Motherhood
Motherhood
The instinct of motherhood is part of the composition of a woman’s personality. And our mother Eve took her name from motherhood, “because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20).
“Children are a heritage from the Lord,” as the Psalm says (Ps. 127:3).
And women in the Old Testament desired children, hoping that from them might come the One in whom “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).
When Rachel did not bear children, she said to our father Jacob: “Give me children, or else I die!” (Gen. 30:1). To this extent was the instinct of motherhood in our mother Rachel… And because children are a heritage from the Lord, Jacob became angry and answered her: “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
And Saint Hannah, when she did not bear children, and her rival Peninnah provoked her, wept before God and prayed while bitter in soul, and made a vow: that if God would give her a male child, she would give him to the Lord all the days of his life (1 Sam. 1:10–12).
And the Lord heard her and granted her Samuel.
And Saint Sarah, the wife of our father Abraham, when she received the announcement that she would have offspring, laughed within herself and said: “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” (Gen. 18:12). And she considered children to be a delight.
If the fulfillment of the instinct of motherhood in a woman is something vital for her, then we also say here:
Motherhood is also a mission… But is every mother fit for this mission?
And the mother receives her child from the Church on the day of his baptism, as his sponsor, to raise him in a proper upbringing in the fear and love of God.
But does every mother fulfill her work as a sponsor?
Does she carry out the mission as she should?
Or does she neglect this spiritual mission of hers, relying on religious instruction in school or in Sunday School classes at church? Or perhaps she does not think about this matter at all!
The majority of mothers are concerned with the bodies of their children, with their physical health, clothing, and education, while neglecting the spiritual aspect.
Would that these mothers would read about the holy mothers in Scripture and in history.
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