Lessons from Mary to a Mother of Young Ones

It happened during the Communion song.

I was kneeling in my pew with my two and four year old. My two year old was trying to climb over me so that she could reach the aisle and take off. Whenever I would stop her, she would screech like an angry pterodactyl.

Her older sister, meanwhile, kept trying to get my attention by showing me how pious she could be with her hands folded in prayer. When that wasn't enough to draw attention away from her sister, she wrapped herself up in my sweater so tightly that I couldn't move and was constantly being jerked one way or the another.

I was getting frustrated and overwhelmed and sweaty. The hisses of "stop it" were becoming louder and louder and the mom eyes were getting more and more menacing looking. Then I heard it.

"Blessed they with peaceful spirits/ Blessed they with gentle hearts." ("Hail Mary, Gentle Woman")

It stopped me in my tracks for I was neither peaceful nor gentle at that moment. The contradiction would have made me laugh if I hadn't felt so convicted.

It gets tough with little kids. In the quiet hours of the evening I will plan activities for us. I will imagine a family rosary with all of the kids sitting in a circle. There's soft candle light. I imagine an Advent giving calendar where all of my children will joyfully give to others while forgoing the small gifts they used to get daily on the Advent calendar. I imagine a Mass where I can pray and my children can pray, and a Heavenly glow will shine down upon us as we bask in ethereal peace.

I pray to the Blessed Mother often, asking for her intercession, asking for her motherly guidance. What I fail to do too often, however, is see her as an example for my own role of motherhood. "Hail Mary, Gentle Woman" reminded me of this.

I think what I'm failing to realize during our imperfect rosaries and our chaotic Masses is that God made children as children. He made them excitable and passionate and slightly irreverent. He bestowed upon them the sillies that they like to break out during quiet moments.

I am constantly trying to find ways to help my children seek out God, but when I really take a moment, I realize that they already naturally seek Him. All they need from me is direction in how to do that. And hissing and dirty looks and the constant repetition of "stop that" doesn't give them that direction.

Perhaps my dreams of peaceful Masses are still years away, but perhaps some of the prayers I offer up now are in the form of acts, in the form of teaching my kids to persevere in their faith. And maybe that's fine. Maybe my act of submitting to the difficult times of motherhood is a prayer and an offering in itself.

Maybe I don't have to be perfect. Perhaps my children don't have to be perfect. Maybe all we need to do is give our perfectly imperfect lives to our Lord and ask Him to make beauty out of it.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to take a lesson of Mother Mary and do my best to live out my vocation with peace and gentleness... even through the storms of family life.

Mary, Mother of God, please intercede for me. I need all the help I can get.