Mother...Motherhood...is a sacrament

There is an awe-full, mysterious, sacred presence in our lives.  A presence, I am sad to say that seems to be acknowledged, reverenced, and celebrated just one day out of 365.  As we live out the other days, is not this mysterious reality taken for granted?  Has the place of our encounter with the Sacred become so familiar that we have lost our reverence, and respect for this God-given gift, the bearer of all God given life.

That is the danger with the familiar, it leads us into that death-dealing place of apathy.  We are always in the need of the  awakening  to the sacred,  and to the mysterious.  This awakening, this bringing to consciousness is part and parcel of our everyday journey.  The journey that is ours as spiritual beings immersed in the human condition  (deChardin).   Within the depths of our mothers, an encounter takes place, between the creative love of Creator God and the cooperative effort of human beings, acting freely.  This hidden, sacred, mysterious encounter has led to the present day understanding of the sacramentality of sexuality.  Sexuality as the place where God is encountered.  Where love is, there God is.  There was a book written many years ago by a married couple, "Love is All."  I still can remember reading the following: "We made love last night and You were there."  To one born and raised in a Jansanistic-Puritanitcal Ireland this was one of  the great WOW !!!!  moments of my life.  We have surely come a long way in our growing understanding of human sexuality and the sacramental aspect of this gift. 

Now we go a step further and we are asked to reflect on the sacramentality of mothers and motherhood.  I'm referring to sacrament with a small  "s."  A small "s" sacrament I would like to suggest is: "Each and every person, place, event, action, which brings us into contact with the deeper realities of life, ultimately with Reality itself, that Reality we call God. (" Big "Sacrament, an encounter with the living person of Jesus Christ the result of which change takes place in my life and that change is brought about by the power and under the guidance of The Holy Spirit)  The sacramental reality of mothers and motherhood must be visited again and again.   Like all that is mysterious, this journey leads us to a deeper understanding of that which can never be explained, only reverenced.  We find there is layer upon layer to the mystery that is "mothers" and  "motherhood."  Just stop and reflect on all that has been written, and is being written.  

 (to be continued...)