, open to being sisters and brothers, open to being sons and daughters.  As long as we are open to love, we are growing closer to God.  The second we close ourselves off, we have lost sight of our very purpose in being and have condemned ourselves to a misery of our own making.







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Moms, Children and Covenant

At some point i'll need to write a special post just for dads, but this one is dedicated to moms.  To understand the idea of motherhood you have to understand something about kids.  Now, to understand kids you need to understand some sacramental theology and the concept of a covenant. For those of you already versed in these notions, i'll try to be brief.
      Sacramental theology states that the sign or image of a thing makes that thing sacramentally present.  A non-circular definition would be; the power of a thing being manifested through its image.  For example, a picture of a loved one.  Why do we keep these images around?  When we look at a picture of a loved one it inspires the same feelings the person's actual presence would. (Although, generally to a lesser degree.)  Another example; looking a picture of a turkey dinner can make you hungry for a turkey dinner.  These are naturalistic examples, but they express the point.  Viewing the image of a thing impacts us and renders us more receptive to it.
      We can now apply this idea to something spiritual.  Through the cleansing waters of baptism, through that image, the cleansing power of God is sacramentally manifested and the one being baptized is truly cleansed of their sins.  As the initiate passes through the waters of baptism, so to does God's grace.  SACRAMENTALLY!  It's not us wielding power over God, it's God using the sacraments to work in us.  His grace is already present, the sacrament enables us to receive it.
      Now we need to examine covenant.  A covenant is easy, it's a sacred family bond.  A lot of people think of it as a synonym for contract, but that is very wrong.  I have a contract with my business associates.  If we decide to end it, we can get out.  If one of us fails in their side of the deal, the other is freed of their own obligations.  A covenant is what i have with my mom and dad and sister, and someday with my wife and children.  There is no getting out of a covenant.  No matter how badly i may fail in my own covenantal obligations to my parents, they remain obligated to love me as their son.  Even if my children should disown me and spit upon my grave, i would remain their father and obligated to love them.
     Marriage is not a contract.  There is no such thing as the "marriage contract".  Its the marriage covenant.  The man and woman pledge to love and honor one another until death; and because this is a covenant they have to, irregardless of how they feel about it.  True love is a choice to place the other person's needs before your own.  In the matrimonial covenant i am called to do this for my wife even when she fails utterly to do it for me.  Prostitution involves a contract, marriage is a covenant.
      Now, for the Kids!  Remember, we talked about words and act in a previous post?  In the wedding ceremony the couple give words to this new covenant they are forming.  Some time latter, usually that very night, they give act to those words.  They enter into the act which completes the words, and this dualism of words and act give the full sign of their marital union.
      Now, there is a possibility that through this act a new sign of their covenant is called into being.  Their covenant is incarnated in the form of a child and for nine months that child dwells within its mother.  So that mother bares within her the sign of her matrimonial covenant.  Do you know what we call something that caries the sign of a covenant within it?  Its call an arc!  This mom is the arc of the covenant she holds with her husband!  She is a tabernacle, a sanctuary from which new life flows forth.
      Do you recall how the Israelites felt about the arc of their covenant?  God would strike you dead for touching the thing.  Today, for Jews, the holiest spot in the world is the western wall, because it is the closest they can get to the spot where The Arc of The Covenant was placed, The Holy of Holies, where God dwelt.
       The Catholic mass is divided into two parts.  First is the liturgy of the word, where scripture is read, the gospel is proclaimed, the New Covenant is given words.  In the second half we celebrate the Eucharist.  The liturgy of the act, in which the true body and blood of Christ is brought forth, under the image of bread and wine.  The sign of the New Covenant.  After communion, the remaining host is placed in a small box, called the tabernacle, often adorned in Gold and surrounded in polished marble, carved with images of angles and saints.  A veil is placed over the door.
      In traditional Catholic circles women often wear veils in church. This is not merely cultural, it shows the connection between the women and the tabernacle.  That every woman, mother or not, has within her the potential to be a tabernacle.  The veil does not hide her beauty, so much as adorn her.  It declares that she is sacred, an image of the ultimate tabernacle in heaven, and a terrestrial tabernacle herself.

      A little Mary talk before i close.  For all Christians, Jesus is the sign of the New Covenant.  It is through the New Covenant that we are forgiven our sins, that we are given access to heaven, that the Kingdom of God is made known.  It was through the womb of Mary that He came into the world.  She bore the ultimate sign, God incarnate.  You want to know why Catholics hold Mary in such high esteem?  She is the Arc of the New Covenant.
      Every child conceived within wedlock is a sign of that marital covenant.  They point to the love two people shared for one another.  They are the manifestation of that love, and manifest its power wherever they go.  The mothers of these children are the arcs of that covenant, the tabernacles of their families. 
      Just as Mary is the heavenly tabernacle of the universal Church, so is mom to her family.

 Behold your Mother.

John 19:27