Before the stroke of midnight, I am taking yet another few moments to ponder my beloved, earthly mother who passed into eternity 15 years ago today.
I remember the moment vividly--in part because I had come to a point of being worn out and worn down. It had been quite a horrific suffering--her lungs having scarred over from the bottom up, basically a slow drowning. No, she had not been a smoker. Somehow her lungs contracted pulmonary fibrosis, perhaps from exposure in younger years to asbestos in one of the old houses of youth or in my childhood years as we lived in an old house. Or else it could have come from some exposure in her and my father's lovely retirement years--an adventurous time for them as they moved to Arizona.
Today's Gospel is fitting for my mother, and my relationship with her then and now and going forward. Jesus was speaking to a crowd, and many of the listeners did not comprehend what he was explaining and wished to debate. Yet suddenly a woman called out, "Blessed is she who has been your mother and bore you!"
So genuine, so real, so true an exclamation from an ordinary person, pleased with being in the presence of Jesus and listening to him. She could not contain herself despite the others wanting to take the situation in an entirely different direction by their not understanding, or perhaps not wanting to understand what Jesus had been teaching them.
Jesus responds to the woman exclaiming her delight in Jesus' mother--a woman who bore and reared such a holy and profound man, teacher, prophet, messiage, who Jesus was to those in his presence. So true is the great love our mothers deserve, and what a blessing they are to us, and prayerfully may we have been a blessing to them. But Jesus' response to the woman takes the familial relationship, marvelous and blessed as it is, to another level.
He takes what the woman says and raises us from familial relationships, and which builds upon familial love and leads us to another order, the spiritual realm. In the supernal relationship of love of God and love of and obedience to God's Living Word, His Son Jesus Christ, we extend familial love to supernatural love of God in Himself and love of others in and through God.
Other than a very real sense when in deep suffering a couple weeks ago in which I was struggling to get to my parents who in my pain I was convinced were alive and needing me to go to them, the last time I had interaction with my mother was when I had accepted the seller's counter offer and agreed to purchase this house, this Solus Deus Hermitage.
That night I saw my mother bathed in gold-silver light, dressed in brilliant yellow of the sun; she was able to look at me directly and speak directly with no barrier or screen between us. God was allowing me, for the first time since her passing, to see that she had come to the fullness of His Light; she spoke to me metaphorically, about a house and of our living there--a house to where she was going, was on her way. It was nothing less than glorious--all the light about her corporeal vision-form, and the joy exuding from her spirit, the love and happiness in her voice!
What a gift the Lord allowed me after these years of temporal separation; but spiritually, the bond has remained and has grown all the more, from the familial love and connection into the spiritual loving connectivity. There is far more to the maternal relationship; her life is fully in Christ's Light, and she has purpose and mission to fulfill in higher levels and dimensions than I can fathom other than I know she is blessed in hearing the word of God and obeying it, and in being in the living presence of Christ for all eternity.
Early this morning I pondered my mother's earthly and heavenly life. I offered my apologies yet again for what she has already has forgiven and of which Jesus has forgiven me--lots of aspects of my choices and weaknesses and behaviors that were not for the best. I remembered how she had told me on her death bed that she would start helping me from the other side, with my mission, with my projects to do good, to make a positive difference on earth. I've not much kept up my efforts in some of what I used to contribute, and of which often I was miraculously aware of significant inexplicable events of which I knew was my mother's helping, her involvement in the good works.
Today--I think it a grace from God and a gift from my mother--for the first time since surgery nearly 12 weeks ago, I have noticed actual, temporal improvement and progress in my physical body as well as in my mind, heart, and spirit. I have sensed an uplift, an upswing, a positivity and assurance that I will be able to manage the pain and will gain more strength.
I'm realizing that my mother is being utilized in heaven for numerous souls and in multitudinous aspects of God's love and His word, will, and way. God has blessed my mother. Praise God for His mercy and loving kindness, for His care and favor upon my mother. Thank you, Mom! Thank you, Lord!
God bless His Real Presence in us, here and there, everywhere!
Blessed is she who has been your mother
Jesus was speaking to the crowd. Some of them did not understand and were debating and a woman said: "Blessed is she who has been your mother and bore you!" A woman who shouts that out, it's marvelous, things like that! Ordinary people in the authentic, how profound! This is the moment when Jesus will say: "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!" He wants to move away from that family environment - today one would speak of one's "circle". In mountainous districts or the countryside, family bonds are very close, they form a kind of little tribe. Jesus distances himself from that.
Someone said to him: "Your mother and your brothers are waiting outside — Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? Those who do the will of God" (cf. Lk 8:20-21) — he establishes a society that is trans-natural, not founded on shared sensibilities, social conditions of class and origin. No, it's another thing altogether. To this woman he will say: "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!" But the woman had listened to the word of God since she had said to him: "Blessed is she who has been your mother!" (Lk 8:19-21; 11:27-28). It is not blame that Jesus directs at her, on the contrary, it is a confirmation, saying: 'Blessed are you for having understood that there is something greater than familial relationships, something which adds to familial relationships what they are capable of bearing of light when they are received, but which are of another order.'
Well then! See what has been proclaimed to us, what the saints have understood and which they have lived.
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