Acts

Those acts (exhausting as they are) are the tools of my love…

Holy Mary Mother of God (Jen Norton)

It is so hard to be a mother and wife.

Perhaps it is also hard to be a father and a husband – but as a mother and wife, I really do feel that my job is a little harder. 

Whether we are called to be biological mothers, or spiritual mothers, there is so much that drives us to be of service to others in this role.  Now, this is not to say that fathers are not of service to others.  After all, fathers are responsible as the custodians of their families.  And they have a valid and fulfilling ministry looking after those entrusted to their care.  But, as a mother myself, I feel the weight of my own calling very heavily on some days.

It is on those heavy days when every single thing seems like a terrible act of burden.  It feels like the only thing I am left with is to serve others.  And wen that happens – unless there is agreat love – those acts can feel like chains.

And what is love?  After all, the Romantic literature of the nineteenth century speaks of love as romance.  It is a feeling, it is beauty.  It is elegance.  The realism of the twentieth century speaks of pain and the ugly gruesomeness that comes of loving all the tattered shreds of another.

But that is not love as God defines it – or at least, that is not PERFECT love as God defines it!

Perfect love – the Perfect Love of God – is ACTION.  It is not nice words or sweet gestures.  It is not pretty things.  It is acts.  It is service.  It is getting up to make dinner for my family even if I am exhausted because they will be hungry.  It is about their eating the dinner whether or not they like it just because they know that I have made it for them and they want to show that they appreciate my efforts.

Saint Teresa of Avila wrote, “Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.”

And Thomas a Kempis wrote in “Imitation of Christ” at page 87, “Nothing is sweeter than love; nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing more generous, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in Heaven or on earth; for love proceeds from God and cannot rest but in God above all things created.”

And I have been thinking about that today as I have been thinking about all the acts that I do as a mother.  And it seems to me that they only way forward is to Act – solidly and without restraint.  Because God is asking for great love and without those actions of mine with the people who are around me, I will truly have no way of loving them – those acts (exhausting as they are) are the tools of my love…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.