Mothers Day

 

Today is Mothers Day. I will dutifully remember my mother (and my grandmother) at the commemoration of the dead at Mass this morning. That, however, will likely be the extent of my observance of Mothers Day. 

When I was a pastor, I made a point of having our parish May Crowning on the first Sunday of May - to avoid confusing it with the very commercialized, secular celebration that is the American Mothers Day holiday. It is one of those historical coincidences that this very secular American holiday occurs in the month Catholic tradition dedicates in a special way to Mary, the Mother of God and Mother of the Church.

One of the rare occasions when the 1969 post-conciliar calendar improved upon its predecessor has been the relocation of the feast of the Visitation to May 31. Unfortunately, because it occurs on Trinity Sunday, the Visitation will be omitted this year, which is a good excuse to "christianize" Mothers Day by reflecting on the Visitation. (On the "plus" side, since Pentecost occurs in May this year, so will the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church, celebrated on the following day.)

The second Joyful Mystery, the Visitation is recounted in Luke 1:39-56. That gospel was traditionally read on the Ember Friday of Advent as part of the Church's proximate preparation for Christmas. As a full-fledged liturgical feast, however, it is a relative latecomer, inserted into the Roman Calendar by Pope Urban VI in 1389. It was originally assigned to July 2, the day after the octave of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, who "leapt" in his mother Elizabeth's womb on the occasion of Mary's Visitation. The feast was retained in both the Anglican and Lutheran calendars, and is still observed in Germany both by Catholics and by Lutherans on July 2.

The image of the meeting of the two pregnant mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, has been much meditated upon throughout the centuries, as well as being a frequent subject of works of art. One beautiful 14th-century gilt wooden image (photo) includes crystal cabochons, suggesting the presence of the babies in their mothers' wombs (and it is thought may once have highlighted images of the holy infants).

The Golden Legend (c. 1260) by the Dominican Friar Blessed Jacopo de Voragine (c.1230-1298) was written before the introduction of the feast. It does, however, describe the Visitation in its entry for the Birth of Saint John the Baptist: "In Elizabeth's sixth month Mary, who had already conceived, came to her, the fruitful virgin to the woman relieved of sterility, feeling sympathy for her in her old age. When she greeted her cousin, blessed John, already filled with the Holy Spirit, sensed the Son of God coming to him and leapt for joy in his mother's womb, and danced, saluting by his movements the one he could not greet with his voice. He leapt as one wishing to greet his Lord and to stand up in his presence." (The Golden Legend: Reading on the Saints, tr. William Granger Ryan, Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 330.)

Referring to this unique encounter of the two infants in their mothers' wombs, the Catechism calls the Visitation "a visit from God to his people" (CCC 717). It is, what the U.S. Bishops have called "a cherished American Catholic custom" to refer to Mary as "our Blessed Mother" (Behold Your Mother: A Pastoral Letter on the Blessed Virgin Mary [1973], 70). Mary's motherhood remains especially timely today when religion is so easily manipulated. When that happens, one response is to abstract from actual Christian faith in some sort of de-natured, non-religious "spirituality." Abstractions, Karl Rahner famously warned, have no need for mothers (cf. Leon Cardinal Suenens, "Mary and the World of Today," L'Osservatore Romano [English Ediiton] June 15, 1972).

Photo: The Visitation (c. 1310-1320), attributed to Master Heinrich of Constance, Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.