Mother's Day

This coming Sunday is Mother's Day here in the US.  We may think of greeting cards, flowers, breakfast in bed, dinner at a nice restaurant, all opportunities to say thank you to mom, grandmothers and those who have given the kind of love most often associated with a loving mother.  Many of us remember mothers who are no longer with us, a time of bittersweet joy - we remember them with love, laughter - and feel again the twinge of pain of the loss no matter how many years have passed.
 
Personally - as a mother of four - and grandmother of two - I love Mother's Day but not just because I will see my own gang - The day always makes me think of all the Mothers and Grandmothers like myself around the world.

Over the years, as I have visited our Mission Doctors in Africa and Latin America - I have witnessed both the struggles mothers face in rural Africa and Latin America and feel a bond with them in their overwhelming love for their children and grandchildren. Mothers travel long distances on foot, wait hours for their children to be seen and then stay at their bedside - days, weeks or even months - providing meals, bathing their child and waiting anxiously for the opportunity to take them home. 

This Mother's Day please join me in praying for our own mothers and for all mothers around the world facing the  day with a child who is ill or injured.   May they find comfort in their faith and in the witness of our Blessed Mother whose sacrificial love unites us all.

Dear Blessed Mary, mother of us all, intercede for all mothers. May they find daily strength to say yes to the call to the sacrificial love - the very heart of the vocation of motherhood. May their love and witness be a source of great inspiration for all of us called to follow your Son.

On this Mothers day, Mother of the Word Incarnate, pray for us who have recourse to you.
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.