MARY, OUR MOTHER

Author Heidi Hess Saxton

Mother, Can We Talk?

By Heidi Hess Saxton

May is Mary’s month … On May 1 we crown her with flowers. On the thirty-first we remember the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth, when Mary’s overjoyed (and previously barren) cousin Elizabeth meets and greets “the mother of my Lord,” causing Mary to burst into one of the most beautiful canticles in recorded history:

My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

For he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed;

For he who is mighty has done great things for me,

And holy is his name….

May 31^st is a cause for celebration in my family for a very different reason: Gotcha Day. This is the day we celebrate the day we finalized the adoption of Christopher and Sarah into our family … and had them baptized into God’s family. I was 38; my husband was 48. For that reason alone, I find it easy to relate to Elizabeth, “she who was called barren” (Luke 1:36). I know what it is to wait and wait for a child (Craig and I fostered our kids for three years before they became available for adoption).

And yet, it was also through the adoption of my children that I came to appreciate Mary in a whole new way, and grew closer to her than I ever thought possible. You see, I was raised in a Christian tradition that acknowledges Mary once a year – in the Christmas manger scene – before she is tucked away with the plaster camel until the following Advent. When I entered the Church, I didn’t want anything from her – just as my foster children initially wanted nothing from me other than to feed them and leave them alone.

Slowly, slowly, it began to dawn on me: This is what Mary goes through with each of her children, every time they reject her because they “only want Jesus.” This rejection doesn’t change the fact of her motherhood … any more than I was less nurturing to them because of their rejection. She simply waited for me to express a need, then reached in to tend to me as only a mother could. I describe three such encounters in my book Behold Your Mother: Mary Stories and Reflections from a Catholic Convert (http://www.beholdyourmotherbook.blogspot.com).

Just as Simon Stock was drawn under the mantle of Mary, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and wore her brown scapular as a sign of his devotion, so I began to settle under that mantle and turn toward her with my daily needs: “Mother Mary, can we talk? You were the perfect mother, and had one perfect Son … and neither of these things apply to me! Help me to be patient. Pray that I would find the strength to offer my little trials back to God, to please Him just as you did.”

This book is a perfect Mother’s Day remembrance. Send your mom “Tea with Mary” today by going to www.christianword.com.