Mother's Day

At one mass on Mother's Day at St. James (where I used to go to church), the celebrant invited all the mothers to stand up to receive a special blessing. I was in the pews, and when the women stood up, I glanced all around the church. It struck me the women who were standing, and the women who were sitting. "Why was she sitting? I thought she was a mom." "I didn't know she had children?" These questions filled my head. How deeply personal it is to become a mother!

In the first five years of our marriage, I remember how often Jenn and I were asked when we were going to start having children. Jokingly of course. But Jenn has made me realize how incredibly personal that kind of question is, even in jest. Maybe it would have been better for the priest just to have announced a special blessing for the mothers, without making them stand up. Perhaps.