Holy Mother

Today, on Mother's Day, we honor our mothers, but an often-overlooked mother to us all is the bride of Christ: Holy Mother Church. The apostles in their writings routinely likened the relationship between Christ and His Church to that of the groom and his bride. Just as God is the father of creation and exercises His authority over it, the Church, as the bride of Christ and flowing forth from Him, is the mother of creation and exercises her nurturing care and oversight of what has been entrusted to her by Him.

Pope Francis said in 2015, "The Church is our mother. She is our "Holy Mother Church" that is generated through our baptism, makes us grow up in her community, and has that motherly attitude, of meekness and goodness: Our Mother Mary and our Mother Church know how to caress their children and show tenderness."

Just as a mother prays for her children continually, especially for those who may have strayed from the path she saw for them, Holy Mother Church, the Mother of Souls, prays continually for every single person in the world as is prominently evident during the Solemn Intercessions on Good Friday, even for those who have strayed from the faith and those who have never known her tender embrace - they are still her children. Their eternal salvation matters too, and she does not forget them. She desires that they be saved.

A mother is one of God's most special creatures. In her is carried the seed of life. In the depths of the mother's body-and in some sense in her soul-the child takes shape and grows. In Holy Mother Church is the seed of spiritual life, given to her when Christ breathed on his apostles on Easter Sunday night, and through his commission to spread the gospel throughout the world.

For many, though, the Church's claim of holiness is quite provocative. After all, how can the Catholic Church possibly claim to be holy when her membership is made up of sinners? How can she claim to be the perfect mother when some of her members [and even some of her leaders) have been found guilty of vile, scandalous, and gravely sinful deeds? The Church is not holy because of her members. She is holy because her founder and bride, Jesus Christ, is holy; because the Holy Spirit (the Sanctifier) lives and dwells in her; because Christ has made of her an instrument of sanctification for all her members.

In the words of Pope Leo XIII in May 1891, "Let [us] learn to reverence and love holy Church, the common Mother of us all; and hence to obey the precepts of the Church, and to frequent the sacraments, since they are the means ordained by God for obtaining forgiveness of sin and for leading a holy life."