WCR This Week

CNS PHOTO | PAUL HARING Pope Francis greets a baby during his general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican Jan. 7.

Mothers are indispensable to society and the Church, showing the world what it means to generously give oneself for others, Pope Francis said.

Mothers respect life and display tenderness and moral strength even in times of trouble, the pope said at his Jan. 7 general audience.

Even though mothers are often "exalted" with praise and poetry, they often get very little concrete help and appreciation, he said.

In his talk, the pope looked specifically at Mary's role in the Gospel accounts of Christmas.

"She gives us Jesus, she shows us Jesus, she lets us see Jesus," he said.

Pope Francis recalled his own upbringing as one of five children, and spoke of how much work and how many problems, but also how much happiness, come with motherhood.

"Mothers are the strongest antidote to the spread of selfish individualism," he said.

A world without mothers would be "inhumane," he said, "because mothers always know how to give witness – even in the worst of times – to tenderness, dedication and moral strength."

"Being a mother does not mean just bringing a child into the world, but it is also a life choice. What does a mother choose?" he asked.

CNS PHOTO | PAUL JEFFREY Vilma Maldonado of La Lima, Honduras, holds a photo of her son, Jesus Humberto Sanchez Maldonado. The young man left for the United States in 2010, but Maldonado hasn't heard from him since he last called home in 2011 from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey

"It is the choice to give life and this is great, this is beautiful."

If societies do not do justice to the contributions and sacrifices of mothers, the Church is not always better, he said. "Perhaps mothers, who are ready to make many sacrifices for their children and often also for others" should find greater reception and attention in the Church.

It is often the mother who passes on "the deepest sense of religious practice" as she plants and cultivates the seed of faith in a child by sharing prayers and devotional practices, he said.

"Without mothers, not only would there be no new people of faith, but the faith would lose a good portion of its simple and profound warmth."

ENEMIES OF WAR

Mothers are the biggest enemies of war, "which kills their children," he said.

The pope said he has thought many times of those women who receive the dreaded letter notifying them of the loss of their children in their defence of the nation. "Poor women. How much a mother suffers," he said solemnly.

Pope Francis returned to the theme of motherhood when he baptized 33 babies in the Sistine Chapel on the feast of the baptism of the Lord, Jan. 11.

He reminded people to pray for the world's mothers whose poverty means they are unable to provide enough food for their children.

Amid the cries and squeals of infants, the pope repeated the same advice he gave the previous year, telling the mothers present that if their babies "are crying because of hunger, breast-feed them, don't worry."

THE GIFT OF MILK

"Let us thank the Lord for the gift of milk and let us pray for those moms – and there are many unfortunately – who are in no condition to feed their own children," he said.

The pope asked that children be raised to understand "one cannot follow Christ without the Church because the Church is mother and she lets us grow in Jesus Christ's love."