Friday, May 6, 2022

THE ROLE OF THE MOTHER


 “Who shall find a valiant woman? far, and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her (…). Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised” (Proverbs 31).

"Beget children for Heaven."

Cows have offspring, dogs and hares too, but while these animals of God raise children for earth, the Christian mother must do so for Heaven. Because before feeding the body, we must think about feeding the soul. Before thinking about what the children will wear, we must think if they are clothed in grace. That is why the role of the mother is fundamental, so much so that Our Lord lived without a father in the flesh, but not without a mother.

"Beget children for Heaven...". Practicing the virtues, above all; that is why Saint John Mary Vianney used to say that "virtue passes smoothly from the heart of a mother to the hearts of her children”.

From the mother the child learns the first prayer or the first insult.

From the mother, the child will first know how to distinguish the good from the bad, which is why the ideological current which states that "you must not set limits", "you must not correct", "you must never raise your hand" is so disastrous.  

"Hast thou children? Instruct them, and bow down their neck from their childhood." (Ecclesiasticus, 7-23) because “a horse not broken becometh stubborn, and a child left to himself will become headstrong". (Ecclesiasticus, 30- 8).

The obligation of the Catholic mother is to take her children to Heaven. And if, despite a good formation, the son or daughter goes astray, there is always the resource of constant prayer for him or her. A bishop told Saint Monica, who insistently prayed for her sinful son: "The child of those tears shall never perish." And that son became a great saint: Saint Augustine.