SojoMail - Mothers are sacred. We don’t treat them that way

We Should Honor the Sacred Work of Mothering Honoring life and the connectedness we all have with God means honoring those who birthed and mothered us. This is a core belief of my Christian faith, honed through scripture’s insistence that God made each of us — intentionally, wonderfully — with a specific purpose to help to bring about God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven.” Through this lens, I see women and mothers as divine co-creators, uniquely chosen by God to reflect a special aspect of God’s creative, nurturing, and loving nature.  As a cradle Catholic, I see holy Mother Mary personifying God’s spiritual creativity, that divine gift that allows women and other birthing people to participate in the development and sustenance of life. For me, Mary’s role in becoming “a dwelling-place meet for [God’s] son,” as a prayer associated with the Catholic hymn “Salve Regina” puts it, reinforces the notion that mothering is sacred work, that the divine feminine is ordered and blessed by God.  Yet, instead of treating Mary with the holiness and hope described in “Salve Regina,” scripture recounts how she was left to give birth in a barn since there was no room at the inn. This is still true today: Dominant culture — including people who claim to be Christian — continue to treat motherhood, pregnancy, and birthing as if they had little or no value. As I wrote in May 2023, the U.S. is currently in a crisis that includes rising rates of maternal disease, disability, and even death. Preliminary data estimates that this crisis claimed the lives of around 800 women in 2022, more than 80 percent of those deaths were preventable. This is a tragedy.  The ministry of mothering reflects God’s honored and holy work. As people of faith, we must ask ourselves: Why do we continue to leave the Marys in our communities outside of the inn when they give and sustain life to God’s beloved children? —Lauren W. Reliford  READ THE FULL ARTICLE Forward Share

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