I wished my wife a Happy Mother’s Day this morning, and she replied to me: “You are the first reason I am a Mom.”
I immediately thought that was a very profound assertion on the prior causality of universal motherhood from my wise and beautiful wife. So then, what is motherhood? As I reason with this question, there is so much to say about it, that I’m frankly overwhelmed at the logic, the ethics, the physics, the metaphysics, the natural philosophy, and the theology of it, that my wife’s response to me is a great mystery and nothing I say will compare to her simple, but unfathomable wisdom in that love filled line.
She is right, she would not be a mother without me. There would be nothing generated from us if there was no love present between us. The start of the foundation of our family, the home which is sustained, the grace flowing from the sacrament of Matrimony, the wisdom shared between us, the trust necessary for peace, the fidelity perpetually assumed forever until death do us part, in sickness, in health, in prosperity, and in poverty. There would be no office of motherhood if it wasn’t for me, and the burden of providing her the material means by which for her to be free to enter into this noble office, and successfully minister to our daughters is solely my responsibility, my problem to figure out, my battle to fight, and the very thing I will be judged for when Jesus Christ comes again. She is subject and in submission to me, because it is precisely my mission to serve her. That is the point of matrimony, which in Latin means the Office of Motherhood. The point is to love, unconditionally. If we are both willing, then our souls may be saved. But if one of us is unwilling, then that family tree has undergone a corruption or perversion will not stand divided forever.
Therefore, let us husbands, on this Mother’s Day, renew our indomitable resolve to to guard and fan the flame of our wives love for us, that our children might be blessed, our homes may be in harmony, and the light of Christ may shine through us. If we have the will and the fortitude to do this, then perhaps we will see the actualization of Psalm 127 play out before our very eyes.
EAR