TCNW May 9, 2004

Mary's month a time to honor gifts of new life

By Anne Marie Tirpak

I dreaded Octobers and Mays at my Catholic grade school.  These months were the months of Mary, and although I thought she was pretty significant (well, I was told she is the Mother of our Church yet couldn't wrap my young brain around what that meant), I abhorred saying the rosary every single day during those months.  I love(d) the Mary songs and particularly enjoyed our school's May Crowning, and secretly hoped that when I reached eighth-grade, I would be the girl selected to crown Mary-a much coveted honor.  Maybe my lack of enthusiasm for rote recitation of Hail Mary's was evident-I was not invited to be The Crowner.  I've recovered.

Although I am still not a pray-er of the rosary (potentially residual effects from the eight years x two months each year x 31 days minus weekends that I had to recite it), I do have a better appreciation for Mary.  This appreciation doesn't emanate from my advocacy for Mary with my Protestant friends who just cannot understand why she is so revered.  It also is not because my Catholicity asks this. It is because, as a woman, I can appreciate her as woman. I can also appreciate her as Mother because of my own mother, the people in my life who mother, and, though childless, my capacity, and mission, to mother.

"Mothering" is not reserved for women of childbearing age who conceive and birth.  Nor is it solely attributable to those women who have given birth.  In fact, mothering is not reserved to women.  We each have the capacity to birth, and we each are called to create and sustain life and all that gives life.  Our faith asks that of us; our world provides us with numerous examples. 

It is Spring, the season of plentiful gifts from Mother Nature where everything explodes with new life. The smell of lilacs, the color of tulips, trees full with color.  We also rejoice in the gift found in First Communion--and each communion, the gift of life and the mothers who birthed, and the season of graduation--commencements, we say, as new beginnings are launched and all futures are fertile.

It is also the season of Easter and our journey toward Pentecost, where we celebrate the birth of our Church and the gifts of the Spirit.  These gifts call each of us to radiate God's love and act as witnesses to life and hope.  These gifts endow us to birth possibility, to say "yes" as Mary did.

Tirpak is a vicariate stewardship coordinator for the Archdiocese of Chicago.  She may be reached in the Department of Stewardship and Development at 312/534-7713 or atirpak@archchicago.org .