“The Church is our mother. She is our “Holy Mother Church” that is generated through our baptism, makes us grow up in her community and has that motherly attitude, of meekness and goodness: Our Mother Mary and our Mother Church know how to caress their children and show tenderness. To think of the Church without that motherly feeling is to think of a rigid association, an association without human warmth, an orphan.” -Pope Francis, 9/15/2015, homily at Mass, Casa Santa Marta.
“I was taught to write cursive as a child back home in Venezuela. The typical method of instruction involved painstaking copying of letters or short sentences several times. I still remember that to learn how to shape the letter ‘m,’ my workbook presented the short alliterative sentence, “mi mamá me ama.”
Mi mamá me ama. “My mother loves me.” What an excellent sentence for a child to repeat, to write many times on his workbook, and to inscribe on the tablets of his heart. It is a sentence expressing a key truth of our lives. “Mi mamá me ama” ought almost to read as a tautology. My mother, our mothers, should, in the right order of the world, incarnate for me and for us the truth of unconditional love. For us children, the gift of our mothers should mean the gift of knowing we are loved.
Mi mamá me ama. “Does she?” asks the teenager. When we begin to notice the flaws in our mothers, especially their faults in their loving us, this question becomes tempting. And when we see the situation of a person who cannot truthfully think, write, or speak that sentence, we witness a tragedy. Since the love of human mothers toward their children does admit of failure, even of grave transgressions, the confidence in love that their love ought to give us is called into question.
Today Catholics celebrate a mother, Holy Mother Church, symbolized by the Cathedral of Saint John Lateran, the Pope’s cathedral. Therefore, it stands as “the mother and head of all the churches in the city and the world.” So today we can remember, “Mi mamá me ama.” Our Mother the Church—one, holy, catholic, and apostolic—loves us. She gave birth to our faith through her preaching and nourishes our hope by her sacraments. She inflames our hearts with charity for God and one another through sharing with us the Spirit who dwells in her. She points us toward happiness and teaches us how to live so as to attain it. She walks with us throughout our lives and leads us to our loving Father.
But does she really love us, this Church who so often appears to us negligent, distant, or even downright abusive? Can we really trust in the motherly love of a Church that like Jerusalem of old so often seems utterly corrupted? Would it not be best to distance ourselves from her, forget her, and assert our independence?
We understand the appeal of such impulses. The Church, as sometimes mothers, may strike us as hurtful and hypocritical. She seems to teach one thing and live another. She is the spotless bride of Christ and yet she seems to act like the whore of Babylon. This difficulty confronts Christians, saints and sinners, of every age. Sinfulness has been so prevalent in her members and her hierarchy that some see in this impurity the true mark of the Church.
However, we know in faith that the Church is our mother and a most loving mother at that. We know that she was formed by God from the pierced Heart of Jesus, the new Adam. She is the new Eve, the mother of all those who live by God’s grace. Such is the profound, mystical, often hidden identity of Holy Mother Church, perfectly symbolized in the person of our Holy Mother Mary.
Yet only eyes full of faith can see true face of the Church. Only a heart purified by charity can cut through the muck of sin with which her members defile the Church to embrace her words of wisdom and acts of love. Let us in these days beg these gifts from God in order to appreciate the Church’s true character and to remember that most fundamental of truths: Mi mamá me ama.”
Love,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
