Every mother, for better or worse, is an instrument of salvation.
The same goes for fathers. I know how horrendously underplayed the crucial role of fathers has become.
I recently listened to a Scott Hahn podcast, “Awake, Not Woke,” that interviewed Noelle Mering, the writer of a book by the same name. (I highly recommend listening to it!)
She discusses what is happening in our day, most of which we don’t even understand, cannot even define, or perhaps have been fooled to believe is sensible.
She shows how every corrupt movement that underlies the happenings of our days begins with a deliberate attack on family, and the meaning of sexuality. Sound familiar? And both of those issues are ignited by the role of men being bastardized and made spiritually impotent.
I cannot say enough about the need for and role of true men in every generation. Every father is an instrument of salvation, and to such biblical proportions that I have to stop myself now because that topic will take up my column. Instead, because Mother’s Day has just passed and I am a mother, I am led to reflect on that specific role this morning, and some Scripture verses that I have been pondering.
What does it mean to be an instrument of salvation? What kind of terrifying expectation was thrust upon me when I first held an unborn soul in my womb? The eternal destiny of someone so small, so much a little vessel waiting to be filled, was now in my hands?
We had each of our children baptized as soon as we could. Thomas was less than a week old. Why would we wait to give our child’s eternal soul the gift of sanctifying grace? It was perhaps the only gift we’ve given them that truly, truly matters.
I have come to see that if a parent does not believe in sanctifying grace – “that grace which confers on our souls a new life, that is, a sharing in the life of God Himself” – the child will often not often in it either. And so the gift truly given at baptism, whether the parent truly believes or not, can be lost, wasted, trampled upon. I must ask myself frequently: do I truly believe, do I live as if I believe?
And so the readings for Mass on Mother’s Day strike me to the heart. “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.”
I often pray that our Father’s merciful hand will be upon, and under, and around my children, that he will be a nest to them. I pray in faith that each of my children will one day “gather around the throne of God,” with Scott and me and “a great multitude, from every nation, race, people, and tongue … wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands” to “worship him day and night in his temple.”
The words strike me because, through baptism, my children are meant to be in that great multitude. As an instrument, called by God to help lead them there, I am sincerely aware of my many flaws and sinfulness that must seem a scandal to my children, as they look upon me as an example of what Christianity should look like. But there are other words of Scripture that say that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness.”
I am a broken instrument, certainly, and my weaknesses were so clearly magnified once I became a mother. But I am an instrument that can still be played by the Master. And while Scott and I ensure that they receive the gifts of God, given through the sacraments, I can also be used by him to comfort my children, to ensure that they know they are loved, cherished, and forgiven.
I can admit to them my weakness and assure them that God is merciful to those who turn back to him in hope. I hope and pray to lead them to truth, goodness, and beauty through small but deliberate choices in our family life, even when they are hard choices to make, even and especially when they go against every satanic thing the world is urging my children to believe.
I treasure all of the handmade cards and breakfasts and flowers of every Mother’s Day, but I feel that I will have no greater joy than to know that my children “walk with the Lord,” that they are sheep in the flock of the Good Shepherd. And I fearfully thank God for the treasure he has entrusted me with. Mothers, let us pray for one another and build one another up as we equip our young saints for the building up of the body of Christ.