Sermons
18th March 2007 - Lent 4 - Mothering Sunday
When our son Charles was about two he had an accident trapping his fingers in a door and we rushed off at great speed to casualty. It was decided that we needed to bring him back the following day for x-rays and some plastic surgery and at this point one of the nurses took me aside to have a little word. She said ‘You know Father, it might be best if Charles’ mother brings him in tomorrow’. Much put out I asked why, and she said ‘well she is very calm with him, you know, she has that motherly touch to make him calm, he’ll feel safer’. She was absolutely right, there was something I couldn’t provide, that his mother could. There was something about motherly love involved (and something about a distraught father getting in the way).
We give thanks for mothers today and for motherly love, but what does that phrase conjure up in the mind? Motherly love. It has an almost sentimental ring to it that seems to me some way from the lives of most of the mothers I know. For motherly love, read tough love. Mothers are called to the hardest practical and emotional job in the world, and in the life of the family they are often called to fulfil many differing roles. It isn’t, I think, that mothers are hard-wired in such a way as to make them better at multi-tasking, but there is something within the relentless routines of child care that often instils an ability and desire to be the still centre in the midst of family chaos.
But what of today’s gospel, the scene at the foot of the cross depicted on so many rood screens including our own, is this a somewhat gloomy aspect for a day on which we give thanks and rejoice over the gifts of motherhood. Actually, I think it is a scene of great hope and thanksgiving and one of several gospel stories where Mary, the mother of Jesus, can be glimpsed showing the stability and the calm that has developed from her answering the call from God to be the exemplary mother, to offer her ‘yes’ to God as an example for mothers and for all disciples of Jesus Christ through the ages. I would like to point you towards three glimpses into her life: first, the point where she accepts the news of her vocation, secondly, in some moments following on from the birth of Jesus, and thirdly, from today’s gospel, as she stands beneath the cross contemplating his suffering and her own future role as mother of the church. Each time we are given an insight into the serenity of Our Lord’s mother in the midst of
spectacular, frightening and exciting events.
The first glimpse comes after the angel Gabriel has announced to Mary that she is to be the Mother of Our Lord. ‘Hail Mary Full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou amongst women’. The Bible tells us that Mary was greatly perplexed at the saying and pondered in her heart what sort of greeting this might be. In the dazzling presence of the messenger from God Mary remains serene and ponders in her heart the message of the angel, she ponders the implications of this news.
The second glimpse is nine months later. The scene is the stable at Bethlehem and the shepherds have just rushed in, called from their flocks by a whole multitude of the heavenly host. We can imagine them arriving breathless, full of excitement to see the child and to explain to Mary and Joseph all that had happened to them on the hill side. And the Bible tells us again that ‘Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart’. In the midst of all the bustle and excitement Mary ponders on the identity of the child she holds.
A third occasion we get a glimpse into the life of Mary is in today’s gospel. She stands with the other women at the foot of the cross. All the men apart from the beloved disciple have fled, they have abandoned Jesus. But here stands Mary beneath the cross, like another Eve, a second Eve, standing beneath another tree, but this time promising obedience, accepting her role as the mother of the new family that Jesus is forming, receiving from her dying son the vocation to shield the beloved disciple, the lone representative amongst the disciples who has clung to Jesus, the beloved disciple who symbolizes the life of the new family, the church, a family that is to have Mary as its mother.
In this tableau so rich in meaning Mary stands also for all mothers who have seen their children suffer, she stands for the mother of the poor boy murdered in Hammersmith, for the mother of the vicar murdered in Wales, for the countless mothers who have lost children through war and disease and famine. One of the surprises about visiting nursing homes for the elderly as a priest for the first few times was to encounter mothers in their nineties speaking of losing a child…’I had three children but one was taken, one died’…but they are referring to their sons or daughters who have died recently, in their sixties, but to the mother still the great loss. Mary stands before the cross watching her child cruelly killed, and that is one reason why we can turn to her with confidence when we ask for her prayers. Mary feels our pains, Mary offers us her motherly care, the care into which Jesus commended his beloved disciple…’behold, thy mother’.
Mothering Sunday is a good a time to ponder, to wonder what can it all be about, in a world where many mothers and children go hungry, where people are the agents or victims of cruelty and violence, in a world where even the little children and the unborn are not protected. This is a good moment to ponder with Mary in the midst of the busy world, and to wonder at the great daring of God coming to us as a fragile little baby, dependent on the love of that human Mother. For in the birth of that little baby the whole world is offered the gift of transformation. God enters fully into human life, into the fallen world of violence and despair, the world which will thrust him onto the cross, God enters this world to show us that we are already in his. The life of God and the life of mankind is interwoven in Jesus and at the centre of this story of redemption stands Mary, the mother of Jesus.
So we give thanks for the joys and pains of motherhood, of motherly love, and we give thanks for Mary, the mother of Our Lord, closest to him through his life and closest to him now in heaven…blessed among women. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.