While at a parish function, an acquaintance asked me how to get her grandchildren more involved in faith formation. I was surprised when she redirected the conversation to ask, “But enough about me, how are your children?”
I lightly responded “Oh, I don’t have children.”
She quickly tried to explain, “but I just thought … you’re so warm and motherly!”
“Oh I am a mother,” I rejoined confidently. “Just not physically – yet.”
I continue to mull over that interaction. It is the truth; I am a mother.
Seventeen years ago I stood by and promised to support my sister and her husband to raise their son in the Catholic faith, as his godmother.
Six years ago, with my
right hand on her right shoulder, I sponsored my niece as she received the sacrament of confirmation, and with it a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Four months ago, for the first time together, my husband and I became godparents. I joked with my goddaughter Bethy’s parents that they made us parents.
I have other godchildren and have been a sponsor to more teens. These forms of motherhood are powerful and real, but my spiritual motherhood is more expansive still.
“The woman's soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold.” -St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
I have found myself called to shelter others in many ways. For example, one young teen, we’ll call her Penny, was combating heavy crosses in her family. One parent faced serious mental health challenges and it was straining her parents’ relationship. The struggling parent was absent and unpredictable. Penny maintained a stoic exterior, unable to share her own experiences until she was on a retreat I helped to facilitate. Penny shared that she felt like she had to stay strong for her siblings, but she herself was feeling abandoned by her struggling parents.
On the second evening of the retreat, during adoration, the retreat team offered prayer stations. The teens could ask to receive prayer from two intercessors. Penny came. She was struggling to forgive and having a hard time seeing God’s faithfulness to her with the brokenness in her nuclear family. We prayed for her, but the burden remained. I invited her to come with me to offer the heaviness to our Lord. I asked her to imagine something that represented what she was experiencing and to bring it with her to place at the feet of Jesus in adoration. We walked in together and knelt right in front of Jesus, exposed in the monstrance.
As she offered Him all that she was carrying, I interceded for her. Then, this stoic fifteen year old, cuddled up next to me. She needed Jesus, prayer and to be held. What a gift to mother her at that moment.
As I knelt there with her, I thanked Jesus for my infertility. Because of it, I was present to Penny in a way that I would not have been if I was home with a baby or toddlers.
On another day, I sat across from a college student as she shared the struggles of balancing school, mental health and her fluctuating interest in a young man she knew. I remembered my own college experiences, trying to navigate relationships with great anxiety. I laughed – and it was exactly what she needed. She took everything so seriously, but what she needed was the freedom to laugh rather than overthink her circumstances. The gift of a listening ear, healing laughter and a broader perspective helped to take some of the pressure off of her.
One of the great gifts of growing in community with other married women is the opportunity to love their children, and be a spiritual mother to them. A recent example occurred over the Easter Triduum. As I prayed before the altar of repose on Holy Thursday, I wrestled with the reality of my infertility. My commitment was to stay for an hour, but as I watched the families with children trickle away as the children needed to be taken home and put to bed, a little girl’s prayer came to me – a desire to also have a child that would give me reason to go home. The prayer felt ungrateful.
Going home that night, I received a text from a mother I knew with young twin boys. She asked if I would be at the Good Friday liturgy. I replied that I would and asked how I could help. She was going with her children, but her husband was not able to make it; would I be willing to help with the twins? Of course!
For the whole Good Friday liturgy, I held the baby; he even fell asleep. Jesus so quickly answered my prayer. He let me mother that little boy and he let me be a safe space for his mama.
There are so many ways that the people around us need mothering and it is an honor and a privilege to mother those around me in such diverse and creative ways.