Thousands of thoughts get the best of me sometimes.
I often awake, heart racing, to thoughts about the college application process for my oldest child, possible medical treatments for another child, the progress of my children’s social skills so they can make their way in a difficult world, and the ongoing challenges in instilling habits of our beautiful Catholic faith in them all.
None of this even touches on the flood of thoughts concerning my aging parents, my job, my marriage, my siblings and extended family, my friends, my parish, my community, or the physical state of my household.
Clearly, God made a mother’s heart able to hold much at one time.
But sometimes it can simply feel like too much.
Catholic moms
I’m beginning to comprehend, as I gain experience as a mom of children of various ages, that having this ability — this ever-expanding, accommodating heart as well as the feeling of being overwhelmed — is actually a normal part of being a Catholic mom.
Not only do Catholic moms care about their children’s physical and mental well-being, including the educational, emotional, and social aspects that entail, but we also care about the spiritual well-being of our children.
Passing on the Catholic faith is no small matter, and we know that it is even more important than teaching them the physical responsibilities such as washing their hands, brushing their teeth, saying “please” and “thank you,” and doing their homework.
‘First things first’
What a noble task God has assigned to Catholic moms: To lead their children by the hand to a relationship with God that will help them find their footing on the path toward Heaven.
How can we, with such an onerous task, do it well, while balancing so many things on our hearts all at the same time?
By the time I find this balance, I’m pretty sure my children will be all grown up.
But obviously, the real answer is grace, which cannot come without time spent cultivating our interior lives with Mass, Scripture, the sacraments, spiritual reading, and spending time with Our Lord in personal prayer.
This regular feeding of our interior lives is a matter of priority. As my own mother always says: “First things first. The rest can wait.”
Turn to Mary
Our Blessed Mother can help us, as it is she who carries the endless thoughts and prayers of all of her children in her heart and presents them to her Son.
If our motherly hearts are ever-expanding, contemplate for a moment what a vast ocean of love Our Blessed Mother’s heart must be.
With her own ever-widening heart, Our Blessed Mother knows ours and embraces with such tenderness the deep sufferings that lie there. With all the depth of her humanness, she has known the greatest suffering a mother can know, so there is nothing in our hearts she cannot understand.
But grace does not come easily to those who do not ask for it. And asking for Our Blessed Mother’s intercession while praying the Rosary offers an easy means to do so.
“With the Rosary, the Christian people sit at the school of Mary and are led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love,” said St. John Paul II in his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae. “Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.”
Ask for grace
Lost in our humanness amid the various concerns that consume our hearts, we absolutely need Our Lord’s grace to get through the next moment, the next hour, the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year.
As much as our human hearts can hold, Our Blessed Mother’s heart can hold infinitely more. And with our cooperation, the grace we need from her Son is there for the taking.
It’s up to us to take the time to ask for it.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a member of
St. John the Baptist Parish in Waunakee.