Mother Caressing Her Convalescant Daughter, Charles Wilson Peale; 1818

FROM an essay by Sister Paulette Huber, Ad.PP.S.:

Tremendous, then, is the mother’s power to determine the tenor of the home. Tremendous, too, is the dignity and nobility that has its enhancement in this power. For, the high mystical character of motherhood is inextricably interwoven with the mother’s ability to sublimate the domestic peace and tranquility which she, more than anyone else, has the gift to fabricate. Her tender, maternal love-instinct, upon which the supernatural is built, is the all-pervading transforming power. It strengthens and fortifies, refines and elevates the natural blessedness of the family circle. This truth is strikingly pointed out by Pius XII. “When,” he says, “to the bride the Lord in His bounty will have granted the dignity of motherhood to the side of the cradle, the crying of the infant will neither lessen nor destroy the felicity of the home; but rather it will increase and elevate it into that divine circle, where the heavenly angels shine and whence descends a ray of life that conquers nature and regenerates the sons of men into sons of God” (Ibid.).

But a mother’s dignity further arises from her utility in structuring the supernatural fabric of the home and of the society. For, precisely in her maternal mission of childbearing lies the secret to the mother’s salvation and sanctification, if she but remain true to faith and love and holy living. Thus, her holiness becomes profitable and all-availing, since it promises life both for the present and for the future. Accordingly, with St. Ambrose, Pius XII considers a good mother the foundation of all virtues. A cradle, he asserts “consecrates the mother; and more cradles will sanctify her and glorify her in the eyes of the husband and of the children, in the eyes of the Church and of the country” (Ibid.).

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